Home
Starting Up
Case Studies DB
Products
Ideas DB
Vibe Coding Tools
Subscribe to IH+
Starting Up
Case Studies
Ideas DB
Products DB
Sign in
Join
38
Likes
25
Comments
From 9-5 to Entrepreneurship and Traveling the World With My Family
By
Sean Marshall
October 22, 2018
From 9-5 to Entrepreneurship and Traveling the World With My Family
To be honest, I am highly skeptical about this interview. The fact that it all comes down to buy the course from this successful person!. But, to the facts.
The Twitter account has shown its last activity on February 5th. All the latest tweets are links to quicksprout, nothing is original content. 0 likes and 0 retweets. Not even the owner of the website is retweeting himself (nor his mother)!
The Facebook page is simply ugly, just check it out by yourself. Again, 0 interaction with the posts and the last one is, you guessed it, from February 5th!
The website doesn't even have a contact form, just an e-mail that you have to edit, because of spam, you know... (imagine how it would be from a mobile phone!). Plus, the obvious facts that you have no clue what they are actually offering.
The LinkedIn page lists 4 employees, one being Sean Marshall, whose last recommendation is from 2013. The page itself has no updates and very little information.
The Youtube channel, I leave it to you to find out, it is inspiring indeed.
Is this the profile a marketing guru makes of his own business after 8 years? Is that what you are going to make for my small business in exchange of 500U$?
I think there should be some quality control before interviews, @csallen. At least, this kind of things could have been brought up, that is the idea of interviewing someone, go deep, not just copy-pasted questions.
Hi @aqui_c - thank you for your honest reaction and thorough review.
As I mentioned in the interview, I don't hide the fact that I haven't done my own marketing in ages. I stopped actively marketing a long time ago and haven't assigned anyone to do anything like that a for a while.
Why?
Because the vast majority of new business comes in via referrals now. So our attention to the social media is practically non-existent.
What DOES matter is the work we do for our clients and the results we get - which is why we have such a high retention rate. This is why I don't mind not having a million LinkedIn followers - it just doesn't matter.
I focus on home services and industrial clients. Those people are NOT on Twitter. They are searching on Google though and that's where we focus our own internal marketing efforts with specific pages.
Social media metrics really don't matter to me.
Monthly recurring revenue and happy clients do.
With respect, when your site is selling social media, you actually would want to demonstrate that you can make things happen for your own business with social media.
This comment was deleted 8 years ago
To further this point, if you check out the wayback machine you'll see that they have been using the same case studies and testimonials for years on end
I’d second that, there should be some kind of background check to verify the interview.
Also I’ve seen a lot of spammy posts in the forum recently with some unsavory pics, maybe get some bots to trawl initial posts? @csallen
This comment was deleted 7 years ago
This comment was deleted 7 years ago
Hey @DonXan,
You mention your marketing services include things like SEO and social media but also that the business is built on monthly recurring revenue. Can you provide more insight as to what exactly you are doing for your clients on an ongoing basis? ie. what are examples of things you are doing for your clients? What are the goals or success criteria?
Thanks!
Great question - it depends for each client and their industry but below I've listed the basic framework that we use with each client.
***Success is measured in leads generated online on their behalf.
NOTE we may change/adapt specific line items to each client - this is just an example.
Website Support & Security
Website security – clean of malware/hackers
Software updates – keep site current & secure
Check for broken links and fix
Site speed – make sure site is running fast
Simple design changes as needed
Site functionality – ensure everything is working
Search Engine Optimization
Website submission to major search engines
Google My Business profile/optimization
Google Webmaster Tools & Analytics tracking
Keyword research & tracking
New keyword targeted page creation including title tags, alt tags, header tags, urls, & meta description
Continual keyword improvement on website pages
Duplicate content checking
Ensure proper schema markup
Targeted backlinking
Company profile on key citation sites
Profile submission to local niche directories
Monthly search audit
Competitor tracking
Reputation Management
Create/optimize profile on key platforms
Manage and report reviews & ratings
Respond to all reviews appropriately
Supply tools to solicit reviews
Content Marketing
Custom blog writing & posting
Keyword tagging with metadata included
Optimize company YouTube channel
Custom videos
Upload to YouTube & fully search optimized
Social bookmarking of key content
Assist with monthly newsletter creation/sending
Social Media Marketing
Post key content (frequency based on platform)
Maintenance of profiles (clean & spam free)
Follower engagement
Support & Reporting
Monthly report
Google Analytics reporting
Again, I have to stress that this is just a basic framework from which we build out. Each client gets a custom game plan using this as a foundation.
How's it going Sean. I don't know if any one has asked this, but what does the "Target" and "Nordstorm" plans consist of monthly? Are you doing any Social Media Management as well?
Yep - see just above this comment. Most of what changes is how much of each is included. Social media is included in all three packages.
So basically this is a services agency. Why is it here? They didnt build anything. The guy is a glorified freelancer. Don't get me wrong it's cool And everything but whats next... a wall painter who bought a brush And found a customer at the local home Depot? Then he claims he was profitable from day one.. yeah... No Kidding!!!.. Then he hired more painters And became the squad leader. Boom painting "corporation". The wpcurve guys have something similar but at least there is some innovation there. This is just a marketing agency, THATS IT. If u let more interviews like this make it here we Will soon have thousands of stories like this, Even people who just bought the latest Tai López course could claim they have an agency making x grands a Month (some of them could truthfully be making that much). Seriously they could, anybody could. Are they indie hackers? Are they founders? I know it sounds like I hate the guy, I don't it's just I find this story useless And totally out of place here. Are we gonna have influencers and youtubers here next? There is NOTHING special about this story. It's the modern equivalent of a somewhat succesful restaurant. They are a dime a dozen.
Yep, nothing special on my end. Really.
I took a simple business model, put a system and team in place, scaled it up, and it worked. For the last 8 years.
My apologies if it seems out of place here at Indie Hackers.
Great business idea!
I understand from your interview and website that your products are SEO, contents marketing, social media marketing etc... I’d love to have more detail.
Just a question but how do you win over potential customers doing natural searches and stumbling on your site? Are you focused on direct sales for now.
Just my opinion but describing your products and how it will help them will yield more users to try the product.
Most of my new business, like 90% is via referrals from happy clients. They're not judging my business by my LinkedIn profile.
They're judging me by the results we get for their business owner friends who referred them in the first place.
Sure, I suppose I could get a team member to update my website but it's not a priority for me.
I don't mean to sound too casual about this but the simple fact is that I'm comfortable with my business and the revenue it brings in and the work we do for our clients.
The remaining 10% of business that comes in is from very specific pages that we do have ranking in Google for key verticals.
If you're interested in the services we offer in detail, shoot me a message. I really don't mind sharing everything!
How does revenue from the course compare to revenue from the agency?
Revenue from the my agency is by far my main source of income - numbers provided above.
The course is more of a passion project for me. Real people, that I don't know, have taken it and have gone on to start their own agencies. Pretty cool. But it's not a big money maker for me.
Are those 3 package costs you mentioned per month or per year?
Per month!
Thanks Sean.
Your post has been an inspiration for me.
You mentioned networking was key to getting your customers.
How did you go about doing this? I only know a handful of business people and I'm not really comfortable making small talk.
Personally, I'm not a big fan of small talk either! But I found that when I went to events, like Chamber of Commerce meetings, city mixers, and especially BNI, I would have no shortage of people wanting to speak with me. Once they found out I was the "online marketing" guy, they all needed help.
I didn't have to network for too long before I had a steady stream of new clients (& their referrals).
I haven't actively gone out and networked now for over 6 years yet my business has grown largely due to the face-to-face groundwork I did in the beginning.
Thanks very much!
What's BNI?
https://www.bni.com/ - a networking group
99% sure it would be per month, Harley. It would be hard to run things profitably if he were charging $499 per year.
Great work, @DonXan
I’m in the process of starting my digital agency that I’ll launch in a few months. I’ll provide web design, SEO, and PPC for tour and activity operators (tourism industry). What tips do you have for hiring my first employees/contractors? Should I still look at Upwork or are there better options/marketplaces?
Also, what role should be the first hire?
Thanks!
Thanks! And congrats on taking the leap with your agency!
When hiring, I always suggest looking for smart, detail-oriented people who can follow specific instructions but also aren't afraid to ask you questions.
What I mean is that so many people are in a rush to hire an SEO person or a website designer. BUT, your job is to create a system - literally a detailed checklist - that a smart, detail-oriented person could look at and then do.
That should be your first hire.
When you grow and and start to niche-down, then I would look at getting specific people - a graphic designer, content writer, etc
Best of luck! As always, please let me know how I can help.