Iman Gadzhi is a British entrepreneur who currently lives in Dubai. Iman Gadzhi became rich, earning 7 figures by running his social media marketing agency (SMMA), IAG Media. Iman Gadzhi makes $45,000+ a month from his own SMMA, 10,000+ a month from affiliate marketing, and has an $8.5M crypto portfolio. Iman Gadzhi also owns a software company called AgenciFlow, an SaaS platform explicitly built for online agencies.
Iman Gadzhi was able to achieve this level of success, attaining a net worth of $25M without a degree or even finishing high school. In this Iman Gadzhi review, you’ll find out the key to Iman’s success with SMMA.
It takes a long time for a new SMMA business to create substantial passive income. You need time to acquire enough clients and form a proven team of employees before you can even break even and afford to spend less time on the business.
If you want a low-risk, low maintenance, easy-to-scale business model that creates passive income quickly, I recommend local lead generation. You don’t need to outsource work, create, or run ads. You simply create a site, rank it on Google using free tactics such as SEO, and rent it out to local businesses. As soon as you set it up and get a client, you earn predictable passive income. Check out local lead generation if you want one of the best ways to create financial freedom.
3 Keys to Making $10,000+ a Month With Iman Gadzhi
SMMA is when an agency curates a team of service providers that creates and runs social media marketing strategies and campaigns for clients. A SMMA, or digital marketing agency, creates and launches campaigns for corporate clients through social media, advertisements, viral videos, and website content. The service can be outsourced to experienced freelancers while you, the owner, focus on client acquisition and management.
SMMA is a very profitable business if you have the right skills and an effective strategy. Digital marketing and creating an SMMA can be hard for beginners who have no experience in sales or marketing.
Every successful agency owner has their own story in which they applied their own unique strategies and secrets. Iman Gadzhi outlined 3 keys to scaling your SMMA business to make $10,000+ a month.
1. Advice and References
Use advice or reference experiences as a guide in which direction you should go. One common mistake that beginners make is overthinking possible scenarios, which could demotivate them to go forward. The best way to start an SMMA without any experience is to ask for advice and listen to the reference experiences of those who already run successful agencies. This will help you avoid the common pitfalls and stay on track.
Iman had a lot of failures when he was starting his SMMA business. It was through seeking mentors and learning from his failures that he could find the best strategies. Getting as much expert advice as possible, whether from free sources or paid mentors, will help you avoid speed bumps and save you time, money, and effort.
2. Outreach
Spend 70%-80% of the time you spend on your agency in a day on outreach. The more outreach you do, the more meetings you can set up, which allows you to make more offers and leads to a higher chance of signing new clients. Do not think about the numbers, over-analyzing the conversion rate may cause demotivation. With every outreach you do, constantly tweak your approach to find out which style works best and suits your personality.
Just like any other business, the easiest way to find clients as an SMMA is to start with your relatives or friends. As a beginner, Iman’s first client was a personal connection. Reaching out to your friends and relatives as you get started will help you gain some vital experience and build your portfolio. They will also serve as an endorsement for your company.
3. Time on the Battlefield
When you are just starting, do less planning and more. To have a successful SMMA business, you need to learn effective marketing, sales, and management skills. Even though you will outsource most of the work of your SMMA, you will still be the one looking for clients and signing them up.
It definitely helps if you know at least the basics of social media marketing, such as the 5 P's of social marketing (product, price, promotion, place, and people), as this will help you manage your team effectively. You can do as much research as you want, but what works for others may not work for you. In the end, it comes down to real world experience in order to get the skills that work for you.
Who Is Iman Gadzhi?
The British entrepreneur was born a Russian citizen in Dagestanskiye Ogni in Dagestan, Russia. Born to a single mother who worked 3 jobs to support them, Iman spent most of his childhood with his grandmother. Iman and his mother moved to London when she got into a relationship with his stepfather, and he attended an elite private school.
When the relationship ended, his step-father stopped supporting them when Iman was 14 years old. He started his first business at age 15 by buying and selling Instagram accounts. This business failed and Iman spent days and nights studying personal training manuals and convincing his friends’ parents to let him train them. The physical fitness business earned him a few hundred pounds a month, and he purchased a £400 camera to practice making video and media content.
Iman Gadzhi’s SMMA Beginnings
Iman was playing semi-pro football at this time and knew the owner of a football club. After constantly trying to convince the owner to let him manage the club's online content and social media account, he finally got his first social media marketing gig for £300 a month. This would mark the beginning of Iman’s SMMA IAG Media. It would take 7 months before Iman would get his next client.
He was able to sign up with a company called Aflete for £1,900 a month. Within 14 days, he had 2 more other clients and was making £4,150 a month. At 17 years old and with 3 clients, Iman dropped out of highschool. With 2 more clients, ZebraFuel and FuroSystems, Iman was making six figures before it all came crashing down. He ran several failed Facebook ads and started losing clients.
Upon learning how Expedia made $10M in that year without owning any planes or hotels, he discovered that if he hired other people to deliver the ad services, he could focus on sales and operations. Iman realized that the highest paying job in social media marketing is creating your own agency and assembling a team.
Iman Gadzhi’s Entrance Into Mentoring
Iman documented his business on Instagram and YouTube. A YouTuber then approached him to ask for advice on how he gained his success and insisted on paying for mentoring. They agreed on £100 for 2 hours of coaching and that YouTuber went on to sign a client for $1,500. He then ran a test group with 50 students, and in February 2018, he launched his first course, Six Figure SMMA, which had 1,100 students in the first year.
Iman meeting his students in 2019
Finding great success with his course, Iman created Grow Your Agency in 2019 and his flagship course, Agency Incubator. Agency Incubator proved to be a legit program in which Iman Gadzhi delivered. In 2021, the course was assimilated into his new coaching program, Agency Navigator.
Iman Gadzhi’s Commitment to Education
Iman Gadzhi pledged to use 10% of yearly company profits to build schools in underdeveloped countries. Currently, Iman Gadzhi has built 5 schools in Nepal for over 1,800 children. Iman Gadzhi made a commitment to keep expanding his knowledge by finishing 1 book a week. The books Iman reads are all entrepreneurial books, such as those on selling, marketing, and other ways of making money online.
Iman Gadzhi's Grow Your Agency
Iman Gadzhi's Grow Your Agency was the name of his now outdated website, where you can find out his story and vision. You can also find useful tips in the blogs he wrote, although the last time he posted was in February 2021.
There are also video testimonials from students of Agency Incubator, although you can no longer view them as the Facebook account they are linked to no longer exists since Agency Incubator was assimilated into Agency Navigator.
If you sign up for Agency Incubator from this site, you will just be directed to Agency Navigator.
Tyrell- Grow Your Agency Student Built A $100K A Year Agency
Tyrell's Background and Story
In an interview with Iman Gadzhi, Tyrell talks about how he started his $100K agency. He first learned about this business from an advertisement. It wasn't a quick way to financial freedom for him. He struggled getting clients in the beginning, but things changed when he started taking his work seriously, leveraged his network, and frequently made cold calls. His big break happened when he spoke with successful people who gave him practical business advice.
How Tyrell’s Business is Doing Today
Tyrell's agency makes $20k to $25k monthly revenue. He says referrals from current and past clients have contributed to his success. The spike in his income happened when his agency focused on e-commerce clients. Tyrell aims to further scale the business and make at least $100k monthly. He plans to achieve this using organic growth strategies on YouTube and Facebook.
Lessons Tyrell Learned on the Biggest Challenges He Faced
Importance of Focus and Effort: One of the biggest lessons Tyrell learned was the importance of staying focused and committed. He realized that just being interested was not enough. Commitment and consistent effort were crucial in running and scaling an agency business.
Finding the Right Niche: Tyrell understood the importance of working in a niche he was knowledgeable and passionate about. His strategy to focus on e-commerce was a smart move because it was aligned with his skills and interests.
Client Relationships and Value: Over-delivering on value is a key strategy to establish long-term relationship with clients. Tyrell also emphasized the importance of providing thoughtful, personalized services.
Resilience and Persistence: Despite initial failures and a slow start, Tyrell's resilience and persistence paid off. He emphasizes that sticking with it, even when results aren't immediate, is crucial in the agency business.
What's not mentioned in the interview: Tyrell shares he built a $100k business. However, he didn't mention how much he spent to reach the $100k income level and how long it took him. It's possible that he talks about $100k being gross revenue. Start-up digital marketing agencies have a profit margin of 20% to 30%. If Tyrell was referring to gross income in his interview, his actual net profit for the year might only be around $20,000 to $30,000. His $20k to $25k monthly revenue might only net $4k to $5k.
Iman Gadzhi’s Agency Navigator
Iman Gadzhi’s Agency Navigator course is an SMMA coaching program that costs $1,499 with a 14-day refund guarantee. Agency Navigator teaches you everything there is to know about creating and managing your SMMA business.
The main training program is over 50+ hours of video content separated into 8 modules with supplementary Q&A recordings. You will also have access to all the tools, templates, and funnels you’ll need, as well as weekly live coaching calls.
Should You Trust Iman Gadzhi?
Iman Gadzhi is legit. He does show evidence of his successes and delivers on his courses. However, Iman and his courses have received mixed feedback from those who bought it. The backlash mostly comes from people's expectation of what they'll be learning in the course.
A Reddit user made a post under the title "Iman Gadzhi is a scam" highlighting several reasons you should not trust Iman. The user made some good points, although half of the post seems to come from personal bias. In one part of the post, the user stated that Gadzhi has zero skills with running ads:
Gadzhi does mention this fact. This is why he initially failed with his first attempt at social media marketing, which led him to outsource the technical aspects of the business. His course does NOT teach you the technicalities of creating and running ad campaigns, but rather the management of your agency and client acquisition.
Iman's program is for agency owners or those who want to learn how to create and manage their own SMMA agency. You will focus on client acquisition, while all the technical aspects will be outsourced to professional freelancers.
How Much Can You Make With SMMA?
The average SMMA makes about $85,000 a year. In the United States, social media managers make an average of $68,000 a year. A beginner could earn $41,000 a year with social media marketing while handling about 10 clients.
How Much Does a Media Agency Charge?
Media agency fees are what an agency charges for their marketing services. A media agency typically charges under 4 different pricing models: Fixed fees, commission-based, hybrid model, and revenue share models. Each model has their own pros and cons.
You charge the client a flat monthly rate for managing and running their advertisements. This pricing option is attractive to clients as it is predictable with no hidden costs. This is not recommended for agencies with clients that want to scale aggressively.
Iman suggests that your service charge should ideally be 100% of your client’s ad spending. If your client spends $750 on ads, charge $750 for your services.
You charge 15%-30% off the overall ad spend. There is typically a minimum for ad spending, as if a client only spent $500 on ads, 15% or 30% of it wouldn’t make sense. This pricing option is popular with large-scale agencies where clients spend hundreds of thousands on ads.
This is a combination of fixed fees and commission based pricing models. You charge a fixed retainer fee as a minimum for your services with a commission-based protection if the client exceeds the maximum amount of ad spend. This way, if a client scales and increases his ad spending, you can shift to a commission-based model and increase your fees as well. The hybrid model is considered a safe pricing option for agencies.
You charge a fixed retainer fee as a minimum for your services, with a percentage of the client's profits protecting you should the client's profits scale beyond your retainer fee. This way, the more effective the marketing and the higher the profit for the client, the more money you make.
Do You Need Money to Start SMMA?
You need some money to start your SMMA business. It costs $50-$150 to register your LLC in the United States. The monthly cost for outsourcing your SMMA business can range from $900 to $20,000 depending on the size and needs of your business and the rate of your freelancers. If you want to start your online business idea in Dubai like Iman does, you can expect your set-up costs to be higher.
Should You Start SMMA in 2024?
If you have the proper skill set for managing a business and closing offers with clients, starting a SMMA may prove profitable for you. Although you have to be aware of the risks before deciding to start an SMMA.
Risk of a SMMA
- Service Quality - As with any business that outsources work, the quality of your company’s service depends on the skills and work of your employees. Finding quality freelancers may cost you more, while cheaper freelancers may have lower skill levels so you need to consider this when balancing your budget. Low performance will cost you clients and may harm your reputation.
- Client Loyalty - Your company needs to keep up with the ever-changing world of technology. If you don’t regularly update your company’s methods and strategies, your clients will simply move on to more effective agencies. Clients whose businesses expand rapidly may also shift to larger, more established agencies that provide more services.
- Hacking - Social media accounts are easy to hack. Since your agency is in charge of a client’s social media and has access to their accounts, you may receive the blame for any such incident, which could lead to legal issues.
Best Passive Online Business Models in 2023
Your SMMA can create passive income once you get enough more permanent clients. You can end up working about 2 hours a day. This takes a lot of time and effort to get to that point. If you are looking for other online business models that can create passive income here are some of my recommendations:
Affiliate Marketing - Promoting other people’s product or service for a commission. You can do this by either using free organic methods or running paid ads. With the right investment and strategies, you can create passive income. Super Affiliate System 3.0 by John Crestani is one of the best affiliate marketing courses I’ve come across. The comprehensive training course comes with weekly coaching calls and access to a private Facebook support group.
eCommerce Dropshipping - Without investing in holding inventory, you can basically resell products on an ecommerce platform by finding cheaper prices on other platforms. Outsourcing some of the work can create passive income. eCom Success Academy by Adrian Morrison is one of the first courses on dropshipping and considered one of the best. It is constantly updated and also teaches you how to leverage profitable Facebook ads.
Amazon FBA - Creating and listing your own unique product on Amazon while they handle storage and fulfillment may prove profitable with the right idea. If you can automate the processes and outsource some of the work, this can create passive income. Private Label Masters by Tim Sanders is a comprehensive coaching course that also teaches high-level strategies, such as running ads.
Why Local Lead Generation Is My Number 1 Recommendation
Out of all the business models I’ve tried, local lead generation comes out on top. As a kind of digital landlord, you create and rank a website on Google and rent it out to local businesses.
Compared to other business models, you don’t need much capital to start your local lead generation business. You use free methods, such as SEO, to rank sites on Google.
You rent out your ranked site to local service providers like plumbers, roofers, HVAC, etc. in smaller local areas. This means you don’t have to worry about dealing with a lot of competition nationwide or even worldwide. Your site can stay ranked on Google for years before you even need to update it.
Scaling your business is also very easy. All you need to do is repeat the process as many times as you want. You don’t need to hire anyone to automate your business, as it already works passively. This means you get to keep all the profits. These qualities make local lead generation the best passive income business that can create time and financial freedom.
