Ethan Brooks

@torchindex great advice.

Agency is the easiest biz to start And the hardest to survive once it starts growing Most agencies hit $100k/mo and die 80 hours a week as glorified employees to their clients I hit $10M annual revenue after realizing growth outpacing ops is a death sentence You need systems to handle the chaos of scaling deal flow You need to fire clients & employees You need to raise prices & protect margin But most people don’t know how to inform these decisions Good news is the ops stack is simple Only requirement is not being a complete idiot And a PM who understands automation & can put out fires (this will be you or your partner in early days) I built it gradually at first & then hired for it. Do not try to do it all yourself. You will get cooked 1) Airtable 50 deals in flight. Pings flying. Nobody ever on the same page This is how agencies decompose Airtable is your command center. Source of truth for deal flow & company metrics Needs to be on a monitor 24/7. Will replace 20 tabs & a nervous breakdown Everyone on your team lives in it - CRM - Project boards - Fulfillment tracking - KPI scorecards (revenue, AR aging, etc) - Time series charting I have lost track of $70k in revenue because I had no clear view of the operation Order creates hyperawareness Hyperawareness protects scale 2) Notion Your company’s collective memory. Access everything in 3 clicks - SOPs (Looms, Miros etc) - Company docs / FAQs - Sales collateral - Case studies - Quarterly / Annual planning - Meeting notes Nothing breaks if someone disappears No more scrambling for links/docs Amnesia is an overlooked efficiency killer 3) Discord Company war room. Slack sucks I don’t care Voice channels as “offices” for every team member to sit in during biz hours Every live deal gets its own thread Channels for each team member Notification system across the stack (more on this later) I have churned clients after $30k engagements because I had no visibility on comms & timelines Chaos thrives in silence Comms should be alive & productive 4) Harvest Every minute must be tracked and tied to dollars You’ll be disgusted by what you see Every untracked hour is cash leaving your pockets Tracking time exposes: - Employees who need to be fired - Time sink clients who are losing you money - Tangible cost of scope creep - Redundant tasks ready for automation Will help you catch employees logging 10 min tasks as an hour etc Poison hides in unmeasured time One of the simplest moves I wish I did sooner 5) Xero / QuickBooks etc Any bookkeeping software that allows for integrations Marry Airtable & your books. Nothing in your finances should be a question mark No gap between your financial reality vs. your operational reality Simple yet most people don’t have it down Numbers don’t lie. But they can deceive 6) Zapier / n8n etc This is where your systems start talking Automation is gasoline. Pour too much & it burns everything down Needs constant attention But done right it’s a weapon Examples Across This Stack: Fulfillment - Deal in Airtable set to “In Progress” - Invoice auto created in Xero - Finance gets pinged on Discord to QA & invoice - Team gets pinged on Discord with their responsibilities - Airtable tasks for each automatically created - They complete them & mark as “Complete” - Automated Discord message with relevant info - Account manager shares info with client Time Analysis - Deals in Airtable sent to Harvest - Team tracks time - Time spent on each deal sent to Airtable - Airtable interface visualizing revenue to time spent - Filter by client to see profit leaks - You now know which clients need to be fired Scale suffocates in the gaps of your operation Gaps get smaller & less visible the more you grow Fix them or they will cripple you

@scaling_shields this is interesting concept.

6 steps to becoming rich online 1. build a 10k/day cold email machine 2. pile up your case studies and send em out before your calls 3. imessage or whatsapp leads before calls to pre-sell them 4. have a VA to do shitty tasks 5. look handsome on sales calls 6. have a decent service

@Seannywilson impressive,

I’m an ex-Navy pilot. ​ 3 things it taught me: ​ 1) Pressure reveals gaps. 2) Chaos demands systems. 3) Failure is data. ​ That's outbound in a nutshell. ​ When your campaign fails, you never have a channel problem. ​ You have a system gap. ​ Fill it. ​ That’s why 99% don’t make it.

@scaling_shields impressive and worth it

i had to sacrifice a full year of my life at 18 yrs old 365 days is all it took now, i live in marbella i make $65k/mo was it worth it chat?

@AlexHormozi exactly, this is great

Deep down you already know what you should be doing. Help more than you hate. Create more than you complain. Leave things better than you found them. The secret to getting ahead is doing what everyone knows, but no one does.

What are your best strategies to maximize lead to booking rate?

@scaling_shields good advice

i dont wanna hear anyone complain about not being at $50k/mo if they dont: 1. send at least 10k cold emails/day 2. have a pre call trust building sequence 3. have a decent offer

@levikmunneke Yeah, this is a powerful attitude.

Every time I post my cold email math people laugh at my “low” metrics. The metrics don’t mean shit. It’s a machine, only two things matter - How much money goes in? - How much money comes out? I do not care if it takes 1,000,000 emails to sign 1 client. If it has a good ROI I’m running it. simple.

@AlexHormozi Wow, this changes my perspective... thanks

The difference between your business and one 10x your size is: whatever big marketing push you’d make to launch something, they just do it all the time. Volume negates luck.

@cem_hasoglu This is impressive.

i know a guy making $600k/month from cold email no brand, no ads, no social presence just 6k emails a day and a VA you’re out here designing logos like it’s 2014

@Seannywilson very true

I’ve been in outbound for 5+ years. ​ I immediately: ​ - 2x’d reply rates - Cut spam complaints by 50% - Booked more qualified meetings - Built actual relationships - Scaled without burning domains ​ …when I started segmenting every campaign by pain point. ​ There aren't many things simpler than segmentation that bring as many returns.