Listen on: 
Description:
I'm joined by Widmaer Telisma in this episode. Wid, as we call him, currently runs a successful web marketing agency in Montreal (Canada). He and I have a very similar story these past 15 or so years; in fact, he had joined one of my memberships back in 2007. That is where I first met him hanging out in my community and forum. We both started our days online doing a wide variety of things to make money. In the early days we did a lot of affiliate marketing, PPC (AdWords), some Adsense and so much more.
But today we have another parallel.. he followed the path of starting his own marketing agency which he's been doing successfully for the past 5 years; as you know, I run a web design agency. We talk about his journey, common experiences and touch a variety of topics related to building and managing an agency. I hope you join us.. Enjoy!
Widmaer Telisma
Widmaer currently runs W. Boîte Media – a successful web marketing agency in Montreal, Canada. He started out in accounting before he discovered what opportunities lie on the Internet back in the 2000s. He was a very successful Internet Marketer and advertiser promoting affiliate programs online. Experiencing some amazing successes in that domain, with that knowledge and expertise under his belt, he eventually founded an agency to help others do the same.
Currently, Widmaer is residing in Montreal, QC, Canada.
THE MEAT OF IT!
- How I know Wid ..
- What he did before becoming an Internet Entrepreneur
- How you learned about opportunities on the Internet..
- Went to the library .. picked up books on building wealth.
- One turned out to be building a list on the Internet.
- Went to the library .. picked up books on building wealth.
- Adwords, Adsense, Ezine Articles …
- His first $10 commission story
- Shared how I got my first affiliate sale of $40 back in 2003'ish
- Joining my membership (I taught AdWords and Aff Marketing back in the day.. 2007)
- Getting his first big ‘win'.. making thousands on a campaign.
- The challenges of that.. sustaining the spend.
- Trying to appeal with Google..
- The challenge of getting his AdWords account banned.
- The challenge from my perspective teaching methods that relied heavily on AdWords.. how it changed over the years.
- His first $10 commission story
- His story for 10 years..
- Going back and forth with the different things he's trying..
- Building lists..
- SEO, PPC.. trying to write content… affiliate sales, adsense
- Big successes off and on through those years.
- The model he used to make 10k in revenue per day in 2014-15.. 2 years.
- Working for others – a J.O.B. in sales for 4 years.
- Stresses on the family .. working weekends etc..
- THE TRANSITION to running a marketing agency.
- How he got his first client ..
- Chômage !! << see episode. 😉
- aka, unemployment
- Took over hist first ad account .. ‘serious business'
- Insecurities managing someone else's account (before it was always his money)
- Gets the 2nd client..
- How the idea formed to look at this as an agency and to build it from there.
- Got tired of working for others, other people determining his employment, going back on unemployment multiple times. Working too many hours. He just was done with that..
- The challenges of the decision going out on his own being the breadwinner and having a family.
- 4-5 clients .. started to not have to worry about having money every month..
- Now he's got a new problem as he gets busier.. life work balance.
- You ‘could' work 24/7 if you wanted to
- Now he's got a new problem as he gets busier.. life work balance.
- The rollercoaster
- Running an agency
- Improving processes over time
- He uses Clickup ..
- Learning as you go ..
- Never enough time to get things perfect ..
- The common journey — continuous improvement and iteration.
- Making sure you have things set up so if someone is sick or leaves, others can seamlessly jump in and help
- With scale new things come up
- The process CAN be fun!
- Improving processes over time
- 5th year running his agency.
- Not getting too big..
- Keeping the GOOD employees. The benefits.
- Processes to turn employees into Super Stars.
- Running an agency is a growing, living thing.
- Does revisit what's going on with Affiliate Marketing. xD
- Misses those days a bit.. thinks about doing something again even though he's running the agency.
- How I approach affiliate marketing today.. in my business.
- Keeping the ‘why' in mind..
- How I look at my own agency .. as my capstone to my Internet journey. My legacy.
- Wid thinks the same way.
- Wid talks about his ‘why'.
- The nostalgia of us having been online for so many years..
- The friends we've made along the way and checking up on each other.
- The wisdom we have today having done so much.
- Not always chasing.. settling into what we're doing.
- Nerds of Business —> when we think of a hobby it's something we can go make money with. haha
- Many of the things people are doing today are just tweaks on things we were doing years ago (10+ years ago)
- How FaceBook played a role in us staging connected with people we knew back in the day online..
- Ending with.. 2 questions:
- What has been one of the biggest challenges building and/or running an agency?
- What does he think he's done right?
Connect and Learn More from Widmaer Telisma
- His Website: W Boite Media
- Instagram: @widmaer
- W. Boite Media on Facebook
- Wid on LinkedIn
LISTEN TO THE EPISODE BELOW!
Check out these related Episodes:
- Episode 24: Building Your Business via Good Storytelling
- Episode 20: Get to Know Jennifer Denney | Virtual Teams & Building a Business
- Episode 19: Get to Know Shoumo (Saumya Ganguly), Business Consultant | Business Models
