(upbeat music)
- Hello guys, good morning.
I'm Jen Berson.
I'm the founder of Jeneration PR,
which is a public relations
social media marketing agency
here in Los Angeles.
And I am the founder of the
Agency Accelerator Program,
where I teach people how
to launch, grow and scale
profitable, that's the
keyword, profitable PR agencies
on their terms, okay.
So one of the questions I
get asked all the time is
how did I do it.
How did I go from being a lawyer
to starting an agency, with
no training, no experience,
no contacts, for real,
and I wanna share with you
just how simple it can be.
When I say simple, I don't want
that to be mistaken as easy,
because I see that that
can be controversial.
I was running ads and somebody
jumped on the comments.
We had a nice discussion about it
and just wanna clarify
that when I say simple,
it is a lot easier to
build a successful business
when you know what to do, what to focus on
and you have a framework to follow.
It doesn't mean that clients and money
and all of that's gonna fall in your lap.
You still have to figure out
how to build your dream
business, following a framework,
and put in the effort and
be passionate about it.
And the way that I approach it,
the way that I approach my own business,
is I want to be excited
to go to work every day.
Let me know if that sounds good to you.
Give me a thumbs up, give me a
comment, give me a heck yeah.
If you are watching this on the replay,
give me a little shout,
post in the comments replay.
I will be checking comments
so I can engage with you.
And today's topic is how do
you start an agency business
with just a laptop.
And, like I said, it can be simple.
Awesome Dash, thank you.
I have notes, so if
you see me looking down
it's because I wanna make
sure that I give you guys
what I promised.
And what I promise to
deliver in this video is
why you need to put more
value on your time than money.
Holding on to every dollar,
feeling like you don't have the money
to grow and scale your business.
Also why a lack of
experience doesn't matter
when starting an online business,
and also scaling an online business.
Now that doesn't mean
I'm trying to attract talentless people.
I will show you that
skills can be acquired,
now quicker, more easily than ever.
And we're gonna talk about how
to pick a niche that offers
high value to your customers,
so you're not gonna be
trading dollars for hours,
and so that you are gonna
always be in demand.
Because you are going
to establish yourself as
the go to expert in your niche.
And we'll talk about how
and why you wanna do that.
And how to focus on the right things
so you don't waste your
time or slow your progress.
Like we want you to build
the most profitable business
as fast as you can.
And that's what I'm here for,
is to teach you all of that.
Because this is what I've done for myself
and I've worked with dozens
of other agency owners
and it's just been
amazing to see everybody
implementing simple strategies.
Like I said, easy and simple
are not the same thing.
I'm not saying it has to be hard,
but when you know what to
do and what to focus on,
like if you show up every
day in your business
and you know exactly what
you need to be working on,
you have a framework to
follow, it can be simple, okay.
So if you have skills
and, you know, could be,
like I'm very good at sales.
That's my area of expertise.
Better than I am at PR and pitching.
That's what I'm great at is sales.
Figuring out what you're
good at, what you love,
and understanding that in your business
you don't have to do every
single thing to run the business.
If you have drive and passion
and you know you're going to
set out to do something and stick with it,
you can run a successful business,
achieving the financial
freedom, the time freedom,
the success, and when I say
success my definition of success
has changed in my life,
and now I would say
the number one thing that
determines whether I feel
that I'm successful is
being in control of my time
and working, doing work I love
with clients I believe in,
that I feel very passionate about.
To me, that is the ultimate
definition of success.
And I don't want you to let
your lack of experience stop you
from creating the business of your dreams.
And I can tell you that it is possible,
I'm gonna share my story
with you really quickly,
if you don't know who I am.
There's been a lot of
really awesome new people
jumping into our groups
and you may have seen an ad
and you don't even know who I am.
But like I said, I'm Jen Berson.
I'm the founder of Jeneration
PR which is a full service PR
social media marketing agency.
We specialize in promoting brands,
particularly beauty and
cosmetics, baby and kids' brands,
and health and wellness.
And I have billion dollar clients
in all of those categories.
Billion with a B.
And I say that because, first of all
I can't even believe it.
I work from home, it's awesome.
But billion dollar companies
can work with anybody.
They can choose to work with anybody
and I'm a former lawyer.
I transitioned into PR 14 years ago.
I made it my mission to
learn everything I could,
not only about providing the best service
but also running the business
in a way that I enjoyed.
Running a business that didn't run me.
Because I'll tell you something.
When you work in a career
with billable hours
you work like crazy.
You start to realize that
work can be a complete suck,
a complete drain, or you could love it.
And if you're gonna take
the time to build a business
I want you to love it, okay.
So I decided that's how I
wanted to build my business.
After working in billable hours
I put trading dollars
for hours in the trash,
will never look back.
We base our pricing on retainer pricing,
based on the value we
provide to our clients,
and I keep this picture right there.
See that, I'm pointing to it.
Actually, this is a picture of me.
Little baby Jen.
Getting sworn into the Bar in California.
And I keep it to remind
myself of where I was
and, you know, back
then I was so optimistic
about using my education and
my position in law to do good.
And I realized that
wasn't the path I was on
and I changed direction in
my career and literally,
with zero contacts, zero training,
I repeat that so you can see
the possibilities for yourself,
I started my own PR agency and I did that
so that I could work
with brands I believe in,
do work that I loved,
and have a positive impact on companies.
Because all I did in my
career was really spend money
and try to tear down businesses
through expensive, long,
protracted litigation.
And I said no more.
That's not how I wanna live my life.
So I made a 180, and even with
no experience I went into it
knowing that I was only betting
on myself to be successful.
And I'll take that bet any day
because I'm gonna work hard,
and I know you will too,
and it took me a while
to really figure out,
you know, how to scale.
How to have quantum growth in my business.
And the cool thing now is that
through mentorship, training programs,
you can fast-track that
and just check into somebody's expertise
like I'm sharing with you now,
and say I don't have to go
through all that trial and error.
I can get to the good stuff quickly.
So one of the things that I'll
tell you is that, you know,
having, I say laptop business because
you really can work from wherever,
but that's like such a buzzword
on the internet, right.
The laptop, living the laptop lifestyle.
And you can run an agency from wherever.
I choose to run my business from home.
If I have to be on the go,
working from a coffee shop,
I can do that too.
And the first thing that I
am going to tell you is that
working from home does not
make you any less qualified,
capable, and I will bring up
a story that just happened
right now, this week, with
a huge cosmetics company
that we just got assigned
retainer for yesterday.
And I'm so excited.
But one of the things that they said was
they wanted to come and
visit my team in our office.
And a lot of the women
in my program have asked
how do you address this,
because we instantly think
if we say we work from home
a client will think that
you are less professional.
Or that you can't demand
top dollar for your services
because you don't have an office.
And I had a great way
that I responded to her
and let her know that, you know,
we still provide excellent value.
I have people on the
team that are incredible.
And we don't have a huge overhead,
which we could pass the
cost savings onto clients.
And wasn't an issue anymore.
And I tell you, all of my
billion dollar clients know
we run our business from home.
So I don't want you to
feel that that makes you
any less qualified.
You can do it from wherever.
So if you don't have any
experience kind of doing anything,
there are courses and
things, I offer courses,
there are ways you can check
into gaining the skills
that you need, in order to offer a service
and also how to run the business,
and if you are looking for
experience, what I did,
yeah, awesome, love that
explanation, thank you.
Gianni, I love that name.
You can offer your services
below market value, or for free.
I started out, I worked
for one brand for free.
I got my second paying
client working below market.
I ended up working for
that client for 11 years
and it helped me establish deep expertise
in the baby and kid space,
where we now represent
a $3 billion publicly traded company
in the baby and kids' world.
My dream client.
Like if I wrote it and put
it out into the universe
and said this is my absolute dream client,
what they pay, how they treat us.
Just everything about
them is a dream client.
That's my client Skip Hop.
We've worked with them
for almost four years.
They're owned by Carters,
which is a $3 billion
publicly traded company.
That's what starting small
and growing can help you do.
So you can offer your services
below market or for free,
gain expertise, leverage those results.
And know that there are resources online
that can help you in your business.
And the other thing that
successful entrepreneurs know
is that they bring in help
before they feel they're ready, okay.
One of my mentors, the head of
the entrepreneurship program
at USC in the Business
School, the NBA Program,
told me that if I wanted to experience
quantum growth in my business
I had to hire support before I was ready.
That doesn't mean you have
to hire full-time help.
You can bring in a freelancer.
Bring in a virtual assistant
for limited amount of hours,
but free up your time
and realize that there are
things that you may feel
you need to do in your business,
but you could be spending
your time on the wrong things.
And one of the examples I give is like
if I feel like I'm gonna jump into Canva,
which is a graphic design
platform which I love so much,
but if I'm gonna design
something like for social media,
a graphic or something,
I'm a pretty crappy graphic design artist.
And I value my time really
at a high dollar value.
Let's say if I'm just starting
out I would value my time
at like 150, $200.
Now I look at my time and I
value my time at $1000 an hour.
Full stop, minimum,
like that's what it is.
I'm not gonna spend $1000 an hour
for a crappy graphic
designer, and waste my time.
I will bring in somebody who
is an expert at what they do,
who could do it quicker and do it better,
and save me time in that regard.
Hi Matthew.
Oh awesome, awesome.
I went to USC Law School, Matthew,
and my husband went to Marshall
and so that's the connection there.
I was already done practicing law
and my husband started his NBA
and he brought me in to
Marshall to meet Tom O'Malia.
Let me know if you remember Tom O'Malia,
he has since passed away.
So the deal is when you are
bringing in people to support you,
you can leverage your time better
and focus on revenue
generating activities.
Bringing clients into your pipeline.
Serving the clients that you have.
You wanna build a solid
foundation of clients.
We are aiming to get you
predictable, consistent,
recurring retainer revenue.
And retainer revenue that's
based on the value you bring,
not the amount of hours you work.
Okay.
I really want you to
let that sink in because
even if you are calculating
your time based on hours,
and you give the client a rate,
if it's based on the number of hours
and not the value you bring,
you will never be able
to have quantum growth in your business
and you will never properly
scale your business.
Because you only have
a finite amount of time
and I don't want you to have to work more.
Who's your wife and when did she graduate?
Matthew's wife also went to my law school,
or I went to her law school.
So think about that.
Yeah, and then also one of the huge things
that is going to allow
you to scale in a way
that brings in more money for you,
without more time, is really
honing in on your niches.
And a lot of people, this like
topic really freaks them out
because they feel like
if they narrow in on,
when I say niche I mean not only
the types of clients you
serve, whether they're experts
or brands and if they're
brands, which categories.
If you're a book publicist
or whatever your niche is.
Also what services you offer.
Because the more things you offer,
the more you have to manage.
And the more clients that
are doing different things
at different rates of speed,
different times that they're, you know,
you wanna get, oh okay, Matthew,
she started right when I left.
I'm '01.
But tell her hi.
So clients need to get into a flow state
and one of my students Ashley,
I've been coaching with
her for a year or plus.
She has quadrupled her revenue.
She is now, we had a call last week,
she is like I get it now.
I get the flow state.
I get what you mean by
getting everyone in to a state
where you are working,
you get economies of scale
in your efforts, in your media lists,
in the services you offer,
and you can build a solid team
of people to support you,
so you don't have a hundred different
services you're offering
and service providers,
and then all clients at different
tiers of those services.
So you pick a niche, what do you do.
What do you wanna be known for?
That is how you offer maximum value
and you can command higher
rates, because people will say
I'm going to that agency.
I'm gonna go see Jen at Jeneration
because they're the best at
promoting baby and kids' brands.
Their clients are getting tons of press
and I see them everywhere.
We wanna go to them for beauty because
they're cutting through the noise
and getting editors to pay
attention to their clients.
And that's how we get
our clients coming to us.
I don't advertise our services.
I don't do any kind of
promotion whatsoever.
All of our clients come
to us through our network,
through, you know, referrals
and people seeing our
work for other clients.
And that happens when
you establish a niche.
You wanna be known for something.
If you are a generalist you
will be known for nothing
and no one will ever think to come to you.
You'll be scrambling
around with small clients,
10 clients at $2000 a month,
rather than two clients
for $10,000 a month, okay.
So think about that.
And you're gonna invest in your team
before you think you need it.
Because you can get that
help and leverage your time
and, by the way, make money on the effort
that they're putting in.
So if you're paying somebody,
you know, $40 an hour
on something that they're doing,
you can, in your mind, have a
profit margin on their effort,
make $100 an hour, whatever it is.
And, you know, so that's how
you can kind of think about
growing your team in advance.
It's a little scary but it
is the key to quantum growth
in your business.
Chantay's asking a great question.
If you have no experience,
how do you know what niche
you will want to be known for.
Don't let that overwhelm you,
that's a fantastic question.
We all have interests.
We all have things we love.
Like what gets you excited?
Where are you spending your time?
Are you an outdoors person?
Maybe you wanna work with, you know,
health and wellness
brands or fitness brands.
Do you love cosmetics?
It's like how can you cross over things
in your personal life that
you can understand working in
in your professional life.
Like I'm doing this almost 15 years.
I still, to this day, I'm
like, I wake up every day
and I'm like I love going to work.
I love Mondays.
I love my clients.
I love the industries.
One of the industries people
tend to gravitate towards is,
let's say, the bridal industry,
because they're getting
married and they're like
but I'm a bride, it's bridal industry.
But like in five years are
you still gonna want to
be so invested in the bridal industry.
Maybe.
You never know.
So think about what you love doing,
what you're interested in.
Where do you just do something
and time just flies by
because you are kind
of in a zone of genius,
and the services you offer.
Like, if you don't know Facebook Ads
don't offer Facebook Ads as a service.
That's not anything you
wanna get your hands in.
Like what have you done in
your career that you love,
that feels like it's your zone of genius.
It feels so easy for you, right.
I'm not even great at pitching.
I can do it.
I can do it, but I don't do
pitching in my business anymore.
I am purely growing the business.
I'm doing sales.
We do high-level strategy.
I'm serving clients.
That's my role, I have elevated myself
to the visionary role in the business,
and that term comes from
"Traction" by Gino Wickman.
You want to elevate
yourself to the visionary
and have somebody that is,
the way that it was explained to me was
finders, minders and grinders, okay.
If you are doing all of those
things in your business,
grinders burn out.
Minders are managing all
of the roles and, you know,
they're a mid-level person who,
mid-level like meaning
they're managing up,
they're working with you,
and they're managing the team down too.
And they're responsible for seeing that
everything is happening
the way that you want it.
This is a goal that you
can ultimately get to
and then you are at the
top in a visionary role,
as the finder in the business.
I'm the one responsible
for growing the agency.
In my framework I have sales strategies,
really good, super like ninja
high-level sales strategies.
And when you know what to focus on
you can convert all of your
conversations into clients.
You can get top dollar for your services.
So just know that it's possible for you.
You know what's really
exciting to me right now is
I can see that there
are quite a few of you
who've been on the entire time,
and I just wanna thank you for staying on
and listening to this.
I love that this topic interests you.
Let me know, like Chantay
did, what questions you have,
because I'm here for you.
I'm here to answer your questions.
I want you to know that
this can be simple.
You may not think you have a
niche or an area of expertise,
but think about what people go to you for.
What is the question that people
ask you about all the time?
Like what is the thing you are known for?
Or what do you wanna become known for?
What can you see yourself
doing in a year, in five years,
10, 15 years.
Like what do you wanna
get a deep expertise in
that you love.
Because, when you think about it,
when you think about it, you
need to be building a business
that you love.
I don't want you sitting here
spending the time and effort
to build a business that
drains the life out of you.
And I work with a lot
of people who come to me
and they're 10 years into their businesses
and they're like I'm ready
to just give it all up.
And there are subtle changes you can make
to fall back in love
with what you're doing.
But let's build it that way from the start
so you love what you're doing.
And, you know, just keep that mindset
knowing that there are
courses that you can learn
to master skills.
There are people that are
sharing their expertise.
I share everything that I know how to do,
to grow a profitable agency.
The other thing, too, is
look to mentors that have
similar values to you.
They have the kind of
business and the kind of life
that you're looking to have.
For me, my mentors that I invest in
have balance in their lives.
Not balance in the loaded sense,
where everything's like equilibrium.
But it's their priorities
are in check, right.
It's not all just about money.
It's about, you know, building a business
that absolutely lights
you up every single day.
And so, for me, my goals
are having a business
that I can run, that doesn't run me.
Like this morning I went to
a room parent orientation
for my son's second grade
class, 'cause I'm room mom.
I wanna be a present parent for my kids.
I want to have a wildly
profitable business.
I was able to let my
husband, not let my husband,
but give my husband some runway
to start his own business.
And now he's living out his dreams
and he tells me all the time,
Jen, I was inspired by you
and seeing how much you
love what you're doing
and how well you're doing on your own,
to just take that leap and do it myself
'cause I see that it is possible.
So those are the values
that I have, yeah, awesome.
Those are the values I have in my business
and that's the framework
that I teach people how to do
in their businesses.
So think about that and realize that
a lot of the things that
may be holding you back
from thinking this is
possible, is a mindset issue.
It could be, yeah, it's about
knowing that it is possible,
and I repeat my path, my journey
so that you can see that what
I did is possible for you.
And I'm pretty damn proud of
what I've been able to do.
I mean, I work with
really awesome clients.
Great retainers.
Full flexibility.
I shut off when my kids get
home from school and I am done.
Like I am done.
Take trips, I took a 12
day trip to the Baltic Sea
and didn't even open
up my computer one time
to figure out what was going on with work.
It was done, it was
set, clients support us.
I teach you also how to know what clients
are going to be awesome and which ones,
like the red flag clients
you should be running from.
So Gianni was asking strategy
for obtaining new clients
and finding that word of
mouth is the number one way
of obtaining new clients.
If she cold pitches people
that don't know her,
it falls flat.
Well I teach strategies for
where and how to build your client base.
And certainly your network
is the best opportunity
to generate new business
and it helps for you.
I actually have a program,
Five Client Leads in Five Days.
I offer it as like a bonus so that,
a bonus for my Agency Accelerator Program,
'cause I wanna give you those simple steps
that you can be doing in your business,
and see where clients come from,
so you can have a
consistent, healthy pipeline
of new business.
There are ways to, quote unquote,
cold pitch that stand out,
but it does help when you
have somewhat of a connection
or like a one-off connection.
Somebody in your network introducing you
and kind of vouching for
you in the work that you do.
So maybe Gianni, think of
the types of businesses
that you wanna work with
and look to your network
in LinkedIn, see where your
mutual connections are.
Ask for introductions.
Specifically mention to
your contacts who you serve
and how you serve them.
You can't just be like I'm a PR pro.
Do you have any, you know,
anybody that could use my services?
Who do you serve?
What types of clients do you serve
and how can you serve them?
What can you offer to them?
What is the value you bring to them?
And when you present that,
people are inclined to help you.
If someone sends me an email
that's really specific,
like hey Jen, this is what I do.
This is the type of
client I'm looking for.
Do you know anybody who
could use my services?
Or can you introduce me to anybody
or I see on LinkedIn that
you're connected to someone
at this company, would
you mind making an intro.
The answer's always hell
yeah, I'll help you.
But if you're like hey, I do this thing.
Can you help me?
No.
I don't know how I can help you.
I don't know who you benefit.
I don't know what you want from me, right.
People are inclined to help you
when you make it really clear.
So definitely starting within
your network is the best way
to generate new business.
Cold pitching does work though.
I have gotten clients from it.
Back in the day, when I
first started, honestly,
that's one of the ways I
got my first few clients.
It's all how you approach it.
It has to be personal.
It has to be really
specific to that company
and why you're reaching out to them.
You can also engage with
the business ahead of time
on social media, so they start to see you.
They pay attention, they see that stuff.
So you're not kind of
coming out of thin area.
So it's there for you.
So the benefits, good,
I'm glad that makes sense.
Awesome, great question.
So know that building
a business like mine,
or what you ultimately want for yourself,
set your dreams big.
Like think big, dream big,
because when you aim high
you will overshoot on your efforts
and you will get more in your business
than you ever thought possible.
But it doesn't just happen overnight
but when you plan, you strategize,
you know what to focus
on and you're committed.
If you're committed then you
can cut through the noise.
When things get hard,
that's when people give up.
But not you.
And not me.
I don't give up, I just keep going
and if it gets hard I figure out
how to overcome that small thing
or know that it's a temporary
hurdle and it makes me better
and it makes me stronger.
And it makes me able to
handle what comes next.
So the benefits and
opportunities possible for you,
with this laptop lifestyle,
being able to set up your agency from home
and know that it is possible
to work with major companies,
with nice juicy budgets, with
international recognition,
publicly traded companies.
I'm telling you it's
possible for you because
it was possible for me.
And if you haven't
downloaded my 10 reasons why
you want to turn your
business into an agency,
I'm gonna post this
link for you right here.
It's just a checklist that
kind of let's you know
why you can think of the opportunity now.
Like everybody talks about
online digital businesses
and course businesses, and I
have that side of my business
and I will tell you, this passive
income side of my business
is the least passive income
I've ever made in my life.
It has been a major, major,
major time investment
and I love it, like love it so much.
But it's not like you create an asset
and it just like, money falls from the sky
like a cash register.
It is a lot easier to build
a business like an agency
where you need like two
clients to be profitable,
versus a digital business
where you have to have
building a huge audience,
selling them things.
Marketing funnels,
advertising, all of that.
You can tap your network, like
we talked about with Gianni,
and you can have two clients,
and you could be wildly profitable.
You could have 60 to $100,000 a year
as a baseline in your business,
following my framework.
That's what I teach.
That's my goal for everybody
that comes into my program.
So, anyway, grab that checklist
and keep your eyes peeled in September.
We are gonna be doing a
three part training series
and it's gonna be really awesome,
and we're working on that for you now.
But I love that you guys have
been here sticking around.
There's a lot of you have
been on the whole time
and I love that this topic interests you.
I'm so passionate about it and
just knowing where I started
and what life would've looked like for me
had I gone down this path
of working crazy long hours,
working for someone else, in
a draining job as an attorney.
And Matthew tell your wife that
I showed a picture of myself
getting sworn into the Bar at USC.
Just know that there's a better way
and you can love your business every day
and make more money than
you ever possibly dreamed.
I'm not trying to, this is
not a get rich quick scheme.
This is like reality.
Hi Nicole!
Nicole's in the program.
Hi.
You didn't miss it, it's all here for you.
You can watch the recording
and also, you know,
I love that you invested in the program.
But yeah, this is what I'm
so passionate about because
I realize that this is not a
way for a woman to have it all.
I wanna have it all.
I wanna have a business I
love, bring in great revenue,
support my family, have time
with my husband and my kids.
Be the best, like be an
exceptional wife and mother.
And I try every day, I just do
what I can every single day,
just to try my best.
And love my work.
Love my work.
Nicole, best program ever.
Ah!
Nicole's in the Agency Accelerator.
That is my framework for
launching, growing and scaling
a profitable agency.
Yeah and, again, like
I said, it is simple.
It is simple when you have a
framework to follow and, again,
that is not me saying it's easy.
Like join my program and
clients fall in your lap
and money falls from the sky.
It's not like that.
But when you know what to
focus on in your business
and the steps to take, the
actions to take every day,
you show up at work on Monday
morning and you're like
I got this, I know exactly what I'm doing.
I know what I need to work on.
I'm excited about it
because I'm working with
clients I believe in,
I'm working in areas that
I love that light me up,
then it can be simple.
It can be simple.
And Chantay, I am so glad you're
interested in the program.
Sign up, I put the link
here for the 10 reasons.
If you get on that list
you'll see an announcement for
the three part live training
series we're gonna do,
it's starting September 12th.
And you can get on that list
and then we're gonna open enrollment.
And we haven't opened enrollment
in the program since May.
Tactical, practical and
the best insider info.
So worth it.
Oh Nicole, this is why
I'm not even paying her.
Thank you guys so much for being here.
It means so much to me to come on live
and know that there are
people engaging with me
and interested in this
topic, and I love it so much.
And if you have any other
questions let me know.
Chantay, we will get you
information, it's coming.
Yeah, so see you guys soon, thanks again.
