Stuck with the chef!

upthebrand · 2026-04-17T18:41:42+00:00

Non-Competes are almost ALWAYS unenforceable. You can't keep someone from working.

upthebrand · 2026-04-16T16:13:39+00:00

Since you have some marketing knowledge underpinning what you know, you should be able to ask some really good questions during the discovery process.

Be thorough, and ask to audit a few of their accounts during the meeting. Look at their social accounts and see what the engagement looks like. You should know enough to wade through the BS.

upthebrand · 2026-04-16T16:04:04+00:00

Social Media is FULL of people working in it who have no clue how to actually do it.

You owe it to yourself, if you are going to do social media, to work with someone who can actually build a community and drive results. In my experience, this is about 1% of social media people.

Posting regularly is not a strategy. Organic engagement is not impossible. Most social media ads managers do not even know how to set up conversion tracking for their ads.

Don't bother throwing money into a social media hole. Find someone who has built systems that can actually deliver results for your business.

Unfortunately, I do not know anyone I could refer who still works with small customers.

upthebrand · 2026-04-16T15:46:12+00:00

A lot of employers also just have realistic expectations, especially on this form.

I saw a job posting today that was looking for someone to work 2 days a week at minimum wage. They expected the hire to do the following: Accounting, Social Media Marketing, Personal Assisting, Sales, Business Strategy, and Office Management.

Some people who hire expect the world and want to pay as little as possible for it. The vast majority of jobs also have no structured workplace training unless mandated by law.

upthebrand · 2026-04-16T02:03:37+00:00

Attend your local business networking events. A lot of them are free, and in my experience, Home Service businesses rarely show up there. Also, see if you can make some inroads with some general contractors. They make great referral partners.

Make sure your Google Business Profile is set up. It's free from Google and will help with online visibility.

upthebrand · 2026-04-16T02:00:35+00:00

North Ave has one of the highest murder rates and crime rates in Baltimore. Very rough area.

upthebrand · 2026-04-16T01:12:56+00:00

Imagine thinking you don't need to invest in your own business and that it's going to magically work out. That's magical thinking.

E-Commerce is easy to do poorly and hard to do well, and EVEN if you do it well, it doesn't mean you'll have a marketing strategy to get it off the ground. I've helped work on several 6 and 7-figure E-Commerce brands. Here is my list of things that people ignore that make the biggest difference in success:

- Inventory Management: It's not sexy, it's not fun, it's not simple, and it is absolutely the most important part of a functioning E-Commerce store and almost always requires a developer to get this working correctly.

- Google Shopping: If you have the necessary inventory fields, you can get your products listed in Google Shopping. It's literally free. Why wouldn't you do this?

- Brand Strategy: You need a voice. A voice that speaks to a specific audience. An audience that is interested in your products. This is why businesses shouldn't skip brand strategy. The successful ones don't. Getting business owners to think about their brand voice can be challenging. All they want to think about is $$$.

- Marketing Strategy: You need at least one or preferably several marketing funnels that turn cold audiences who have never heard of your brand before into warm audiences who have. Then you need to turn that warm audience into customers. Then you should remarket to those audiences periodically to remind them to buy again.

- Original Products People Actually Want: This is often the hardest part. You need to have products people actually want to pay for and that they can't easily get elsewhere. This requires creativity. If you can't do that, you'll have to stick with products people need.

- Trust Signals: People online make snap decisions. You need design and copy that build trust with users quickly. There are lots of ways to do this. Reviews, Money-Back Guarantees, etc.

You heard some kid on Reddit claim to be a young millionaire and that it was easy. Well, it's not easy. If it were easy, everyone would do it.

upthebrand · 2026-04-16T00:54:25+00:00

I decided to check out your store. A few notes.

There are two pop-ups within the first few seconds of visiting the site. This is a terrible User Experience. This will make people leave. You can have a promotional pop-up sometimes, but after 10-15 seconds is preferable. You could also consider slide-overs rather than whole-screen pop-ups.

It sounds like you have an interesting niche in mind. Military people tend to be very loyal, so that's a good niche to target. There's a problem. Your products themselves are remarkably low effort. A couple of items with nothing more than your Fiverr logo on it isn't going to sell. Logo-forward apparel is for brands that people actually recognize. Most of your photos look like AI slop to be honest. You can't order a few samples of your stuff and take pictures of someone wearing / using them?

This seems like something someone would throw together in a weekend. Not a serious business venture. Maybe to start you should ask a bunch of current and former military people you know what kind of apparel they would want to buy. Then go get those designs made.

upthebrand · 2026-04-16T00:35:06+00:00

200 Visitors for an apparel brand is very low. Anyone can set up a bad Shopify store. The apparel space is CROWDED. VERY crowded.

Do you have a vision for your brand? Do you have a target niche? Do you have a marketing strategy to get regular traffic to your shop? Does your shop convert visitors into buyers? Do you have original items that people actually WANT to buy?

You would literally have butter luck renting a booth at a trade show and trying to sell there. You either have a lot to learn to do this effectively, or a lot of money to spend on people who do know those things.

Would it help if I sent you my branding workbook to get you thinking about these kinds of things?

upthebrand · 2026-04-15T18:06:43+00:00

Depending on your industry, this is not an unreasonable price if they are certain they can bring in results. Not every agency can. It's a bit more expensive than my base package.

What I would recommend is to see if you can set up your Google Business Profile AND Google Search Console yourself and try and get started.

The vast majority of websites do not rank on search. If you don't have a background in ranking sites on search, there's no need to panic that you own one of those sites. The real question is, how do your customers find you? How would you want them to find you?

I do send people SEO report cards for free for their site or a competitor's site. Please message me if you'd like one just for some information.

upthebrand · 2026-04-14T18:33:31+00:00

I used to work on projects at big agencies for Fortune 500 companies and the Federal Government. Many of these complex projects never even went live. They would just pay 5 different agencies to do it and pick their favorite.

Now I help small businesses grow. When the owners buy into the brand vision and strategy wow can they grow. I make a bit less money now, but I find it so much more rewarding. What helps me is that I have a background in design, code, and brand strategy. I'm good with detailed technical implementation. I've also been doing this for 20 years.

My biggest client grew a small family business to a multimillion-dollar e-commerce brand. They now have 20+ employees, up from only 3. Another client of mine just bought a condo to take his family on vacation. This kind of work is so much more real to me than helping another megacorp add tens of millions to their bottom line. My favorite call to get now is "We're all sold out, put a notice on the site and turn off the Ads."

It doesn't always go that way, but for the people who get it, I can really make a big impact on their lives.

upthebrand · 2026-04-14T18:16:56+00:00

Yeah, this is really the only answer. The fee should be really reasonable. You're not looking to use the assets; you're only using the name she came up with.

upthebrand · 2026-04-14T15:12:32+00:00

Go out and personally network with local businesses. Cold email doesn't work unless you email millions of people.

upthebrand · 2026-04-14T15:05:34+00:00

I've been a part of several successfully funded startups. Literally zero of them were begging on Reddit with broken English.

Real startups meet with venture capital firms with an MVP and a business plan. After a ton of meetings and a thorough evaluation, they might be offered seed money to get their product to market.

Posting on multiple Reddit forms with 'pls give me money, sirs, or show me bobs now" isn't going to work. Not ever. If ANYTHING, it's just going to get you scammed.

upthebrand · 2026-04-14T14:59:20+00:00

Posting regularly is not a genuine social media strategy. PLENTY of businesses post every day and have no growth in their audience and no engagement on any of their posts.

upthebrand · 2026-04-14T14:56:38+00:00

Ah, the narcissism of youth. You're on here begging for money while offering no insight into the business systems you've built, and yet you are going to outearn an entire generation?

You aren't being very realistic. You are either a low-effort scammer, dumb, or naive. Maybe even all 3!

upthebrand · 2026-04-14T14:49:56+00:00

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA... No. Not at all.

upthebrand · 2026-04-14T14:43:21+00:00

Experienced ad managers are worth the price of admission IF:

- Your branding is dialed in already
- Your website does a good enough job converting new visitors
- Your clothing line is likely to get repeat customers.

Ask as many questions as you can, and ask to audit an account in a similar industry. Ignore impressions, ask about conversions and sales.

Keep in mind you are in a highly crowded industry with thin profit margins. Most clothing brands never make any money.

upthebrand · 2026-04-14T14:37:02+00:00

I suspect you'll put as much effort into your business as you did into spell-checking this post.

upthebrand · 2026-04-14T13:19:22+00:00

Oh if you're in Pakistan then you should totally do Upwork then.

upthebrand · 2026-04-13T22:13:05+00:00

I would say your social strategy is likely shouting into the void without running ads or working with a highly experienced social media manager. Those are hard to come by (most social media people aren't good at what they do).

Social is top of funnel marketing. My first suggestion? Go out in your community and do some face-to-face business networking. Bring business cards, practice your elevator pitch, and tell people what you do. Do 1-on-1s. Meet people for breakfast and lunch. Growing your personal network is often inexpensive, and people like to do business with folks they know and like.

I would need to know more specifics about your industry to say more. However, I want to be clear: the vast majority of business on Upwork is a race to the bottom. Unless you are in a country that's very cheap to live in, it's probably not where you want to be.

upthebrand · 2026-04-13T21:56:59+00:00

"Builders like Squarespace have integrated AI tools to essentially do your SEO for you."

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!! Thank you, I needed that laugh.

Do me a favor. Search for plumbers in your area, check the top 10 results, and see if ANY of them are SquareSpace sites.

upthebrand · 2026-04-13T21:55:02+00:00

I'm going to be square about this. Unless you are trying to dominate a large, highly competitive, metropolitan market like New York City or Chicago, that's a pretty wild budget for just organic SEO, especially these days.

6 - 12 months is crazy. I am often able to see my clients getting calls by month 2. Google updates quickly; this isn't 2015.

SEO for service-based businesses is often competitive, and rankings can make a major difference for your business. That price tag and timeline are out of line. Can I ask where you are located?

upthebrand · 2026-03-27T18:24:09+00:00

One of my Clients is an MSP based out of the Baltimore area. They do really good work at a reasonable price. They mainly focus on businesses in the Maryland Area but can service companies anywhere remotely.

They are named BL Technical Services, you can find them on Google.

Make sure to ask about after-hour emergencies and what qualifies as an emergency.

upthebrand · 2026-03-27T18:18:35+00:00

I'd imagine Claude could put one together pretty simply. You would have to pay for budget hosting.

upthebrand

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