(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) Welcome to the Six Figure Business Mastery Podcast,

where every week, Kirsten and Jeannie dive into

the essential topics to fuel your business growth.

From copywriting to course creation, mindset to video

marketing, they've got you covered.

I'm really excited for our talk today because

we have a really special networking and connector

today.

I'm going to call him B, Jamshidi.

He is going to tell you how to

pronounce his first name and his company is

DJM Marketing.

So welcome to the program, B.

Thanks for having me on the show.

Absolutely.

So tell us a little bit about your

company and what you do.

Yeah, of course.

So I actually originally started as an engineer.

A lot of people don't know that.

And so I used to work for a

big company very similar to Verizon, but in

Canada was called TELUS.

And I got to work with a lot

of midsize company, 50 to 1,000 type

employer range, understanding what's going on from a

C-level perspective, IT perspective, and then building

up technology roadmaps.

Like how do you get from A to

B to C within an organization?

And so while doing that, I got to

work with a lot of really cool customers

and I got a lot of business consulting,

sales, leadership, and technology experience.

But on the other side of the fence,

about six years ago, I started my business

and where I was building out websites, Google

Ads, SEO.

And I got to a point where I

really hated doing 80-hour websites on the

weekend.

It just wasn't fun.

And so I started looking for different marketing

partners to work with.

And as I did that, I noticed that

most businesses didn't really understand marketing.

And so there was always this big gap

when you put two people in the same

meeting and most marketing agencies will say they

do everything, but typically they're only good at

one to three things.

And many of them are just not even

good at that.

And so businesses are just constantly frustrated.

And I was like, how do I solve

this problem?

And so I started becoming this kind of

middleman connector where I thought I just needed

10 marketing partners and I'd solve all the

world's problems.

I've now met with over 976 different marketing

agencies and experts over the last six years.

And I work with about 11% of

those in my vetted network to connect with

my customers.

I love that.

You saw a really unique problem and found

a very interesting and unique solution.

So tell us a little bit about your

first couple of clients and how that went

and what that looked like for you.

My first couple of clients went good and

bad.

So initially my very first client I'll never

forget was someone that needed a website done

for a CBD company actually.

And so we built a really, really good

website because that agency that I had partnered

with was really good.

They had a really good designer, a really

good web developer, and it all went well.

But then when it got to the Google

ads and the SEO piece, that was a

problem because they didn't do it at the

level that they needed to do it at.

And knowing what I knew about marketing, I

was like, oh, if they're not good at

this, but they're good at websites, maybe I

can find someone that's good at the Google

ads and the SEO.

And then now you've solved the whole problem.

And so I'd meet other agencies and realize,

oh, there's the same issue here.

They're good at specific things, but they're not

good at the other stuff.

And so it was always just this thing

in my head where I was like, maybe

if I meet enough marketing agencies, I'll find

the one that's good at everything.

And I never did.

It's you have to find those specific niche

partners and bring them in based on what

you actually need.

You work with all of these different businesses.

Tell us kind of how that evolved and

someone come to you and say, I'm having

trouble with Google ads or I'm having trouble

with this funnel or kind of how that

evolves and how you connect everyone together.

Yeah.

So initially it started out with a CBD

company and then you have a lawyer come

to you and then you have all these

different things.

And I started realizing as I did that

the different industries also had different types of

partners.

So one agency that worked for this industry

doesn't work for the other industry.

And so it created this thing of like,

oh, I need a lot of different partners

to figure all this out.

And so as customers came and they kept

asking me for things, I would keep doing

searches.

And so the first time of doing those

searches, it could take me anywhere from 15

to 30 hours to just find that one

partner for that customer.

But the cool thing is when you do

enough of these searches, it gets to the

point where you're like, cool.

I had someone asked me this before and

it's very similar niches.

And I know that this agency can do

that work.

And so it becomes way easier to match

make.

And it's a thing of time, right?

So you could have someone come in and

start running my business, build an entire database

and then try to get some customers.

But the whole aspect of how this business

really works is understanding one, the business, but

then also understanding the network and what they're

good at.

And that takes time.

And you get better and better with time.

And there's no shortcut to it.

I tried to find shortcuts.

I'm an engineer.

I try to do things efficiently, but there

isn't.

And so it's just the evolution of just

people asking me what they need based on

the industry.

And then just my own internal curiosity and

drive to be like, I want to find

people that are good at all these different

aspects.

And so that's one of the reasons I

haven't niched down in my business, because I

actually do enjoy working with a bunch of

different types of businesses.

Cause that's what I used to do in

the Telus days too.

Yeah.

We, we focus our marketing on real estate

agents and coaches and consultants, but we really

do work with a lot of different clients,

you know?

And so like you, it's, it's interesting to

us to be able to help people in

different industries because it just makes, you know,

our, our day-to-day more interesting in

some ways.

It's so much more fun.

Like I have, I have one customer who

has five different businesses.

He's hired 11 people from me, like different

types of agencies and just all over the

board.

And his businesses are all different.

Like he's a pharmaceutical one.

Then he's an online pharmaceutical.

And then he has a service that he

gives the lawyers to just transfer their clients

from like their home to their, their appointments.

So that like for insurance purposes, there's just

so many different things that he does and

he needs all these different resources.

So every now and then I'll get a

message from, Hey B, do you know this

type of person?

Or do you know this?

And I'm like, yeah, I think I got

someone for you.

Let me send you three people in the

next like two days.

And he gets to hire fast and move

really fast.

One of his businesses was really cool because

it only lasted six months, but he made

$10 million and $3 million in profit, literally

within a six month timeframe, right?

It was during the COVID phase.

And there's a whole insurance thing that he

basically was able to capitalize on, right?

Wow.

He was able to move quickly because of

you.

Yeah, exactly.

He got two influencer marketing partners for me,

a copywriter partner, and then someone to do

conversion rate optimization.

And the combination of all of those helped

him get to that, that level that he

wanted to get to.

I love that.

Like, how does that work financially investment wise?

Like are the people paying you to find

their partners or how does that all work?

So typically what happens is I will always

do a customer discovery session.

It's usually about 30 to 60 minutes.

I used to do this for, you know,

midsize companies.

So when I'm working with other companies, I

can do it pretty efficiently.

And from there, I just understand the business.

So what their goals are, where they're headed,

what competition they have, what resources they have

in house, like what level are they at

and what level of partner do they need

to kind of move up?

Once I understand that piece and I go,

Hey, I think I can actually help here.

I basically charge a small upfront fee of

a thousand dollars.

And I have a successful connection fee, which

is not very much either.

Like if you actually hire someone that I

recommend, I charge a fee at it.

And then on the other end, I get

paid by the agencies, a percentage, right?

So all agencies actually have a percentage where

they give for referrals.

I just capitalize on that.

And that's I can not charge that much

on the front end to do what I

do.

I love that.

So let's talk about what it looks like

for businesses that want to scale up.

So if they're under say a half a

million dollars a year and I'm assuming gross

revenue, tell me what that looks like.

Yeah.

So it changes based on where you're at.

So what I've realized is that there's like

five different levels of marketing partners and this

kind of aligns to the different levels of

business at the same time.

And so when you're looking at level one,

you're looking at businesses that are underneath the

500k range where you're running a lot of

the day-to-day tasks like yourself, you're

still, you know, running your own Google ads

or your Facebook ads, and you're trying to

create stuff in Canva.

And so at that stage, you're trying to

offload some of the lower value tasks to

freelancers and other contractors so that you get

more time freed up so you can focus

on the bigger aspects of your business.

And when you start doing that, you start

seeing your growth kind of unlock, right?

And so you're not doing a lot of

the day-to-day tasks.

So you start moving into that 500 to

kind of $3 million range, which is like

the next range of growth.

And in that space, you start kind of

hiring value-based agencies.

So like I said, in the beginning, there's

no one agency that can do absolutely everything,

but for certain value-based agencies where you're

spending a certain amount of money, but you're

getting a lot of value out of it.

They might be good at like one to

three of your core things, and then they'll

do some of the other stuff on the

side of the desk, but that's okay because

it's not your core thing.

They're at least keeping it alive.

So think about they run your Google ads

and they run your email marketing, but then

they might not be doing a ton on

social.

They're just putting up a picture just to

keep it alive, right?

And that's okay.

And so once you start getting to that

kind of like $3 million range, and then

you start trying to get to eight figures,

like passing that $10 million mark, this is

where things shift.

And so at your third level of partner,

you're hiring either a really high like strategist,

like a fractional CMO to build you out

a proper marketing strategy, because you've now figured

out product market fit and you know that

you can scale it.

You just need an actual marketing strategy because

you've been throwing things at a wall the

whole time.

And then the other thing you can hire

at that point is now very specialized agencies.

So this is where you'll hire that like

very specialized social media agency, that very specialized

SEO agency.

And typically you'll have someone internally, whether it's

a fractional CMO or marketing director to bring

in that all together and make sure everything's

kind of unified.

And then as you're growing and you start

getting to the higher range, there's the level

four partners where they take care of certain

full funnel aspects of a business.

So let's say they do paid media, they

bail out your landing pages, they do conversion

rate optimization, and then they'll do email.

And so they take care of that whole

ecosystem.

So you're essentially getting four teams in one

and they'll only take care of specific funnels.

These guys are more expensive because the retainers

you're going to be spending are like $10

,000 to $20,000 a month.

And so you need to be at a

certain revenue level to be able to afford

a team like that because you don't want

to build it in-house.

And then the final one, let's say you

start getting to that enterprise world, you start

working with enterprise agencies.

And this is an area I don't play

a lot in, but typically how that area

works is they charge you really large retainers.

And then on the backend, they'll go hire

the specialists that they need to fulfill on

the project that you're doing.

So they'll have an in-house team, but

they also will have a bunch of contractors

they'll bring from the outside.

Very interesting.

We have a lot of clients, I would

say, who are under the 500,000.

We definitely have some that are over, but

I would say the majority of our listeners.

So when you think about, let's say outsourcing

something like Google ads or Facebook ads, because

I feel like people really don't know a

lot about that.

So that's something they're often asking us about.

What would be the ad spend they would

need?

What would it cost to have the agency

at that level?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So if you're doing like Google and Facebook

ads, if you're not spending like $3,000

a month, I would just say don't even

start.

And the thing around Google ads is if

you don't have a solid website, you don't

have a solid landing page or what they

call a squeeze page, like a very condensed

page where you're trying to grab someone's email

address, because then you're going to follow up

with them and things like that.

It doesn't make a ton of sense, right?

Unless it's a service that is like emergency

dental care, where you know the first person

they click on is likely and they answer

the phone, they're coming in.

If it's not a service like that, then

you have to be very careful with like

actually having enough money to spend because you're

not getting enough data back from the algorithm

to actually like get anywhere.

It'll take you way too long.

The other thing that they need to just

be careful of is there's so many agencies

in that space that are not actual like

good agencies.

They'll say, yeah, we'll run your Google ads

or run your Facebook ads, but they don't

have the team there.

And if they've been like doing their business

for less than five years, like that's a

red flag.

Be very, very careful in working with those

types of agencies, because they're going to be

testing on your dollar.

Ultimately, if you're hiring like a freelance Google

ads person, like try to find someone that

has experience within different agencies and has ran

with solid budgets.

And now they're kind of moving into that

freelance space.

Like you might get like $1,000 to

$1,500 a month.

But it is hard to find these people.

Yeah, yeah.

You're so right about, you know, you can

decide to do Facebook ads and you can

hire someone, you can just throw that money

in the trash.

Sometimes if they don't know what they're doing,

you can spend an awful lot of money

so that they can learn.

I totally agree with that.

100%.

We hear so many heartbreaking stories of people

who literally have hired agencies and spent tens

of thousands of dollars and had zero return

on investment.

And I think you're right.

It's because maybe their landing page wasn't ideal.

They maybe like they hadn't tested their product

or their service enough to know.

So yeah, we we stay away from doing

ads for our clients, but we're always looking

for good resources.

So now that we know you, we have

a good resource.

Yeah, I'm always happy to help.

It's a hard space to be in.

And not a lot of people will tell

you the truth about it.

I don't want to see people lose money.

Like it's actually the worst feeling.

It's like, if you're in that space of

like you're growing your business, do it through

referrals, go to conferences, meet people, it all

depends on the type of business you have,

right?

Like if you're a local based business, go

to the local events, like do some of

the ground up work where you're getting to

the point where you have enough profits and

you have a lot of things where you're

like, I can test this for six months,

and I'm okay with losing this money if

it's lost.

But I'm also have the time and the

energy to actually make iterations on the campaigns,

right?

If you're just throwing money at it, you're

not fixing anything else in the funnel.

It's not going to work.

Like the way that works is just do

a ton of A B testing, making all

these micro improvements, where at some point, you'll

hit a flywheel and you go, oh, this

is working now.

And then the one other thing I'm going

to say is like, if you do find

something that works, and there's a lot of

businesses that do, once you find something that

works, double down on it, but also learn

to reinvest what you make into other channels,

because you never know if the Google algorithm

changes, if AI comes in, all of a

sudden searches way less, the competition goes up,

there's so many factors you don't control.

And so the more you're diversified across multiple

marketing channels, the better off your business is

going to be being more stable, it's going

to be growing.

Oh, that is great advice.

Oh, my gosh.

And I think like one of the struggles

that I think a lot of small business

owners have, is like you said, look at

the data A B test and make these

little micro changes, we often tend to want

to change everything, right?

I'm gonna do a new landing page, I'm

gonna rewrite all new ads.

And I think it's that concept of you're

just tweaking and changing one thing at a

time and testing it for a few more

days than tweaking something else.

And I think most, most of us are

not that patient.

So that's why I think hiring an ads

person sometimes can be the best choice.

Yeah, there's sometimes there's not shortcuts, marketing is

hard.

It's a, it takes time, just like building

a team, just like figuring out your operations,

it's all done in steps.

And then over time, you look back in

three or four years and go, wow, like

we used to do ads that way.

And now we do it this way.

Like it's a world of difference.

But you don't notice those micro changes until

you do them.

Yeah.

And I think there's so much to ads,

like, you know, there's, there's the written copy,

if it's a video, there's a video, there's

a video production, there's the, you know, the

button they click on, there's the page they

go to, it all has to work together.

It all has to make sense.

It has to be effective.

And then, like you said, then something else

will knock it around, maybe the algorithm changes,

or, you know, Zack decides to do something

different.

Exactly.

Yeah, you have to prepare for all of

it.

And the one other thing that most people

don't think about when they're running ads, especially

if you're small, is like, who's taking those

calls?

At the end of the day, like, you

have enough time, if this works, can you

take an expert 20 to 30 calls, right,

like a week or in every two weeks,

or do you have to hire a salesperson

and train them up?

Like, so you have to think about like,

all the order of events as they go

through, like for my business, I don't run

ads, like I do six figures very, very

comfortably.

And I don't run ads yet.

I have all these other channels, I have

community strategies that I run going on podcasts,

you know, I build a bunch of other

other channels.

If I get to a point where I'm

like, okay, I really want to scale my

business.

And I've gotten to a point where I'm

like comfortably making a certain amount.

Now I can build a bit of a

team around it and then go really hard

into ads and scaling.

But that's not my goal.

So I'd also know some people who can

help you.

I might know a few, I might know

a few.

It's so funny when you talked about getting

out and locally networking, because this whole concept

of being an online business or a local

business, you know, I feel like the local

businesses, whether it's your Walmart, or your CVS,

or like your little boutique, they all have

an online presence where they're selling their services

or their products, because again, you're competing with

Amazon.

And I think it's the same thing with

online businesses, like your business, maybe coaching or

consulting where you can work with anyone, but

there's still like, I always say there's a

million dollars worth of business in your own

backyard.

So sometimes, like you said, getting out there

networking and building relationships and connecting with people

can help you just bring in that money

and start stabilizing your revenue and your income.

100% like I have like some of

the events that I go to at least

one event a month, typically, it's like on

average, and this will be either I fly

down to like Washington, or I go to

Vegas, I'm going to Vegas next week.

You never know how those things kind of

work, right?

Like, as a super connector, I understand how

connection works.

And so, for example, just a fun kind

of story was like, I went to Vegas,

I paid to go to an event to

Vegas.

And in that event, I told someone, I

put it on socials, and someone that I

met in Dubai was like, Oh, I know

someone there that you need to meet turned

out to be like the partnership guy at

ClickFunnels.

And that partnership guy at ClickFunnels then introduced

me to some other super connectors, which then

introduced me to multiple super connect like the

chain of events was I had to go

to two different events, meet multiple different people

that then connected me to one person who

then connected me to another, then then connecting

to a bunch of super connectors.

So now it's like my network has expanded,

like exponentially.

Yeah, just by going to these events and

building relationships.

Yeah, it is all about the relationships.

I love it.

Well, if you're given to give one piece

of advice to, you know, a business owner

who is trying to scale, they're trying to

grow their business.

And maybe it's something you did in the

beginning of your business, what would that piece

of advice be?

I've always ran my business profitably.

So I've been running for six years, and

I measure profitability in terms of months.

So like, every month, I ran my business,

I've been profitable.

And so the way that I think about

it is, make sure that you think about

profit first, don't bring expenses up to the

point where you're like, we have to hit

this or this business doesn't work, right?

The more you can scale slowly, you start

building more of a stable business, and stable

businesses can last long term.

And so I would say stop looking for

just silver bullets and think about how can

you set your business up for the long

term.

And just ignore all the noise around you.

Because sometimes you're comparing someone's chapter 10 with

your chapter two and going, I'm not going

fast enough.

It's like, no, you didn't see that that

guy built that thing over the last 15

years.

And you're like six years into your play.

So that's just some of the advice that

I would have.

So be tell us where people can reach

out to you if they want your help,

if they need to be connected with the

right people in order to get to that

next level.

Yeah, so if they want to connect with

me, going to my website, www.cjam marketing

.com.

Or you can find me on LinkedIn underneath

my name, Beda Jamshidi.

And I'm there quite often.

So if you want to message me on

there, those are probably the two best places

to reach out.

And there's tons of resources on my website,

if you go to the footer for businesses

around questions to ask agencies, how to think

about it, and so that you don't make

the wrong hiring mistakes.

Well, this has been fantastic.

Now we're connected to a super connector and

I'm really excited about that.

So thanks for joining us today, B.

Thanks for having me.

I had a great time.

Thanks for listening to the Six Figure Business

Mastery podcast.

If you enjoyed listening to this episode, and

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