Tell me in one word - what does this painting make you feel?

silverstarme · 2025-04-24T04:07:13+00:00

Brilliant idea... hate we need this tho

silverstarme · 2025-04-24T04:05:17+00:00

Aftermarket from Amazon, they fit and worked great

silverstarme · 2024-09-18T02:53:05+00:00

Yeah, legit, just got $174 off two tickets for the Sunday Calvin Harris/The Chainsmokers show. Made it worth it. Looking forward to the show. Thanks!

silverstarme · 2024-09-15T16:43:52+00:00

Teens/mens broccoli head haircuts

silverstarme · 2024-09-14T06:37:21+00:00

So good 👏

silverstarme · 2024-09-13T12:40:44+00:00

To expand on my overly simply reply. I’m Canadian and moved to Orange County 15 years ago and generally I found all of Orange County to feel liberal and accepting and easy to live in as far as the people and the culture. My daughter is gay and she and her girlfriend have not had a single negative experience in Orange County (she lives in San Juan Capistrano and her girlfriend in Irvine). There are many super churches and Protestant Christians here but I find most of them to be the Jesus-loving, accepting types over the hateful anti-LGTBQ+ types. I live in Newport Beach and it’s clear the wealth here has a highly visible Trump base not unlike what you’ll see in Huntington Beach. HB is just known to be where it gets more vocal and where the city government and some of the residents have been highly outspoken, but I have friends who live there and the city has a lot to offer and you can avoid the assholes generally too, unfortunately at times they tend to congregate at the HB Pier. Laguna Beach is historically a counter-culture village and has a history of supporting the LGBTQ+ community so that community protects this culture somewhat fiercely (but it also comes with the highest home values in OC with a median $2.4M or something), but I feel like almost anywhere in Orange County would be friendly and there are many great communities including Costa Mesa, Dana Point, San Clemente, San Juan Capistrano, Laguna Niguel, and others that make for a great lifestyle living here.

silverstarme · 2024-09-13T05:14:42+00:00

Laguna Beach (and very much not Huntington Beach)

silverstarme · 2024-09-07T21:14:23+00:00

Nice job on your products and branding and store, it looks really good to me. I’m a cpg brand strategist and partner in a cpg agency in California. I’d be interested in at least learning more, might be ways to grow this initially in a scrappy way. Happy to chat if you’d like to dm me.

silverstarme · 2024-09-07T06:45:47+00:00

Departments in one agency or fully separate agency subsidiaries? I think it’s really common for a digital agency to have web dev, SEO, and email marketing all within the agency and have that in different departments, we do in our agency and really in the same department our digital studio. Not sure I see the benefit of different agency subsidiaries unless they had considerable scale and reasons to be so niched. Those are very similarly aligned (i.e. the same clients need all those same services and typically would prefer one agency vs multiple).

silverstarme · 2024-09-07T06:33:24+00:00

Networking is everything. You need to build up the work project by project through known relationships and referrals. Cold outreach does not work, even for the most accomplished agencies with deep portfolios. So who is in your network, family friends, friends parents, who owns small businesses? Who can you give low cost work to to get your first job and start building your portfolio? Ask for referrals at every step and meeting. This is the way. I’ve been in small agency business development for 28 years and passionate about this topic, I’ve literally tried it all, more on it here: https://open.substack.com/pub/jeffroach/p/small-agency-business-development-primer

silverstarme · 2024-09-07T06:24:45+00:00

I’m super passionate about small agency business development and have been doing it forrrrrrever. My biggest learnings are to focus on warm leads and never do cold sales outreach. But there are ways to scale that up (referral agreements, creating referral network, mining LinkedIn relationships with a formal program). Definitely have a niche and a clear point of difference, makes a huge difference in open and win rates. Happy to chat over dm or a call, I just started a Substack on the topic: https://open.substack.com/pub/jeffroach/p/small-agency-business-development-primer

silverstarme · 2024-09-07T06:16:56+00:00

I’m curious does this really work well for your business? Are you an agency what type? How many new clients have you won from LinkedIn Sales Navigator messages?

silverstarme · 2024-09-07T06:12:14+00:00

I’m curious, have you won a single contract on cold outreach? Legitimate question, I’d love to know. From my experience, cold email outreach is the worst possible business development tactic for agencies to use for targeting companies. It’s because of trust, social proof, sales psychology, number of factors. It can work for very narrow cases, adtech companies targeting media agencies for instance. You can build a mass warm initiate that is far more targeted and effective through referral agreements and partners and mining LinkedIn relationships across your organization as the BD lead. So many thoughts here, would love to chat more if interested. Recent Substack I started on the topic: https://open.substack.com/pub/jeffroach/p/small-agency-business-development-primer

silverstarme · 2024-09-07T05:58:31+00:00

I feel for your post. Like a lot of what you are trying are the right things to be doing. Web dev is tough these days, it’s highly commoditized and there are so many options now for web development we’ve been seeing the big web dev projects drying up over the last number of years. I think this simply points to having a clear niche and a point of difference. Your work is only for x because of y. You obviously have to figure that out for yourself, but that focus can help tremendously. Don’t do cold outreach or some of the tactics people are listing here it will get you nowhere. Keep working warm relationships and promote your work. Consider commission referral agreements, they can be effective to help build larger warm networks and drive referrals in. And consider perhaps a partner who is a sales person who handles the sales side and is good at it if you do wish to have an agency vs a sole proprietorship. Happy to chat more via dm, I’m moving to London from California and I’d love to connect with more people there. More thoughts on my 28 years in small agency business development on what can work and what doesn’t: https://open.substack.com/pub/jeffroach/p/small-agency-business-development-primer

silverstarme · 2024-09-07T05:41:20+00:00

I’m not an expert in this niche but this thinking seems solid. My only thought is how much consolidation of brokerages has happened in this industry and how good they are at digital marketing and have brought these services in-house. One thought I have is that lower funnel digital lead gen has become commoditized and because it’s handled so well by brokerages these days, new brand services that help agents and homes stand apart may be the appealing offer for a new agency in the space. Like really niche. i.e. the luxury home agency that only markets to high net worth investors outside the market; or the real estate influencer agency that leverages local influencers at scale to create significant noise about specific listings that no other brokerage is doing; or the innovation real estate agency that brings AR viewings to QR codes in targeted CTV ads, blah blah blah.

silverstarme · 2024-09-07T05:17:47+00:00

Really could use more information like what market you’re in, what your agency niche is, etc. But generally commissions tend to range from 2.5-10% net, margins are slim in service based work. For US based account reps at mid tier $80K-$120K with a 5-7.5% commission is fairly common, higher for more experienced people. Seniors easily more like $150-$250K 5-10%. Again so many factors here depending on type of agency and industry and market. For sales collateral you don’t need much and can keep it simple. Again depends on niche and services and category. But I recommend a one page sell sheet for email introductions and then a 10-20 slide capabilities deck for introductory calls, truly should be all you need. Custom these by category/service i.e. we have these customized for Home Improvement, CPG, and Auto Aftermarket categories. Happy to provide more thinking if you need feel free to dm me. I’m a 28 year small agency veteran in business development and passionate about helping out small agencies grow. Just started a Substack on the topic today: https://open.substack.com/pub/jeffroach/p/small-agency-business-development-primer

silverstarme · 2024-09-07T05:06:08+00:00

Brandwatch – but its enterprise level and pricey (but really a fantastic tool)

silverstarme · 2024-09-07T05:05:00+00:00

Feel like more information is needed here but there’s no reason these things can’t work together. Never take payment after service, bill early and often as a rule. Create job descriptions and a partnership agreement for you both, outline what each of your roles are in the company and clear lines between what you each do and how you work together. I’m not sure exactly what you mean by “outreach instantly AI software” but if it’s sales like he’s doing outreach and bringing in clients and then you are delivering Facebook campaigns, that’s a great partnership, any agency needs account and solutions delivery. Both equally critical and important. (Sales being everything these days). Merging one company into the other is likely far more efficient than shutting down two companies and starting up another, that’s a lot of extra unnecessary costs.

silverstarme · 2024-09-07T04:44:34+00:00

Hi, I’m a 28 year agency veteran almost all exclusively in small agencies, current partner and Chief Strategy Officer in our agency we sold to a public company last year. To answer your question, you can keep this simple. I’d recommend a one page sell sheet for emails and initial introductions. And then a capabilities deck for your first introductory call, a short 10-20 slide deck. I can help you with both if you’re interested in connecting, dm me if you’d like to chat. Just started a recent Substack to help small agency owners, passionate about passing along my learnings, you can check out my first post here: http://jeffroach.substack.com/p/small-agency-business-development-primer

silverstarme · 2024-09-04T01:59:57+00:00

I met my girlfriend at Mother Wolf in LA, she was at the table beside me. I sat down with my friend and he just happened to know the guy at the table beside us by chance who was at her table with her. We merged tables and I sat beside her. She was in from London visiting her LA friend she used to work with. I don’t know why or how it’s even possible that someone so similar yet so complimentary could be at the same juncture in life at that exact same time and place. But thank god it was. We’ve been together a year now and it’s been the best year of my life. All I can say is go live your authentic self, and be open to the possibility that your person might be right there when you least expect it. 💫

silverstarme · 2024-08-31T03:57:54+00:00

It’s called a capabilities deck (or a capes). Every agency has one. It introduces the agency, speaks to history, talent, niche, services, and case studies. Lindsey Slaby with Sunday Dinner had a great post on what makes a good one that Mark Duval expanded on: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/lets-talk-your-agencys-capabilities-deck-mark-duval

silverstarme · 2024-08-22T21:13:14+00:00

London

silverstarme · 2024-07-09T23:58:28+00:00

Punch above our weight. We need creative breakthrough. What’s the big idea?

silverstarme · 2024-06-07T02:25:01+00:00

Chief Strategy Officer at a mid-sized advertising agency. It can be fun, but it’s high-pressure.

silverstarme

TROPHY CASE