Today’s another day another story

i want to talk about how not to run an agency.

4 months ago, we signed up with two large cold outbound agencies (one Indian and one American)

total cost?

$15k in 3 months.

yup. that’s close to 13l

a lot of agencies / creators tell people to pitch with what you can deliver as results

so i was pitched a minimum of 15 meetings across both agencies.

so what happ, arnav?

Agency 1:

the Indian agency was getting meetings but 90% of the meetings went south because they had no money or the cold copy had a competitor name so they thought we had insights on a competitor

tldr.
1. wrong / misleading copy
2. wrong icp

if you’re doing outbound. both the above is what makes or breaks everything

they were hyped. we were making a ton of samples

but we realised after 100s of samples, that it’s a complete waste of time, effort, and health

i was staying up till 3 am to have people leave in a min realising they were misled or that they couldn’t afford even $500

3 months in. Instead of realising their mistake. They say:

like wow.

to put it on us when both the icp and copy were wrong is just shocking

we’ve literally had times where we’ve cancelled invoices when we mess up

but the last thing we’ll do is put it on the client and make them look bad for our mistake

if you’re a freelancer / agency. pls never do this

Agency 2:

turns out agency 2 owner was a mentor of agency 1 founder

yet one month in they couldn’t bring in a single meeting

agency 1 owner tweets about us

agency 2 owner realises we are the same client they’re struggling to get roi for

they talk and agency 2 owner copies the same strategy as agency 1

results?

same.

if you claim to respond in other 20 minutes, and the person tasked to do the job has poor internet. have a backup

you’re charging $3k a month. for one job.

worst of it all?

they come back when we’re completing the 3 month mark (for which i paid) and say this:

honestly, know your client. if you know they’re not going to renew and you don’t know the reason then that’s a bigger problem being a founder

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1. Respect your clients. 
they’re grinding their ass too. money doesn’t come free

2. Be honest and keep you ego aside.

3. Own up to your mistakes and fix it.
don’t just say sorry. find a way to compensate for errors. show that you value them and their time

4. Never ever take money you think you dont deserve.
keep your conscious clean. cheating will come back (karma)

5. Ensure your clients make more than they pay

this edition isn’t to bash an agency or two.
but rather to share learnings.

i didn’t get it all right too.

in retrospect i shouldve just hired one agency and on a monthly basis rather than quarterly. i jumped out of desperation to scale fast. and it backfired

i cant change anything that’s done. but i hope this helps ensure you dont have to go through this!

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thank you for opening this. if you stayed till the end, hit reply and let me know what you thought!