On Track To Reach 7-Figures In Revenue By Niching Down On Lead-Gen Services [Update]
This is a follow up story for DFY Meetings . 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.
Hi, I’m Michael Gardiner and I am the founder of Done For You Meetings.
At DFY Meetings we help B2B companies get consistent and predictable sales meetings by building and managing a cold email system designed to get their business more sales calls.
This includes handling their cold email tech stack, prospect list building process, script writing, and testing process, as well as appointment setting and follow-up process. The end result is consistent calls for their sales teams.
We’ve onboarded 100+ clients ranging from small teams all the way up to Fortune 50 companies. The majority of our customers are B2B service companies such as agencies, consultants, accountants, etc…. However, we have worked with a wide variety of unique businesses, a couple of cool highlights include a hypnotherapist, a dating coach, a waste disposal company, and even an AED company.
At this point we’ve been averaging $60,000/month for a year, however, this has been a long journey as before Done For You Meetings existed, I had other agencies that slowly turned into what Done For You Meetings is today. More about these in my previous Starter Story Features.
It’s important to intentionally reflect on where you are, where you’re trying to get to, and map out the steps in between as actionable and specific to-do-items.
Tell us about what you’ve been up to. Has the business been growing?
Since the last two times that I’ve updated my story on Starter Story, we’ve had some serious exponential growth. In fact, we may even have our first 7-figure year in 2023 which is crazy to think about.
The largest change was transitioning from offering multiple services to only offering cold email to B2B companies.
This change in focus allowed us to build rock solid fulfillment processes and systems, build out marketing funnels that allow us to take 100+ demo calls monthly, and grow a team along with my new business partner Felipe Fuhr.
To further break down the core reasons for this recent growth…
Offer
Having just one offer to focus on and perfect was a huge factor. Before we were offering a small handful of services, which didn’t allow time and attention to become a true expert at each. By just offering cold email we’ve been able to collect thousands of hours and an absurd amount of data that continually improves our entire process.
Since we work with B2B companies who often value their customers at tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of dollars, we have a lot more room for testing and spending in order to get our clients the results they want.
The returns we can generate for our clients doing this compared to previous services are also significantly higher. For example, if we can help a marketing agency acquire a customer at $3,000 when a customer is worth $30,000 it’s a no-brainer for us and for our client.
Sales and Marketing
Another benefit of having just one offer is that you can build all of your marketing and sales around just one thing, and this allows you to do more reps, collect more data, and get really good at selling.
We get sales calls from many different sources, however, our top 3 places we get sales calls from are:
Cold email: We practice what we preach and consistently use cold email to book our own sales calls. All the cold emails, we write are short (mobile optimized), and include social proof (case study, testimonial, etc..) and a clear CTA aimed at starting a conversation.
YouTube: My YouTube channel may not have many subscribers, but it looks a surprising amount of demo calls, sometimes as many as 25 in a month. I make videos around cold email software, interviews, tutorials, as well as updates on my own journey.
Referrals/social proof: This one is less exciting, but when you do good work your clients talk about you. We’ve worked on being more intentional about this by expanding from just getting referrals to also collecting testimonials, client interviews, case studies, and reviews such as Trustpilot, Clutch, and a review section on our website.
Fulfillment
Sales and marketing are great, but if you aren’t able to consistently deliver results and thus bill your existing clients then it’s a race to the bottom.
By having just one service we’ve been able to get really great at service delivery.
In addition to the skill aspect, we’ve also standardized our process by building a full fulfillment system on AirTable that pairs with detailed SOPs (standard operating procedures) our team uses. This keeps us on time and ensures our work is quality for our clients.
On our client’s end they enjoy dashboards updated with real-time data, standardized approval points on new campaigns and scripts, as well as streamlined communication on Slack all leading to the best possible experience.
My business partner Felipe Fuhr has been a massive help in building out our fulfillment. If you’d like to learn more, check out his Twitter.
Having at least a bit of income while starting a business makes growing a lot easier. Don’t be afraid to have a part time (or full time) job that allows you to invest back into what you’re building.
What have been your biggest challenges in the last year?
In the last year, we’ve really had two challenges that we’ve had to break through.
The first was hiring.
Having never operated a business at our current size I learned the importance of hiring slow and firing fast.
Before, I was able to get away with ok talent since I led all operations, but now being more in a sales & marketing role it's a requirement to have A-player team members which are hard to find, and aren’t cheap!
Our solution to this was volume. When we go to hire, we aim to get at least 300 applications, from which we’ll get around 50 interviews, then we do a paid test task (short 2-3 hour test to see work quality and adherence to directions) for 5-10 and then hire one. Additionally, we’re always hiring, we never turn off this funnel so we have a high likelihood of finding the best talent.
The second was handling new client volume.
This is a good problem to have, but we were growing too fast. One month we even took on 15+ new clients! Because of this, it was a race to keep our systems updated as well as continually hire and train.
Our solution to this was to create a downsell that allowed us to only take on dream clients for our core offer at Done For You Meetings.
We created B2B Outbound, which is a program that provides cold email training and support in a “done-with-you” capacity. Clients of B2B Outbound get a course, 1:1 consulting calls, group consulting calls, and a community of other B2B businesses doing outbound prospecting.
Implementing this was a win-win, as we are able to handle client volume much better at Done For You Meetings since we’re very selective with who we work, and B2B Outbound has helped dozens of smaller businesses benefit more from doing cold email in-house.
What have been your biggest lessons learned in the last year?
Reflecting upon the biggest lessons I’ve learned this year, there’s one that stands out the most.
This is a mix of a business lesson and a personal lesson.
It’s knowing where you’re going.
Back in 2015 when I started my entrepreneurial journey I wanted to make 6-figures and have the freedom to do what I wanted.
Then once I had that a few years later, I wanted to make a bit more and continue that freedom.
What I realized at some point (maybe 6 months ago) is that I had almost everything I wanted, and that made it difficult to grow or know what to aim for.
Now, to clarify, I don’t want a mansion, yacht, and ten million dollars, so “having everything I want" isn't crazy of a claim.
However, it did make me go through a bit of a numb phase and do a lot of questioning. Of course, there are things I wanted to do in life, however, a lot of it was a matter of time, rather than logistical or financial ability.
This made me re-align the things I want in life in terms of impact, experiences, possessions, accomplishments, and more.
After doing this I was able to reverse engineer the steps I needed to take to reach these goals, and with that direction and purpose, it makes work and life much more enjoyable.
The big takeaway here is to not get so caught up in day-to-day activities that you forget where you’re going. It’s important to intentionally reflect on where you are, and where you’re trying to get to and map out the steps in between as actionable and specific to-do-items.
What’s in the plans for the upcoming year, and the next 5 years?
With new knowledge of where I want to go, I feel like my next few years are very clear.
On a personal level, I have a few things I’m aiming for, which makes directing the business much easier, such as....
Wanting to visit every UN country in the world, which has been a goal for years. I’ve currently visited around 30 countries (depending on definition).
Being able to optionally stop work (I won’t likely) by 2025.
Achieving optionality in my business that allows me to go on adventures or into time zones where It’s not easy to consistently take meetings or follow a work schedule.
Now with clarity, the next steps in the business are pretty clear to me. There’s obviously more detail than this but at a high level…
Remove myself from fulfillment at my agency DFY Meetings and continue to increase our prices by providing better services to larger businesses.
Increase the percentage of revenue that comes from our program B2B Outbound to be equivalent to Done For You Meetings (right now it’s about 5-10%) as it’s far more scalable and can be sold to a broader market.
Turn some of our internal tools we’ve built into softwares available to the public. I plan on growing these softwares using my personal brand I’ve built around B2B growth in addition to using cold email. These softwares would be specifically designed with an exit in mind.
That’s what is in sight right now, but we’ll see next time I update Starter Story how that transpired.
What’s the best thing you read in the last year?
As I’ve grown my business I’ve found myself consuming less and less business content. I used to read tons of business books (once 54 in a year), listen to multiple podcasts, and follow multiple business YouTubers.
Where I’m at now, I tend to spend my time reading more fiction, biographies, or travel books.
If there’s something specific I want to learn about business I tend to hire a consultant, read a book designed to educate on that specific topic, or search for videos doing the same, but it’s a lot more focused as opposed to generic business content.
A couple of books I’ve enjoyed recently have included… “The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared”, “Hector and the Search for Happiness”, and “A Man Called Ove”.
Advice for other entrepreneurs who might be struggling to grow their business?
Some advice for others on their entrepreneurial journey, based on my takeaways from growing my businesses.
1) Having at least a bit of income while starting a business makes growing a lot easier. Don’t be afraid to have a part time (or full time) job that allows you to invest back into what you’re building.
2) Outreach & sales aren’t something you do “after making your product/service” perfect. Start selling, gain feedback, learn how to deliver, and then get better. Building something and then selling is a great way to (potentially) waste a lot of time and money. Focus on validation first.
3) Changing locations can act as a great motivator depending on your personality. If you’re trying to break free of old habits and focus on something new, consider going somewhere wildly new. I’m continually inspired to work and grow as I visit more countries, meet more people, and generally expand the lens through which I see the world.
Are you looking to hire for certain positions right now?
We are currently looking to hire for multiple roles, including:
A director of fulfillment
- This full-time role is in charge of managing the relationship between our clients and our fulfillment team. You’d be responsible for things such as client communication, client updates, updating different members of our fulfillment team on client statuses, and other client-focused work
A cold email copywriter
- This full-time or part-time role is in charge of writing compelling cold email scripts for our clients that’d be leveraged in their campaigns. You’d have the opportunity to write for many established and unique B2B businesses
A tech lead
- If you’re an email deliverability expert with experience managing large-scale cold email campaigns, then there’s almost always room at Done For You Meetings.
If you’re interested in any of these roles, please email: [email protected]
Where can we go to learn more?
- If you're an established B2B business and want to use cold email to get consistent sales calls on the calendar, let’s talk at Done For You Meetings.
- If you’re a smaller B2B business looking to get started with prospecting, B2B Outbound, our training program is the best place to go.
For free resources and to follow my journey, you can connect with me on:
If you have any questions or comments, drop a comment below!
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