$1.2M in New Revenue in 6 Months for Jean-Michel (RPG)

“We had a couple of really solid clients. We were getting results for them, they were happy, and they were paying a reasonable amount, so the business was profitable.

But acquisition was really slow. I don’t remember the exact revenue, but it was around $30,000 or $40,000 a month. A new client might come in every other month or so.

I wasn’t looking to leave the agency space. It takes so much work to get something off the ground that, once you have, I think you should add fuel to it and figure out what’s blocking you. I wanted to build a great business. I already knew from corporate life that more responsibility doesn’t necessarily mean working proportionately more hours. I was just missing the playbook for doing it effectively.”

“My worry was whether I could get all the value and get everything done in four one-to-one calls. I didn’t want to live on Zoom with you, but I was nervous about whether that would be enough.

What you provide is very good value for what it costs, but it isn’t cheap. There are points in your business when you know you have to invest, and that still means making trade-offs in your own life. Do I take a vacation or buy something I want, or do I put that money into the business? That was part of the hesitation.

I remembered some advice another coach had given me: you have to become a buyer. The people who go furthest buy access, knowledge and speed. They don’t try to figure out every answer themselves. I already knew that using my engineering skills to solve everything on my own wasn’t the answer. I needed to talk to the right people. I could see myself hesitating over the details, and I knew I needed to start moving.

What’s funny is that, after months of working together, I still hadn’t used all four of those initial calls.”

“What I remember about the first two to four weeks is that it was very actionable. There was stuff to do and not a lot of theory. I quickly got my ads set up and running, with material to work through along the way. The focus was on getting things moving.

What felt different was how time-efficient it was. I’d had some huge deals come from email outreach, but it took a lot of calls to find them.

With this approach, I was speaking with decision-makers who were already interested enough to book a conversation. That was a much better use of my time.”

“Last month, we collected $125,000 USD. I’ve also strengthened the appointment-setting team. The growth wasn’t a straight line: there was an initial period of a few months before it really took off.

The clients are different too.

When I started in marketing, I was working with businesses doing less than $1 million in revenue, and everything was so do-or-die for them. Our typical clients now are doing around $5 million to $10 million, with some at $14 million or $15 million.

Excluding enterprise clients, our typical pricing is around $10,000 to set up and $7,500 a month.

On your suggestion, I also started giving clients the option to pay for four months upfront. Much to my surprise, more people took it than I would have expected. I give everyone a choice based on what works better for their cash flow.”

“I think the cost of acquiring a client is under $10,000 now, maybe down to around $8,000. I haven’t paid super close attention to the exact figure, but I’ve got a little better at sales, and that’s helped bring it down. I don’t know my exact margin right now either, but it’s over 50% for sure.

There are different numbers when the team is fully utilized and when you’re investing ahead of growth. If I hire someone, the margin drops at first, and acquisition has to catch up so that person’s capacity is being used.

Having enough margin to pay for extremely good talent is part of what makes this scalable. You can also give people a stake in the results so they’re motivated to think like owners. For me, the client type has a big influence on margin. Going further upmarket could improve it, but that would also bring longer sales cycles, different expectations and a different way of working.”

“Right now, the bottleneck is technically delivery, but I’ve made the hires. I hired a head of client success who was another agency owner and convinced them to sell their agency and join forces.

The next step is onboarding those people and making sure they’re set up to succeed. After that, the next thing will be sales and improving my close rate.

I don’t feel like we’ve reached the ceiling. We have a consistent way of delivering the work that the team can follow. We still have to think carefully about what each client needs, but the process is otherwise very similar.

That’s part of why growing the business feels doable. There are a lot of businesses that need help with marketing. I don’t know where the actual limit is, but I don’t see why you couldn’t build a business doing $10 million, $20 million or $30 million a year as you get better. That would require continuing to improve, and we may have to adjust the model along the way.”

“I’d learned a lot from other programmes and already had a business up and running. What I still needed was help with a few things that were holding it back. You helped me cut unnecessary work, focus on one service that was easier to deliver, and simplify how we attracted clients. You also gave me better ideas for our offers. Those were the pieces I’d been missing.

The other thing I appreciate is that you actually care. The people I work with at MORPH have experience running the kind of business they’re helping me grow. I’ve seen programmes where the coaches can repeat the manual but haven’t done the work themselves.

With your team, I’m getting advice from people who understand it through their own experience.”

If you’re running a B2B service business with a great offering and you’re ready to build the distribution it deserves, I want to invite you to book a short call with me.

This is a call to see if you’re a fit for what we do. We’ll talk about your business, your goals and whether this flywheel is the right next step for you.

If it’s a fit, I’ll put together a plan for your business, and we’ll review it together on a separate call. If it’s not a fit, I’ll be the first to tell you. I’m evaluating you as much as you’re evaluating me.

Pick a time that works for you below, and we’ll talk soon.