Tai Lopez's 7 Steps to Start Your Own Marketing Agency

The social media master builds and scales multimillion-dollar businesses using these strategies.

Most people dream of starting their own business and creating a life that lets you travel and have fun while getting paid. The problem is that 99 percent of people don't follow through. But accomplishing it is easier than you think by creating a digital social media marketing agency.

Tai Lopez, member of The Oracles, says, “If I had to start out again with no money or experience, I'd find small businesses to pay me up to $10,000 per month to manage their social media."

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you can’t miss Lopez on social media. He’s leveraged social platforms to launch dozens of new businesses and scale existing ones.

He has one of the top 20 most popular TEDx talks ever. And his YouTube videos are used by some college professors to teach marketing. Why? He’s not afraid to experiment.

“I've spent $20 million running crazy social media experiments to see what works and doesn't, making tens of millions in the process.”

As a marketer, Lopez quickly noticed that small-business owners find social media intimidating. “It’s technical and always changing,” Lopez says, citing Meerkat—the defunct live streaming platform—as an example of something that was popular in 2015, but now everyone barely remembers it. “Unless you're immersed, it’s hard to keep up with how all the social platforms work.”

Lopez stresses how this creates an opportunity for you. “The secret to making money is to become valuable,” explains Lopez. “Even knowing how Facebook and Google work can be a game changer for a small business. They’ll gladly pay you forever if you can keep helping their bottom line.”

Lopez estimates that the average customer will pay you $1,500 a month—even if you work part-time. Five clients conservatively makes you $9,000 a month. That's a six-figure business.

Lopez teaches how to create your own marketing agency with social media and get small businesses to hire you. Here are seven steps to start immediately.

1. Apply social media on yourself.

“Start marketing yourself,” Lopez explains. His viral "Here in My Garage" YouTube video was seen billions of times and shot with just an iPhone, “but it convinced people that I was a capable marketer.”

2. Pick lucrative niches.

Social media marketing is a "front-loading" business model, meaning that you put in a lot of work at the start. (The opposite is a "treadmill business:” if you don’t show up to work, your income goes to zero.)

Lopez recommends focusing on attracting high-value clients like doctors, lawyers, and dentists because they won't struggle to pay you.

“Once you know how to help one dentist, it's easy to duplicate and produce consistent results for other dentists,” Lopez explains. “You’ll avoid the death trap of trading time for money and build more predictable income streams from multiple retainers.”

3. Create packages.

“Clients want different things, and some always want the ‘luxury package,’” Lopez says. “If you only have one price, you’ll lose clients who want extra services.”

Instead, Lopez recommends creating four packages: $997, $1,997, $4,997, and $9,997. That way, you have a basic service and VIP option. The difference is the amount and type of work you’ll do.

For $997, you could optimize a client's website to capture someone's email address. And create a simple email marketing funnel—a highly valuable asset—to nurture the relationship.

For $1,997, you could manage all of a client's social media accounts and create stories that build their brand. You could then add paid advertising for the more expensive packages.

"For $9,997, you could offer the same services as the $1,997 package but invest $4,000 on Google and Facebook Ads,” Lopez says. “You’d keep $4,000 profit, which is a 50 percent margin.”

4. Win clients, quickly.

“The best way to win clients is through friends, family, and referrals. If someone has never worked with you, they’ll be risk-averse to hiring you,” explains Lopez, who believes you should avoid taking any money initially.

“Do a free evaluation of their website and social accounts using a premade template. You can then confidently say, ‘Here’s what you’re doing and how I’d improve you.’

“Secure one or two clients and ask them for written or video testimonials,” he adds. “Success stories prove your credibility to other potential clients.”

5. Tell engaging stories to attract followers.

Lopez quickly built more than one million Snapchat followers. To the casual observer, he’s merely sharing his fun lifestyle, featuring models, supercars, and cool friends. But there's more at work.

“My definition of branding is to make a business interesting,” Lopez says. “Jayden Gross, one of my first students, makes over $100,000 a month with his social media marketing agency at age 22. He told me the most valuable thing I taught him was how to create a ‘brand story.’”

Instead of traditional marketing that pushes sales, Lopez recommends creating a fun, compelling, behind-the-scenes, adventurous story that continues day to day. “It’s like an ongoing commercial that will keep people engaged and coming back to watch every day.”

“Become a master at telling your client's story,” Lopez adds. “Start by recording a simple video [about their story] for their website.”

6. Track results.

“To get paid what you want, you’ve got to deserve it,” Lopez says. “You need to prove that you’re making your clients money. So, use tools like Hootsuite to track your marketing efforts and show them the results.”

7. Hire staff.

Lopez stresses the importance of becoming the Army General who builds a team to do the heavy lifting. “You at least need a personal or virtual assistant and an accountant to manage everyday operations and your money.”

Lopez shares the advice of his second mentor, Allan Nation: “You never really make money working for yourself. You make money when other people work for you.”