Michael Gladon on his quest to build one of the top Direct Response Digital Marketing Agencies in the world *DrumRoll*

Interesting Insider View of a 25yo Entrepreneur Growing A Premium Direct Response Marketing Agency to €50K MRR.

Michael Gladon
Jul 20, 2017 · 8 min read

Actually, I just turned 26 on July the 6th. In my world we call that a “Ding.” When you level up your character in a video game it triggers a addictive yet satisfying animation with a cool “DIIIING” sound that shows recognition of all your hard work.

DIng!!!

PART I. THE BACKGROUND…

Kidding aside, my mission to grow an agency from scratch to €50K ‘MRR’ Monthly recurring revenue in 4 months was just an idea somewhere in May of 2016. I was already thinking of names that represented my personality, a few of which were End of the line media and MajinMedia, but eventually went with GladonMedia (a complete rip off from Gary Vaynerchuk’s VaynerMedia lol.)

Sidenote: I used to watch his wine video’s 10 years ago when Gary was famous for his “Lets give it a sniffy sniff” video’s in the World of Warcraft community.

The End of the line, stands for no-nonsense, direct and obligation. It’s our obligation to call people out on their bullshit. It’s your obligation to tell yourself “this is the end of the line, here I Stop spreadsheeting my business to death and be proactive in my marketing and always overdeliver.

“Defy the industry norm and dont be “stoohk ihn deh muhd” like your competitionas Conor Mcgregor says.

Majin means to unleash your hidden power. Most companies are sitting on GOLDMINES of leads, clients and profits but are stuck in the “oldschool way” of doing business that we call hope marketing. This includes referrals, going to networking events, the classic sticker on the side of your car, and random posts to your Facebook page.

Now, you can boost a Facebook post or run an ad, expect the skies to part and that magically people will show up at your front door …then don’t get the crazy results that you expected and complain about it to everyone that Facebook advertising doesn’t work.

Endofthelinemedia.com was just way to long and it was too bad MajinMedia.com was taken and I had to make a decision.

Most companies are sitting on goldmines of leads, clients and profits.

Now, I’ve had kind of an unfair advantage over most people…

For nearly 5 years I’ve already been religiously advising, executing strategies and optimizing advanced advertising and marketing campaigns for aggressive growth focused businesses.

That works in 2 ways; I map out the strategy, they implement and I optimize the flow …OR I do all the heavy lifting and build custom done-for-them —
plug n’ play advertising and advanced marketing automation campaigns.

The reason I started a digital agency is part a moral obligation and for the rest …pure selfishness. Here’s why.

First, my personal consulting clients were always complaining about the agencies and freelancers they’ve hired to run their ad campaigns, social media and legally steal their money with crap like SEO.

Some of them asked me to do it for them, but I thought to myselfWhy would someone start another agency in an already saturated market, even more so with these “guru’s” everywhere teaching kids to do “marketing” for businesses.

Clients are there to be cherrypicked in a world full of lazy people.

If there’s one way that guarantees you flushing most of your budget it’s doing it the “PC corporate way” A rusted mentality throw shit at the wall and hope it sticks. They’d rather talk about “more followers,” “brand-likability,” and so called modern metrics like “what’s the ROI of content marketing?

It’s like being at a start-up event and getting asked how much money you’ve raised and when you say “we didn’t raise any, we made X in sales” — the whole room laughs at you like you’re a retard.

At the end of the day the only things that truly matter are the relationships you cultivate and the $$$$ you bring in. Branding should be a by-product of your already established marketing and advertising — and in of itself should direct targeted traffic into your atmosphere.

Secondly, for Ease and Legacy. Building a premium agency means I can design a symbiotic relationhip between my consulting business and GladonMedia.

GladonMedia’s success will allow me to hire more team members, putting systems in place and getting new clients, oh… and building my next 2 companies, later

An Esports Organization — Esports is at a massive shift and still in it’s infancy. However, Esports will blow up like an ISIS warrior in the next 3 years …If I would miss that opportunity, I would regret that for the rest of my life.

A Gym chain — I’ve always wanted to own a gym and dominate the industry, Most gyms only work at a 5% — 10% of their maximum potential.

The growth of GM will also allow the agency to “market these other ventures, for free,” allow me to focus 60% of my time on creating content and a personal brand and set one goal I’ve set in action; that is to bring on a team that can provide our services for free for startups and beginning influencers.

PART II. PREPARE TO LAUNCH

It was imperative to me that to stand out from the generalist underperforming agencies I had to differentiate GladonMedia, in ways that’s unseen in the agency world. It had to be a premium agency, exclusive enough for aggressive growth focused entrepreneurs and companies, or business owners who know the value of direct response marketing and lead generation, willing to invest in their growth.

My Goal: To build an exclusive brand with a hardcore mentality to 50K MRR in 4 months.

How do I differentiate? I’ve probably researched over 80 other agencies, I went so far that if you’d come to visit me and use my pc to search on Google, you’ll get a string of 3–10 agency websites popping up in the search bar when you type just a letter.

It came to my attention that most successful agencies excel in“one thing.

  • One would have a big social media following that converted into leads…
  • One agency generates about 20–80 proposal inquiries per month from content marketing…
  • Then another one would get clients from strategic partnerships and referrals…
  • And some grow primarily through cold calling, cold emails, LinkedIn outreach. etc. etc…

around 80% of the agencies I researched either had a “Join our list” optin, get a “free proposal” or “contact us” on their website as the primary source of lead generation.

Nobody gives a shit about your list to get free updates or take you up on a free proposal or audit, unless they are 100% ready to buy.

On the client fulfillment level, not many seem to go the full out, the packages are all the same, for the same price, promising the same stuff?

And like, where are the gifts for new clients? game tickets, Roses for the wife, a spa day, whatever…

Nobody gives a shit about your email list to get free updates.

3 differentiating factors

Premium. Creating a premium agency allows a win-win-win. We can design a space that has zero limitations.

  1. a win for me. I can spend more on advertising to acquire a new client, hire more team members and grow the company with more profit.
  2. A win for the client. A client pays for speed, exclusivity and peace of mind. There’s zero limitation to a client’s account, 24/7 support, proactive team management, and weekly reports.
  3. A win for the team. It allows me to pay higher salaries, cool benefits, and train and develop my team to become successful, happy, and evolved for their own benefits, like a juicy massaged angus steak.
  4. A Double Banger. It allows us to use premium tools and software to get the best results in the fastest way possible that a client has access to.

Direct Response. The focus lies on lead generation and sales conversion through advertising and marketing campaigns — Branding is a by-product of the results we generate. Followers, fans and engagement is pretty nice, but they don’t matter if not a single one converts into a client. Here’s what we do.

Full-Service. As a business owner myself, one of the most valuable things to me is peace of mind. So I wanted to simplify the lives of our clients and make them more money by handling their stuff so they can do what they do best. Exclusive perks sheetExcept SEO, that’s garbage :-)

Overdeliver. Ever heard of an agency that has a team around the clock with constant contact? No me neither, and they’re not even from India or the Philippines.

-Strategy Beats Hustle

PART III. THE CHALLENGE 50K MRR in 5 Months

Ok, I actually should’ve written this post when I started, but better late than never they say. I thought it would be quite fun to set a challenge.

I’ve made the decision to go really from scratch… so I will not build marketing funnels and a single ad campaign for GladonMedia untill we’re at 30K MRR.

I only build a short Facebook messenger campaign to give away my free 7-Formula “Writing Effective Facebook Ad Copy Template.

#SALTBAE # SALTLIFE

Business Development

In order to reach my goals as fast as possible, Im focusing purely on building relationships and cold emailing.

This ment that I’ve had to solely rely on my awesome copy skeelz and unique way to cold approach business development. This includes using Twitter, LinkedIn, and the GladonMedia Instagram.

Growing GladonMedia And The First Hires Goals.

  1. Designer.
  2. Social Media Manager.
  3. Marketer — Achieved.
  4. Sales person/Account Manager — Achieved.

At the moment we have two players on the marketing team, and recently hired Tim Stein, he’s account manager who also does a massive amount of business development. Works 12 hours per day and even on the weekend. Love it!

IF You’ve Read This Far, Here’s Something You’ll Really Like!

New Leads and Clients are only an Arm’s Length Away. And Getting Them Doesn’t Have To Be Complex.

Do you want more clients and customers with less stress and implement an automated lead generation system that’ll bring you 10–25+ high quality leads on a daily basis?

Request a Free Deep Dive Strategy Call.

A Deep Dive Strategy call is valuable for three reasons:

  1. We’ll get on a 20–45 minute Skype call and go over what you’re currently doing with your advertising and marketing. Based on that what type of advertising campaign to run , how to structure your funnel and I’ll give you some ideas that’ll help you bring in additional revenue.
  2. You’ll get a customized marketing blueprint that you’re free to steal and implement in your own business to generate new leads and clients.
  3. Brainstorm ideas together to get, upgrade and retain customers.

Go here to request your FREE Deep Dive Strategy Call.

Strategy Beats Hustle — Michael Gladon

)

Michael Gladon

Written by

Internet Marketing Consultant. Entrepreneur. Founder of GladonMedia. Plus I have a special love for @MonsterEnergy and video games.

Welcome to a place where words matter. On Medium, smart voices and original ideas take center stage - with no ads in sight. Watch
Follow all the topics you care about, and we’ll deliver the best stories for you to your homepage and inbox. Explore
Get unlimited access to the best stories on Medium — and support writers while you’re at it. Just $5/month. Upgrade