In today’s fast-paced and competitive business landscape, mastering the secrets of 7-figure e-commerce agency and building a successful agency is essential. Whether you’re a seasoned entrepreneur looking to take your agency to the next level or someone just starting in the industry, this guide will equip you with the knowledge, strategies, and insights needed to propel your agency toward 7-figure success.
Robert and Enrique brought Hamid Mahmood, CEO of Ecom Development NYC & Software Pro. He is a specialist in supporting e-commerce agencies. Hamid has ranked No.3 CEO globally. He has consulted more than 1000 companies, brands, and startups to grow.
Breetly.com is a consultant platform for Amazon and other marketplace sellers owned by Robert and Enrique. It is a platform where worthy podcasts are published. They helped e-commerce communities and individuals, committed to increasing their online presence. They’ve managed over 500 million in sales on Amazon and over 50 million in advertising spend for their clients.
If you want to go to the next level, reach out to click here: www.breetly.com.
In the podcast “7-Figure E-commerce Agency” , Robert, Hamid, and Enrique aim to help e-commerce businesses and agencies by discussing “HOW TO START” to “LEVELLING UP”.
So, to cut the story short, let’s start with coverage of the podcast; here are topics that are discussed. Let’s have a look.
The insights shared by Hamid Mahmood, Robert, and Enrique in the podcast serve as a valuable guide for anyone looking to create and grow a thriving agency. Let’s start.
When we discuss starting a 7 figure e-commerce agency, How to start comes to our minds. Here, selecting a niche is the primary and most crucial step. “If you are focused on what you want to do, you will get what you want.” – Hamid Mahmood.
Do you want to run an agency? If yes, you need to play on your strength. So, find out about yourself first. Moving on to running an agency, whether it is an e-commerce agency or software development, you must be focused on its niche.
Setting up an agency with a focused niche is crucial and needs more focus. There are a lot of questions but here are the most crucial questions asked by Robert “How to find an agency if they need help knowing where to begin to do the work themselves? How to find a competitor? Where would someone start, regardless of who the service provider is?” Let’s see what Hamid replies.
Hamid’s answer: So you have to ask yourself what you’re made of. If you’re an agent, a small or medium agency owner, and want to start an agency, are you on the background, more on the marketing? Do you feel comfortable with online marketing, or are you more like a tech geek?
Are you an introvert who wants to focus on something other than the growth of E-commerce stores or brand owners? So then, focus on the development side, so we have a lot of platforms. You could become an expert in a single platform.
Like, Shopify is an ocean of knowledge. So, you could be a great expert on Shopify. You could be an expert in OpenCart or WooCommerce for every platform in depth or an overall e-commerce development expert, an open source or a closed-ended or hosted forum. So, you must ask yourself first and move towards a niche once you recognize yourself.
“Know yourself first to start an agency” – Hamid Mahmood. Recognizing yourself is the main thing in starting an e-commerce agency. You have learned that you have your focus your niche, you know what you’re good at, you started a company, and you have all the people working for you. But now you’re going to have to get yourself out there. Now, let’s learn with Hamid how to recognize yourself.
So, you have to go from scratch. A lot of people start talking about penetrating, they start talking about scaling, start talking about a massive number at the start of the agency, which is a wrong concept.
Just like opening a shop in the mall, you have to rent a space first. You have to put in all the capital out there for furniture. You must hire people, make some processes, build a name, and put your monogram outside your building or shop.
Similarly, it’s about your e-commerce agency as well. So when you have to start your e-commerce agency, once the niche has been decided and you have answered those above questions, create the essential things and the name.
Hamid’s philosophy is that “your name should be simple enough”. Let’s delve into the detailed version of it.
If you follow the SEO basics, make sure that your basics are 100% optimized from your domain point of view or your website point of view. Then you go step by step into the backlinks and all that.
You may succeed after great efforts by ranking your agency at the top search engine. When we talk about the domain, you can also put some keywords into the domain. Moreover, check out the fantastic tips here.
If somebody’s searching for an SEO Company in New York, they can find it if you have done SEO for your agency. So, this is one way of getting traction. This is one way of getting clients quickly for your agency.
If you want a one-word, like a brief, you want to maintain actual branding, as many agencies would do. In that case, make sure that your tagline should be prominent. You’re explaining everything about your company. You’re explaining everything about what value you bring to your customers.
There’s a story behind the agency’s name. We don’t need to get into it now. But we will go with SEO. It’s a huge topic as many people need to do SEO.
A lot of people don’t know what to do, where to do it, where to enter this information; they need a professional who knows what they’re doing, knows how to do the research, and knows what to do. They’re not going to do it themselves. In that case, believe in yourself and be tied up for exploring new things.
If you cannot keep your branded keywords, the SEO keywords, then your Meta title and your Meta description have to be SEO optimized.
For example, you’re offering the services of e-commerce in New York or Tri-State. Then your Metas should have mentioned the best e-commerce development and Marketing, the best e-commerce growth agency in New York or Tri-State.
So, if someone is searching for your agency, even if your domain doesn’t have that keyword, they can find it in your Metas. So that’s the basic starts:
No.1 Your homepage should be self-explanatory, and also, if you’re targeting a region, those keywords should appear out there.
No.2 There should be some area about the description of your home. It’s like if you’re putting an about. So, the “About” should be self-explanatory, and you’re putting your keywords.
For example, if your keyword is about e-commerce growth, the e-commerce growth should be in your Meta title, your e-commerce growth should be in your Meta description, it should be in your business description, it should be in your about on your home page as well.
Then, after you have done your Metas and put on the schemas inside, ensure alt tags are optimized as per the keywords if that’s e-commerce growth.
To ensure that the e-commerce growth art is available in some images and the image is explanatory. Suppose that’s an illustration and showing some infographic about e-commerce growth. So, make sure that on the homepage are your primary focus keywords and your major location-focused keywords mentioned.
No.3 Whatever services you provide, there has to be a page for every service you offer, and you must work on average. We have 30 plus pages on our every agency website. So they differ from 30 to 50 on average, but at least 30 service pages.
So, suppose you’re offering services by the platform. In that case, It will include, okay, WordPress Development services in New York, WooCommerce Development services in NewYork, Shopify Development services in New York, e-commerce growth agency in New York. If you’re focusing on the industry, Then it’s going to be fashion, e-commerce development, and marketing agency examples.
If you want to focus on a keyword like local, you can add words like in New York, Tri-State, California, or wherever you are performing those services.
So, What are the key strategies for scaling up an E-commerce agency efficiently? What methods can be employed to control and manage a team of 100+ employees in your agency?
Hamid’s reply to scaling up an agency can take you the right way. Scaling up an E-commerce agency is a fascinating topic and could be lengthy. However, cut the story short and make it very summarized as well. How do you scale your agency?
Many agencies got stuck at this stage. That is how to enhance the number. How do you control them? How about, if you are handling 100 plus employees, how do you manage their role, how to control their responsibilities, how to control, how to take the reports out of them? The answers to all these questions are necessary to scale up your E-commerce agency. Let’s start with the SOPs of an agency.
Everything in every stage needs to be focused. Having an SOP written up can take forever because you do so many steps of work in an agency. That’s why it takes work to become successful. It’s a lot of hard work, dedication, blood, sweat, and tears. But this work must be done to ensure everything’s systemized and operations are running smoothly.
You need a whole system if you’re talking about having a multi-seven-figure agency. The entire system is based on compliance processes. Everyone needs to be washed under KPIs and under-reporting. They have to perform, they have the numbers against every person, and they have to report back. They have to set documents for every little step, even for customers.
Every customer question needs to be mapped out in flowcharts, explaining everything. So when you talk about having standardized information about your first and hundreds of employees and want them to deliver the same work, you have to have documentation.
If you know how to talk to the customer and what the standards are, you have to put them down on the paper step by step. This is what everyone does as well. In the agency’s first year, people focus on writing the process documents. Everything must be documented before starting.
Moreover, Hamid shared his experience in documentation. He is known for his systematic approach to business and places great emphasis on documenting his knowledge and experiences. His upcoming book on seven-figure agencies stands as a testament to this commitment, serving as a valuable reference for his future endeavors. He is currently engaged in a series of friendly sessions with various agencies, including those in his local community who are familiar with his expertise. However, he has ambitious plans for the next quarter. Hamid intends to shift his focus towards providing comprehensive support and guidance to agencies, particularly those in the United States and Pakistan, to enhance their performance and overall success.
Getting a bundle of clients can be difficult. But once you know the power of lead generation, you will get more clients. The huge thing in getting a bundle of clients is lead generation. It is the first topic about how to get the business, scale your agency, and build a beautiful team to ensure the processes are excellent and customer satisfaction is 100%,99%. Eventually, it would help if you had a unit business to survive.
Many companies are going towards Google AdWords and spending a massive amount of money. You can do that. But if you have a budget to be sunk or drained out if you don’t care about it. Creating a perfect funnel into Google Ads will take at least six months to one year.
No.1: Start sending the traffic to your website.
No.2: Your website has to be incredibly sexy. Conversion is optimized, ensuring it has everything your customer wants to see. It has a pricing model. It has good information about every aspect you’re sending the traffic to. It is mobile optimized, it is fast, it is clean, it is minimalist.
Getting emails from your customers is like a lead magnet. Then you start getting their emails followed up by the email marketing funnel itself. So, once you have their emails or they contacted you for the leads and get permission from them, start an email automation funnel and that email automation funnel.
After every week, you send them a good email newsletter or email copy about some good practices and things that can add value. Then, eventually, after three or six months, you will get some traction and a response.
No.3 Do not expect, like an e-commerce brand, that you’re going to get the leads or you’re going to get the traction at the front or the first visit to your site as well. So, this is one way of sending the traffic and retargeting through emails.
No.4 Many companies, especially in the subcontinent, some over here, rely on personal or maybe a freelancing platform, like Upwork and Fiverr, etc.
No.5 The best way to get leads is through the Email Marketing Funnel through LinkedIn.
Try to set up a meeting and start sending the emails. Start from 200 to 300 per day, warm your IP to 500, and then a thousand. This could go towards 2000 plus per email as well. You will start getting responses once you send the emails and get traction from the leads. If your copy is really good and has the information that your customers could get value from, wait to close.
Try to get them onto the call, give them a presentation, and give them more about your company. Try to have a video call. It’s not an audio or just a phone call; try to be face-to-face. If they’re locally in New York now, the COVID has improved, so you can go and meet them on the first visit so they trust you. But in another case, you could have a video call.
Once you have a video call and have an excellent presentation, try to have a follow-up for the next meeting, which could be a requirement or a project. Set the date for the meeting. Now you have a customer who will be talking about the conditions. Take the criteria and then have another meeting after a week or maybe after two or three days.
Give that customer a good report about the things that he has yet to mention about it. Give them a report about the website and try to impress the customer. In the third call, give them a pricing model. Try to close in that sale. So the cycle is that you start today, and it probably gets closed after three months.
It’s different from having a shop versus a B2B business. You’re targeting a company, and it’s true for other B2B businesses. The same goes for our niche since we’re running an agency. It could take from three months to six months and sometimes a year. So you need to have good business development people who are following up correctly. There are blogs available in HubSpot for sales follow-up emails as well.
Have you heard about ClickFunnels? It is an amazing platform to sell your products, and people love it.
In the process of Click Funnels from one page to an upsell or down-sell, have you ever used it? Robert asked.
Hamid added all his valuable insights. Let’s catch up all. For specific products, if you have a unique product, one single product to sell a book is also a one-pager.
You want to sell one specific service, then one page. Click funnel is a great deal. First, Click Funnels will take you to the whole funnel. The first funnel could have been getting their email opt-ins, and then they will be sending newsletters, getting them back to the pages again. So if you’re focusing very niche on a service or a product or, in my case, could be a book, then click funnel is great.
However, apart from all the good things about ClickFunnels, you lose the benefits of having a complete website where customers can go onto the other pages and find relevant information about your site.
Apart from being too technical, It’s also observed that being a leader is very important as well. If you’re not a leader, you eventually need people to work for you.
No.1 So, apart from all the technical aspects that you need to run an agency, having leadership skills, like being charismatic, if you want your employees to perform in certain things, if you’re able to do that and give them a charismatic behavior or give them a sample, here is how you do it. It’s going to be very helpful for your agency, number one.
No.2: If you’re always honest with your team, you never lie. You never make false promises. It’s going to be very helpful as well. Then, team management skills, always ensuring there is energy in the team and taking care of their careers. However, if you’re running an agency and you’re just thinking about your targets, you’re not thinking about your peers.
Essentially, it’s the people who are going to work for you. If you don’t think about them, they will run away. They’re going to find another agency to work out. So, when working with your peers, think about their success.
You should believe in a methodology that emphasizes continuous improvement and growth.
Moreover, Hamid emphasized reporting and planning with his vast experience. He added, remember that whenever you start, you should think about having a ten-year plan. Although his upcoming book says that if you have an agency, start thinking about a ten-year plan; where do you want your agency to be after ten years? Where do you want your agency to be after three years? Where do you want your agency to be after one year? Then break down all those plans and milestones into quarterly milestones, then break them into monthly milestones, then break them into weekly milestones, and take reports every week. So, your weekly reporting is helping you to gain what you want into the next ten years.
With great success, he has agencies that are Software Pro. One is Html Pro. One is Ecom Development. He also owns a digital SEO and marketing tool called ettvi.com.
Moreover, Hamid also developed an e-commerce courses platform called E-commerce pro.
This insightful guide will take you to the next level of success. There are a lot of different tactics a lot of different strategies that you need to implement into your business to be successful. You can implement them as you get the experience. Don’t forget to share your views about these skyrocket techniques.
Check out the latest guide on How to Build 7-Figure Multiple Businesses.
