Name: Brenton Gieser
Company: http://convospark.com/
Blog: http://brentongieser.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/brentongieser

Today I speak with my good friend Brenton Gieser about relationships, startups, and his experience with building a digital marketing agency.

The first video dives into detail about our relationships as entrepreneurs.  I feel Brenton is unique in his relationship in that his girlfriend is deeply involved with his startup and acts as his driver and motivator.  They often work together at coffee shops and support each other in every way.

The second video is about Brenton’s experience with building a digital marketing agency.  A lot of the advice centers around the fact that Brenton was able to leverage his previous agency experience to build Convospark.

Hope you guys enjoy the videos!  Below you will find summarized recaps of our talking points:

Video 1: Startups and Relationships

Does your relationship with Catherine make your relationship easier or harder?

Brenton’s relationship with Catherine helps propel him forward.  She’s the one who gives Brenton the encouragement that he needs and constantly keeps him focused with what he needs to do at that point in time.

My relationship has made startups easier as well because she is the one constant in my every-changing lifestyle.  It feels good to know that there will always be one aspect of my life that I can always depend on.

How do you balance your time between the startup and the relationship?

Brenton doesn’t make it more difficult than it needs to be.  They work together and enjoy their time together because they know they’re making progress in their lives.

Kim and I don’t really talk too much about my startup.  I like to keep things separate as much as possible… not sure why.  I’m going to make it a point to talk to her more about the startup and keep her involved  :)

What is your number 1 priority in your life right now?

For Brenton, friends and family are always number 1.  Although his actions aren’t always aligned, he tries to put his family, friends, and girlfriend first in his life.  The people in his life also need to understand that he is running a company and that they need to give him time and space to focus on his career efforts.

If you had $10 million in the bank right now, what would you be doing?

Straight to Vegas!  :P

Like the majority of entrepreneurs, Brenton would be doing the same thing that he is doing right now: trying to enrich the lives of others.

Video 2: How to build a digital marketing agency

What did you learn about yourself and about building an agency when you made the transition from corporate to startup?

It wasn’t as big of a change for Brenton as he thought it would be.  The main change was that Brenton was now responsible for feeding himself.  The mindset of an entrepreneur never changes though, and Brenton has always had the mindset of self-reliance and the hunger to do something great.

Are you currently living off of savings, earning a salary, or are you funded?

The team is salary based right now.  The majority of the members on the team are 25 years old, and understand that at this stage of their lives, they don’t need extravagant, expensive things in their lives.  They know they need to focus on their careers and establish something great while they’re young, care-free, and have no major responsibilities.

What can someone expect to do as the President of an agency?

1: Keep the vision consistent in the organization

2. Recognize key future opportunities and make sure to keep the company goals in line while making progress towards those opportunies

3. Organize the team for meetings, decisions, and collaboration

4. Do whatever it takes to get the business off the ground

What advice would you give to an entrepreneur who wants to leave their current agency to start their own?

You need a strong network of customers that will hopefully go with you during your transition.  You want to make sure you are strong from a revenue and client perspective from the get-go.

Secondly, you need to know how you’re adding value to your clients.  Social media marketing is very saturated, and you need to be unique and standout with the services that you are providing.

3 years ago, I left my corporate job to pursue Future Delivery full time with Yu-kai, Stephen, and Joseph.  Back then, we had no understanding of how to run a company, how to finish a product that people would pay for, or how to sell our product.  The result: two failed startups.

A year ago I was given the opportunity to build a digital marketing agency.  In one year, my agency team and I grew it to a $1.2 million company and I was making as much money as my investment banker friends.

A sophomore in college once told me:

“Jun, if you had made it as an Investment Banker, you would never have become an entrepreneur.  The money is all that matters.”

I used to doubt myself.  What if I had become an investment banker?  Would I still blog or be an entrepreneur?  Or would I settle down with my nice salary and live a long, comfortable life?

You can’t possibly know who you are until you’re put into the situation.  3 years out of college, I was given the choice:

Follow the money: Stay with the agency and make a high 6-figure salary by the end of this year
or
Follow my heart: Leave the agency and work side-by-side with my startup team on Viralogy

I now know who I am.  And I’m so very happy to be the person that I’ve always wanted to be.

I left my agency last week - all the money in the world can’t hold me back from following my heart.

There is only one goal on my mind right now: To have a successful exit with my startup and to do it with my team

And you know what, we’re closer to reaching this goal than ever before.  We’re so close that we can taste it, and it tastes so good:

1. We have successfully launched our product
2. We have validated that our product works and increased revenue for our clients by up to 15%
3. We have paying customers
4. We currently building more and better features for our product

For those of you who are curious about what my company does, this video will tell you in detail:

The team is ready to receive an angel round of funding that will allow us to increase inbound leads, scale our infrastructure, and increase our product features. If you or someone you know has money to invest, the following sections detail the pain we solve, the market opportunity, the business model, the milestones we’ve hit, and what we plan to do with your invested dollars:

Pain and Solution

Ecommerce stores lose a significant percentage of their invested marketing dollars because they drive paid traffic through adwords, SEO, and social media, but fail to convert the traffic into paying customers.  Ecommerce stores have vital purchase data about shoppers, but lack the tools to utilize purchase data that will increase sales conversions and decrease shopping cart abandonment.

Viralogy solves this pain by using purchase data to create tools that automatically generate higher profits.  Our tools predict what a shopper will most likely buy, and displays these products through product, shopping cart, and email recommendations.

An example:

Market Opportunity

The ecommerce market is predicted to grow to $340 Billion by 2013 (Forrester).  Of that $340 Billion, $100 Billion comes from the tens of thousands of medium-sized ecommerce stores that are our main target.

Our target client: Ecommerce store that generates $500,000 - $10,000,000 in annual revenue.

Viralogy is in the perfect position to service these clients because our product is cost-effective, has proven to increase revenue for clients, and is a plug-and-play solution that easily integrates with any ecommerce platform.

Business Model

Our current pricing model:

Traction and Progress

Viralogy has gained the following traction:

1. Full product launch with 3 features
2. Validation that the product works (increase client sales revenue by 11%) and validation that the target market needs our product
3. Website Page Rank of 5
4. Launch of Grade Your Store - inbound marketing strategy
5. Won 1st place in the CINACON 2009 VC Pitch Competition
6. Won 1st place in Jason Calacanis’ This Week in Startups LA pitch competition,
7. Top 10 (out of 140 start-ups) in the Juice Pitcher Competition hosted by TheFunded.com

Investment Plan

Viralogy raised $50,000 in funding from the President of CINA, FVP of American Premier Bank, and UC Irvine Lecturer. We are seeking $350,000 in investments to scale our sales, expand product offerings, and improve our infrastructure over the next 2 years.

Below is the bottom-up five year financial projections. Projections assume success in fund-raising goal:

Viralogy will work towards a $60M acquisition within five years by a larger competitor, a data analytics company, or a large online marketing firm that wants to expand its services.

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Thank you so very much for supporting my team!!!

This is an Entrepreneur Spotlight guest post from Maren Donovan from Escaping the 9 to 5

I’ve been on an entrepreneurial path since the age of 19, and its felt like I’ve been fighting an uphill battle for the majority of the time.  People around me don’t understand why I’d rather work for 10 hours straight than go hang out with everyone at the river and enjoy a beautiful day outside.  I tell them it’s because I’m battle born, which usually brings odd looks, but being battle born isn’t a bad thing and if you understand it it’ll change the way you do business forever.

Nevada, the place I currently reside, is nicknamed the “Battle Born State” after their induction into the Union during the Civil War. Similarly, the battle born entrepreneur is launched into struggles and challenges before they’re necessarily ready.  It’s because of these hardships that the entrepreneur learns the value of patience, diligence, and persistence, attributes that you’d never find if your path in life was laid out for you nicely with a little map.

How I became battle born

My battle born story starts in college. I worked at bars after school to earn extra income and it was while cleaning grime from under beer mats that I realized “this is ridiculous” and something changed inside of me. I saw that I was trading my precious time on this earth for $7.00 an hour with the hopes that tips would be really good and my hourly wage would come up to something like $20 or $30 an hour. Now at the time $30 an hour sounded amazing, but after a year or two in the business I knew alll I was doing was wasting my time making someone else rich.

So shortly before graduating I decided taking the “traditional” path was the worst possible scenario and instead with no experience and only a burning desire to guide me I was going to build a business empire.

Now empire building is not as easy as it sounds. I spent a good 6 months hemorrhaging almost all of my savings trying to learn the ropes of starting a business. When it finally clicked (which coincided quite closely with me running totally out of funds) I realized the reason most people stay in a go nowhere job is because it’s far easier than fighting your way to financial success.

There is a dip in starting your own business (as illustrated in the book by Seth Godin) that most people never come out of, you have to claw your way up and out, but when you do you’ll realize that things will be easier from here on out mostly because you’ve built confidence in your own abilities and proven to your subconcious that yes, you can do it.

Being battle born doesn’t leave you after your first win

I’ve passed through fires again since then, over and over in fact. Times where I have laid on my bedroom floor staring at the ceiling and wondering if not becoming a lawyer or mid level manager after college was the worst choice of my life. During those lows you’ve got to let the negative feelings wear themselves out by taking each “disaster” scenario to it’s logical end.

Usually after I panic for a good hour or two before I realize “worst case I sell all my stuff and couch surf for a few months until I get back on my feet… maybe I’ll have to bartend to make enough money to start another business”. But heck, that isn’t so bad. Once you visualize the worst and see that in fact it isn’t life or death you know you’ve reached it - you are a battle born entrepreneur and you’ll always be okay.

Being battle born keeps you from going soft

It’s good to pass through lots of fire early on because it refines you and keeps you from growing soft - a killer in both the animal kingdom and when you’re starting a business. Being a battle born entrepreneur means is that you know what the bad times look like, so in the good
times you can celebrate… you’ve known want so when there is plenty you’re all the happier. But it also means that you never completely loose the war time tension within, regardless if your profits are $10,000 or $10 million, you’ll always be sleeping with an eye open.

Try never to loose that fire, if you weren’t battle born (i.e. you fell into a cushy position or have family money) I’d suggest you try to fake it for a while. This means don’t allow yourself all the slack of a big nest egg or investor fund to fall back on, try to put yourself mentally in the position of a struggling entrepreneur. If you do this you’ll find many areas in your current venture that you could ‘tighten the belt on’ so to speak and minimalism in business is always a good thing.

So check yourself, are you in the midst of a battle right now? Are you weary, does it feel like there is no relenting from the forces you are up against? It’s alright, this is totally normal. Success is just past the “I can’t go on any longer” mark, if you can make it there you’ll reap the sweet fruits of true entrepreneurship and you’ll be able to boldly brag generations later that you indeed were battle born.

Maren Kate is an entrepreneur striving to live an extraordinary life, she blogs about her experiences at Escapingthe9to5.com

Does a startup succeed for the same reasons that a relationship succeeds?

Does your ability to build a successful startup translate over to an ability to maintain a healthy relationship (or vice versa)?

I asked the community a question:

“What is more difficult to achieve: A successful relationship or a successful startup?”

I was surprised with the feedback that I received…

Relationships and Startups are equally difficult

Shane Mac:
I think they are so different but effect each other due to sharing of time/effort… they effect each other but running them is completely different.

Federico Imparatta:
A successful startup is like a healthy relationship, especially if you want it to last.

Ryan Paugh:
If you’re in a good start up and a good relationship, they’re equally difficult.  Oftentimes for me it’s the conflict between the two that brings the most stress.

Brenton Gieser:

Where I see parallels

• Emotions battles: You vs. your girlfriend; You vs. your team
• Loyalty and dedication; don’t spread yourself too thin and maintain focus on one thing to gain maximum results
• Pressure to marriage; pressure to work towards an exit

Anne Good:
Both take work but in different ways. Spouse/family should come 1st at the end of the day

Skot Carruth:
They are equally hard, and equally harder if you are trying to do both at the same time

Relationships are more difficult

Carlos Miceli
Your guess would be wrong!  My first company is doing pretty good. Relationships on the other hand… Healthy is subjective

Jonathan Mead
Relationship, hands down — it’s not even a close to being comparable.

Christopher Click
Ha, definitely has to be a healthy relationship, but maybe compare failed marriage rate vs. failed business rate???

Grant Stanley
A healthy relationship. I can write a business plan for a start-up. My girlfriends just hate it when I try to write a business plan for our relationships.

Brian Linton
Tough question - healthy relationship is harder.  My girlfriend and I work together on the startup right now, which makes the relationship even harder sometimes.

Andy Drish
Most startups are built in hopes of selling it at some point.  AKA - there is an end goal.  But relationships don’t have any sort of end goal.

Startups are more difficult

Monica O’Brien
Successful startup - but I have a great husband, so I’m not so partial

Financial Samurai: Once you’ve found someone to spend your life with it gets easy and everything comes unforced.  A startup is infinitely harder!
.
.

Can you succeed without trying?

In a startup, there will come times when you have to do things that you hate doing: sales, coding, or networking at an event.  There will come times that you have to survive off of Ramen noodles or fire an employee to conserve cash flow.

You have to put in hard work, time, and a lot of effort to make a startup successful.

On the other hand, my relationship with Kim is effortless - we don’t have to try to make each other happy or try to make the relationship work.  We just are and we just do, and who we are and what we do makes us very happy.

Monica, Samurai, and I have found that special person that makes love easy.

Is there a special formula that makes a startup effortless, similar to how my relationship with Kim is effortless?  I believe the answer is NO, and is the reason why I feel startups are more difficult than relationships.

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What do you think?  Have you been more successful in your relationships or in your startups?

Is it possible to build an effortless startup?

We have made more progress in the past 3 weeks than in any other point in time in our startup lives.  We’re closing deals, setting up investor pitches, and finishing the product.

I should be ecstatic right now;  I should be on a total high because we’re so close to hitting a milestone that we’ve never hit before: a finished product that is bringing in revenue for the company.

And yet, I’m not fully enjoying myself.

I’ve talked about this before, as for a time I felt like I couldn’t pursue what I loved to do.  But I can tell you honestly and whole-heartedly right now that I am loving my career choice.

So what is it?  What’s causing the empty feeling…

The answer: I’m missing my other half - Life just isn’t complete without Kim beside me.

The special things I miss about Kim Ear:

I miss going to the super market and buying groceries to cook at home together.  I would broil the Salmon while Kim tosses the salad.  We’re an awesome cooking sensation!

I miss renting a movie from Redbox.  Kim is indecisive when choosing a movie, so I’d get frustrated because we’re holding up the line with 5 people waiting  behind us.

I miss our Disneyland annual pass even though I hate Disneyland.  Kim would get so excited about going, and by the end of the day, she’d be sad because all I’d do is complain that Disneyland is a big waste of time.  I promise to work harder on enjoying the moment.

I miss watching bands live.  The best live show I saw with Kim was Lykke Li.  Kim promised me about a year ago that she’d take me to go watch Dengue Fever; she has yet to fulfill it 

I miss spooning.  Kim is a cuddle monster who would win a Gold medal if snuggling was an Olympic sport.

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I know that at our age we’re suppose to put our careers first before anything else.  That I should wait and I have a successful startup before Kim and I decide to move in together.

But how I want to ask her to leave her career behind in Southern California and move in with me in Northern California.

But this empty feeling is necessary.  It’s necessary for my startup to succeed.

The benefits of a long distance relationship for entrepreneurs

1. Save money because you just don’t go out

I don’t date up here in Northern California, so I save A LOT of money because I don’t take girls out to dinner and buy them gifts.

Secondly, when I go out with my friends, I save a lot of money because I don’t buy girls drinks and I don’t buy a lot of drinks myself because I’m usually the designated driver.

Furthermore, I just don’t go out to clubs or lounges that much anymore because I’m a single guy with a startup to take care of.  I can’t pick up girls when I’m out and I have a lot of work to do on my startup, so I prefer to stay at home and hang out with Stephen (the CTO).

2. No more distractions

Since the girlfriend is at home, I can get by with eating peanut butter and jelly and not cooking a REAL, nutritious meal.  I don’t need to take anyone to the movies, spend time renting a movie and watching it at home, or spend quality relationship time at the mall, at the park, or at a museum.  Don’t get me wrong, I love the quality time, but since Kim is not up here, I’m not “required” to do it.

3. The time you do spend together is appreciated so much more

I see Kim about once a month.  The time that we do spend together is appreciated so much more because we don’t get to see each other every day.  Everything from shopping together to sex is experienced that much more passionately because we’re apart most of the time.

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Relationships are rarely talked about in the startup world.  It’s all about building the strong team, getting funding, or keeping it simple stupid.  But I feel that the ability to maintain a healthy, passionate relationship with the person you love while building a startup is crucial to the success of the startup.

To all the girlfriends (and boyfriends) who lovingly support the entrepreneur who you’re with, I salute you!  Thank you for being understanding and allowing us to take risks.  Thank you for understanding why the startup has to be the number 1 priority.

Thank you Kim.

I’ve never had a mentor.  Sure there are influential people that give me good and bad advice, but there has never been a go to person that I can turn to in my time of need.

I personally view a mentor as someone older and more experienced who takes the time to personally give guidance, advice, and takes an emotional investment in your success.  A mentor is someone who follows up with you with an email or phone call to ask how your venture went, or who is able to meet up with you once a month to offer advice via coffee.

I’ve never had that.

Maybe its my fault.  Maybe I just come off as an arrogant 20-something that thinks he knows everything and doesn’t need the advice of someone older.

Perhaps I’m not ready for a mentor

Enter Buddhist proverb:

“When the student is ready, the teacher will appear”

Perhaps I just haven’t found the right person yet, or perhaps my personality type doesn’t mesh well with the older crowd.  I’ve personally asked two people in my life to become my mentors.  They didn’t necessarily say “no,” but they didn’t say “yes” either.  It kind of sucks to admit you want to learn directly from someone and have them just brush you off.

Why I don’t need a mentor

I can understand the benefits of a mentor.  The mentor has been there and done that, allowing you to learn from her mistakes and apply those principles to your life so that you don’t have to repeat those mistakes. If life were a video game, the mentor could tell you the secret shortcut to get directly from level 3 to level 6.

At the end of the day, I don’t need a mentor.

If I need wordpress advice, I can turn to Andrew Norcross.  If I need a fun, inspirational Skype chat, I can turn to Shane Mac.  If I need personal finance advice, I can turn to Adam Baker or the Financial Samurai.

I don’t need a mentor because I have awesome friends who care about me and who know I care about them.

I want to do this by myself

If I’ve met you in person or online and we’ve chatted (be it through Skype, Twitter, or on the phone), then I consider you my friend.  Actually, I consider you more than that because I would go out of my way to assist you in any way that I can.

With that said, I don’t view you as a “mentor.”  I view you as a teammate, a partner who is currently in the trenches like me.

I want to be able to accomplish success on my own.  I want to be able to reach a point in my life where I am completely happy and satisfied, and know for certain that I paved the road to success by myself.

Do you have a mentor, or are you like me who has “trial and error” as his mentor?

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This post is part of the Roundtable on Mentors created by Holly Hoffman.

Let me start off by saying that I truly appreciate every email that I get from my readers.  I may not be able to get back to you right away, but if you put time and effort into connecting with me and asking a very good question, then I will put an equal amount of effort in my response.  Hence, the person who emailed me last week gets a blog post and video response because of his sincere email and enthusiasm to connect.

If you have any questions about entrepreneurship, relationships, or business, please shoot me an email at me [at] JunLoayza.com and I promise to respond to you with an awesome, well thought out answer.

View the video above to see my video response.  Click on “Read More” below to view my text response.

The main reason I’m considering entrepreneurship is because I’m unhappy with the corporate world.  The corporate ladder takes too long and “paying my dues” feels like I’m not realizing my full potential.  At the same time, I don’t want to devote my life to a goal that may not materialize.  What should I do?

The worst possible reason to become an entrepreneur is because you hate the corporate world.  If you don’t like your corporate job, it does not automatically follow that you will like starting your own company.  It may just mean that you’re in the wrong industry, that you’re working in the wrong company, or that you just completely chose the wrong career path.

I think it’s better to phrase your question like this: “I’m unhappy with my current job.  What career path suits me best?”

You’re going to have to figure this out on your own through trial and error and self reflection.  If you’ve been an accountant for a year and you hate accounting, what the heck are you still doing there?  You should be networking, training yourself, and doing everything possible to change career paths into something you actually like to do and that isn’t draining your life into misery.

So to sum up the answer to your first question, you must do the following:

1. Figure out what you love to do
   • This doesn’t have to be something you’re deeply passionate about.  Just something that you’re proud of doing and that puts a smile on your face
2. Figure out what you can be the best in the world at
   • Keep in mind, “best in the world” is variable.  If you want to be a Photographer, then “best in the world” means being the best Asian Model photographer in the city of Boulder, Colorado.  Now that’s a niche you can sign me up for!
3. Figure out how you’re going to get paid
   • You can become a freelancer, entrepreneur, or join a corporation that you respect, value, and that you love to work for

The second part of your question is a red flag for me: “I don’t want to devote my life to a goal that may not materialize”

Nothing in this life is guaranteed.  You may change jobs and find that you hate your new job as well; you may start a company and realize 6 months into it that it’s just not going to be successful.  Failure is a necessary part of life.

No person has become successful without previous failures

Great entrepreneurs know how to do two things extremely well:

1. They immediately quit projects or ventures that they cannot be the best in the world at
2. They persist on projects or ventures that they can be the best in the world at

For more information about knowing when to quit, please read The Dip

If you’re afraid of failing, then don’t start your own company.

If you had 30 days to live, would you still keep up your entrepreneurial lifestyle, or would you use that time to spend time with the people you care about?

This is a neat question.  I will first answer it literally, and then I will answer it in a more helpful way.

Literally: If I had 30 days left to live, I would immediately quit my job, leave my startup, and spend my time with my friends, family, and girlfriend.  I would probably go on a 4 day cruise with Kim to Mexico, I’d race my brother in a bicycle race every Sunday until I beat him, and I would cook for my mom every night.  Oh, and I’d also take my dad out to the fanciest dinner he’s ever been to.  I would also visit my family in Peru, finally visit Japan, and hopefully figure out a way to leave a legacy within 30 days.  I would say have a kid with my girlfriend, but I think it would be very irresponsible to leave her as a single mom.

A more helpful response: Yes, part of the reason I’m an entrepreneur is because there is the potential for a huge payout out in a short amount of time.  I mean, who wouldn’t want to be 27 years old (I’m 24 right now so I’m giving myself a 3 year window) with a successful startup who just got bought out for $30 million.

I think the better question is this:

“If you had $10,000,000 in the bank, would you still be doing what you’re doing?”

If the above is the question, then my answer is “Yes,” I would definitely still be doing what I’m doing.  I love the satisfaction of building something that is my own, and the responsibility of making or breaking a company.  I love to find pain in this world and and be the one who solves it.  I love to build teams, connect people, and ultimately build a product or service that thousands or more use on a daily basis.

I would still build startups even if I had all the money in the world.

Most old people emphasize spending time with your loved ones because that’s the most important thing, but I don’t know if that’s a universal truth that applies to very driven people such as yourself.

Don’t mistake entrepreneurship with having to ignore your friends, family, and girlfriend.  I am an entrepreneur, but am able to spend quality time with my loved ones.  For tips on how to accomplish this, please read the following blog posts:

1. How to spend guilt free time with the ones you love
2. How to keep your girlfriend happy as an entrepreneur

Family is the most important thing in this world.  Make sure you give them the time, attention, and love that they deserve.

I was in the client kickoff call with the Director of SEO and Director of PPC.  After an effective 30-minute conference call, the client asks THE question that will set ALL campaign expectations:

“When should we schedule our weekly meetings to discuss the campaign progress?”

Director of SEO: “Best times for me are Tuesdays or Thursdays before 11am PST”

Director of PPC: “Same here”

Me (Director of Social Media): “My team does not schedule weekly meetings with our clients; instead, our Account Managers send weekly reports at the end of each week.  We will however schedule a monthly campaign strategy call to make sure the campaign is on track and we are hitting our success metrics.”

… a pause…

The client: “Sounds good.  Please email me best times to meet on a monthly basis and we’ll coordinate appropriately.  [Directed to the Director of SEO and of PPC] We’ll meet Thursdays at 10am PST for our weekly call.”

[hangs up phone]

All three departments sat on the same call.

All three departments are expected to hit their target goals.

However, SEO and PPC must take 1 hour each week to meet with the client.  Social Media, on the other hand, only needs to take 1 hour each month to meet with the client.

Read more to learn how to discipline your clients in order to run an effective machine called “work”

Keep in Mind

I’m the Director of Social Media and President of SocialMediaMarketing.com.  I have decision-making power and am completely in charge of what my team does and doesn’t do.

With that said, the following advice applies if you are:

1. The founder of your startup company
2. A Director or Manager at a small agency
3. Dealing w/ clients that pay $10,000/month or less

The following advice does not apply to you if you are:

1. In an entry-level position
2. At a large, enterprise level company with established client-interaction systems and operations
3. Dealing w/ clients that pay more than $10,000/month

Discipline your clients

All clients care about is ROI. If you show that you are producing results and making the client money, then the client will be happy and leave you alone.

This post would completely suck if I advised you to “do good work.”  I’ll assume good work as a given; instead, this post will focus on setting expectations, delivery of information, and phone call rejection to email strategy.

Setting Expectations

From the very beginning, you need to push for 1 conference call a month and weekly report summaries of work.  Tell the client that you do this with all clients throughout many different industries and there has never been a problem.

What if the client pushes hard to have a call once a week?

If the client continues to push for weekly phone calls, explain that you would like to start off with 1 conference call per month for the first two months.  If during the two months the client is not satisfied with the work that your team produces, you will gladly transition to 1 conference call per week.

Don’t be weak and don’t let the client beat you.  You must discipline the client and make sure they understand the way in which this business relationship will work.  You are dictator who has been hired to help the client make more money; they need to let you do your job and produce the results in the way that you work most effectively.

Results expectations must be clearly documented and written in the agreement

The contract that the client signs must contain a complete time-line and breakdown of the delivery of services.  The client needs to know that within 2 weeks, the blog will be designed and developed; the client needs to know that in 4 weeks, your team will launch a sweepstakes on Facebook.

If the client knows what to expect and when to expect it, then the client will feel like they know exactly what you’re working on every week.

Delivery of Information

The key element for this to work is to deliver weekly reports every week consistently. This is the system that I have built:

1. I built a template for weekly reports that simply requires my Account Manager to copy and paste information into it
2. I created a document on PB Works that teaches the Account Manager how to use my weekly reports template
3. The Account Manager is instructed to email the client the weekly report every Friday end of day
4. Campaign recommendations and analysis is saved for monthly reports because they require more time to build

Note: We’re in the process of training an intern to build our weekly reports for us

Phone call rejection to email strategy

Client: “Jun, I’d like to get on a phone call to discuss a few questions I have about the campaign.”

Me: “This week is booked for me. Please send your questions to the Account Manager and CC me and we’ll make sure to answer your questions thoroughly via email.

Client: “Jun, my questions can only be addressed over the phone.  Is there any way that we can squeeze a 15 minute call somewhere?”

Important: Calls are never 15 minutes.  If you give them a phone call once, they’ll expect you to give it to them from here on out.

Me: “I just don’t have the time this week.  Send me your questions via email and I’ll make sure that the Account Manager thoroughly answers your questions to the detail.  If his answers are unsatisfactory, I’ll hop on a call with you first thing next week.”

Does this really work with clients?

Yes, it really does.

Aren’t you afraid of losing the client?

If you are hitting your goals and making the client money, then the client will not leave you.  It’s really as simple as that.

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Now you know how to discipline your clients.  Take these powers with you and begin freeing up your time from mind-numbing client interaction.

Three miles from my house I hit the wall.  I pushed as hard as I could, but my noodle legs had no effect on my forward momentum.  I tightly gripped the handle bars to maintain a straight course, but my trembling and sobbing hands uncontrollably caused the wheels to shake back and forth.  My visioned blurred and every gasp for air was accompanied by dry saliva.

Never had I felt so tired.  I screamed at the top of my lungs - a feeble attempt at a kiai - but no matter how much my mind wanted to keep pushing, my body gave up.

Slowly I pulled over to the side of the curb, and on a nearby patch of grass, I laid down, demoralized and defeated.

When I began my bike ride, the thought of failure did not cross my mind
When I began my first startup, the thought of failure did not cross my mind.

As I laid there on the grass listening to my heart pump blood through my veins, my pain did not come from physical exhaustion; rather, my pain was caused from embarrassment.  I was embarrassed because people driving by laughed at the loser who was too tired to ride his bike; I was embarrassed because my younger brother easily made the ride back home without me.

Shame made me never want to ride my bike again.

Similarly, my first startup FD Career hit a wall during the Fall of 2007.  There came a point when I wanted to stick my head underground like an ostrich, embarrassed to be at the brink of failure.  What would my family and friends think of me if they found out that I failed?  How will I ever be able to hang out with my successful UCLA peers when I have no money, no resume-experience, and no where to go with my life?

Shame and the fear of embarrassment made we want to pull the plug on all of our work because it ultimately amounted to nothing tangible in terms of revenue.

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It’s never as bad as it seems
Be patience and react with a cool heart

All it took was 10 minutes.  In 10 minutes, I caught my breath, regained motor skills, and slowly rode my bike home to eat Salmon and watch the NFL Footbal game.

As I chewed over my food, I realized the parrallel between my bike ride and what all entrepreneurs face when they fail.

When I was at the brink of death from exhaustion, I was ready to hang up my bike helmet forever; when FD Career fell apart, I was ready to forsake the startup life and run back to the corporate world.  But this response is just an emotional reaction to hitting The Wall.

You don’t need any exceptional skills or ability to overcome The Wall.  The Wall is not permanent nor is it necessarily an obstacle.  The Wall is a test of your endurance, emotional stability, and perseverance.

It’s ok to take a time out.

It’s ok if you don’t check your emails tonight.

It’s ok if you spend another 6 months at your corporate job instead of jumping the gun to build your own startup.

Be patient, and you can overcome The Wall.  Take your time and don’t make decisions when you’re emotionally distraught.  You have all the time in the world to achieve your goals.

This is for the professional who drags herself out of bed every morning to go to an unfulfilling job…

This is for the undergraduate who can’t decide on a major or career path, and has no idea how to live happily…

This is for the family who wants to break free of the routine life but has no idea where to start…

If you want to take control of your life, work where you want, live how you want, and be who you want to be, then this is for you.

I present to you: Untemplater

My posts on Untemplater will focus on how I built an internet company with barely any capital.  You can see the first post in my series here: Become a Young Entrepreneur Series Introduction.

The team and I have written a Manifesto that I am honestly very proud of and know that you will thoroughly enjoy.  You can download the Manifesto here: Untemplater Manifesto.

We are launching some great giveaways in the following weeks!  You can follow us at http://twitter.com/untemplater to get all the updates on how to enter to win our great prizes!

Your feedback is more than welcome and always appreciated!  Thank you so much for joining us on this journey and I look forward to seeing you on the site