u/Rounak147

I have been using apollo for prospecting and instantly for outbound + a few other tools for automated outbound flows. But the prospecting tool has been Apollo.

what I've noticed is that the filters are just absolute crap and it takes forever to find the right data. I've followed numerous tutorials and even then, the final list is pretty vague.

I work in three niches primarily - sports companies, edu/learning institutes, private schools etc., and reno companies. each with a complete offer and such.

I've been looking into clay, and it's criminally expensive. any suggestions?

Just curious what you guys are you using as your GTM strategy/engineering setup.

I have been leveraging cold emails + calls, and that helps me land 1 new client a month + 1 project a month, but I am looking to improve and see what others are trying out there.

TIA :)

Long story short, my sales guy is great when he talks to people on the phone, but the connect rates have been low. I use a pretty basic setup - leads are on GHL, we're dialling through GHL (using manual actions) and have automations setup for post-call follow-ups and emails, depending on the outcome. My guy is able to dial about 70 calls per day in a 5 hour workday - he wants to bump that up but says that it takes time because he keeps dialling and most of the time there's no answer. the 1% people that connect however, he's able to book in for a call or they at least ask him to send an email and follow-up.

I am open to any suggestions to improve our workflow, or tools that may help our connect rate. I have heard parallel diallers are a good tool, but the problem is a lot of these guys send calls to Voice Mail - will a parallel dialler work well in that use case?

What else can I do to get my sales guy more conversations? TIA for taking the time to help :)

Just looking to vent and seek comfort in other people's experience.
At what point in your career as an agency owner did you finally feel "comfortable" in business.

I am at an all time low point mentally as an agency owner thanks to the ups and downs, work pressure and more. And yeah, I know delegation is the answer - and I have done that, gotten better at it, but at every step when we have scaled, i've felt extreme pressure, sleepless nights and the runway if we were to lose clients has been no longer than 1-2 weeks>

First year, I was solo + contractor, good year
second year, 2 employees + contractors, weak margins
third year, 2 employees + contractors, stable
fourth and current year, 2 employees, nagative cash flow in the first month, shaky

I know we're going to scale this year too, but is it always going to be like this?

been thinking about putting our hat in the ring for government RFPs this year - I think we've got a decent shot at some of the ones I currently see listed.

curios as to how agency owners are tackling this - do you do it yourself, hire someone to do it?

someone told me they use their sales team to create these but i don't want to disrupt my sales team's rhythm right now as they are focused on getting me good leads in the niche that we want to be in.

if the recommendation is to hire, what sort of stuff do you look out for when hiring someone for this? Is compensation usually project-based + bonus If you win the contract?

TIA for your help!

We build a lot of landing pages each quarter for ads for our clients as well as for ourselves. Im wondering what other agencies are doing for these we currently have templates that we manually edit and/or build totally custom (design + dev).

With ai in the picture, what are you guys doing? Has anyone had success with a completely (or close) automated and ai workflow for this?

Im curious - how are you pricing and positioning your advertising services? In my recent chats with a few agency owners, I have realized we all do it a bit differently.

For example, I charge tier-wise flat fee based on ad spend per platform and include landing page builds in the pricing.

Just curious how you do it and if you offer any guarantees or performance promises.

TIA!

Just been thinking about calling it a day. Current setup is lean and operates like a well-oiled machine (most times). I’d be willing to stay on as a consultant if buyer wants me to. What numbers can I expect in exit?

Performance marketing + full-stack development set up through contractors and 2-3 employees.