$80K/mo Nicholas Tan, Agency Profits & The Power of Specialization

Table of Contents

• Introduction

• 📊 Biz Breakdown

• 🫂 Team Spotlight

• 📈 Trending

• 🔑 Key Insights

• 🏰 Historical Ties

• 🧰 Tools

• 🫵 Actionable Tip

Introduction

Nicholas Tan (@thenicketan), a graduate from Haskayne School of Business, swiftly transitioned from the conventional 9-5 to entrepreneurship, founding Agency Profits. This digital marketing agency and its accompanying course offer practical, actionable strategies focusing on specialized services rather than a "jack of all trades" approach. Tan's business model emphasizes quality service and client retention, operating with minimal employees and leveraging digital marketing expertise to generate substantial revenue.

📊 Biz Breakdown

After building his marketing agency to $80k/mo, he ventured into online education through Agency Profits, which has significantly contributed to his business growth. This course teaches agency owners how to scale their businesses and has been praised for its practical, step-by-step approach and tangible results in increasing agency profitability​​​​​​.

The business model for Agency Profits is designed for digital marketing agencies and entrepreneurs who are looking to scale their businesses and increase profitability. Here's a deeper dive into the key elements of the business model:

1. Specialization over Diversification: One of the core principles of Agency Profits is to specialize in one service rather than trying to be a "jack of all trades." For instance, if an agency excels in Facebook ads, the model suggests they should focus exclusively on this service. This specialization approach is aimed at ensuring quality service, which in turn helps in retaining clients​​.¹

2. Lean Operations: The model emphasizes operating with minimal employees or relying on outsourcing. This approach is particularly beneficial for those starting out, as it reduces the complexities of managing a large team and minimizes overhead costs​​.

3. Digital Marketing Focus: Agency Profits largely concentrates on digital marketing services such as SEO, PPC, and social media marketing. The course provided under this model includes comprehensive training in these areas, ensuring that agency owners are well-equipped to offer these services effectively​​.²

4. Structured Course Offering: The course itself is reported to be well-organized, practical, and actionable. It includes modules that cover a wide range of topics, including sales, marketing, operations, and finance, with real-world examples and case studies to illustrate key concepts​​.

5. Tracking and Measurement Emphasis: A significant part of the model involves setting up systems and processes to track key metrics. This aspect is designed to help agency owners make informed decisions about their business based on data​​.

6. Community and Support: Nicholas Tan has created a community for course members, typically through private groups like Facebook. This community aspect provides a platform for networking, idea sharing, and support among like-minded agency owners​​.

7. Coaching and Personalized Support: The course includes personal coaching, unlimited one-on-one calls, client acquisition scripts, and systems for delivering results. This personalized support structure is aimed at ensuring the practical application of the course material​​.

8. Cost and Accessibility: The price of the Agency Profits course is around $3,000, which includes the comprehensive training and resources mentioned above​​.

The above business model focuses on specialized, efficient, and data-driven strategies for growing a digital marketing agency. It emphasizes the importance of mastery in a specific area of digital marketing, lean operational structure, and the utilization of modern digital tools and techniques for business growth. From our observations, the agency model works if you are fine servicing clients. If you prefer product-based business models, then there are obviously others to try out. But service-based businesses are the “easiest” to start building a business with, since you get to understand the needs of clients more intimately. Cash-flow is also more direct.

🫂 Team Spotlight

Tan’s approach emphasizes the importance of a lean and effective team. His course, Agency Profits, advocates for a business model with minimal to zero employees, focusing instead on efficient systems and processes​​.

📈 Trending

Agency Profits aligns with the current trend of solopreneurs moving to small teams and leveraging more efficient digital marketing to create significant impacts. This model exemplifies the power of focused expertise in a digital age where targeted, quality services outperform broad, undifferentiated offerings.

Tan also taps into a shift towards smaller, local businesses, a trend that is being discussed from an AI + SEO standpoint. Here are some of the local niches he prefers:

🔑 Key Insights

Nicholas Tan’s approach is reflective of the times. You may notice that his Twitter following is less than 1,000, but his businesses makes him more than $80K/mo. This is key to understand, because there are many who still think that large social followings equal large financial income. It does not. So it’s important to be able to spot who is actually earning more in real life, versus getting caught up in the fame aspect of social media. Because what’s popular, isn’t always what’s true.

🏰 Historical Ties

Tan's strategy mirrors the age-old principle of mastery found in ancient times, where focusing on one craft led to excellence and renown. This focus on specialization over diversification is akin to the guilds of medieval Europe, where mastery of a single trade was more valued than being moderately skilled in many. Some things change, some things stay the same.

🧰 Tools

Here are some of the tools Nick uses for his business:

🫵 Actionable Tip

For aspiring micropreneurs, Nick’s story highlights the opportunity in identifying and dominating local niche markets, with few to no employees. Focusing on a specific service or product not only sets you apart but also allows for deeper expertise and better service quality. It may seem very basic, but all markets go in and out of trends. Embracing a lean business model with efficient systems can lead to significant growth without the complexities of a large team.

We recommend the following tool to help you get going: