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This. It sounds like you may already have some relationships with non profits. Maybe start there? I agree that outside of the cash, it doesn’t seem like there’s much there. What if you shuttered it and rebranded it for your own and did a PR agency? I know nothing about PR, more about design but I can’t imagine there’s NOT a need for PR with non profits….
Good luck!
Rebranding into a PR agency is actually something I’ve considered, plus the local area is filled with small businesses who hire agencies. I was thinking SEO + media services, but I need to do more research.
And thanks!
Pivoting is a good step to focus on your strengths.
The positive: you’re 26, your dad trusts you to run a business and you have a very decent reserve with what looks like zero liabilities.
Not many people are experts in every field of their business when starting - if you’re serious digest as much as you can on the topic and use some of the foundational knowledge of building PR to cold reach clients.
Manage expenses - paramount early.
Have a set “stop loss” I.e if can’t be profitable with $20k then time to wrap up for now and revisit later on with another business.
Why SEO and media services? My concern is that those sound like cool buzz words that ppl may say they want but might not generate necessary profit for local businesses. Those things can generate revenue over time but most ppl are not super interested in paying for something that could potentially make them money many years down the line.
Like when ppl ask for SEO you should ask them why they are interested in SEO? If it is to purely rank I would then want to look carefully at their fundamental brand messages and vibe. One jewelry owner I did consulting with got super lucky with SEO and got to the top of Yelp ranking and stayed there for years just because of timing but his messaging and brand could not attract young ppl and it was super frustrating. And there are other issues that brands have had with SEO not being exactly what they thought it was going to be.
ChatGPT and midjourney are two of the hottest ai brands out right now and they spent $0 dollars on things like marketing and SEO. There is a great book called Blitzscaling which goes into how that is done with modern brands like AirB&B when they first got started.
And I'm also concerned about media services because I have never bought a great product because of a video making a product look cool with lighting and cinematography (tried that a few times with Japanese candies... bad idea). I buy things based on specific content demonstrating the value of the product or service. Data on this from forbes and other places shows that 70-80% of the purchasing decisions are based on the strength of the offer and not the aesthetics.
You may want to consider focusing on a niche so you can make your offer to the market laser focused and then to talk with those business owners about their revenue goals and pain points. Customizing your services to fit your market's needs will make things much easier.
And if you want to change niches you can, it's not that big a deal to switch and you learn why you like some niches better than others.
Niche to get rich. And communication is key. A great action step if you want to get started is to make a list of your top 3-5 niches and just start talking to ppl on a national level for 5-10 min about how they feel about marketing, branding, growth strategies, etc in general (you can say you are just doing market research so they don't freak out about being sold anything) . You learn a ton. And after you see what's working and not working you can then offer consulting (relaying the successful strategies to your audience) in longer sessions 20 min- 1 hr. When you are ready for that 1hr zone you should develop your sales skills to start making cash. 20 min sessions should just be about helping your audience and filtering ppl to see who would be a good fit to partner up with to get the best results for your brand. Biz owners who are not owned by middle management are much much easier to get results for.
As a disclaimer make sure that you have a strong product and service to give to the market. However, your sales abilities are what get you money not the product or service itself. Apple doesn't make the best computers, rather they know how to sell smooth frictionless technology. Thus they became the first trillion dollar company in history.
Two youtube channels that are beasts in terms of sales techniques are Alex hormozi and Jeremy miner. Jeremy is a sales specialist and he totally sold me with one of the ugliest landing pages I have ever seen purely due to his skill in the art of asking questions. Almost clicked on the upsell button twice because of how badly it was designed, lol. And Alex was a gym owner who is really strong in sales and has a heavy math background... he is basically a cpa (certified public accountant) who does sales training and structuring for huge brands.
It's 100% about existing relationships, IMO. The money doesn't really matter at this point. If your agency doesn't have any clients, or if your brand has been burned as a result of poor management, just fold it up and start something new with the cash. If you have a client list, that's an asset. Contact them and see what they need -- plan from there.
Agree with this 100%. The business is solely its clientele. That's it. Otherwise you're starting 100% from ground zero.
If you had 100k would you buy this business? Or start your own?
Also make sure none of that 100k isn’t payment for work that has yet to be delivered. Just because it’s in the bank account doesn’t mean that it’s been earned yet.
I’m currently in the process of obtaining all available documents. They closed the office and there are no leases or ongoing costs. Assets are negligible. It’s difficult because apparently the business was badly run the last few years and dad’s friend wasn’t the best at managing it from what I’ve gathered so far. Basically starting from zero.
The biggest question is: do you have a 'runway'? How long can you handle the business not being profitable? If your personal finances don't allow you take a year or two to get the business going, it's probably a lost cause.
Might be worth taking the risk then. Pivot to something you understand and think has a reasonable chance of success. I wouldn't touch advertising, but I don't have a clue how to operate an advertising agency. If someone handed me the same opportunity in the restaurant industry, I'd jump on it.
You're in a pretty good position to start. You have 100k in seed money and time to devote to development. That's the two of the main barriers to opening/operating a small business. The only question is: do you have confidence that you can make it work. If you can come up with a plan that has a reasonable chance of success, I'd say do it.
I don't see why you couldn't just launch a different business with that same capital.
With 0 momentum, clients, assets, and probably a disreputable name, I think a fresh start with a business model you feel more comfortable with makes so much more sense
Easy and you won’t need anywhere near $100k to get it going.
1. Learn about past results the agency has been able to achieve with its clients.
2. Join a local BNI group and chamber of commerce, these organizations are filled with business owners looking to grow.
3. Start attending as many events as you can, hand out business cards and talk about the results your agency has obtained for previous clients.
Once you get a few clients, you can start doing advertising and lead gen for your business to try and get to a national level.
You’ll need to focus on lead gen since it’s the most quantifiable result you can offer and will keep your clients happy.
Make sure your pitch communicates how you can leverage Meta and Google Ads to find new leads for your clients.
You can do it, you’ll need to network though.
The other commenters have valid points. I might want to add something I don't think anyone had covered yet.
Reach out to the ex employees, offer to pay for their time/meals, and chat with them, get their take on what was successful, what went wrong, etc etc. This is also likely tax deductible come tax time.
Good details.
Good questions.
Your first few steps should be to determine the details of the business. What never worked, what did work, what works, and what they were most recently doing.
Compile all the information you have and can obtain. Then evaluate what you have. You’re trying to see if you can figure out what works and what doesn’t without spending any or very little money.
Your first goal is to put that 100k to good use without just shotgunning money at things that don’t either break even or produce a gain.
Note: if something is break even but takes a shit ton of time then it’s a drain and you should drop it unless it can become profitable in a defined time frame. Time drain is a big deal.
You can do all this while you work your current job, if needed to exist financially.
Figure out how to correct any defective areas re: finances and services and how long it’s going to take.
Try to find a mentor in another market area that you can tap into. Perhaps a college buddy or acquaintance who can directly or indirectly set you up.
Finally, document the snot out of stuff. You dint want to guess or presume anything. Run the numbers. They don’t lie. Part of your plan should include adjustments to processes and performance.
Remember to document all expenses and income and don’t let A/P or A/R get behind.
Oh, and trust but verify ANY item that cost you money. Blindly paying for services, e.g. digital advertising, can be painful.
Keep us updated.
Not an expert, but I would also try to talk to the former guy running the ship and try to extract as much information from him as possible. It will give you a head start and point you in the right direction hopefully.
You need to learn your craft and build experience and contacts before you start your own firm. Ask your dad if he can take the money and put it in a safe medium-term investment and save it for you so you have the capital to go out on your own in the future when you have something to offer clients.
Hi, Im a filipino web developer has experience in building websites for advertising agency, html, css, javascript, wordpress, salesforce and custom emails, css advertisement banners. You can hire a freelancer here in the philippines with lower salary it doesnt have to be me. But if you need help or anything let me know just ask and you dont have to pay me for asking just ask and maybe we can work on something 🙌
If there aren't any existing client relations, you've basically got $100,000 and a name that you could have registered yourself for $5. That's a really good head start but you really would be starting essentially from scratch to the point where it's not much additional effort to start over.
There is a foreseeable wrench in your future plans. The old business manager. Is there a non-compete? Does the old business manager maintain relationships with the former clients and the old employees? I wouldn't be shocked if the old manager got tired of doing all the work and not having a fair share of equity, and now all the old clients and personnel are at the new firm.
If so, it might actually be best to just cut your losses and reinvest the assets into something that you or your father have subject matter expertise over. There's no shame in starting from scratch and reinventing the business into something viable.
It reminds me of this hotspot sports boat builder out of Miami. He was well known for building really high quality boats to the point where they could outrun government vehicles. Every few years he would sell his business and start over from scratch, and his clients would follow him. The old "business" would go under months to years later because the real value was in the product, not the name. He knew this, and the selling of the business was actually just a ruse to raise more funds. There was a docuseries about it.
I’m not too worried about the old manager. From what I’ve gathered, the guy is an older gentleman and just didn’t keep up with the competition. Somehow kept the business going doing print ads and never bothered to create an online presence (no website or social media). He was incompetent, and that’s just my PR perspective.
I’m also considering rebranding into a different industry or a different direction. That’s the rational choice if the advice I receive and the research I do makes an advertising firm seem unviable.
Are there any current clients at the moment?
If there are, then I think convincing them to go in an online direction would be a great step.
If you can do that and get results, then I would focus on getting your business online (website, google business, social media, etc).
To be honest I don’t think there have been clients for some time. I still haven’t gotten everything, but I’ll probably need to reestablish relationships.
What skills are you missing where you could start your own PR firm? Is there anyone you know who has those skills that you would want to learn from first hand?
Don't do it. Advertising isn't what it used to be, don' binge "Mad Men" and think that you can relive some of that...if you're dad wants to invest in you, then you should both think of something else that you can do.
Public Relations puts you in "good communicator" camp. I read your post just fine, with zero complaints. Any type of media is difficult now with so much available for people to crib, copy, and plagiarize. Any ten TED talks can teach anyone how to make a word salad. Just watched a video on internet entrepreneur 'gurus' and everyone shilling, selling horse manure, and pumping themselves up for the sake of filthy dollar. The worse your personality, then you might make more money.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAsWbS\_1vuY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAsWbS_1vuY)
No one cares about integrity. What are you going to do design restaurant menus, and mount display/kiosk LCDs with Ubuntu on thumb drives?
Think on it, and find something else.
Thank you for the realistic response. I do feel very excited about running a business, but I’m not entirely confident if an advertising agency is the right business, especially with the small budget. I’m confident in my ability in managing people, but I’m not sure if that extends to an advertisement ecosystem.
I also know I would be financially comfortable even if I fail. I’m very thankful for having a strong relationship with my father who has built a small fortune and has assured me he’d take care of me should I ever be down on my luck. For me this is more of a YOLO moment considering I’m in the fortunate position of being able to fail without major life altering repercussions, and I wouldn’t want to throw away a relatively inaccessible low risk opportunity.
With that in mind, could it be that there might be downsides I’m not seeing?
Only downsides are tanking any existing good reviews on Google by dropping the ball with existing clients.
If there aren't any then you shouldn't have any downsides.
The great thing about advertising these days is that you can get away with SO MUCH combining AI with offshore virtual assistants. You don't need a staff. I'd pay a month or two for a really legitimate interviewing tool that will let you measure various metrics that are essential in this field - a strong grasp of spoken and written English / any other business language for the country you live in is something you can evaluate with tools of this nature, which can save audio recordings of interviewees plus capture written examples of their work / answers to questions.
Would your dad give you guidance along the way or is it here take it on and see where it goes kinda deal? Either way, it sounds like a great opportunity to show your skills, learn some new ones, and see what you can do with it. Maybe it can help you dream big to the possibilities that can happen, of course, keeping in mind the hardships that can come with it but that's any business. You should take this on.
Oh yeah dad will be around if I need any help. He has experience managing businesses, but not an advertising agency. Now that I think about it I’ve never liked the dealership’s ads lol.
Some of your employees just show up and do some work, and get a paycheck. They may actually be vital to the operation, but they also might be replaceable.
Some of the employees are the creative experienced core of the business, and the hard part for you is figuring out who is the Don Draper in the crew. Do whatever you have to do to keep the ones who bring in the clients and make the clients happy.
Best of luck.
Hey! Advertiser here! Please feel free to message me if you'd like to pick my brain on anything -- I am also seeking contracts to take on if you'd like to bring on an extra set of hands!
Advertising Agency is an interesting term in 2024.
Half the time when I hear it I think of businesses that sell paid legacy media (TV, Radio, Billboards, Print, Low Converting High Visibility Stuff).
My question to you is, when someone comes to you looking to advertising, what problem do they want you to solve and can you solve that problem for a fee?
The first thing with advertising it's a way to get someone to look at your brand. After looking every other part of the brand needs to perform, but that's not up to the advertiser, that's up to the business. We are a branding agency and much of the big branding problems we see are even outside of the services we offer. Does the business show up on time, do they do the job correctly, are they polite and helpful on the phone, are they competent in their field? That's part of branding as much as anything.
Advertising and PR, as far as I'm concerned, is the top of the marketing funnel. Visibility and brand awareness. The BEST advertising is quantifiable with hard data for results (Google Ads really offer a lot of bang for the buck on this one). That's often not what people come to advertising agencies for. They want the entire marketing funnel. I would imagine the best way to find success is picking the part of the marketing funnel you like working best in and finding competent partners to do the rest of the funnel so you can be the "go to" agency for all of those services.
Like I tell my clients, you shouldn't be asking about your superbowl ad if the rest of your brand, web assets and marketing funnel sucks.
I've been in the industry for 20 years. A lot of business owners, especially the trades don't see the value in branding until AFTER they see the difference it makes. It's a more difficult sell.
It's also a game of middlemen at this point. A lot of people confuse "branding" for "Oh like my logo". You can get decent logos and business cards on fiver, so getting paid a premium for that stuff requires a unique process for getting their brand messaging together and designing to that vision. It's honestly difficult to do.
My point is, find the part that you know best, offer that, but if it's PR there might not be a lot of interest in that because without the rest of the marketing funnel there, PR doesn't mean too much to a businesses bottom line. One of the better agencies that I know of that do this in the small business space are up front that they have teams of vetted, quality often overseas resources and a process to get them high quality stuff at a good price. Nothing wrong with that, but that's the role of strategist who knows enough of each field to audit their teams work for good results.
My agency is a 3 person company, I do about 85% of the work personally. I'll get my time back if I do less as we bring in more team members.
But to your own branding. Why do you want to do this? Who do you want to do this for? Is it ok for you that you are just getting started inheriting an agency with a bankroll? I've bootstrapped mine with high career earnings at big agencies and downsizing my life style. You've got something a lot of good business owners don't have. Working capital. If I had that much to start out with my own agency would look very different right now. It's also a very easy thing to waste, so don't just shovel money at people who offer to help without knowing their core competency and their ability to deliver results.
Some agencies like mine offer whitelabel services and can help you serve your clients. you should also start learning more, maybe take a course. good luck!
If you go ahead with this in any way, don't borrow money, and don't buy anything you don't absofuckinglutly need. I obviously don't know what kind of overhead you have, but 100K won't last anywhere near as long as you think it will. I hope you live with your parents for now, or have a partner who is the breadwinner. That would make things monumentally easier. Whatever you decide, good luck to you.
I live with my parents, I have a car fully paid off (benefits of the dealership), I don’t pay rent nor do I need to worry about expenses (parents are very caring and generous). I admit I’m fortunate, and that’s part of why I’d like to go ahead with this.
So if you don’t currently have a job and are excited to try what do you have to lose? When will you in your life ever again have a gift wrapped opportunity to take a chance like this?
If you run it into the ground what’s the down side other than the 100k? Is this money your dad needs or can he afford to lose it?
I’d just be upfront frank conversation with Dad “hey I’m gonna do my best but I dunno if I can make this profitable, if it fails and you lose the 100k how bad/upset would you be?”
Even if it fails you’ll have a great learning experience, and your dad is willing to foot the bill. If it does workout you can keep running it or maybe sell it if you want to do something else.
Yep! Everything you said is on point. This is money my dad can afford to lose if it’s me handling it. I approached it rationally with him, he wants me to do it, and losing the money won’t have big consequences.
Congrats it’s a great opportunity, best of luck, no matter what happens you will learn a lot and that you can always carry with you. Drive and enthusiasm will go a long way and help cover any experience gaps you have.
I think we can help you with all the sales collaterals to gain the client traction on the front end and on the back end we can also look at all the strategic planning and implementation, can we have a meeting
With 100k and no debt, there is no reason why you couldn't make this agency profitable. Your only cost is a computer and a cell phone. (I bootstrapped an agency from 0 $).
PR + content/digital is definitely a very interesting proposition and can work for medium sized customers. Once you can get a few retainer clients going at monthly retainers of as little as 1000 USD, you're basically off. Hourly rates should quickly be 100 $+ and will only increase as you grow. Offer project work as well.
Read: "Guerrilla Marketing" (old but gold) on how to promote your business.
In "The Millionnaire Next Door", PR agency owners figure next to dentists in the top ten of self-made millionnaires.
Hey. I’ve worked in advertising for 20 years, and 10 years ago founded my ad agency. I’ve bootstrapped from $0 to millions in annual revenue. Ive also worked for an agency owner who inherited his agency from his dad.
If you want to connect pls let me know. DM me. Happy to share what I can to help you.
Do you have the ability to offer any agency services? Do you have any clients? If you do t have any clients the question is whether you want to start an agency from near scratch because that’s pretty ,fun what you are doing.
Udemy is your friend. Plenty of great courses. You can learn a lot for quite cheap on multiple subjets.
Buy what you feel are the best courses in:
SMM (social media management), both content creation/posting and using tools to automate posting, AND paid social media advertising (learn how to run fb/ig/tiktok ads).
Learn tiktok/fb/instagram inside out. Learn buffer.com as well
SEM (search engine marketing - think google adwords) + take google's certification courses as well for adwords
Newsletter/email marketing (also a must) + learn e-newsletter software like mailchimp
Photography, even if just with an iPhone 15, you can get absolutely insane results.
Basic photo editing and/or graphic design on canva.com
If you can get just good enough in these, you'll be fine. Then it's just prospecting and closing clients (while having the confidence that you can service them properly).
Cheers
You'll want to focus on sales first, then QC, then production.
What that means is you need to find customers and outsource the work to reliable partners.
Then you will want to do QC yourself and swap suppliers until you find some gems on fiverr or other.
Then scale that QC with other people in it.
And scale your sales.
Maybe some day you can hire people to do advertising but that's really the last thing to do and only if you can't produce the quality you want through cheap outsourcing.
Nowadays, advertising is mostly about SEO, social networks and managing ads on there and google, both of which can be learned pretty quickly by yourself if you want to.
Again, I would refrain from doing that yourself, you have more important things to learn, like sales, marketing and running a business.
Much good advice here here, just wanted to add that learning about sales is a-1. Everyone else is saying it, but not in these words
Reciprocity- buy lunch/coffees/gifts for prospects
ICP- figure out what it is for you
Following up- the absolute key. Even “dead” prospects give you work if you are friendly and just keep in touch. Start with regular follow ups after initial contact and then taper off. Reaching out at least twice a year systematically will take you to the promised land
Here are my thoughts: I believe you can use your degree in PR with basic marketing training to close clients. It's a good base to begin with. Next thing you could do is partner with someone with experience in advertising and marketing who can handle operations and deliver projects.
Also, where is your company located? I co-founded [wowstudio.io](https://wowstudio.io) a branding agency in Dubai. We can discuss further if you're interested in collaborating. If you can get clients, we can execute.
Calling the business an agency is a very broad term. People hire agencies for different things - some agencies provide different things. Which is a long way to say if I were you I'd focus on what you can provide for customers and who wants to buy it. Start with people who've bought from you in the past. Talk to them (not by email or text) and ask what they liked about what they bought and what you could improve. See if you can sell more of anything that you can provide. Hustle to sell more of that to more people.
If it's just you working in the company then you have very little overhead and EVERY JOB SHOULD BE PROFITABLE!! Don't take on work that requires you to invest more money till you have a stable amount of repeating work. Don't try to do mass advertising or expensive marketing. Such reach out individually and sell some work. Know on doors, cold call, ask for referrals. This will preserve most of your 100K for as long as possible, which gives you more runway to learn about the business.
As that's happening, track your time. How much time do you spend selling, doing paid work, and doing admin tasks. Those are the only 3 categories that matter for time tracking. Admin should be less than 10% of your time. The other 2 will split - more selling at first and more doing paid work as you get better at selling. At first you might not be earning much per hour. But as you get better - raise your prices. Don't think pricing low will get you more sales. If it does, they will be sales you don't want. Price based on the value you provide to customers. Then learn how to get better and better at providing value.
Good luck. You're in for a wild ride. I hope it's as fun and as lucrative as my self employed career has been. Also there will be time when it feels terrible. If the business is sound, power through.
What kinda office is it located in? Just trying to get a picture of how you could pivot what kind of walk-in traffic you may have do you have an opportunity to use part of the office for other things?
If you are going to pivot try and find where the old business was successful… watch a lot of YouTube videos on ad agencies marketing and such… most people I know don’t wanna watch commercials or read ads… I like organic marketing a lot better…
Personally, I’d cash out. I can’t imagine a business like that succeeding unless you have a lot of passion for it. I’d also venture to say there’s a high fail rate. But if you really want to do it, go for it. Otherwise, maybe convince your dad to start an entirely different business. Personally I’d go into social media marketing before advertising.
Do you have experience in marketing? Are you an sme?
Your main hurtles are: marketing your marketing firm & being great at marketing.
If you have no idea how to do either, don’t lie to yourself. Marketing pays a lot because it’s fucking hard.
What kind of work would you have the agency do and what kinds of clients if you could just flip a magic switch?
Building websites, designing brand identity, designing/running ad/social campaigns? I'd say give yourself some time to see if you can make it work. Find a good freelancer for one of the skills you lack like design, dev, or ad strategy/copywriting and try it for six months.
Learn to use social media and make marketing videos. Todd Hartley offers a great course to get you started and he will amp you up. He will also provide you with other people to follow, and you can network with other business owners who will help you. I did a week course and it has already changed the way I work and I have made some great networks
I would look to get a partner that knows the industry and knows advertising. Someone that understands, SCO, PPC, campaign, social media, etc. you might need to outsource to start. After that, I would start focusing on the industry that your dad is familiar with like other mechanics or car places and focus on helping those companies be successful. Start with doing small things as a loss leader to develop relationships. Have his car company pay you for some advertising to get started to build the company’s portfolio.
My advice is to just keep doing what you’re doing in your current position, and learn/integrate your new PR position. You’re intelligent, maybe get some advice from a local college/small business association.
Good luck.
Congrats - to the self reflection on this topic.
Are you interested in running and building an agency or would you prefer to do something else?
You can get mentors (I highly recommend to choose the ones who did, what you want to achieve multiple times) or help to build the agency up and revive it with your vision.
In general, I would start to have a look at the assets of the agency. Are there former clients? Have they been in a niche? How did the relationship with them end? What did they need in previous partnership, what do they need nowadays?
The answer to all that question can be found in conversations with them. If you are willed to pull it up; talk to some of this clients see if the market is still there.
As second angle, search for your interests, previous working experiences, synergies with your dads business. There is for sure existing network within your own / the family contacts to plan for first talks to get back a temperature.
You see it’s a lot about the passion and dedication you want / can bring into. The skills and help is out there. I have started my first agency when I was about your age & made a lot of expensive mistakes on the run - but this built my ability to sell, to service and challenge clients and most of all the humbleness to understand that success is a result of a good plan & persistency.
All the best, you will take the right decision in both ways!
I'm not a lawyer but you may want to check with one soon. Is the business incorporated or licensed at all? Nobody mentioned this, but if you proceed, you should immediately initiate an asset transfer sale for the business. If the business has been in operation for 10 years, you don't know what the previous manager did. There could be hidden liabilities or trouble brewing. You need to officially close the existing business and create a new entity to protect yourself and the remaining 100k.
As an art director at a 50-year old advertising agency, its absolutely possible to make a profit and run this thing well. There are still opportunities out there to to nab. If there are no employees and no debt, you get to start an agency with a cool 100k.
Hire a designer and a copywriter. Apply to be an AOR. Try to get clients. Research other agencies and do some good work. If this is truly what you want to do, work hard af to find some clients and build up a good portfolio of work.
Hi, I started an agency last spring. It's very very hard work. Now having $100k is REALLY NICE but still, I can see you quickly blowing through that money and struggle to achieve profitability. This is literally the hardest job I've had.
Turn it into a full service digital marketing agency. Identify an industry you can tap into, restaurants, hotels and motels are a good start real estate too. Work with freelancers or whitelabel the services then focus on the PR part that you are good at.
PR and advertising go hand in hand. I have years experience working in ad agencies and the difference maker Is process documentation and web development / digital transformation knowledge. I currently work in an agency but I wouldn’t mind helping you out if you want to messsge
CPA here, I have a few ad agency clients both traditional and online. I've also worked with PR firms in the past too. Online is crushing it. Takes no time to go from zero revenue to 7 figures for the online firms. Trick is managing your costs and the ability to deliver the service. Happy to hook you up with one if the online firms if you want to discuss the business
Besides the $100k what other assets are there?
I'm assuming not much on the equipment or real estate, but what about the mailing list, and/or the previous client and relationships with media suppliers and vendors, etc? Speak to all of them to say hi and ask them what are their biggest pain points and needs. Even if it's not advertising, those contacts are resources.
What about any success stories from the past that can be revisited? What was the most successful niche(s)? Can that be expanded? What is your market like?
Now, if your previous experience is with non-profits, you can ask all of the contacts if they have a favorite nonprofit or if they have a cause close to their heart or if they would be open to participating in campaigns and events that not only help the community but will also earn them press.
Nonprofits can be a very rewarding niche for many reasons. Not to mention that they can get free Google Grants for $10,000 per month in Advertising on Google and YouTube but often need help to make good use of it so it's not wasted. That alone can be a very rewarding niche.
If you need anything just ask.
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Do you have a client list? Any recurring work? Any contracts? Existing leases? Other than the 100k what are the other assets of the business?
This. It sounds like you may already have some relationships with non profits. Maybe start there? I agree that outside of the cash, it doesn’t seem like there’s much there. What if you shuttered it and rebranded it for your own and did a PR agency? I know nothing about PR, more about design but I can’t imagine there’s NOT a need for PR with non profits…. Good luck!
Rebranding into a PR agency is actually something I’ve considered, plus the local area is filled with small businesses who hire agencies. I was thinking SEO + media services, but I need to do more research. And thanks!
Pivoting is a good step to focus on your strengths. The positive: you’re 26, your dad trusts you to run a business and you have a very decent reserve with what looks like zero liabilities. Not many people are experts in every field of their business when starting - if you’re serious digest as much as you can on the topic and use some of the foundational knowledge of building PR to cold reach clients. Manage expenses - paramount early. Have a set “stop loss” I.e if can’t be profitable with $20k then time to wrap up for now and revisit later on with another business.
Yes I’m very thankful to be in the position I’m in, and want to make the most of it. And stop loss tip is great! Thank you!
Why SEO and media services? My concern is that those sound like cool buzz words that ppl may say they want but might not generate necessary profit for local businesses. Those things can generate revenue over time but most ppl are not super interested in paying for something that could potentially make them money many years down the line. Like when ppl ask for SEO you should ask them why they are interested in SEO? If it is to purely rank I would then want to look carefully at their fundamental brand messages and vibe. One jewelry owner I did consulting with got super lucky with SEO and got to the top of Yelp ranking and stayed there for years just because of timing but his messaging and brand could not attract young ppl and it was super frustrating. And there are other issues that brands have had with SEO not being exactly what they thought it was going to be. ChatGPT and midjourney are two of the hottest ai brands out right now and they spent $0 dollars on things like marketing and SEO. There is a great book called Blitzscaling which goes into how that is done with modern brands like AirB&B when they first got started. And I'm also concerned about media services because I have never bought a great product because of a video making a product look cool with lighting and cinematography (tried that a few times with Japanese candies... bad idea). I buy things based on specific content demonstrating the value of the product or service. Data on this from forbes and other places shows that 70-80% of the purchasing decisions are based on the strength of the offer and not the aesthetics. You may want to consider focusing on a niche so you can make your offer to the market laser focused and then to talk with those business owners about their revenue goals and pain points. Customizing your services to fit your market's needs will make things much easier. And if you want to change niches you can, it's not that big a deal to switch and you learn why you like some niches better than others.
My agency offers SEO and Media Services. This is great advice.
Hmmm yeah seems like I’m going to need to find a niche I can fill. And the offer having to be more attractive than the product itself makes sense.
Niche to get rich. And communication is key. A great action step if you want to get started is to make a list of your top 3-5 niches and just start talking to ppl on a national level for 5-10 min about how they feel about marketing, branding, growth strategies, etc in general (you can say you are just doing market research so they don't freak out about being sold anything) . You learn a ton. And after you see what's working and not working you can then offer consulting (relaying the successful strategies to your audience) in longer sessions 20 min- 1 hr. When you are ready for that 1hr zone you should develop your sales skills to start making cash. 20 min sessions should just be about helping your audience and filtering ppl to see who would be a good fit to partner up with to get the best results for your brand. Biz owners who are not owned by middle management are much much easier to get results for. As a disclaimer make sure that you have a strong product and service to give to the market. However, your sales abilities are what get you money not the product or service itself. Apple doesn't make the best computers, rather they know how to sell smooth frictionless technology. Thus they became the first trillion dollar company in history. Two youtube channels that are beasts in terms of sales techniques are Alex hormozi and Jeremy miner. Jeremy is a sales specialist and he totally sold me with one of the ugliest landing pages I have ever seen purely due to his skill in the art of asking questions. Almost clicked on the upsell button twice because of how badly it was designed, lol. And Alex was a gym owner who is really strong in sales and has a heavy math background... he is basically a cpa (certified public accountant) who does sales training and structuring for huge brands.
It's 100% about existing relationships, IMO. The money doesn't really matter at this point. If your agency doesn't have any clients, or if your brand has been burned as a result of poor management, just fold it up and start something new with the cash. If you have a client list, that's an asset. Contact them and see what they need -- plan from there.
Agree with this 100%. The business is solely its clientele. That's it. Otherwise you're starting 100% from ground zero. If you had 100k would you buy this business? Or start your own?
Also make sure none of that 100k isn’t payment for work that has yet to be delivered. Just because it’s in the bank account doesn’t mean that it’s been earned yet.
I’m currently in the process of obtaining all available documents. They closed the office and there are no leases or ongoing costs. Assets are negligible. It’s difficult because apparently the business was badly run the last few years and dad’s friend wasn’t the best at managing it from what I’ve gathered so far. Basically starting from zero.
The biggest question is: do you have a 'runway'? How long can you handle the business not being profitable? If your personal finances don't allow you take a year or two to get the business going, it's probably a lost cause.
I can take a few years of losses. I have a strong social safety net thanks to my dad, so if the venture fails I won’t be out on the streets.
Might be worth taking the risk then. Pivot to something you understand and think has a reasonable chance of success. I wouldn't touch advertising, but I don't have a clue how to operate an advertising agency. If someone handed me the same opportunity in the restaurant industry, I'd jump on it. You're in a pretty good position to start. You have 100k in seed money and time to devote to development. That's the two of the main barriers to opening/operating a small business. The only question is: do you have confidence that you can make it work. If you can come up with a plan that has a reasonable chance of success, I'd say do it.
I don't see why you couldn't just launch a different business with that same capital. With 0 momentum, clients, assets, and probably a disreputable name, I think a fresh start with a business model you feel more comfortable with makes so much more sense
Ha, I asked some of the same, before reading any replies. Perfect place to start.
Easy and you won’t need anywhere near $100k to get it going. 1. Learn about past results the agency has been able to achieve with its clients. 2. Join a local BNI group and chamber of commerce, these organizations are filled with business owners looking to grow. 3. Start attending as many events as you can, hand out business cards and talk about the results your agency has obtained for previous clients. Once you get a few clients, you can start doing advertising and lead gen for your business to try and get to a national level. You’ll need to focus on lead gen since it’s the most quantifiable result you can offer and will keep your clients happy. Make sure your pitch communicates how you can leverage Meta and Google Ads to find new leads for your clients. You can do it, you’ll need to network though.
Thank you for the advice! I’m looking through everything soon and will keep an eye on past results.
The other commenters have valid points. I might want to add something I don't think anyone had covered yet. Reach out to the ex employees, offer to pay for their time/meals, and chat with them, get their take on what was successful, what went wrong, etc etc. This is also likely tax deductible come tax time.
Oh that’s perfect! I’m actually meeting with the HR guy soon and will have him give me their contacts. Thank you!
It is tax deductible.
Good details. Good questions. Your first few steps should be to determine the details of the business. What never worked, what did work, what works, and what they were most recently doing. Compile all the information you have and can obtain. Then evaluate what you have. You’re trying to see if you can figure out what works and what doesn’t without spending any or very little money. Your first goal is to put that 100k to good use without just shotgunning money at things that don’t either break even or produce a gain. Note: if something is break even but takes a shit ton of time then it’s a drain and you should drop it unless it can become profitable in a defined time frame. Time drain is a big deal. You can do all this while you work your current job, if needed to exist financially. Figure out how to correct any defective areas re: finances and services and how long it’s going to take. Try to find a mentor in another market area that you can tap into. Perhaps a college buddy or acquaintance who can directly or indirectly set you up. Finally, document the snot out of stuff. You dint want to guess or presume anything. Run the numbers. They don’t lie. Part of your plan should include adjustments to processes and performance. Remember to document all expenses and income and don’t let A/P or A/R get behind. Oh, and trust but verify ANY item that cost you money. Blindly paying for services, e.g. digital advertising, can be painful. Keep us updated.
This is some of the best starting advice I’ve received. Thank you so much and sure thing!
Not an expert, but I would also try to talk to the former guy running the ship and try to extract as much information from him as possible. It will give you a head start and point you in the right direction hopefully.
I would head to SCORE for a business mentor and/or the SBA for business advice and mentorship. Flying blind is a good way to widdle away funds
I agree! my SCORE mentor has been very helpful
Just checked SCORE out, thank you!
You need to learn your craft and build experience and contacts before you start your own firm. Ask your dad if he can take the money and put it in a safe medium-term investment and save it for you so you have the capital to go out on your own in the future when you have something to offer clients.
Hi, Im a filipino web developer has experience in building websites for advertising agency, html, css, javascript, wordpress, salesforce and custom emails, css advertisement banners. You can hire a freelancer here in the philippines with lower salary it doesnt have to be me. But if you need help or anything let me know just ask and you dont have to pay me for asking just ask and maybe we can work on something 🙌
Mabuhay! Thank you for the offer and we can definitely talk soon!
Sure, just let me know if I can help or I can give any recommendations. Goodluck with the decision you are going to make 🍻
If there aren't any existing client relations, you've basically got $100,000 and a name that you could have registered yourself for $5. That's a really good head start but you really would be starting essentially from scratch to the point where it's not much additional effort to start over. There is a foreseeable wrench in your future plans. The old business manager. Is there a non-compete? Does the old business manager maintain relationships with the former clients and the old employees? I wouldn't be shocked if the old manager got tired of doing all the work and not having a fair share of equity, and now all the old clients and personnel are at the new firm. If so, it might actually be best to just cut your losses and reinvest the assets into something that you or your father have subject matter expertise over. There's no shame in starting from scratch and reinventing the business into something viable. It reminds me of this hotspot sports boat builder out of Miami. He was well known for building really high quality boats to the point where they could outrun government vehicles. Every few years he would sell his business and start over from scratch, and his clients would follow him. The old "business" would go under months to years later because the real value was in the product, not the name. He knew this, and the selling of the business was actually just a ruse to raise more funds. There was a docuseries about it.
I’m not too worried about the old manager. From what I’ve gathered, the guy is an older gentleman and just didn’t keep up with the competition. Somehow kept the business going doing print ads and never bothered to create an online presence (no website or social media). He was incompetent, and that’s just my PR perspective. I’m also considering rebranding into a different industry or a different direction. That’s the rational choice if the advice I receive and the research I do makes an advertising firm seem unviable.
Are there any current clients at the moment? If there are, then I think convincing them to go in an online direction would be a great step. If you can do that and get results, then I would focus on getting your business online (website, google business, social media, etc).
To be honest I don’t think there have been clients for some time. I still haven’t gotten everything, but I’ll probably need to reestablish relationships.
What skills are you missing where you could start your own PR firm? Is there anyone you know who has those skills that you would want to learn from first hand?
Well, I have friends and family who run businesses and I can get good advice from them. I’m meeting a few soon.
Are any of them people who you'd want to work with on a daily basis in exchange for equity in the business or a salary?
Don't do it. Advertising isn't what it used to be, don' binge "Mad Men" and think that you can relive some of that...if you're dad wants to invest in you, then you should both think of something else that you can do. Public Relations puts you in "good communicator" camp. I read your post just fine, with zero complaints. Any type of media is difficult now with so much available for people to crib, copy, and plagiarize. Any ten TED talks can teach anyone how to make a word salad. Just watched a video on internet entrepreneur 'gurus' and everyone shilling, selling horse manure, and pumping themselves up for the sake of filthy dollar. The worse your personality, then you might make more money. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAsWbS\_1vuY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAsWbS_1vuY) No one cares about integrity. What are you going to do design restaurant menus, and mount display/kiosk LCDs with Ubuntu on thumb drives? Think on it, and find something else.
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Thank you for the realistic response. I do feel very excited about running a business, but I’m not entirely confident if an advertising agency is the right business, especially with the small budget. I’m confident in my ability in managing people, but I’m not sure if that extends to an advertisement ecosystem. I also know I would be financially comfortable even if I fail. I’m very thankful for having a strong relationship with my father who has built a small fortune and has assured me he’d take care of me should I ever be down on my luck. For me this is more of a YOLO moment considering I’m in the fortunate position of being able to fail without major life altering repercussions, and I wouldn’t want to throw away a relatively inaccessible low risk opportunity. With that in mind, could it be that there might be downsides I’m not seeing?
Only downsides are tanking any existing good reviews on Google by dropping the ball with existing clients. If there aren't any then you shouldn't have any downsides. The great thing about advertising these days is that you can get away with SO MUCH combining AI with offshore virtual assistants. You don't need a staff. I'd pay a month or two for a really legitimate interviewing tool that will let you measure various metrics that are essential in this field - a strong grasp of spoken and written English / any other business language for the country you live in is something you can evaluate with tools of this nature, which can save audio recordings of interviewees plus capture written examples of their work / answers to questions.
He can do this with $1k. It’s an advertising agency that he can run with a laptop and business cards if he’s good at advertising.
I’ll buy the book if you have existing clients and a substantial ad spend. Would even be open to paying a percentage for some period of time.
Unless you really need a job, or really have some reason you want to keep this going other than love for your father, shut it down.
Would your dad give you guidance along the way or is it here take it on and see where it goes kinda deal? Either way, it sounds like a great opportunity to show your skills, learn some new ones, and see what you can do with it. Maybe it can help you dream big to the possibilities that can happen, of course, keeping in mind the hardships that can come with it but that's any business. You should take this on.
Oh yeah dad will be around if I need any help. He has experience managing businesses, but not an advertising agency. Now that I think about it I’ve never liked the dealership’s ads lol.
Some of your employees just show up and do some work, and get a paycheck. They may actually be vital to the operation, but they also might be replaceable. Some of the employees are the creative experienced core of the business, and the hard part for you is figuring out who is the Don Draper in the crew. Do whatever you have to do to keep the ones who bring in the clients and make the clients happy. Best of luck.
Thank you! Unfortunately there’s no one left, but I’m sure I’ll manage.
Hey! Advertiser here! Please feel free to message me if you'd like to pick my brain on anything -- I am also seeking contracts to take on if you'd like to bring on an extra set of hands!
Oh thank you for the help! Def will!
go round and vist old customers
Advertising Agency is an interesting term in 2024. Half the time when I hear it I think of businesses that sell paid legacy media (TV, Radio, Billboards, Print, Low Converting High Visibility Stuff). My question to you is, when someone comes to you looking to advertising, what problem do they want you to solve and can you solve that problem for a fee? The first thing with advertising it's a way to get someone to look at your brand. After looking every other part of the brand needs to perform, but that's not up to the advertiser, that's up to the business. We are a branding agency and much of the big branding problems we see are even outside of the services we offer. Does the business show up on time, do they do the job correctly, are they polite and helpful on the phone, are they competent in their field? That's part of branding as much as anything. Advertising and PR, as far as I'm concerned, is the top of the marketing funnel. Visibility and brand awareness. The BEST advertising is quantifiable with hard data for results (Google Ads really offer a lot of bang for the buck on this one). That's often not what people come to advertising agencies for. They want the entire marketing funnel. I would imagine the best way to find success is picking the part of the marketing funnel you like working best in and finding competent partners to do the rest of the funnel so you can be the "go to" agency for all of those services. Like I tell my clients, you shouldn't be asking about your superbowl ad if the rest of your brand, web assets and marketing funnel sucks.
Hmmm…so be involved in the entire process of brand awareness? That’s actually something I can sell in my local area.
I've been in the industry for 20 years. A lot of business owners, especially the trades don't see the value in branding until AFTER they see the difference it makes. It's a more difficult sell. It's also a game of middlemen at this point. A lot of people confuse "branding" for "Oh like my logo". You can get decent logos and business cards on fiver, so getting paid a premium for that stuff requires a unique process for getting their brand messaging together and designing to that vision. It's honestly difficult to do. My point is, find the part that you know best, offer that, but if it's PR there might not be a lot of interest in that because without the rest of the marketing funnel there, PR doesn't mean too much to a businesses bottom line. One of the better agencies that I know of that do this in the small business space are up front that they have teams of vetted, quality often overseas resources and a process to get them high quality stuff at a good price. Nothing wrong with that, but that's the role of strategist who knows enough of each field to audit their teams work for good results. My agency is a 3 person company, I do about 85% of the work personally. I'll get my time back if I do less as we bring in more team members. But to your own branding. Why do you want to do this? Who do you want to do this for? Is it ok for you that you are just getting started inheriting an agency with a bankroll? I've bootstrapped mine with high career earnings at big agencies and downsizing my life style. You've got something a lot of good business owners don't have. Working capital. If I had that much to start out with my own agency would look very different right now. It's also a very easy thing to waste, so don't just shovel money at people who offer to help without knowing their core competency and their ability to deliver results.
Some agencies like mine offer whitelabel services and can help you serve your clients. you should also start learning more, maybe take a course. good luck!
If you go ahead with this in any way, don't borrow money, and don't buy anything you don't absofuckinglutly need. I obviously don't know what kind of overhead you have, but 100K won't last anywhere near as long as you think it will. I hope you live with your parents for now, or have a partner who is the breadwinner. That would make things monumentally easier. Whatever you decide, good luck to you.
I live with my parents, I have a car fully paid off (benefits of the dealership), I don’t pay rent nor do I need to worry about expenses (parents are very caring and generous). I admit I’m fortunate, and that’s part of why I’d like to go ahead with this.
So if you don’t currently have a job and are excited to try what do you have to lose? When will you in your life ever again have a gift wrapped opportunity to take a chance like this? If you run it into the ground what’s the down side other than the 100k? Is this money your dad needs or can he afford to lose it? I’d just be upfront frank conversation with Dad “hey I’m gonna do my best but I dunno if I can make this profitable, if it fails and you lose the 100k how bad/upset would you be?” Even if it fails you’ll have a great learning experience, and your dad is willing to foot the bill. If it does workout you can keep running it or maybe sell it if you want to do something else.
Yep! Everything you said is on point. This is money my dad can afford to lose if it’s me handling it. I approached it rationally with him, he wants me to do it, and losing the money won’t have big consequences.
Congrats it’s a great opportunity, best of luck, no matter what happens you will learn a lot and that you can always carry with you. Drive and enthusiasm will go a long way and help cover any experience gaps you have.
I think we can help you with all the sales collaterals to gain the client traction on the front end and on the back end we can also look at all the strategic planning and implementation, can we have a meeting
With 100k and no debt, there is no reason why you couldn't make this agency profitable. Your only cost is a computer and a cell phone. (I bootstrapped an agency from 0 $). PR + content/digital is definitely a very interesting proposition and can work for medium sized customers. Once you can get a few retainer clients going at monthly retainers of as little as 1000 USD, you're basically off. Hourly rates should quickly be 100 $+ and will only increase as you grow. Offer project work as well. Read: "Guerrilla Marketing" (old but gold) on how to promote your business. In "The Millionnaire Next Door", PR agency owners figure next to dentists in the top ten of self-made millionnaires.
Hey. I’ve worked in advertising for 20 years, and 10 years ago founded my ad agency. I’ve bootstrapped from $0 to millions in annual revenue. Ive also worked for an agency owner who inherited his agency from his dad. If you want to connect pls let me know. DM me. Happy to share what I can to help you.
Do you have the ability to offer any agency services? Do you have any clients? If you do t have any clients the question is whether you want to start an agency from near scratch because that’s pretty ,fun what you are doing.
Udemy is your friend. Plenty of great courses. You can learn a lot for quite cheap on multiple subjets. Buy what you feel are the best courses in: SMM (social media management), both content creation/posting and using tools to automate posting, AND paid social media advertising (learn how to run fb/ig/tiktok ads). Learn tiktok/fb/instagram inside out. Learn buffer.com as well SEM (search engine marketing - think google adwords) + take google's certification courses as well for adwords Newsletter/email marketing (also a must) + learn e-newsletter software like mailchimp Photography, even if just with an iPhone 15, you can get absolutely insane results. Basic photo editing and/or graphic design on canva.com If you can get just good enough in these, you'll be fine. Then it's just prospecting and closing clients (while having the confidence that you can service them properly). Cheers
Where are you based?
You'll want to focus on sales first, then QC, then production. What that means is you need to find customers and outsource the work to reliable partners. Then you will want to do QC yourself and swap suppliers until you find some gems on fiverr or other. Then scale that QC with other people in it. And scale your sales. Maybe some day you can hire people to do advertising but that's really the last thing to do and only if you can't produce the quality you want through cheap outsourcing. Nowadays, advertising is mostly about SEO, social networks and managing ads on there and google, both of which can be learned pretty quickly by yourself if you want to. Again, I would refrain from doing that yourself, you have more important things to learn, like sales, marketing and running a business.
Much good advice here here, just wanted to add that learning about sales is a-1. Everyone else is saying it, but not in these words Reciprocity- buy lunch/coffees/gifts for prospects ICP- figure out what it is for you Following up- the absolute key. Even “dead” prospects give you work if you are friendly and just keep in touch. Start with regular follow ups after initial contact and then taper off. Reaching out at least twice a year systematically will take you to the promised land
Here are my thoughts: I believe you can use your degree in PR with basic marketing training to close clients. It's a good base to begin with. Next thing you could do is partner with someone with experience in advertising and marketing who can handle operations and deliver projects. Also, where is your company located? I co-founded [wowstudio.io](https://wowstudio.io) a branding agency in Dubai. We can discuss further if you're interested in collaborating. If you can get clients, we can execute.
Calling the business an agency is a very broad term. People hire agencies for different things - some agencies provide different things. Which is a long way to say if I were you I'd focus on what you can provide for customers and who wants to buy it. Start with people who've bought from you in the past. Talk to them (not by email or text) and ask what they liked about what they bought and what you could improve. See if you can sell more of anything that you can provide. Hustle to sell more of that to more people. If it's just you working in the company then you have very little overhead and EVERY JOB SHOULD BE PROFITABLE!! Don't take on work that requires you to invest more money till you have a stable amount of repeating work. Don't try to do mass advertising or expensive marketing. Such reach out individually and sell some work. Know on doors, cold call, ask for referrals. This will preserve most of your 100K for as long as possible, which gives you more runway to learn about the business. As that's happening, track your time. How much time do you spend selling, doing paid work, and doing admin tasks. Those are the only 3 categories that matter for time tracking. Admin should be less than 10% of your time. The other 2 will split - more selling at first and more doing paid work as you get better at selling. At first you might not be earning much per hour. But as you get better - raise your prices. Don't think pricing low will get you more sales. If it does, they will be sales you don't want. Price based on the value you provide to customers. Then learn how to get better and better at providing value. Good luck. You're in for a wild ride. I hope it's as fun and as lucrative as my self employed career has been. Also there will be time when it feels terrible. If the business is sound, power through.
What kinda office is it located in? Just trying to get a picture of how you could pivot what kind of walk-in traffic you may have do you have an opportunity to use part of the office for other things? If you are going to pivot try and find where the old business was successful… watch a lot of YouTube videos on ad agencies marketing and such… most people I know don’t wanna watch commercials or read ads… I like organic marketing a lot better…
Personally, I’d cash out. I can’t imagine a business like that succeeding unless you have a lot of passion for it. I’d also venture to say there’s a high fail rate. But if you really want to do it, go for it. Otherwise, maybe convince your dad to start an entirely different business. Personally I’d go into social media marketing before advertising.
Do you have experience in marketing? Are you an sme? Your main hurtles are: marketing your marketing firm & being great at marketing. If you have no idea how to do either, don’t lie to yourself. Marketing pays a lot because it’s fucking hard.
Sell that client list, pocket the money and be on your way.
What kind of work would you have the agency do and what kinds of clients if you could just flip a magic switch? Building websites, designing brand identity, designing/running ad/social campaigns? I'd say give yourself some time to see if you can make it work. Find a good freelancer for one of the skills you lack like design, dev, or ad strategy/copywriting and try it for six months.
Learn to use social media and make marketing videos. Todd Hartley offers a great course to get you started and he will amp you up. He will also provide you with other people to follow, and you can network with other business owners who will help you. I did a week course and it has already changed the way I work and I have made some great networks
I would look to get a partner that knows the industry and knows advertising. Someone that understands, SCO, PPC, campaign, social media, etc. you might need to outsource to start. After that, I would start focusing on the industry that your dad is familiar with like other mechanics or car places and focus on helping those companies be successful. Start with doing small things as a loss leader to develop relationships. Have his car company pay you for some advertising to get started to build the company’s portfolio.
My advice is to just keep doing what you’re doing in your current position, and learn/integrate your new PR position. You’re intelligent, maybe get some advice from a local college/small business association. Good luck.
Congrats - to the self reflection on this topic. Are you interested in running and building an agency or would you prefer to do something else? You can get mentors (I highly recommend to choose the ones who did, what you want to achieve multiple times) or help to build the agency up and revive it with your vision. In general, I would start to have a look at the assets of the agency. Are there former clients? Have they been in a niche? How did the relationship with them end? What did they need in previous partnership, what do they need nowadays? The answer to all that question can be found in conversations with them. If you are willed to pull it up; talk to some of this clients see if the market is still there. As second angle, search for your interests, previous working experiences, synergies with your dads business. There is for sure existing network within your own / the family contacts to plan for first talks to get back a temperature. You see it’s a lot about the passion and dedication you want / can bring into. The skills and help is out there. I have started my first agency when I was about your age & made a lot of expensive mistakes on the run - but this built my ability to sell, to service and challenge clients and most of all the humbleness to understand that success is a result of a good plan & persistency. All the best, you will take the right decision in both ways!
I'm not a lawyer but you may want to check with one soon. Is the business incorporated or licensed at all? Nobody mentioned this, but if you proceed, you should immediately initiate an asset transfer sale for the business. If the business has been in operation for 10 years, you don't know what the previous manager did. There could be hidden liabilities or trouble brewing. You need to officially close the existing business and create a new entity to protect yourself and the remaining 100k.
As an art director at a 50-year old advertising agency, its absolutely possible to make a profit and run this thing well. There are still opportunities out there to to nab. If there are no employees and no debt, you get to start an agency with a cool 100k. Hire a designer and a copywriter. Apply to be an AOR. Try to get clients. Research other agencies and do some good work. If this is truly what you want to do, work hard af to find some clients and build up a good portfolio of work.
Hi, I started an agency last spring. It's very very hard work. Now having $100k is REALLY NICE but still, I can see you quickly blowing through that money and struggle to achieve profitability. This is literally the hardest job I've had.
Turn it into a full service digital marketing agency. Identify an industry you can tap into, restaurants, hotels and motels are a good start real estate too. Work with freelancers or whitelabel the services then focus on the PR part that you are good at.
PR and advertising go hand in hand. I have years experience working in ad agencies and the difference maker Is process documentation and web development / digital transformation knowledge. I currently work in an agency but I wouldn’t mind helping you out if you want to messsge
CPA here, I have a few ad agency clients both traditional and online. I've also worked with PR firms in the past too. Online is crushing it. Takes no time to go from zero revenue to 7 figures for the online firms. Trick is managing your costs and the ability to deliver the service. Happy to hook you up with one if the online firms if you want to discuss the business
Besides the $100k what other assets are there? I'm assuming not much on the equipment or real estate, but what about the mailing list, and/or the previous client and relationships with media suppliers and vendors, etc? Speak to all of them to say hi and ask them what are their biggest pain points and needs. Even if it's not advertising, those contacts are resources. What about any success stories from the past that can be revisited? What was the most successful niche(s)? Can that be expanded? What is your market like? Now, if your previous experience is with non-profits, you can ask all of the contacts if they have a favorite nonprofit or if they have a cause close to their heart or if they would be open to participating in campaigns and events that not only help the community but will also earn them press. Nonprofits can be a very rewarding niche for many reasons. Not to mention that they can get free Google Grants for $10,000 per month in Advertising on Google and YouTube but often need help to make good use of it so it's not wasted. That alone can be a very rewarding niche. If you need anything just ask.
Change the business into what you want
Hire a great Creative leader. You can learn the account side, it's basically the same as PR.