In 2013, Eric Siu bought a failing SEO agency for two dollars. Today, he’s transformed it into a digital marketing powerhouse that serves companies like Amazon, Airbnb or Lyft.
Now, this ex-gamer turned agency owner and advertising consultant is making huge profits with his company Single Grain and is crushing it in the podcast world, with his most successful show, Marketing School, conducted with fellow marketing genius Neil Patel, crunching more than 1 million downloads a month!
Having been interviewed on Entrepreneur and Forbes, Eric has demonstrated his chops as a top online marketer, and is now willing to help people create their own agency, and help them grow it.
The course he has launched is called Agency Accelerator, a 10 week course where Eric promises to give you the tactics he used to build a multimillion dollar agency:
From helping you find your 'Zone of Genius', to determining your differentiators, to sales script swipe files, you'll get all the exercises he did and the frameworks he used to build his agency.
By signing up for Agency Accelerator you will be getting 3 courses for the price of one:
The first one, How To Transform The Way You Acquire Clients and Maximize Retention, will cover the basics on how to get started and building a sustainable client acquisition system.
The second, How To Build An Inbound Sales Funnel That Acquires Customers On Autopilot With Content Marketing, focuses on your first steps you will take with your agency, focusing on content marketing and content promotion.
Finally, the third course, How To Maximize Organic Lead Generation Using Our Complete SEO Playbook, takes advantage of Eric's in depth SEO knowledge, and concentrates more on keyword research and backlink creation.
Without getting lost in more details, I'm going to tell you what you really want to know from a review:
But before we dive into more detailed reviews of the three courses, just a couple of words about me. After all, you if you don't know who I am, how can I expect you to take my reviews seriously?
Right until 2014, I was working in a 9 to 5 job, that was giving me nothing and was sucking the life out of me. My life changed when I discovered a method to build and organically rank websites for free, generating leads for my clients.
I created the website you see above, for the tree care company, in 2015, and since then, without having to touch it in 5 years, it has brought me a passive income of $2000 a month. That's more than $100 k up to now, guys.
The Lead Generation business model is clearly the best way to generate passive income and escape the 9 to 5 rat-race. If you're interested, learn more about lead gen here!
Now let's get started with the reviews!
Agency Accelerator promises SEO and Content Marketing courses, agency strategy consultations, and a proprietary technology that your 'competitors' aren't using (that will help you increase your revenue even more).
Although the program is called 'Agency Accelerator', any business in the services, consulting or coaching space can use these playbooks to take their business to the next stage of growth.
To explain this better, let's just dive into the reviews and get a better idea of what's on offer in Agency Accelerator.
COURSE 1: How To Transform The Way You Acquire Clients and Maximize Retention
This course promises to teach you how to start a consulting and coaching agency and immediately convert clients in 10 weeks.
It caters to total beginners, with no prior experience in online marketing, and promises to teach you all the skillsets necessary.
Preliminary Information
Course Breakdown
Chapter 1: Getting Started
As usual in these courses, the very first module is dedicated to mindset, organizational skills and an injunction to follow the process and look at the results later on, after the course.
Takeaway from Chapter 1:
Eric encourages you to find your Zone of Genius: 'you capitalize on your natural abilities which are innate, rather than learned. This is the state in which you get into "flow," find ceaseless inspiration, and seem to not only come up with work that is distinguished and unique, but also do so in a way that excels far and beyond what anyone else is doing'.
Chapter 2: How to Sell
This chapter really covers all the basics in the sale process that any agency can benefit from:
From writing outbound and inbound scripts, to realize that selling is basically solving people's problems. Eric also talks you through any objection you may receive and how to overcome each one!
Takeaway from Chapter 2:
Eric provides the student with three fundamental downloads: The Sales Pre-req Worksheet, Single Grain Inbound Discovery Call Template, and The Sales Objections Swipe File. Who doesn't like templates or swipe files?
Chapter 3: Building a Predictable Client Acquisition System
This is where the course starts getting intense, and you will learn different kinds of client acquisitions, as well as developing a successful sale operation.
Takeaway from Module 3:
The Single Grain Inbound Discovery Call Script and the Content Reusage Framework just make things much easier: having DFY material is always a huge bonus when starting from scratch!
Chapter 4: How to Provide an Exceptional Client Experience
Building a dream team and providing your client with the best possible work experience are the key topics of this dense but rewarding chapter.
Takeaway from Chapter 4:
The idea that 'The Best Defense is a Good Offense' when it comes to investing your precious finances makes a lot of sense: here Eric argues for spending more than you're comfortable to spend, with an eye on higher returns in the future.
Chapter 5: Five Advanced Tactics
Here we're almost at the end of the course and Eric introduces the student to advanced tactics, whose aim is to consolidate all previous knowledge and get even better results.
Takeaway from Chapter 5:
Eric gives his students the vivid vision for Single Grain: 'By focusing on mapping out how you see your company looking and feeling in every category of business, without getting bogged down by data and numbers, Vivid Vision creates a holistic road map to success that will get all of your teammates passionate about the big picture'.
Chapter 6: Final Thoughts
The final chapter of the course is dedicated to tips that can help you round up all the knowledge gained during the course to give you an edge on the competition.
From scaling to hiring staff, Eric has got it all covered!
Takeaway from Chapter 6:
There isn't one tip that stands out from the others: overall chapter 6 is a solid piece of advice after another. You can really tell that Eric knows his stuff inside out.
COURSE 2: How To Build An Inbound Sales Funnel That Acquires Customers On Autopilot With Content Marketing
This second course is dedicated completely to content marketing: from the ABC to start up to maximizing your ROI in half the time you used to, Eric really goes all in with his tips and suggestions.
Preliminary Information
Chapter 1-2: Introduction and Content Marketing Nuts and Bolts
After a brief and rather pointless introduction, Eric starts out with a bang:
In Chapter 2 he drops his knowledge bombs for what is a fantastic 101 content marketing section with a powerful focus on different types of ROI.
Takeaway from Chapter 2:
Eric's ideas on the various types of ROI, short and long-term are definitely the highlights of this module, especially for people who are already clued into the basics of content marketing.
Chapter 3: Building a Sniper-Rifle Content Strategy
This chapter is all about engaging an audience and the subtle art of standing out from the generic content in your niche.
You'll learn about buyer personas and how to find the right keywords in your niche to focus your content on.
Takeaway from Chapter 3:
Much more than a one-dimensional profile of the people you need to influence, or a map of their journey, actionable buyer personas reveal insights about your buyers’ decisions -- the specific attitudes, concerns and criteria that drive prospective customers to choose you, your competitor or the status quo.
Chapter 4: How to Build a Content Engine
In this chapter the name of the game is to optimize results from the content you produce in the least time possible.
This is where Eric's expertise really shines and where the golden wisdom nuggets are to be found.
Takeaway from Chapter 4:
The idea of seeing your original content as a seed, and to promote it through different social media vehicles in order to make the content sprout is a simple but genius concept that will help anyone's content perform better.
Chapter 5: Content Promotion, How to be Everywhere
The heart of the course and probably the reason you bought it in the first place, if you're having trouble with getting your content out to the right people.
This chapter is gold: what platforms to use, how and when to use them, and in what order: soon everyone will be reading your content!
Takeaway from Chapter 5:
Thank you Eric for that ultimate content promo list! It is so much easier when you can just follow a template and know that you're doing things the right way.
Chapter 6: How to get short-term and long-term ROI
How do traffic metric affect your content marketing, and what are the particular metrics we should be keeping an eye out for?
Eric will explain everything you need to know in order to maximize your ROI
Takeaway from Chapter 6:
SEO, which will be the main focus of the third and last course, is introduced here as an important factor in the metrics: organic traffic is ultimately what will make you thrive.
Chapter 7: Level 99 Content Marketing Strategies
With the course slowly winding down, we are introduced to the concepts of scaling content beyond what you can produce on your own.
By now you should be thinking about scaling your agency and hiring some top class writers.
Takeaway from Chapter 7:
Hiring writers may seem like a daunting task: you don't want to put the content of your agency in the hands of someone who won't guarantee you solid content! That's where Eric's Swipe file of Writer Guidelines comes in handy. Now you know what it takes to hire only the best content producers.
COURSE 3: How To Maximize Organic Lead Generation Using Our Complete SEO Playbook
This course was something I was looking forward to getting into: there are so many SEO related strategies in Eric's SEO Playbook, that even a pro will find something or other that he didn't previously know.
Eric goes from Keyword research to On-page and off-page SEO, from backlinks to scaling traffic.
If you really want to start a marketing agency today, your knowledge of SEO strategies needs to be tip-top, and this course will get you there.
Preliminary Info
Chapter 1: The Foundations of SEO
Eric has worked with top companies like Amazon, Lyft and Uber, and he has done that in the capacity of SEO expert:
It's great to be able to hear him speak about what he is most passionate about, even though here he only covers the basics.
Takeaway from Chapter 1:
It's nice that an expert like Eric shares my own opinion when it comes to generating traffic: organic SEO must be mastered before attempting other tricks, such as paid ads.
Chapter 2: Effective Keyword Research
Keyword research has changed a lot in the past years, adapting itself to Google's algorithm changes and requiring an SEO specialist to keep himself constantly updated.
That is what Eric did, and in this chapter he is spilling all the beans.
Takeaway from Chapter 2:
The idea of buying websites deserves a chapter of its own. Buying sites to rank your top keywords is a genius idea.
Chapter 3: Building a Content Engine
In this chapter Eric will give you tips on how to build solid content and how to make sure that your blog posts may stand the test of time and be relevant for a longer period.
Takeaway from Chapter 3:
Eric's turbo hacks to skyrocket your traffic are definitely something that I will be taking home with me after this course. What a boost to my SEO!
Chapter 4: Advanced On-Page and Off-Page SEO Strategies
With Google's algorithms constantly changing, keeping up with the pace is not always that easy.
In this chapter, Eric shows us how to do exactly that, through On-Page and Off-Page strategies that really work.
Takeaway from Chapter 4:
SEO being my strongpoint too, I was curious to learn more about how to leverage YouTube for SEO, and Eric managed to explain quite a complex topic in a very understandable and accessible way.
Chapter 5: On-Page/Off-Page SEO
Backlinks are the core for a successful SEO strategy.
In this chapter, Eric teaches how to drive more backlinks, while at the same time sharing various SEO strategies that anyone can implement immediately.
Takeaway from Chapter 5:
The 9 simple high ROI SEO tactics are pretty cool: they save a lot of time, and like the name says, they have a pretty good ROI. Will be using them in the future!
Chapter 6: The Ultimate SEO Tools Guide
This is another chapter for the newcomers to the world of SEO.
Eric introduces a set of tools that will make your life much easier, and he also explains how to make proper use of them very clearly!
Takeaway from Chapter 6:
Ahrefs crawls the web, stores tons of data and makes it easily accessible via a simple user interface. The data can be used to aid keyword research, link building, content marketing and SEO strategies. If you wanted a way to grow your traffic organically, then Ahrefs is what you're looking for.
Chapter 7: How to get Quality Backlinks
This chapter is chock-full of impressive strategies, from getting influencers to share your content to 'stealing' your competitors' backlinks.
Eric is a pro when it comes to these things, and it really shows in this chapter.
Takeaway from Chapter 7:
Influencer marketing is a part of SEO that is very rarely touched upon, and yet, the sharing of your content by the right person might be that extra boost you needed in going viral. Don't underestimate this strategy.
Chapter 8: Local SEO Strategies to Grow Traffic
It doesn't really matter if you have a local business or not: local SEO strategies are going to be helping your traffic anyway, so you might as well learn how to use them!
Takeaway from Chapter 8:
Having 10 free local SEO tools all in one place, ready to be used, is pretty awesome, and it will take the newbie no time to learn how to use them and benefit from them.
Chapters 9-10: Other Channels
In these two chapters, Eric explains how we can gain traffic through other channels while using SEO.
He also dedicates a large portion of chapter 10 to scaling, proposing different strategies that you can use to achieve your goals.
Takeaway from Chapters 9-10:
Customer experience is a subject that not many courses cover in detail, but it is at the base of a successful marketing agency. Even on this subject, Eric has got you covered.
Chapters 11-12: The Future of SEO
The course ends with one of the most complex events in the life of any marketer: closing clients: as usual, Eric is full of good suggestions and will make this step much easier for you.
He also talks about where SEO is going, and what you can do to always stay on top of things, even when Google algorithms change things a lot.
Takeaway from Chapters 11-12:
Making sure that you adapt to Google algorithms every time they change is essential, and in chapter 12, Eric really goes all in to help you with all the tools at his disposal.
The Verdict: the Good and the Bad
Before I go on and evaluate the pros and cons of Dan's course, I want to reply to those early questions I'd set down, and that anyone reading a review wants to know immediately.
In the past couple of years, Eric Siu has become one of the most recognizable faces in the world of online marketing. If you have listened to his podcasts even once, you know we're talking about a no-nonsense guy who delivers.
The course he designs delivers what he promises, and even more: you basically get 3 courses for the price of 1, and each one of them would probably be worth the price you pay for 3.
The guy knows his stuff and more than gives you your money's worth.
Is Eric Siu a scam? Get out of here! He is one of the most legit people in the scene, and after working with some giants in the industry, working out their web traffic and SEO, you know for a fact that this man is as real as you can get.
The course can be yours for $ 1497, which you can also pay in 3 installments of $ 598, or 12 of $197. Anyone wanting to start an agency can easily do so with these payment options.
PROS:
CONS:
My Favorite System
Now don't get me wrong: I am not knocking Eric's courses down. I just happen to think they are not the most cost-effective way of making money online in 2020.
Starting an agency, creating content, creating backlinks for the content in order to make it in a market like that of marketing agencies, man, it's not easy to do in 2020.
I run a $50K per month lead generation business but all of my leads are generating through free traffic or SEO. So it's pretty much passive income, I don’t have to worry about the performance of my ads or anything.
The websites I create rank on the first page of Google, in the so-called map pack, and the leads just start pouring in.
So it's pretty much passive income, I don’t have to worry about the performance of my ads or anything. Once my site ranks it generally stays ranks with very little to no maintenance.
Don’t get me wrong you can still make money creating an agency through Agency Accelerator, and if you choose to buy a course for that, I'd go for Eric Siu too.
The problem with agencies is that you are constantly looking at your at your stats and how your SEO is doing, dreading the next Google update. How many people are clicking on your content, and out of those people, how many actually end up buying what you are advertising?
Lead Generation is much more chilled and stress free, and once the money starts rolling in, it won't stop. Trust me, I make more than $ 50k a month with it.
Conclusion
If you know how to generate leads with free traffic, you can virtually go into any niche and create amazing level results for you and your clients.
That’s how 90% of my multiple 6 figure income is generated. And I should add that it's passive income, see free traffic never stops.
In 2020, even during Covid-19, I continue to build more lead gen sites and I write at least 1 blog post for this site, because I’ve come to realize that these are the high-income producing activities because it directly increases my free traffic every month.
If you want to know how I went from a corporate job to six figures a year through lead gen, click the button below!
