Ethan Brooks

Main account @_ProfitPath | making your viral

[Ethan Brooks @ethan_brooks8]

@torchindex great advice.

[Torch @torchindex]

Agency is the easiest biz to start

And the hardest to survive once it starts growing

Most agencies hit $100k/mo and die

80 hours a week as glorified employees to their clients

I hit $10M annual revenue after realizing growth outpacing ops is a death sentence

You need systems to handle the chaos of scaling deal flow

You need to fire clients & employees

You need to raise prices & protect margin

But most people don’t know how to inform these decisions

Good news is the ops stack is simple

Only requirement is not being a complete idiot

And a PM who understands automation & can put out fires (this will be you or your partner in early days)

I built it gradually at first & then hired for it. Do not try to do it all yourself. You will get cooked

1) Airtable

50 deals in flight. Pings flying. Nobody ever on the same page

This is how agencies decompose

Airtable is your command center. Source of truth for deal flow & company metrics

Needs to be on a monitor 24/7. Will replace 20 tabs & a nervous breakdown

Everyone on your team lives in it

- CRM
- Project boards
- Fulfillment tracking
- KPI scorecards (revenue, AR aging, etc)
- Time series charting

I have lost track of $70k in revenue because I had no clear view of the operation

Order creates hyperawareness

Hyperawareness protects scale

2) Notion

Your company’s collective memory. Access everything in 3 clicks

- SOPs (Looms, Miros etc)
- Company docs / FAQs
- Sales collateral
- Case studies
- Quarterly / Annual planning
- Meeting notes

Nothing breaks if someone disappears

No more scrambling for links/docs

Amnesia is an overlooked efficiency killer

3) Discord

Company war room. Slack sucks I don’t care

Voice channels as “offices” for every team member to sit in during biz hours

Every live deal gets its own thread

Channels for each team member

Notification system across the stack (more on this later)

I have churned clients after $30k engagements because I had no visibility on comms & timelines

Chaos thrives in silence

Comms should be alive & productive

4) Harvest

Every minute must be tracked and tied to dollars

You’ll be disgusted by what you see

Every untracked hour is cash leaving your pockets

Tracking time exposes:

- Employees who need to be fired
- Time sink clients who are losing you money
- Tangible cost of scope creep
- Redundant tasks ready for automation

Will help you catch employees logging 10 min tasks as an hour etc

Poison hides in unmeasured time

One of the simplest moves I wish I did sooner

5) Xero / QuickBooks etc

Any bookkeeping software that allows for integrations

Marry Airtable & your books. Nothing in your finances should be a question mark

No gap between your financial reality vs. your operational reality

Simple yet most people don’t have it down

Numbers don’t lie. But they can deceive

6) Zapier / n8n etc

This is where your systems start talking

Automation is gasoline. Pour too much & it burns everything down

Needs constant attention

But done right it’s a weapon

Examples Across This Stack:

Fulfillment

- Deal in Airtable set to “In Progress”
- Invoice auto created in Xero
- Finance gets pinged on Discord to QA & invoice
- Team gets pinged on Discord with their responsibilities
- Airtable tasks for each automatically created
- They complete them & mark as “Complete”
- Automated Discord message with relevant info
- Account manager shares info with client

Time Analysis

- Deals in Airtable sent to Harvest
- Team tracks time
- Time spent on each deal sent to Airtable
- Airtable interface visualizing revenue to time spent
- Filter by client to see profit leaks
- You now know which clients need to be fired

Scale suffocates in the gaps of your operation

Gaps get smaller & less visible the more you grow

Fix them or they will cripple you

[Ethan Brooks @ethan_brooks8]

@scaling_shields this is interesting concept.

[James Shields @scaling_shields]

6 steps to becoming rich online

1. build a 10k/day cold email machine
2. pile up your case studies and send em out before your calls
3. imessage or whatsapp leads before calls to pre-sell them
4. have a VA to do shitty tasks
5. look handsome on sales calls
6. have a decent service

[Ethan Brooks @ethan_brooks8]

@Seannywilson impressive,

[Sean Wilson @Seannywilson]

I’m an ex-Navy pilot.
​
3 things it taught me:
​
1) Pressure reveals gaps.
2) Chaos demands systems.
3) Failure is data.
​
That's outbound in a nutshell.
​
When your campaign fails, you never have a channel problem.
​
You have a system gap.
​
Fill it.
​
That’s why 99% don’t make it.

[Ethan Brooks @ethan_brooks8]

@scaling_shields impressive and worth it

[James Shields @scaling_shields]

i had to sacrifice a full year of my life at 18 yrs old

365 days

is all it took

now, i live in marbella

i make $65k/mo

was it worth it chat?

[Ethan Brooks @ethan_brooks8]

@AlexHormozi exactly, this is great

[Alex Hormozi @AlexHormozi]

Deep down you already know what you should be doing.

Help more than you hate.
Create more than you complain.
Leave things better than you found them.

The secret to getting ahead is doing what everyone knows, but no one does.

[Levi Munneke @levikmunneke]

What are your best strategies to maximize lead to booking rate?

[Ethan Brooks @ethan_brooks8]

@scaling_shields good advice

[James Shields @scaling_shields]

i dont wanna hear anyone complain about not being at $50k/mo if they dont:

1. send at least 10k cold emails/day
2. have a pre call trust building sequence
3. have a decent offer

[Ethan Brooks @ethan_brooks8]

@levikmunneke Yeah, this is a powerful attitude.

[Levi Munneke @levikmunneke]

Every time I post my cold email math people laugh at my “low” metrics.

The metrics don’t mean shit.

It’s a machine, only two things matter

- How much money goes in?
- How much money comes out?

I do not care if it takes 1,000,000 emails to sign 1 client.

If it has a good ROI I’m running it.

simple.

[Ethan Brooks @ethan_brooks8]

@AlexHormozi Wow, this changes my perspective... thanks

[Alex Hormozi @AlexHormozi]

The difference between your business and one 10x your size is: whatever big marketing push you’d make to launch something, they just do it all the time.

Volume negates luck.

[Ethan Brooks @ethan_brooks8]

@cem_hasoglu This is impressive.

[cemhasoglu @cem_hasoglu]

i know a guy making $600k/month from cold email

no brand, no ads, no social presence

just 6k emails a day and a VA

you’re out here designing logos like it’s 2014

[Ethan Brooks @ethan_brooks8]

@Seannywilson very true