Why We Shifted Our $30K/Month Agency To A Performance-Based Model [Update]
This is a follow up story for Major Impact Media. If you're interested in reading how they got started, published over 2 years ago, check it out here.
Hello again! Remind us who you are and what business you started.
Hey, I’m Brice. Founder of Major Impact Media.
I originally shared my story here on Starter Story about a year ago talking about my marketing agency and how I bootstrapped it to $28k/mo.
We work with online education companies and help them grow and sell more of their digital products with sales funnels and paid ads on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Google.
It’s been quite the adventure over the last year.
Lots of big changes in the online education space have changed what we’re doing and how we’ve structured working with our clients.
Today we’re doing about $30k/mo.
Not a lot of revenue growth in the last year since I was featured here, but I have some really exciting developments that I’m excited to share that I think are going to be huge for us over the next year.
Tell us about what you’ve been up to. Has the business been growing?
Our company has gone through a lot of changes over the last year.
What started as a Facebook ads agency has expanded to us working with our core clients to also offer sales funnel development, YouTube ads, email marketing, and conversion rate optimization (CRO).
We got to a point where we either had to decide if we wanted to keep doing what we were doing or go deeper with each client.
And we decided to go deeper.
With that came a big change in how we get paid. As a company, we moved away from getting paid on a monthly retainer into a performance-based model.
So right now we have about half the clients we did before but our average value per client has a little more than doubled.
I’ve found with the size and types of companies we work with, most of them have been burned by agencies that have charged them big monthly retainers for months and in the end but never delivered any results.
So now we’re coming and offering everything they need to grow their business and taking a percentage of the revenue we generate instead of working on a retainer.
It’s been a really exciting change.
One of the big shifts that going the performance route has taken is being way more selective with the clients we bring.
Since we are getting paid on performance, we filter for more experienced companies that have bigger goals.
We end up turning down a lot of the companies that apply to work with us because they are too new and don’t have a lot of revenue.
Really what we’re looking for are companies that have all the right pieces in place with their product, operations, and the team.
We can just come in, support them with their marketing, do what we do best, and get them great results.
What have been your biggest challenges in the last year?
The online education space has seen a huge increase in competition over the last couple of years.
Everyone wants to make money online by selling courses.
And where a few years ago I found it was pretty easy to help brands get started making money selling courses, I’ve seen it become much harder the last couple of years.
Across the board, everyone has been dealing with lower conversion rates and more competition in their space.
So what that has meant for us was spending a lot of time figuring out how we can help brands keep growing despite whatever is happening.
It took a lot of man-hours but we’ve come up with some new strategies that are working well.
But new strategies mean training people on the team, building new processes, and investing in new tech to help us get it done.
Going from just offering one service to offering 4 is a lot to manage.
So while it’s been worth the effort, it’s taken a lot of work.
What have been your biggest lessons learned in the last year?
The last year has been a lot about building a team and figuring out who we want to hire.
If you want to run a service-based business, getting good at a skill is number one.
But if you want to grow past a certain level, or ever take a vacation, then you have to learn how to build and lead a team.
Hiring good people and keeping them is a skill in itself.
I’ve gone through the ups and downs of hiring great people, hiring the wrong people, and having to fire people.
I’m still learning a lot but if there’s one thing I’ve figured out it’s hire slow and fire fast.
If someone isn’t a good fit on a small team, get them out quickly.
And once you find a great person, figure out what you need to do to get them excited and keep them on board for as long as you can.
I think if I could go back to the beginning I would find someone really good at the stuff I don’t like doing, give them a big stake in the company, and have a partner instead of getting started solo.
Find your people online. Stick with them. And win together.
What’s in the plans for the upcoming year, and the next 5 years?
I’m excited about the direction we’re going with moving into a performance model and partnering with experts and growing their brands.
Over the next couple of years what I want to do is create a portfolio with a line of experts in the same industry and build an umbrella brand with all those experts working on it together.
Similar to what Mindvalley has done with personal development or Foundr has done with starting an online business.
I see that as a way we can start to build a brand that has more value in itself instead of just a service-based business.
We’ll be able to offer experts an audience and a platform to get exposure and grow their business while also growing our brand.
What’s the best thing you read in the last year?
There’s a personality test that I came across the last year called the Wealth Dynamics test that has been super impactful on me.
It helps you figure out your natural way of operating as an entrepreneur so that you can lean into your strengths and find other personality types to fill in any gaps of things you’re not naturally inclined towards.
As an entrepreneur, you have to be sufficient at lots of things.
But the more I’ve learned to lean into my strengths and other people to help me be able to stick to my strengths the smoother things seem to flow in my business.
Advice for other entrepreneurs who might be struggling to grow their business?
If you feel like you’re building something alone, go find a community.
Over the years I’ve developed so many great relationships from online communities.
Find somewhere where your people are hanging out and sharing what’s working for them online and stick with them.
Usually, the best ones I’ve found aren’t free but it’s worth it.
There’s so much to all of this that you don’t want to have to figure out everything on your own.
Find your people online. Stick with them. And win together.
Are you looking to hire for certain positions right now?
I’m always looking for great media buyers. Facebook and YouTube ads.
Our team creates all the ads and funnels and you work closely with the team to manage and optimize ad campaigns.
Work remotely from anywhere in the world, get paid to learn with on-the-job training, and be in an exciting environment where we’re always looking to push it to the next level.
All the details can be found here.
Where can we go to learn more?
If you have any questions or comments, drop a comment below!
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