Andrew Dymski on How He Launched a Successful Marketing Agency Right out of College (part 1)

Summary: If you want proof that you don't need decades of experience and a huge Rolodex full of clients in order to start a marketing agency, look no further. Andrew and his colleagues at Guavabox launched an agency right out of college, and by all measures are on track to have a tremendously successful business. Guavabox does an impressive job of generating content marketing. And, more than almost anyone I've spoken with, they not only understand the importance of list segmentation, but they provide an overview of how they've segmented their list, and how this segmentation has helped them identify their hottest prospects, and appropriately nurture and convert their leads into paying clients. In addition, Andrew explains the thinking behind, and validation of, their business model, sharing insights helpful to any startup. There was so much goodness in this interview that I had to break it into two parts. When you listen to Part 1, you'll hear Andrew and I talk about: (3:30) Introductions (5:50) Why the old model of web design doesn't scale (8:30) An overview of financial results (10:00) His business philosophy and how it played a critical role in their launch (13:30) How they validated their business model (16:30) How taking on a new client went wrong (21:00) How they picked their niche (25:30) How they are generating leads (27:30) How blogging plays a role in lead generation (29:30) How they developed their personas (35:30) An overview of outbound marketing .. And be sure to check out Part 2 to hear: (3:00) An overview of various nurturing campaigns (7:00) An overview of how they're using personas to segment their list (13:00) An overview of when and how they decide to follow up with each lead (16:30) An overview of how they are changing their business model to a retainer fee model (21:00) An overview of their retainer plans (12:40) How they report results (traffic & leads) and what they're planning for the month ahead (25:00) How they manage client expectations (28:00) How they are producing blog content (31:00) How they are using contractors (33:00) An overview of how they are in track with their goals Resources Mentioned Inbound Marketing 101 Ebook Zerys.com ClearBloggingSolutions.com Guavabox.com Best Buyer Formula More About This Episode The Bright Ideas podcast is the podcast for business owners and marketers who want to discover how to use online marketing and sales automation tactics to massively grow their business. It's designed to help marketing agencies and small business owners discover which online marketing strategies are working most effectively today - all from the mouths of expert entrepreneurs who are already making it big. Listen Now Transcript Trent: Hey there, Bright Ideas hunters. Welcome to the Bright Ideas podcast. I'm your host, Trent Dyrsmid, and this is the podcast for marketing agencies, marketing consultants, and entrepreneurs who want to discover how to use content marketing and marketing automation to massively boost their business without massively boosting the number of hours that they have to work every single week. And the way that we do that is we bring on whip-smart entrepreneurs to share with you the tactics and the strategies that are working so very well for them, and that is exactly what we're going to do in this episode today.On the show with me today is a fellow by the name of Andrew Dymski. He is one of three co-founders of a new marketing agency called GuavaBox, and they are doing some really impressive things which we're going to get into in this two-part podcast.So in Part Number One, which you are now listening to, we are going to be talking about how they launched the company, how they picked their niche, and there's some real key takeaways in how and why they picked this specific niche that they did. We're going to talk about how developing a minimum viable product fit