How Doubling Down On Youtube Helped Me Hit $120K MRR

Iman Gadzhi

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Published: September 10th, 2022

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Iman Gadzhi

Founder, Grow Your Agency

$120K

revenue/mo

Founders

Employees

Grow Your Agency

growyouragency.com

from London, England, United Kingdom

started May 2017

$120,000

revenue/mo

Founders

Employees

Discover what tools recommends to grow your business!

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Scientific Advertising: 21 advertising, headline and copy... Claude C Hopkins

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Want more updates on Grow Your Agency? Check out these stories:

1. How We Expanded Our Team And Diversified Marketing Techniques (2021) ➜

2. How I Started A $120K/Month Online Course For Social Media Marketing Agencies (2020) ➜

This is a follow up story for Grow Your Agency. If you're interested in reading how they got started, published over 4 years ago, check it out here.

Hello again! Remind us who you are and what business you started.

What’s up, guys? Iman Gadzhi. Check out my initial interview on the Starter Story here.

I’m the founder of GrowYourAgency: the world’s largest education company for agency owners; AgenciFlow: a software company developed specifically for agency owners; and GentsCroquetClub.com, an exclusive NFT project.

With thousands of students, GrowYourAgency comprises two main courses: Agency Navigator which helps beginner-to-intermediate agency owners start and scale their agencies, and APEX which helps established agency owners aggressively scale and invest profits.

Although I’m immensely proud of the success of our students, with hundreds of agencies created, jobs quit and multiple millionaires made, our greatest achievement at GrowYourAgency.com is our continued commitment to building schools in developing countries.

Currently, we partner with Pahar Trust to build schools in Nepal.

Tell us about what you’ve been up to. Has the business been growing?

I’ve made no secret in the past year about my commitment to YouTube.

Whilst many influencers and marketers have focused on building audiences on microcontent channels such as TikTok, I’ve doubled down on what I consider to be the most powerful marketing channel of all, and the greatest source of revenue across all my businesses.

This hasn’t been an easy journey but I’ve found that the effort required and the challenges presented - such as the need for high-quality production, scripting, design, and quantity - are more than made up for with the quality of traffic produced.

By contrast, I’ve found people build followings quickly on TikTok but fail to benefit from this. I’ll be watching that space with interest but things don’t look promising…

In the last year, my channel has grown by over 90,000 subscribers and I’ve enjoyed virality on a number of videos, including an almost 40-minute long look at the world of online business.

Unicorns are rare for a reason: if you’re looking to guarantee success, stick to something you know works.

Whilst promoting my NFT project, I’ve also put a greater emphasis on Twitter which is enjoying a renaissance for entrepreneurs.

It’s been fun to play around with threads that strike a great balance between digestible 280-character thoughts and longer-form reads.

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What have been your biggest challenges in the last year?

A harsh reality dawned on me this year: it’s impossible to be everywhere, do everything, and give everything the attention it deserves…. and that ambition is my folly.

As well as running GrowYourAgency and my NFT project, I’m also the founder of the agency software business, an eCommerce company, and a digital marketing agency.

Despite working with incredibly talented people, the past year has made it clear to me that if I’m to maintain involvement to the degree that I require in all my projects, certain things have to go by the wayside.

I won’t detail what these are here but in the next few months, I’ll be making it clear where my priorities lay and what the future holds for my businesses.

This has been a humbling realization as I’ve never been one to shy away from challenges. But the reality is that no amount of biohacking or meditation can allow you to split focus between 5+ businesses and give each one the attention it deserves.

What have been your biggest lessons learned in the last year?

Throughout my career, I’ve struggled to strike a balance between work and fun.

At various times, I’ve done everything from forgo drinking at London’s best nightclub so I can be well rested for work the next morning to taking Zoom calls from a jet ski.

This year, I realized that in order to be happy when recreating, or satisfied and productive with working, I couldn’t compromise.

That’s why I developed what I call my Monk Mode protocol: a simple set of steps which put me into monastic focus for the months’ of the year when I give work my all.

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By avoiding alcohol, drugs of any kind, exercising reguarly and following a diet, I’m able to give work my all.

This means that when I leave my desk, I’m able to live the kind of life a young successful person should be able to.

What’s in the plans for the upcoming year, and the next 5 years?

First and foremost: education will always be at the heart of everything I do.

Despite the attraction of Web 3.0 and everything fun and shiny that’s happening right now, only a fool would ignore the enormous market that’s tried and tested in education.

So even though I’ve dedicated a hell of a lot of the last year to the gentscroquetclub.com, I’ve also tripled my team size at GrowYourAgency.com and hired a sales director.

Following the release of our custom portal - replacing the need for Teachable or Kajabi - we released Agency Navigator, which quickly became the definitive SMMA course. In the next few weeks, we’ll also launch APEX - a course/mentorship hybrid designed to help existing agency owners transition beyond pure agency ownership and achieve real wealth with information on everything from crypto investments to tax residency.

The longer I run GrowYourAgency.com, the more I notice other course owners fall by the wayside. This is the harsh reality of running a real education business: it’s expensive.

Everyone wants the crazy numbers that can come with an info-product but nobody seems interested in providing everything from basic customer service to real support and mentorship.

When GrowYourAgency.com is still going from strength-to-strength in five years’ time, it won’t be a mistake.

What’s the best thing you read in the last year?

The Age of AI: And Our Human Future

AI’s been forgotten about in the past few years but I urge everyone to do the bare minimum to understand its power and the future we’re headed to with it.

It’s almost always spoken about in positive terms but I have a sneaking suspicion AI will be the greatest disenfranchiser of the general population of all time.

We’re about to see mass unemployment and an entire section of the population powerless against a system barely anyone understands.

Don’t get me wrong: the potential upside is huge too. But this will be felt most keenly by the people who understand it.

Advice for other entrepreneurs who might be struggling to grow their business?

The past few years have been interesting times indeed, with political turmoil, pandemic, war and economic uncertainty in various measures. And yet, the most talented and wisest people I know have continued to accrue wealth at an astonishing rate.

Make no mistake, in the next few years, the trend will continue. We’re about to face the greatest recession of a lifetime.

Most people will dwell on this and use it as an excuse. A few people will see this for the opportunity it is.

And one final word about Web 3.0: this is an opportunity like any other. But don’t forget that 9/10, a tried and tested business model will outperform the new and shiny one.

Unicorns are rare for a reason: if you’re looking to guarantee success, stick to something you know works.