The Hustle
Years in Tampa Bay
5
Hustle (job)
Marketing Nerd
What do you do?
I help mission-driven organizations impact more people.
Why do you do it?
Because I love the good I’m able to put out into the world through my work, and the work of my clients. Over my career I’ve had the opportunity to work on public service announcements for the Caribbean Public Health Agency (in partnership with the US Center for Disease Control), work with influencers who are pushing back on our shallow culture, and who are promoting positivity like Jay Shetty, and work with organizations all over the world who have truly created something that’s changing people’s lives.
What was your Catalyst? (How did you get started?)
I was studying at a music conservatory in Switzerland on an education visa that didn’t let me work – but I still needed money. I knew of a forum on Reddit where you could hire people, so I posted an ad that I would offer marketing services. When people hired me, I would teach myself how to do it. I mostly started with Whiteboard videos, and charged a few hundred dollars per video. My hourly wage could be anywhere from $75-100/hr depending on the project, and I could do that all from my laptop at home? I was hooked. I built my career from being a self-taught marketer. Eventually I left music and transferred to USF here in Tampa Bay. The only constant for me was that I was still doing my marketing side hustle part time. I started a subscription box company (BurgBox) around 2015 so I could have a product to practice my marketing skills with, in between client projects. Eventually I decided that I could do everything I was doing without the overhead of a consumer product business, and started my current company,The Doer Co, in 2018 – where I’ve since helped my clients generated $10m+ in top line revenue.
What’s a common misconception or unknown aspect of what you do?
That having a $10,000+ launch or a $100,000+ launch is EASY. That these are results everyone should have. I specialize in working with companies doing 7+ figures in revenue, and THOSE are the companies who have six-figure launches. That’s coming from email lists with 160,000-600,000 email addresses on it. AND PPC adspend on top of that.
Don’t get me wrong: You CAN have incredible results with a small list. I’ve seen a list of 30 generate $8,000 from a launch. (No PPC adspend, solopreneur business.) Having these incredibly successful launches takes a LOT of assets (and I don’t just mean money, I mean client assets like size of email list/YouTube channel/podcast listenership/Facebook group/Messenger broadcast list, these are the most efficient ways to get in front of people right now) to have a six-figure launch.
What’s the most challenging part of your Hustle?
Getting clients to stick with the plan. When you set out on a launch, you create a plan and build out all the assets required to execute. Sometimes when people don’t see the results they’re expecting right away, they panic and start trying to “throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks.” More Facebook posts! Extra emails! Emergency IG stories! New adsets! The truth is that this creates dirty data. These last minute changes often don’t get documented as they’re being made, they’re just pumped out and implemented. After a few months go by, and we’re starting to create our next plan, we’ll review what we’ve done previously.
What’s the most valuable piece of business advice/insight that’s helped you?
FOCUS = Follow One Course Until Success. Persistence and consistency are the keys that have allowed me to build my six-figure consultancy and generate millions of dollars in revenue for my clients. Even though I started this iteration of my hustle (The Doer Co) in 2018, I’ve been working on marketing, inside of agencies, and alongside agencies as a freelancer for the last six years. I read 20-48 books per year on marketing, business and psychology over the last four years. I’ve listened to thousands of hours of podcasts. Most importantly I’ve focused on APPLYING what I learn to my life and my work with my clients.
The #1 thing I think that keeps people from becoming successful with their business is either expecting success to happen from one Facebook post, or one frenzied weekend of working on it – or constantly working on a new idea when the last one didn’t work out. I’ve probably accomplished more working on my side business 2-4 hours multiple times per week (before I went full time in 2018) over a long period of time, than most people accomplish working 10 hours per day for one weekend.
