BEN STEWART — I Had No Clients, But I Had Faith.

I have nine children, and I want them all to have their own LLC when they leave the household.
Why? So they can learn to build something of their own.

I started my online marketing agency so my daughter, Ellie, and I could build it together. I’d done a lot of non-profit work with my wife through the churches we would pastor, but this was my first online business.

So, at the age of 43, I said “Let’s go on this new adventure!” We launched our agency to help other businesses get customers — and it sucked.

I took almost two years to get my first client.

My first was a reverse mortgage client. The next month, I had five more. Three months later, I lost them all because Facebook did a big algorithm change, all the campaigns stopped working, and I didn’t know what to do.
But in that process, I realized that my passion is not in working with real estate people — it’s working in B2B niches.

(B2B, or "business to business," means that one company sells products or services directly to another company, instead of selling to individual customers).

Enter: LinkedIn.

I’d been an executive for years working in the church system, so I can speak the language. I realized that I could apply the same marketing techniques I’d learned in LMV to LinkedIn.
So, I started working on marketing campaigns to help business owners connect with the right potential partners.

Today, our businesses earn six figures per month, and I absolutely love what I do.

Step-by-Step Strategy

1. Find a business owner on LinkedIn in an industry you want to work with.

2. Research what kind of professionals they could create strategic partnerships with.

3. Create written content to post on their LinkedIn to attract those types of professionals.

4. From that biz owner’s account, send connection requests to people in those professions.

5. Select the top 10 best fits for partnerships.

6. Reach out to them with a customized message including their name and something specific about their account.

7. Build a bit of a relationship, and then offer to set up a meeting to discuss how your businesses could help build each other.

Example: A gym owner could spend thousands of dollars on Facebook ads to sell memberships…
OR…
I could set him up with the concrete business in that town that has 600 employees, build a relationship with the HR director, and offer them a 50% discount to add gym memberships into their benefit packages.
Now, that gym owner gets 600 clients.

Businesses can win BIG on LinkedIn.
You’re going for those BIG wins for your clients—not just the small monthly wins—so, they’re going to want to keep working with you.

Maybe you’re an independent insurance salesperson — would you rather land one client OR connect with a local retail store that has 20 employees who need coverage?

Maybe you own a bakery — what if we connected you to the person who handles all the Chamber of Commerce business networking events?

There are very few businesses that this doesn’t work for.

You can spend $10 to get a $20 client, or you can spend $10 to get 100 of them. I prefer the larger ROI.

Isn’t Everyone + Their Mom Doing Digital Marketing Today?

It’s not about what everyone’s doing — it’s about the impact YOU have on the people you work with.

I started with some simple campaign set-ups and showing business owners how to communicate on LinkedIn — so they could get meaningful conversations with people who would say yes to their offer.

The first month we started offering this service, we got 14 clients. A few months later, we got 39 new clients in one month. At one point, we had 177 LinkedIn clients — and our best month brought in $250k for our business.

Today, we have three “models” we focus on:

1. Connection campaigns — We assess a business and build out its LinkedIn strategy to get them real connections that have a high probability of turning into business partnerships.

2. Social media management — We completely build out a company’s LinkedIn, IG, and Google “brand,” including connection campaigns and content creation.

3. Coaching — I now work directly with companies who want to grow their entire business operating system.

All this started with us just learning the basics of how to do digital marketing, then learning which parts I was really good at.

How to Price Yourself

Something I teach entrepreneurs who are starting a side hustle today is to figure out what you need to make per month as a minimum.
Then figure out how many hours per week you can commit to making that (while still working your job).

Divide that income amount by the number of hours — that’s how much you’ll need to make per hour to reach your goal with the time you have.

Example:
Let’s say your goal is $5,000 per month, and you’re dedicating 20 hours per week.
5000 / 20 = 250.
That means you need to make $250 per hour.

Now, your first client probably won’t pay you $250 / hour right away, but this is what you’re working toward.

So, maybe you earn $50 / hour first, do some good work for them and build up your confidence, then charge your next client $75 / hour. And just keep getting better and charging more until you’re hitting your income goal.

Once you’re earning $5k in 20 hours — you can ask yourself, “What if I did this full time and put 40 hours in?”

Tools + Costs to Run the Biz

One of the reasons I fell in love with this online business is because your overhead costs are so low. If you do it right and focus on getting good value for your clients, your profit margins are ridiculous. I think ours right now are around 82% — and that’s with full-time employees.

In the beginning, you could run this service with no costs to you — if you’re willing to do everything yourself. But if you want to speed up the process of finding business connections and scheduling social content, here’s what you could start with:

1. LinkedIn Sales Navigator — $60 USD / month. This automates the process of connecting with the type of business owners you’re looking for.

2. Hootsuite — $80 USD / month. Any social scheduling platform would work here, as it allows you to create a bunch of content and pre-schedule it to go out on that business owner’s LinkedIn, IG, Facebook, etc.

How to Get Clients

We get all of our clients through referrals now, but in the beginning I beat Fiverr up over the head.

It made more sense to me to put myself out there on websites where people are specifically looking for work.

Join Fiverr, Upwork, Freelancer, or find some small business networking Facebook groups that are specific to your area.

How did we actually get our first clients on Fiverr? We low-balled everybody so we could build up our profile.
We would literally find people on there who were looking at $300 LinkedIn campaign setups, and we’d offer to do it for $30.

We had a game, and we were playing it. We were gonna get to the top, then increase our prices.

Because, again, fail as often and as fast as you can. I’d rather learn if this works on a $30 client than on a $3,000 client.

I took the exact same approach when I started coaching. It’s served me well.

Daily Hack For Productivity

There’s something to be said for writing down your to-do list. I don’t use computer lists because those can just remain open and get forgotten about.

I have a physical notepad next to me all the time where I write down what I need to get done today. Every single day I do this without fail. And if there’s something I didn’t get done today, it gets moved to tomorrow’s list.

If I’m laying in bed and an idea comes to my mind, I write it down. I refuse to let things die. If I write it down, it’s not in my head anymore.

One Weird Wealth Habit

Find a way to draw those lines for yourself, so your business doesn’t sneak up and become all you ever think about.

Living by my to-do list and making sure I stay on top of my tasks is really what gives me that mental space to then clock out of my work.

In my life, it’s God first and then it’s the people I love. Business will always bow down to those things.

So, when I’m done with my day, I take 15 minutes to look at my list, write things down for tomorrow, and then I can close the book and go enjoy my evening with my family.

Plus, then I come back to work the next day and I’ve already got my game plan.

For Aspiring Entrepreneurs

1. Don’t fear spending money. The reality is, most people don’t take action if they have no skin in the game. So, if you’re considering a program like LMV to help build your business, be willing to invest in yourself. If the thought of losing that money hurts — you’ll try a lot harder.

2. Don’t try to avoid failure. Fail as quickly and as often as you can, especially in the beginning. The best way to improve is to learn what didn’t work, and the only way to learn what doesn’t work is to try and fail. If you’re failing, you’re making it happen.

3. Ask yourself what you’re actually committed to. People “opportunity hop” because they don’t know what they want. Every online business has worked for someone, so it can work for you. It’s just a matter of decision — are you going to make it work or not?

After one month of publishing these newsletters, we’ve found that the people we interview often have overlapping advice.

Find Ben’s BONUS advice in our end-of-month issue, where we’ll compare it to two others to give YOU the top takeaways!