#23 Our Hero Vision
The outline of Belkins' ambitious plan to reach $100M in revenue by 2030 through expanding service offerings, consolidating with other agencies, and engineering innovative tech.
This is the first time we are publicly discussing our future—Belkins' future.
As promised on the about page, we are aiming for a $100M revenue agency with at least $20M EBITDA in the next 5 years.
Not many agencies have achieved this in the 15 years spent in B2B marketing services. Most of the big names you can think of started in the 1980s and took at least 20-30 years to reach a decent volume, with the majority being B2C, or catering to enterprise companies, like a call center for Facebook and Microsoft (no fun).
We started in 2017 and should push to $100M by 2030. How?
This is exactly what today’s newsletter will discuss: how Belkins is planning to reach “Hero” status and $100M in gross revenue.
In the last few weeks, I’ve been re-watching some classic heist movies like “The Italian Job” where Mark Wahlberg could still act, or the “White Collar” TV show from 2009, when the world was a much better place. Since the idea of Belkins reaching the agency's holy ground—$100M, 20% EBITDA, fully bootstrapped, and doing it in under 15 years—is a bit adventurous, I’ll lay it out as a heist plan, following the old classics.
For loyal readers, Alex would say, “Here we will be heisting the goddess Fortuna, taking home her luck and success.”
In every heist movie, it goes like this:
Step 1. The Motivation
Step 2. The Plan
Step 3. The Team Assembly
Step 4. The Setup
Step 5. The Heist
The Motivation
You cannot simply motivate 1,000 or more people to any materialistic gain alone.
Yes, we work to create value while exchanging it for money, but to do this successfully over a long period, you need something more, something like a dream or a vision. For us, it has become the following:
Vision: “A world where business growth is no longer a challenge.”
Mission: “To provide impactful growth solutions.”
From both our mission and vision statements, we are committing to drive growth for businesses beyond mere appointment setting. We aim to create solutions that have a meaningful impact on business growth, hence we are going beyond the classic Belkins value proposition and service offering. We are extending our capabilities to service businesses by providing additional services and developing products that will allow us to deliver on these mission and vision statements.
One of the reasons we expanded was the realization that the initial market we were operating in is smaller than we initially anticipated. Let me explain how this came to be.
Historically, and at the time of writing this newsletter, Belkins still provides B2B lead generation and appointment-setting services. Essentially, we generate leads from multiple channels—email, LinkedIn, calling—and deliver these to SMB and enterprise clients, getting paid for the services. Some call this SDR outsourcing, sales development, demand generation; these are all semantics—we do it all.
According to Clutch, there are 2,000 companies listed offering similar services. Most of the companies I know are listed on Clutch. Let’s add a 25% margin of error and sum it up at 2,500 companies worldwide in the lead gen space.
50% work with fewer than 10 ongoing clients, then the rest, 45%, are between 20 to 40 ongoing clients. Less than 4% are able to reach 100 ongoing clients and only the elite 1% can handle 200 ongoing clients and more, and Belkins is one of these agencies.
Additionally, we are also in the 1% tier that spends 20% of our revenue on marketing, and we’ve been dominating several channels, including paid ads, organic, and referrals like Clutch and G2, but also pushing outbound and recently incorporating intent calling. This extensive coverage gave us a good understanding of how big the total addressable market is, and do you want to know the ugly truth? It’s small.
We are already reaching up to 20% of potential clients across all channels, which, in my opinion, is not enough to reach $100M in gross revenue if we want to grow x10.
This is it—the doom of our industry. Having 2,500 lead gen companies, many are inspired to grow big, but when you get to the 1% elite, there is nothing beyond it. The only option is to go enterprise, outsourcing 100-200 SDRs for companies like Microsoft, and having a team of 2,000 people in Ukraine, the Philippines, or India, but this is not “providing impactful growth solutions”—and it’s not the Belkins way.
The Plan
How do we aim to reach $100M and provide impactful growth solutions? There are two options:
Option 1:
Consolidate the industry. Build an association of lead gen agencies, connecting 20-30 agencies under one roof, conducting some acquisitions and mergers, and stacking these 20-40 clients on top of the 200 Belkins accounts to push towards 500. So on so forth.
Now, it all sounds great, but when working towards this direction—and believe me, I tried—here are a few challenges that I encountered:
Founders' Limited Mindset: Most people who run their lead gen companies are not ready to conquer the world; they are in the space to make $50k-$100k, and then do something else, build a product, pivot, like Instantly.ai, or just run a lifestyle business, a cash-cow model. But pushing the needle is not something these people aspire to do. I haven’t been able to offer a good deal for these people, although I took 20+ calls with these agency owners. They all want fast cash upfront, or are just comfortable with the way things are. They don’t have a dream and vision and are not ready to put everything on the line for the next 5+ years to achieve it. Furthermore, I don’t have the cash to spend buying these agencies, as we are bootstrapping, so this won’t work.
Ego: Yes, when you deal with lead gen, most of the executives think that they’ve achieved it all, and believe they know best. They don’t like to be led, only to lead by their own example. I’ve spoken about the concept of the serving leader, where being number #2 is a privilege and when there are more people who want to play a support role, great projects are born.
I’d love if Belkins could be in a support role. If anyone contacts me with a big vision, experience, resources, and a plan where Belkins can be a part of as #2—not a private money, cash-in, cash-out deal, but a joint effort to disrupt B2B marketing—I’d be very much inclined to accept it. I’d love to follow, if there is a company out there who can lead and prove it.
No Actual IP and Unique Process: Well, if you are small (20-40 ongoing clients), you really don’t have much to show off. In professional services, people are the most important, and in lead gen, you don’t have the processes, technology, or frameworks, but only people who deliver. This is why most smaller agencies are great to work with, as they offer special attention, but not so great to merge with, as they offer nothing of unique value.
Option 2:
Expanding Service Offerings to Compete Across Other Services: Paid ads, SEO, organic content, website creation, product development — thus increasing our Total Addressable Market.
Many digital marketing agencies offer a full cycle, which is logical if you want to retain your customers, increase Lifetime Value (LTV), and provide an actual impact on growth. This strategy allows you to service pretty much any business, out of the 5 million businesses registered in the United States.
Unfortunately, this is not how we started; we are laser-focused on one thing only: “B2B appointment setting.” I've discussed the pros and cons of this approach in my previous newsletter.
Spoiler → there are more pros.
Since we've already committed to this approach, and there's no turning back, I am in a difficult spot. At scale, the efficiency with which we operate makes changing to extend the offerings or buying journey one of the most significant challenges for me.
In the newsletter #12, I’ve mentioned that Belkins is self-operational, and to be successful, the team doesn’t really need me or Vlad most of the time.
But being self-operational means that people follow KPIs, OKRs, rules, planning, forecasting, budgeting, and “change” is the last thing they want; it’s unpredictable and dangerous. There is always a little change, but it takes time.
For instance, even in a 300-people agency, for me to implement intent calling, I need to:
Talk to the Managing Director (responsible for client delivery)
Talk to the Head of Account Management
Talk to the Head of SDR
Talk to the SDR Team Leader
Talk to an SDR
Then, step 2:
Talk to the AM Team Leader
Talk to an AM
It would take a month to get the conversation through, and then another 2-3 months to test it, and really, we wouldn’t have the best outcomes of this pilot, and people spent 5% of their time on this. Now, I could build a team for that, but then hiring, I need:
Talk to Finance
Talk to HR
Talk to Compensation
Talk to Recruitment
Then spend:
3 months looking for people
1-2 months ramping them up
Don’t get me started; in any way, looking at this, change and innovation at a rapid speed is the opposite of a scalable, forecasted business.
So, what’s my solution? Learn below.
The Team Assembly
Here is the passage of the consolidation plan that I presented to the aforementioned agency owners. Check it out:
Consolidation of Marketing Agencies 2030
We are driven by an ambitious vision that seeks to bring together industry-leading agencies operating in the realm of lead generation. We aspire to facilitate growth for these agencies, and we are eager to elucidate our compelling vision, underscored by a spirit of collaboration and mutual prosperity.
What is our vision?
Over the next 5 years, we are committed to elevating at least five select agencies, each under the Belkins umbrella, to a gross revenue benchmark of at least $10 million.
At the same time, Belkins will be propelled to a gross revenue of $30 million while concurrently working in tandem with our partner agencies to reach a group pinnacle of $100 million in revenue, coupled with an EBITDA of $20 million.
From the description, it’s simple. Why do we need to build out so many things that are similar to many of the companies, eating out all the margins, paying for the same ads, same tools, same QBS, why?
I’ve driven up to $10M growth; I know how to do it, let me show you the way, let me share my resources to help you get there. BUT it’s on you to make it work, I’ll support the journey, but I’ll not make the journey on your behalf. - that was my Moisei pep talk to many of the people I talked to.
Next, I wrote in this one-pager who our ideal fit is:
Who We're Searching For
Our ideal agency partner should meet the following criteria:
Strong Client Delivery Team: We're in search of an agency with a robust client delivery team ready to take on new challenges and scale their operations.
Complementary Services: Your agency should offer services that complement our expertise.
Diverse Business Models: We're open to agencies with different business models, whether it's pay-per-service, commission-based, or another innovative approach.
Varied Client Base: Agencies serving both small businesses and enterprises are of particular interest. A diverse client portfolio enhances our collaborative potential.
The key is uniqueness + complementation, either on the business model, clients' book, or delivery.
What I am Getting:
Young, Ambitious CEO: Full of energy and driven to make this happen.
Speed, Agility, and Flexibility: We operate with the nimbleness required to adapt and thrive.
Low Budget Operations: No costly benefits or expensive hires. While joining Belkins is attractive due to our brand, it means operational costs are kept lean because recruits understand they are part of something growing and dynamic.
Early-Stage Business Model Testing: Opportunity to test and refine business models early in the growth phase.
What They are Getting:
Playbook Guidance: Clear instructions on what to do and how to do it.
Support from the Belkins Platform: Assistance with forecasting, accounting, planning, and budgeting, which are typically the #1 struggles for all small businesses.
Cost-Effective Tools and GTM Strategy: Access to our tools for outbound strategies at a fraction of the cost:
leadsforce.io - for leads
frostbite.ai - for outreach
folderly.com - for warm-up and sending reputation testing
One-on-One Guidance: Personalized support to navigate the challenges.
Client Book: A robust client base to leverage for accelerated growth.
Access to a Wealth of Opportunities: Availability of 20,000 existing opportunities on HubSpot and 1,000 new inbound leads every month.
I won’t delve into all the possible variations of how we can integrate all agencies in this newsletter, maybe just one example.
Meet Ora
Here’s how our partnership with Ora, CEO of ClickRoads, exemplifies the success of our consolidation plan. Ora built ClickRoads, a B2B advertising agency, from scratch by:
Developing offers
Building a delivery team
Setting up acquisition
We have integrated ClickRoads onto the Belkins platform from the start, which means their entire back office is managed by us. We've incorporated their offers into Belkins’ client offerings, and now our Account Management team works closely with Ora’s team on both cross-selling these offers to existing clients and delivering them. This relationship has been exceedingly fruitful. Now, ClickRoads is looking at reaching $1M ARR in the first 15 months on the market, and we are on track to scale it to $3M by early 2026.
It's important to note that ClickRoads' offerings complement the Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) and the needs of our current clients—“they all need leads.” Having the client teams deeply integrated within both companies was crucial. However, the delivery of the offers needed to be entirely built anew. Hiring, onboarding, motivating, and operations were constructed around different Costs of Services (COS), expenses, and margins. At the same time, the culture, voice, tone, and the direction Ora wants to take the company have some foundations in Belkins' values, which are straightforward to begin with. Yet, as the company grows, they are applying their own unique features.
Not all agencies should be that complementary. I have two agencies in the pipeline that have some level of complementation, but integrating them with our Account Management team doesn’t make sense, as the current clients of Belkins don’t fit within the budget of services these agencies have priced for.
I am committing to elevating four more agencies to $10 million in revenue each over the next five years, aiming to bring the group to a collective $100 million pinnacle. This initiative represents a critical part of our strategic "heist" in the agency realm. Achieving this milestone will enable Belkins and these five other agencies to set a remarkable precedent in the B2B marketing space.
This is the heist that most observers will notice, but there is a larger plan at play—something even the goddess Fortunata won’t expect.
The Setup
Besides providing a playbook, sharing knowledge, and offering one-on-one support for the agency owners in our group, we must create a vehicle to accelerate their growth. Our strategy involves constructing a robust platform centered around lead acquisition, which in our sphere includes:
Developing internal products that enable all our agencies to use technology more effectively.
Mastering all marketing channels, from cold emails, paid ads, content, social media, to calling.
Creating high-performing websites that are not only responsive but also scalable, ensuring they provide clients with an outstanding buying journey.
Facilitating the complementation and recirculation of opportunities, by leveraging upselling and cross-selling within our existing pipeline and book of business.
This vehicle, crafted by Belkins, will not only ensure the success of our "master plan" but will also amplify Belkins' value tenfold as we transition from a service-oriented company to one that is both tech and service-driven.
Here’s what we’ve been actively working on since 2020:
Reinvesting all profits into tech R&D to develop effective and cost-efficient outreach tools for our agencies. This initiative led us to invest in platforms like Folderly, Frostbite, Leadsforce, and Charge. These tools have granted us comprehensive access and control over:
Lead list building and data scraping through Leadsforce.
Email deliverability and warming up via the Folderly suite of products.
Outreach operations through Frostbite.
By building these tools as self-sufficient SaaS companies, they are made broadly usable not just by Belkins but potentially by other organizations too, positioning the Belkins Group as a unique channel for client acquisition and lead recirculation within our network.
Our philosophy is simple: "Want to use our Tier-A tools? Go ahead. When we build a great relationship with you as a client and identify a need for services, we'll be ready to assist."
By combining tools with services, we can generate unique data and insights that are invaluable for product development, content creation, and knowledge sharing across all group companies and clients. Imagine, as a client of a leading email deliverability tool like Folderly, being able to see firsthand how 100 of the top SDRs use it to achieve spam-free cold emailing.
Building a Community of B2B Marketers and Sellers: We aim to create a community of like-minded B2B marketers and sellers who share a growth mindset and together with us, evangelize the best acquisition approach—ours. The BLKNS Community now boasts 3,500 global members and is expanding by 5% every month. All companies within our network generate a wealth of insights that are shared exclusively within the community, promoting collaboration and support. This has transformed the community into a vibrant space where ideas are challenged and embraced, giving members the ability to choose and improve collectively.
The overarching goal was not to create a community centered solely around Belkins but to establish BLKNS as a platform where all companies can excel.
Developing an Educational Platform - BLKNS.Academy, where the brightest minds can create courses to train their teams, and also share their knowledge with individuals eager to master specific professions such as BDR, Sales Executive, PPC, Analytics, or Content Writing—all with a focus on acquisition.
Benefits Derived Include:
Pipeline of Candidates for Hiring: By training potential hires, we create a ready pipeline of candidates skilled in our methods and philosophy.
Brand and PR Enhancements: The academy boosts our visibility and positions us as thought leaders in our industry.
Capability to Test Our Approaches More Broadly: With a larger pool of trained professionals, we can validate and refine our strategies more effectively.
Active Community Engagement: Members of the academy and community become users of our tools and evangelists of our approach, spreading our philosophy further.
Both BLKNS Community and Academy offer free and paid options to ensure the projects are self-sufficient. We've found that non-profit models do not foster the creation of excellent products. Only through monetized offerings, when clients are willing to invest in your products, can you truly deliver value and innovate continuously.
The Heist
If I were to visualize this entire schema, it would look like this:
As in every heist movie, the actual "heist" occupies only about 10 minutes of screen time; the most crucial elements are the motivation, the setup, and the people.
Really, that's it. It's as simple as the "Italian Job", though no one is getting killed at the beginning of the movie, and there is destined to be a happy ending.
Although the journey ahead will be challenging over the next 5 years, Belkins has already crossed the rubicon. Now, the only thing left is to finish it.
We are all highly motivated with this "heist" because it's real, reachable, measurable, and set within a defined timeframe. In other words, it's entirely achievable.
If you are interested in getting involved with this, please direct message me to discuss the details. We're on the brink of not just scaling a business, but revolutionizing the B2B marketing landscape. Join us as we turn this vision into reality.