Many young entrepreneurs see agencies as a seemingly simple way to generate a large sum of recurring revenue while that may be correct but isn’t true in most cases. Building a successful agency is difficult and comes along with many hidden obstacles.
We met with successful entrepreneur and teenage millionaire Faiz Imran.
Faiz owns and runs one of the leading full service digital agencies in Atlanta Georgia and serves clients worldwide. Fismma specializes in web development, digital advertising and creative branding among the many other services they offer.
We asked Faiz if you had to restart what you would have done differently.
Faiz mentioned he would have spent a good deal of time working in other agencies really understanding how they ran and their processes and their procedures. Small things like how the agency went about acquiring new clients, how they onboarded and managed projects become the most crucial parts of making a successful agency. Without any experience inside a successful agency you’re going to be in for a long and difficult journey of self education.
We asked Faiz to give us his 5 most important tips.
1. Allow the client get attached to your results not you
If the client gets attached to you personally delivering or being a part of every single process it’ll make it a lot harder to move out of your business. Ensure you have solid processes and operating procedures and let your team do the job.
2. Don’t sell services you aren’t confident in
If you’re not 100% confident your services will help your prospect it’ll be apparent. Save your reputation and your clients time and don’t sell services you aren’t confident in to begin with.
3. Don’t take “I can’t afford it” for an answer
You are doing them a favor, they need your product to grow their business, make sure they see the value. Most of the time the issue isn’t the budget it’s the prospect not being able to justify the price in relation to the value.
4. Hire slowly and fire quickly
Be very careful of the types of people you allow in your business, these people will serve an important role as you grow especially your first few hires. If you truly ever want to be able to step away from your agency make sure you hire the right people and fire them quickly when they aren’t who you first expected them to be.
5. Don’t be afraid to say no to work or even fire a client.
This is the reason a lot of agencies choose to specialize, or even productize their services. It allows you to only take on work you’re confident in completing and more importantly gives you structure to follow for each and every client. If a client isn’t a good fit, save yourself and your team Headaches and wasted time and simply say no.
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Devin Caherly (born 03/17/2001) is an American teen entrepreneur and influencer. Caherly is most widely known for his TikTok account with over a million followers.
