Automation Agency Mistakes
  • These are my mistakes. They're not the only ones—just what I wish I could go back and fix.
  • Take what makes sense to you out of this video and discard whatever isn't relevant.
  • No gatekeeping, I'll show you everything + give you the sauce.
#1: Not Starting Cold Email Earlier
  • I lost over $250,000 because of this
  • Cold emailing is the most cost-effective way for agencies acquire customers in 2024
  • Automators in particular benefit disproportionately (since we know enough AI to be dangerous)
  • Whereas other people cap out at 1-2% response rates, you can easily achieve 5%+ with personalization
  • To send 1,000 emails/day (25-50 responses!) you can spend less than $15
  • Takes less than 2 hours to set up
  • It forces you to learn how to sell cold, and once you learn cold, you'll crush anything else
Cold Email Mistakes
  1. Not using the right platforms. Instantly or Smartlead are the best, don't waste your time with others (as of now).
  1. Not starting early enough. Cold mailboxes take 14-21 days to warm up, so configure your campaign 2-3 weeks before you want to start (i.e right now!)
  1. Not talking to my prospects like people. Cold email copy is very different than warm email copy, newsletter funnels, DSLs, VSLs, etc. You need to be blunt, straightforward, and personalized.
Typical Campaign
Approaches:
  • LinkedIn Sales Navigator > PhantomBuster > Anymailfinder > GPT-4 or Claude.ai for personalization.
  • Apollo > GPT-4 or Claude.ai for personalization.
  • Many other lead sourcing avenues. But in order to win in 2024, you have to personalize. Anything else is instantly moved to the spam box.
  • With average copy + average audience, you can expect 3-5% responses
  • If ¼ of those responses are positive, you can send 150 emails and book ~1 meeting
  • Now what if you send 300/day? 600/day? 1000/day?
#2: Not Productizing Earlier
  • I (probably) lost over half a million dollars because of this
  • Productizing refers to making your service as templated and straightforward as possible
  • Most automation agencies (like mine) start by offering custom implementations, because you want to win any deal at any cost
  • This is fine for your first couple of months, since it gets you quick revenue and forces you to learn
  • But after a few projects you need to move away from this if you want any chance at a successful business
  • Custom projects are inherently difficult to hire for, unscalable, and suffer from scope creep
  • Sure, they're interesting… but personally, I care more about making money
Productization Mistakes
  1. Selling your ability rather than a specific product. Former is impressive, but latter makes you money.
  1. Not using project management tools. These force you to productize (see image).
  1. Saying yes to projects that add revenue now, but will eat up your time and fulfillment later. Also, scope creep.
How to Productize
  1. Identify your deliverables. What does the customer see?
  1. List tasks for each deliverable. What do you/your team need to do to create them?
  1. Group tasks into job role. Who do you need to hire to accomplish these?
  1. Calculate how much it would cost to do each task + timeline. Can pay hourly, fixed-price, etc
  1. Estimate total internal cost + timeline. Multiply by a number (5 is fine). This is what you charge.
  1. Create templates in your project management tool. When job comes in, assign and complete.
#3: Not Focusing on High-ROI Activities
  • I've lost several million because of this
  • In any business situation, you have several options available to you
  • Each of these options technically has an "estimated ROI" attached to it
  • To borrow from mathematics (and AI more specifically), your job as a business owner is to "hill climb"
  • You do this by moving in the most positive direction
  • The highest-ROI action is rarely the most complex one
  • In fact, it's usually the simplest and most straightforward
  • Practically, if you're under $25,000/month, this is usually sales activities. Daily email management, daily DMs, daily sales calls, daily job applications, etc. If you're focused on anything else it's usually a strategic error and it's why you don't get anywhere while others do.
High-ROI Mistakes
  1. Focusing on things that are indirectly useful, but not directly useful to making more money. Like spending weeks building your website, months learning more "skills" before you enter the market, years working on your "identity" or "core values" prior to starting your business.
  1. Not spending your time on the things that are most important to you. If growing your revenue is important, and you have 6 hours per day to work, but you spend 4 of them doing non-revenue-related-activities, you will not grow effectively.
  1. Not committing to small, daily activities that move the needle. Many things in business do not scale proportionally to the work you put in—instead, they scale permissively based on whether you show up a certain number of days in a row. It is a marathon, not a sprint.
Hill-climbing tips
\frac{success * impact}{complexity}
  1. Complete this simple exercise for estimating your ROI.
  1. List ten things you can do right now to make more money. For each of these, write down a) complexity (out of ten), b) estimated % success, c) estimated impact in dollar terms. Divide them out. Link to spreadsheet.
  1. This is a tool to help you think, do not take it literally.
  1. Making money is much simpler than most think.
  1. It is probably not the most intelligent person you know that that makes the most money—it is instead almost certainly the most committed.
  1. To that end, one of your highest ROI actions is probably just becoming a more committed person. If you are not, work on it!
Closing thoughts
  • Start cold emails early!
  • Start productizing as soon as you get a customer (or two)!
  • Anchor your thinking in terms of ROI!
  • Good luck! ❤️
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