How To Start SMMA For Beginners In 2026 With $0

So, I have good news and I have bad news. The good news is that SMMA still remains one of the best business models for [music] 2026. The bad news is the way that you have been doing it or the way you've been anticipating you're going to be doing it is probably completely [music] wrong. But then again, I guess that's why you're here and you've come to the right place. I ran an agency for 6 years and on top of That, I've helped countless of thousands of other people do the same. So, with that [music] being

said, let's get into the most impactful presentation you could watch on how to run an SMA in 2026. And I really do mean it. Starting an agency is one of the best beginner friendly business models out there. And the reason for that is quite simple. No other business model can trump all of the benefits of running an agency. No massive upfront cost, little to no risk, High profit margins, and no need to be a dancing monkey online and be this crazy content creator and be some Tik Tok influencer or something like that. All right, it's

very simple. You just help businesses get more customers and that is it. And here is an additional benefit of the agency model that barely anyone talks about. The agency model is the one where you learn the most, especially when you're first starting out. In fact, pretty much every single one of my super Successful friends in their 20s and 30s that have a multi-figure, even a billion dollar plus net worth, if you track all of their roots, they all started with an agency or some sort of service-based business. Myself included. As I said, this is how

I kickstarted my career. Now, it's interesting because for years, the agency playbook has been the same. [music] Find local businesses, offer them marketing services, and collect monthly retainers. But here is the thing About business. Business is like a sailing ship. When the winds change and the market shifts, you can't just keep sailing the same direction hoping to reach your destination. You need to adjust your sales. You need to read the currents. Sometimes you might even need to chart a completely new course. And right now, I am seeing a massive shift in the agency space. that

no one is talking about a new way to run your SMMA in 2026. Let me explain. There are Thousands and in fact I actually should have wrote millions [music] and I mean that there are millions of creators with 20, 50, and even 100,000 followers who are sitting on a gold mine but don't even know it. Of course, it's a little tricky to analyze the data across multiple platforms, but the latest data shows that there's tens of millions of these micro craters. In fact, some numbers even estimate over 150 million of these micro creators that have

Anywhere from 20 to 50,000 followers on any given social platform. And the reason this is so powerful is because they have an audience who knows, likes, and trust them. People who watch every story, comment on every single post, and genuinely want to learn from them. But these same creators, they're making a few hundred bucks here and there from brand deals at best, maybe even some affiliate commissions, when in reality, they could be making much more if they Knew how to package and sell what they already share in their content. And this is creating a huge

opportunity in the agency space. [music] One, where as the agency owner, you can help these creators make more money without having to show your face or be an expert. In fact, I actually don't even know why I didn't show this before. I'm going to put something up on screen. This was a brand deal that I had when I was 16. I think the YouTube channel back then had Like 5,000 subscribers or something like that. If you guys aren't aware, I've been uploading for 10 years, literally my entire journey from being interested in books and fitness

and training and then from there building my first business 10 years ago and just that entire process all the way through. But initially, a lot of my early content was just like vlogging my day-to-day life and what I was doing in the gym. So, I'm going to show the first ever brand deal That I got. I think it was like £75 or £150 a month or it may have even been £15 or £75 a month in like free supplements. So, that's a perfect example. I had what 5 or 10,000 subscribers at the time. I think

that's the only brand deal I've ever taken in my entire life. But it really goes to show that a lot of these creators just don't know how to make money. They're very good at making content, but they don't know how to do anything else. So, These creators could be making so much more money if they knew how to package and sell what they already share in their content. And this is creating a huge opportunity in the agency space. One, where as the agency owner, you can help these creators make more money without having to show

your face or be an expert. And you can do this by leveraging their expertise and focusing on connecting the dots behind the scenes for them. It's what's known as shadow Operating. And I've been seeing this everywhere I look. Literally just a few weeks ago, I came back from New York. I was there to visit our fifth floor extension for our office at WAP. And when I was there, I was meeting dozens of creators every single day that were coming in and out of the office visiting who were making hundreds of thousands, even millions and millions

of dollars a year on WAP from their audiences. But here is what blew my mind. And here's The really interesting thing. I got to meet a lot of their business partners, aka the shadow operators that they brought along with them. In fact, some of them couldn't even make it. So, I only got to meet the person who handles everything behind [music] the scenes. And this made something abundantly clear to me. Shadow operating is real and it is here to stay. And these guys and girls do very well for themselves because they take a percentage of

what The creator makes. And it reminds me a lot of what I used to do back in my agency days. Except you're not working with local businesses. Now, if you're listening to all this stuff and you're like, "Oh, this sounds complicated or super advanced." No, no, no. Okay? We're not going for the creators with 10 million followers or 5 million followers. No, we're not talking about any kind of creator. There is a specific type of creator that this works Exceptionally well for, even if you're a beginner, and I'll explain why a little later on. And

this is what I'm going to show you today. So, here's my promise to you for today's video. In today's video, I'm going to show you exactly how to start an SMA from scratch in 2026. And in fact, I'm going to show you how to do it the traditional way first, okay? Because I know some of you guys may be a little bit more old school and you want to stay in that world, and that's fine, Okay? But after that, I'm also going to show you the new way where you become a shadow operator. Both of

them work, by the way. and by the end of the video, you will know which one is the right path for you. So, with all that being said, let's get into it. Step number one is niche selection. The first step when starting an agency the traditional way is niche selection. If you're going the traditional route and working with local businesses, there are a few things that You need to make sure of. In simple terms, this is all about the type of businesses you will work with. Some might suit you better than others, but the truth

is there's no such thing as the best niche. Now, you might be saying, "Okay, well, why niche down in the first place?" And there's really two reasons for it. Okay, first is specialization and next is scalability. Think about it like this. Let's say you had to get brain surgery. Who would you Trust more? A brain surgeon or a general practitioner? And on top of that, which of those two doctors can charge more money for their service? The answer to both questions seems very obvious, right? The specialist normally wins because you trust them to get the

job done to a very high level. And the second parameter is actually scalability. When you're first starting out, the goal is very simple. You're looking to make your first $10,000, Which you can do from just a few clients. But that doesn't mean that you should think short term, okay? The aim is to position your agency so that as you grow, you can take on more clients and scale your agency. So that way you can get it to 10K, 30K, 50K, even 100K a month onwards. And when you start an SMMA, the traditional way with local

businesses, niching down helps you with this because it decreases complexity. When you work with the same kind of Business over and over again, things become easier. The same ads, the same scripts, the same delivery process over and over. Let me actually break this down even further. Okay, when you have one niche, here is how this affects the other steps that we're going to cover today. Prospecting, same method, outreach, same platform, sales, same style. Service delivery, copy and paste, offer, same offer. When you have multiple niches, it's literally like Running multiple different businesses at one go.

And by the way, this is what one of my clients who I helped scale their agency many years ago did with his agency. Bobby, who all credit to him is an incredibly hardworking gentleman. He worked with authors selling books on Amazon and he was able to scale his agency to 150K per month. He had 100 plus clients at one point and the reason he was able to do this is because he kept everything simple. He was able to Find prospects, reach out to them, and deliver the same service over and over again. Now, here's what

this looks like. If you work in multiple niches, everything is different, and it's harder for you to manage. If you want to do things the traditional way, here are a few more factors to keep in mind. revenue and profit, product ticket size, growth and scalability, market size, sophistication level. Now, let me actually go ahead and run you through These. Start with revenue and profit, okay? In general, it's best to look for businesses that are making at least $10,000 per month in profit. Okay? Not revenue profit. Otherwise, paying you $2,000 will feel very expensive. Second is

product ticket size. In other words, how expensive is the thing that they sell to their customers? Think about it. It's much easier to help a solar company that makes $10,000 per job get an extra sale than to help a clothing shop that Makes $5 profit per t-shirt sell an extra thousand t-shirts. Okay. Third is growth and scalability. You want to work with your niche long term. So, it's wise to avoid dying industries. So, would you rather work with DVD companies or info businesses? Well, we both know that DVD rental companies are becoming obsolete while the

info business space is rapidly growing. Fourth is market size. This is simply to do with how big the market is. Okay, wouldn't you agree? It's much Easier to make more money when there are simply more businesses you can work with. The bottom line is this. There needs to be enough businesses in your niche. For example, home renovations is a big niche. There are millions of businesses in that niche that you can target. Italian wedding dress designers, not so many. Maybe 50 in your entire country if you're lucky. Which of these do you think is going

to be easier for you? Okay. And the last factor is Sophistication level. As a beginner, the general rule of thumb is try to avoid sophisticated markets where business owners already know the service too well. For example, if you're a beginner and you're speaking to e-commerce business owners, that's going to be a very difficult niche because they likely already run their own ads. It's not like you're selling a new opportunity to them. It's something they already do. The thing is, if you offer a service at A 4 out of 10 and they're not already doing that,

well, then a 4 out of 10 is still better than nothing. But if they're already doing a 6 out of 10, then you need to get them to an 8 out of 10 for it to make sense to them. Do you understand what I'm saying here? That's why you always need to understand sophistication level. So, this is a very important concept. Okay? Pick unsophisticated businesses where the business owner has no idea how to do the Service that you offer. Here's the thing though, my team and I, we've helped thousands of people make money with the

agency model. And what we found is that picking a niche is where 90% of people get stuck. Most people spend weeks, sometimes even months, overanalyzing niches, comparing profit margins, building spreadsheets for comparison, and overthinking every decision. And as a result, they never actually start their agency because of this. But Remember, I spoke about how there's a new way of running an agency one where you partner with creators who have an audience and become a shadow operator for them. With this new way, you can actually skip this entire niche selection step. Okay? You don't need to

pick a niche at all. Of course, there's still some guidelines that you need to follow, but it's simpler. Here's the key difference. With this new way, you're not working with local businesses, and This will significantly decrease the sophistication level of the people that you're going to be working with. And this is great news for you. I mean, think about it. Most local business owners already understand business fundamentals. They understand the ins and outs of business. They're slightly more sophisticated buyers than your average creator. Okay? On the other hand, most creators, they are not businessminded at

all. They started Making content because they were passionate about fitness, cooking, or productivity. They built their following by being authentic and helpful, not by understanding business. They're unsophisticated, and that's even better for you. But like I said, you're not looking for just any creators. [music] Let me explain what I mean by this. In the online space, there are three main types of creators. There's nano creators, microcreators, and macro Creators. Nano creators are usually too small, okay? They have a,000 to 10,000 followers, meaning they have limited monetization potential. Micro creators have anywhere from 10,000 to 100,000

followers. These are creators with engaged, loyal audiences who haven't figured out monetization yet, or maybe they're already monetizing their audience to an extent, but not as well as they could be. A fitness creator with 50,000 followers teaching calisthetics. A mindset coach with 30,000 followers helping people overcome their limiting beliefs. A dad with 75,000 followers sharing how they raised their kid. They all have one thing in common. An audience that wants transformation, but they have no systems to deliver this at scale. These are the creators you want to focus on, micro creators. Okay? And because each

creator already has their own niche, you don't need to niche down yourself because they've already built The audience for you. And because they've already established themselves as the expert, you don't need [music] to be an expert at all. You are just helping them monetize their audience. Put simply, in the traditional way, you look for niches. In the new way, you look for creators that fit your criteria, which means there are fewer variables that you have to worry about. And then the last category is macro creators. [music] But listen, these guys Are simply too big. Now,

you can actually do this as a shadow operator once you're intermediate or advanced. You know, that's a separate discussion. But for beginners and people first starting out, you want to avoid those if I'm being honest with you, okay? They're the ones with 150,000 plus followers. They have agents, managers that are already helping them make money. Look at Logan Paul as an example. He has a huge audience and he monetizes his audience Very well. And in fact, fun side tangent, that drink he's holding right there, that was actually his shadow operators work. So there's a company

known as Congo Brands. As far as I know, they own 60% of the business and then KSI and Logan own 20% each. So they own a minority and then they're shadow operators. The people that are basically capitalizing on their audience to sell products. They're the ones running business. Now I will say creating a Prime is not an easy task and I definitely don't recommend that. Too much complexity, too much money needed and there's much better ways to monetize micro creators, which I'll show you how to do even if you have no experience or tech skills.

So going back to topic, a micro creator with 30,000 followers, they're not getting those same opportunities. Most of them are making little to no money from their audience beyond maybe just some small affiliate Commissions. For example, let's look at this creator @ divorced and unbothered on Instagram. Okay. Lauren has an audience of over 40,000 followers. She helps divorced single moms navigate life and she creates content around the ups and downs of co-parenting. If you look at her reels, she gets very good engagement with more than 10,000 views per reel on average. But if you look

at her bio, it says collabs and she's added her email address. This means that she Is open to partnerships. And if you look at her bio, you can see that she has a link [music] to a few affiliate products. So what does this tell us? This tells us that she is looking for ways to monetize her audience. But at the moment, it looks like she hasn't got her own product, which means that she is leaving so much money on the table. And if we do some maths, you actually get an idea of just how much

if she sold a $50 product to just 1% of her audience, just So you understand what that means. 99% of our audience, literally 99% of our audience, this audience that knows, likes, trusts her, loves her content, if 99, just imagine 100 people in a room, how big that room is. If 99 of them were like, "Yeah, you know what? Actually, I don't care. I'm not interested. I don't want to buy this thing. If only one in a room of a hundred bought, well then she would still make an extra $20,000 and that's just selling a

cheap $50 digital Product. And as I said, I'm using super conservative numbers here. Okay? And this is why this is such a huge opportunity. There are so many of these micro creators like Lauren out there. They are at the perfect stage where they have expertise and credibility in their niche, but they simply don't know how to monetize their audience properly. They are creators for a reason. They enjoy the creative side of posting content and talking about whatever topics they talk About, but they don't want to have to handle the business side [music] of things. Business

systems and marketing and launches. Now, I already gave you one example, but let me give you another. Most of the biggest creators in the space have shadow operators helping them behind the scenes. I'm sure you guys have heard of Neelk Boys. Okay, those guys have a huge audience with a cult-like following. I'm sure you've heard of their brand, Happy Dad. Two Brothers actually helped them build that brand, the Shahiti twins. Okay, they pretty much built the entire brand and just partnered with the Nelk Boys to be the face of the brand, to focus on the

creative side of things, to create content, grow the brand. And this is not the only example. And by the way, I have countless examples like this. Literally on my Instagram story the other day, I mentioned shadow operating once when I was answering someone's question. And This is the DM I got from a creator who has 100,000 followers on TikTok teaching people inner healing. She reached out to me because she was thinking about making an online digital product but needed help from a shadow operator. In her words, this is literally what she said. She goes, "After

seeing your shadow operator method, I realized that I am the perfect creator to create a partnership. Let me read this DM. Hi man, could you please put me in touch With some AI shadow operators? I'm a creator with about 100,000 followers. Tik Tok, mostly teaching reality, trans surfing, and inner healing. I'm confident we can scale to $1 million in online courses." In brackets, she goes, "The business/ tech side is my challenge. After seeing your shadow operator method, I realized I was the [music] perfect creator to create a partnership. Thank you for your time." Like how

much more obvious could it be That there is a burning demand out there right now for this? As I said, these creators don't even know where to start. Okay, and that is the part that you will handle. Now, I know what you're thinking and it's a very, very fair and valid point. You're thinking, "But how will I handle this for them if I don't know how to handle the marketing side of things either?" Well, you don't need to worry about that because there are so many specialized AI tools that you can use That will do

all of the heavy lifting for you. In fact, my team and I have been testing hundreds of AI tools over the last couple years to figure out which ones are the best for SMA in 2026. I'm going to mention some of them here today, but if you guys want, I can make a video more specific on this, literally breaking down like the hundreds of AI tools that I've tested and which ones have been worth it. So, go ahead and comment specialized tools below if you Want me to make that video. So, now that you understand

the different types of creators and which ones to focus on, it's time to figure out how you are going to help them. Step number two, service selection. And this is where service selection comes in. You see, if you don't have a service, well, then you have nothing to sell. And for traditional agencies, there are dozens of options to choose from. But this is also a common problem that I see. It's What's known as analysis paralysis. Because there are so many services you can choose from, you end up overanalyzing everything. It's like going to a restaurant

and having 100 plus different options on the menu. So, let me give you a quick framework to help you pick your service. But first, let's look at the two different types of services that there are. There's convenience offers and ROI offers. Okay? So return on investment services are Usually easier to sell because it's very clear that the initial investment will have a clear monetary gain in the future. An example of an ROI service is lead generation. Convenience services are also very valuable though. Time is money as we know it. So if you can save a

business time and resources by doing a service that they don't have time for, well then they will be willing to pay a certain amount of money for that. An example of a convenience service is Video editing. Here are a bunch of examples of ROI and convenience services that you can provide as an agency. For convenience, we have social media management, videography, video editing, reputation management, web design. For ROI, we have paid traffic, email marketing, copyrightiting, SEO, lead generation. Now, do you remember how I said it can be easy to get stuck in analysis paralysis? This

is why. Okay. So, to avoid getting stuck in this, let Me give you two questions that can help you pick your service. Firstly, what is the biggest problem businesses in my niche face? Secondly, what's the most efficient way to solve that problem? Let's say you picked solar companies as your niche, for example. You need to do your research. Maybe you even talk to a few business owners in the space and you find out that let's say their biggest problem is not enough leads coming in consistently. Great. Well, now you know That they need more customers.

So, the next step will be to only look at services that bring customers. SEO, paid traffic, email marketing. The good news is that all of these can work. But to figure out which would be the best in this case, I would also look at some other factors. skill set, scalability, upfront cost, and income variation. So, let's start with skill set. Ask yourself, can you deliver this yourself or will you need to hire contractors? This is a very important consideration to make because if you can deliver the service yourself, well, then this gives you a competitive

advantage. In fact, just to give you some context, when I started my agency, it was a creative agency. Not only did I love creating content, but I was also good at it. So, if you already have a skill that could be put to good use, you would be crazy not to use it. But if you don't have the skills, don't worry. I will show you how To overcome this later in the training. Next is scalability. The truth is different services have different levels of scalability. And this will usually come down to one thing, location. This

is actually the main reason I switch my content agency to an advertising agency. When your service requires you to be at a certain location, the number of clients you can handle decreases significantly. Paid advertising lets you manage 20 clients from your laptop. Video production requires you being on-site. both work and are viable but just at different scales. So the question you have to ask yourself is this [music] does this service allow me to handle multiple clients and how many clients do I want long-term? Next is upfront cost. Okay, when it comes to the agency business

model it is the one model that really doesn't require much if any capital investment which is why I'm such A massive proponent of it for people who are just getting started. Instead the model requires sweat equity aka effort and the service you pick may have an impact on that. So let's compare two services here. videography versus copywriting. Copywriting just requires you to have a laptop while videography might require you to have multiple bits of camera equipment. [music] Okay? So, the question I want you to ask yourself here is, what is the barrier to entry For

me to deliver the service? My advice to you here is to choose a service that aligns with your current resources. I don't want you to spend tens of thousands of dollars or even hundreds of thousands of dollars upfront putting yourself in a hole before you even start making money from your clients. That being said, the fourth factor here is income variation. You see, different services have different income structures. For traditional agencies, There are two different deal types. We have project based and recurring. Project based work is usually where you get paid a lump sum for

a specific project. For example, $4,000 for a website build. Recurring is where you get paid a monthly fee [music] over a pre-agreed term. For example, $2,000 a month for 6 months for paid traffic services. The important thing to understand here is that one isn't necessarily better than the other. But You need to ask yourself whether you prefer that monthly stability or if you're okay with having your income vary month by month. Now, once you evaluate these factors, you're ready to move on. Now, when it comes to a new way to run an SMA, you're actually

able to overcome one of the biggest hurdles that most people encounter. With a traditional model, the goal is to help local businesses get more people to know about their product. You need more eyes on the Product, and that is often the hardest part of the business. It truly is one of the hardest skills, bringing clients to business that no one [music] knows. But with this new way, you get to skip this step entirely because microcreators have already built audiences that know, like, and trust them. They already have the eyes and the attention. They just don't

have the back-end strategy to launch the product and monetize that attention. And that is where you come in. In addition, With the new way, you also don't have to worry about all the service options because the service is clear. You are helping microcreators monetize their audience by handling the marketing side of things. Meaning, you're not restricted to just one rigid deliverable. Instead, you can adjust your approach based on the creator's needs. Some creators need some help packaging their expertise into a digital product. Others might just want your Help setting up their community on WP. Some

want your help setting up a one-on-one coaching offer for them. Some may even want a combination of these. The point is that you are providing the same core service, but the format might change. The difference here is very clear. With traditional agency services, even if you're using contractors, you still need to understand that specific service well enough to sell it and quality check the work. Whereas with Shadow operating, the creator already has the expertise in their field. Meaning, you don't need to worry about any of that. A fitness influencer knows fitness. A productivity coach knows

time management. A finance creator knows investing. They just don't know how to bring that to life. And in many cases, they don't even know that the opportunity exists to be honest. And that is where you come in. All you have to do is focus on providing the Infrastructure and connecting the dots for them behind the scenes so that way they can do what they do best. Now listen, I know what you're thinking, but Eman, I don't know how to do all the marketing stuff either. And I'm going to be honest with you. If you asked

me this question a year or two ago, I would have told you that that is a very valid question. But don't worry, I'm going to show you very shortly why this is possible for literally anyone in just a Second. But before I do, let's go over how to actually set everything up so you can get started. And this is where [music] we get to agency setup. Now, at this point, you already have your niche and service locked in. It is now time to turn your idea into a real business. But I'll be honest, I don't

want you to spend too much time on the step. This is one of those admin steps where you do it and you move on. And the good news is once it's done, it's done forever and Then you are good to go. And this is one of the most exciting parts of the journey because this is where you officially become a business owner. I'm going to go through this one very quickly because I don't want to over complicate this step. Like I said earlier in this video, I'm going to show you the traditional agency way and

then the new way through shadow operating. Just know that for this step, things are going to be very similar for the Traditional way as well as the new way. First, you pick your agency name. Don't overthink this. My agency name back in the day was IG Media. Literally, just my initials plus the word media. Terrible name, by the way, especially because I ended up offering paid traffic services. If I went back and I could rename it, I wouldn't name it after myself either, to be honest. Okay? Keep it simple and just know [music] no one

cares about your name as much as you do. If you're stuck, Give name licks a try. It generates a bunch of name options for you, and you can literally just pick the one you like the most. Next, you're going to buy a domain. Your domain will allow you to create a professional email and host your website. You can buy domains through many platforms like NameCheep, GoDaddy, and so on. A word of warning, domains can get very expensive, but it doesn't have to be that way. If you search your agency name and it's Expensive, [music] just

pick a different name or buy a variation that's cheaper. For example, if available, get.io or even.org. Okay. Now once you have your name and domain, you can go ahead and create a logo. Please understand a nice logo will not be the difference between failing or succeeding with your agency. So please don't spend hours on this. For this you can use Canva or AI tools like Taylor Brands or Lookup. Then moving on, set up your Google Workspace. This is Great because this allows you to store everything for your agency in one place. With this you also

get Google Slides, Google Docs, Google Sheets, Gmail. Now the good thing is that you get to set up a professional email account through Google Workspace once you have bought your domain. For example, this is what a professional email looks like. name agency.com. [music] At this point, you pretty much have everything you need if you are looking to start a traditional SMMA. But one additional nice to have is a website. People love to make a big fuss out of this, but the truth is having a website isn't make or break. Okay? I was making $20,000 a

month before I even had a website. Lucky for you, it's super easy to create a website these days. One other tool that you may want to use is Zoom for meetings. Now, let me show you what changes if you want to do things a new way as a shadow operator. Like I said, most of the Agency setup from the above stays the same. To be honest, the only thing I would add is cleaning up your social media. It's the first thing that most micro creators will see when you reach out to them. So, you need

to make sure that you are making a good first impression. Clean profile picture, clean bio. You can add your agency name, but keep it short, clean posts, and that's it. Okay? Now, please understand this doesn't mean that you need to add Professional pictures. And you sure as hell don't need to be posting in front of a Lamborghini in Dubai. You just need to look the part, someone who has their life together. nine posts minimum so that way you have a full grid. A professional profile photo and a clear bio that clarifies what you do. Something

like helping micro creators make disgusting amounts of money. Look, I know this setup can be tedious, but once it's done, it's out the way. Like I Said, you don't have to spend days on this step because the truth is your agency setup doesn't make money. Prospecting and outreach do. And that's exactly what we're going to get on to next. But only after we touch on offer creation first. You see, by now you are nearly ready to start making money. You know who to target. You know what service you're going to offer. and you have the

agency set up, but what you don't know yet is how to package what You offer in a way that's attractive to your prospects and you don't know what to charge. So, that is exactly what we're going to cover in this step, offer creation. First, let me start off by showing you the traditional SMMA way. An offer is the following, niche plus service plus pricing model. And you take those three together, and it's how you package it. That's what makes your offer. But before you create your offer, it's very important that you understand The goal of

a strong offer. The goal of your offer is to bridge the gap for your prospects. Whether you're working with local businesses or microcreators, the same principle applies because every prospect has a current state and a desired state. The current state is where they are when they have an unsolved problem. And the desired state is where they want to get to. In other words, when their problem has been solved, the gap is between those two States. And this is where your offer will come in. Here are the five key components of an offer. It's promise, methodology,

pricing model, contract duration, and free value. Let's start with the promise. This is your promise to your clients. and normally includes a tangible outcome and a time frame. For example, 30 qualified booked appointments in 90 days or four long- form YouTube videos in 60 days. Next is a methodology. This is how you're going To deliver set outcome. For this, keep things simple. You don't need to include every step of the process in intricate detail. For example, we run social media ads to your target market. Leads click on the ads which prompts them to complete a

form. If they qualify based on their responses, our team books them into your calendar. Then we move on to the pricing model. For a traditional agency, there are a few options here, including monthly retainer, which means A set amount per month. It's a pay per project, which is a onetime fee, pay per lead, which is a set amount per lead, or a percentage of rorowaz, which means a set percentage of return on ad spend. So, what the ads brought as a return. And in fact, you can even go a step further and even charge a

setup fee, which is an upfront fee on top of these models, except for the payer project model. Now, when it comes to setting the price of your offer, this will largely Depend on the value that you bring. As a rule of thumb, the more money you make for your clients, the more money that you can charge. So do some research on what other agencies are charging. I would also recommend that you start charging a price that you are comfortable with and you can always test prices over time to see how the market reacts. Here is

how to test this. If every prospects jumps at the opportunity with no push back, well then you want to Increase the price. Whereas on the flip side, if every prospect thinks the price is too high, decrease and test the response. Use market feedback as a way to gauge your prices. Next is contract duration. If you're running a service that charges recurringly every month, you need to set how long the contract runs for. This doesn't mean that the client leaves at the end of the month, by the way, okay? It just means that at the end

of the stipulated minimum term, Okay? Well, then terms can be renegotiated or at that point, you guys can part ways. So, if you have a recurring service, I would recommend a contract length of at least 3 months to give you enough time to optimize your service and get your clients results. And to spice up your offer even further, you could also offer some free value upfront to sweeten the deal. Free value includes audits, resources, lead reactivation, and so on. Lastly, let me Just quickly touch on guarantees for a second. I know that a lot of

people are obsessed with guarantees, but for me personally, I'm not the biggest fan, and I'm talking specifically for agency services in this case. Now, I'm not going to go in detail here today, but as an agency, I think that it sends the wrong message to your client. So, let me explain how to go about this the new way as a shadow operator. To be honest, most of it stays the same for the step Because the principles behind creating a compelling offer are universal. But here's where things differ. With a traditional agency, people get caught up

in thinking, "Oh, am I charging too much or am I charging too little?" With this new way, you don't need to worry about any of that because as a shadow operator, you're not selling anything. Okay? I will explain this further in step seven, but for now, just know this. As a shadow operator, you get paid a Percentage of how much money that you make them. The more you make them, the more money that you will make. Simple as that. So, you don't have to worry about all the pricing models that I discussed above. All you

have to do is decide on what percentage split you will agree on with them. When starting out, I would recommend giving the creator a bigger upside to make the partnership more attractive to them until you gain some confidence and lock in some more Partnerships. So, to start with, I would go with a 9010, 80/20, or 7030 split in their favor. Lastly, when it comes to the free value component, you can use the creator audit method as a shadow operator. And I'm going to break this down later in the outreach step. But before I show you

that, let's move on to prospecting. Prospecting. By now, you should have your niche, service, setup, and offer out of the way. Now it's time to start building out your prospect List. For traditional agencies working with local businesses, this process looks a certain way. You start using manual prospecting where you physically search for these businesses online through Google Maps, online directories, and social media. Or you can also use prospecting softwares that pull lists based on criterias like niche, business size, and location tools like Apollo, Leadswift, and Leads Gorilla. You could even hire lead generators on platforms

Like Upwork or Fiverr to build these lists for you if you really wanted to. The point is you have options. Your prospecting list is important to keep things organized so that way you can keep track and prepare for outreach which is the next step. So all you're doing for this step is this. You're identifying prospects and building your list. Now let me show you how to do this the new way for shadow operating. Prospecting is even more streamlined. The reason is that you don't need to hire lead generators or use prospecting software. And you don't

even need to juggle multiple outreach methods to try to figure out what works best. Let me show you exactly how to find these micro creators. You can look for them on different platforms like YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, Tik Tok, LinkedIn. You can even use platforms like Star Engage where you can find these creators and see detailed metrics about them Including the quality of their followers. Then you're going to DM them on Instagram specifically because that's normally where they're the most active. Just keep this in mind for the outreach step coming up next. So, I want you

to open up your phone, head over to Instagram. You can literally do this with me right now if you want. Go to the search bar and type in keywords related to popular niches. fitness and health, personal finance, productivity, Self-improvement, parenting and family, relationships and dating, career and business, and even mental health. Remember, we don't need to niche down for shadow operating because we've already specified that we're only looking for micro creators. Then, you're going to find accounts within the criteria that we discussed earlier. Make sure that they are within that 20,000 to 100,000 of follower

range. Take some notes about what kind of content they Make, who their audience is, and from there, what's the average number of views that they get on their Instagram reels. Look at how often they post. Look at how many likes and comments they get on their posts. All of this will help you gauge how engaged their audience is. You can even cross-check these creators using a tool called SocialBlade. This is a bit more advanced, but what you want to look for is an engagement rate of at least [music] 2 and 12 to 3%. Once you

Find creators that meet your criteria, click on the suggested accounts button, and the Instagram algorithm will show you similar accounts with similar numbers as well as stats. And remember that you can repeat this process over and over again. And this way, you never run out of micro creators that you can reach out to because you can keep repeating this process again and again. From there, I want you to start building a list of these micro creators. I'm Going to go ahead and leave my prospecting tracker down below. And this is entirely free for you. So

that way, you can start building your list. And for now, I want to challenge you to build a list of the first 100 potential microcreators that you're going to go ahead and reach out to. And this brings us on to step six, which is outreach. Once you've started building your list, it's time to start outreach. Outreach is the process of working through your list Of prospects and contacting them with a goal of booking calls. The key thing to know about outreach is you are not selling your service at this stage. You are just giving enough

information to spark curiosity and enough interest to get the prospect on a call. And this is the same for shadow operating. But before I talk about that, let me show you the traditional way of doing it first. For traditional outreach, there are a few key methods that you can use. And this will largely depend on what type of business that you're reaching out to. Depending on the business that you're reaching out to, you can do cold calls, cold emails, or even cold DMs. And in some [snorts] cases, it might even make sense to combine a

few of these methods. For example, if you're targeting home renovation businesses that are on the move all day, well, then cold calls are probably going to be your best bet. If you're targeting SAS Companies that live in their inbox, well, then cold email might be the way to go. But here's what I want you to know. Outreach is a numbers game, and there will be prospects who ghost you. It happens to everyone. The sooner you accept that, the better. Your goal is simply to maximize your chances of getting replies. And the more outreach you do,

the better. This is the traditional way. But before I show you how outreach works if you do it the new Way, let me also give you my BAM and reach strategy to keep you on track with your outreach goals. This is the BAM and reach strategy. BAM stands for bare ass minimum. This is the number of outreach messages you will do every single day, no matter what. And you cannot go below that number under any circumstances. That is your promise to yourself. And then there's your reach. This is the daily number of messages you will

strive to send every day. And this is really Just the best case scenario. The bottom line is this. Make outreach a part of your routine. Make it a non-negotiable. I attribute a lot of my agency success back in the day to consistency with this strategy. Now, let me show you how to do this for those who want to do it the new way. But bear in mind, the BAM and reach strategy still applies here. Now, remember when I mentioned that when you reach out to micro creators, your focus will be mostly on Instagram DMs. That's

Why as a shadow operator, this outreach step is even more straightforward because you don't even need to worry about all the different outreach methods out there. You can skip all of that testing and you can just focus on Instagram DMs. Here is the thing about outreaching to microcreators as a shadow operator. Firstly, the same rule still applies. You are not selling the service. You are selling the meeting. The main goal is to get them on a call Just like the traditional way. But here's the key difference. With shadow operating, you don't even need to sell

anything at all because all you're doing is presenting an opportunity, giving these creators a way to make more money. So, there's no pressure. With shadow operating, you're not asking them to pay you anything upfront. The way it works is you get paid a percentage of the sales that they make after you set everything up for them and they launch The product to their audience. Meaning, there's literally no risk for them. But, let me not get ahead of myself here because we will go over this in the next step. Look, let me make things very easy

for you by giving you some advice on how to structure your outreach messages. Keep your messages short and sweet. Don't talk about how amazing you are. Make it about the creator and make it very clear what's in it for them. These are just two of the 100 template Messages you can send to creator. Hey John, I notice you have a very engaged audience who follows you. Are you currently monetizing your audience? Hey Sophia, do you currently sell any coaching or mentorship? Notice how I always include their name for personalization. And I always end the message

with a question to keep the conversation open-ended and prompt a reply with them. Now, let me tell you where the real sauce comes in. When you Start getting replies, I want you to go above and beyond for your prospects. If they've shown some interest, you need to focus [music] on them. Remember the free value component of an offer I mentioned earlier where here is where you can create what I call a creator audit. Okay? This is a document that outlines everything about the creator. Who they are, what they stand for, who their audience is, what

their pain points are, and so on. You could even film a short Two-minute Loom video running them through the audit. From what I've seen, this works very well because you are leading with value. And remember what I said earlier. This increases the chances of positive replies. Remember, the goal of outreach is to get them on a call to see if you can help them. But I know what you're thinking. Well, how do I even go about creating this audit myself? You don't have to. Nowadays, there are specialized AI tools that can Do all of this

for you in just minutes. Which is why I'm so bullish on this new way to run an SMMA in 2026. because all this stuff wasn't possible a few years ago. But with the advent of AI, you can literally connect all the dots for your clients without needing to be an expert or without having to hire a contractor. So that is it. So that's everything you need to know for prospecting and outreach. So let's go ahead and move on to step seven, sales. Step seven is Traditionally called sales, but the reason I put quotation marks around

it is because you don't need to sell anything if you choose to go with the new way. That being said, first let me give you the traditional route for those who are more old school and want to run a traditional SMMA. If you're doing things the traditional way and working with local businesses, you will need to do sales. Your calendar is going to start filling up with these meetings From your outreach and your job will be to convert those meetings into paying clients. So, in order to prepare for your sales calls, you need to first

understand the structure of these calls. It looks something like this. Rapport, pre-frame, discovery, transition, and then pitch. First, you build rapport for the first 2 to 3 minutes. This is where you just get to know the person, easing them into the call. Then, you ask for permission to proceed and move into the Pre-frame. This is where you actually lay out how the call is going to pan out and position yourself as the authority. You're going to go ahead and say something along the lines. So, let me break down how today's call is going to work.

I'm going to ask you a few questions about your business, and all I ask for is transparency. Understanding the full picture is the only way I'm going to know whether we can help you or not. And if I believe we can help you, I'll make you an offer. Does that sound good or does that sound fair is another way that you can phrase it. Then you move on to discovery, which is the most important part of the call. And the reason for this is simple. Remember, you need to understand their current state, their future state,

the gap between the two, and the opportunity cost of not solving the problem, as well as any doubts that they have. Remember, we spoke about these earlier. Let me break This down for you. Here, you're going to ask questions like, "How many clients do you get on average per month? How much profit do you want to be making in 6 months? Where would you be today if you had a solution 6 months ago? And why have you never tried a solution like ours before?" You're essentially making them realize that they have a big problem that

needs fixing, and the solution is sitting right in front of them. Then you transition into the pitch Where you break down your methodology and how you can help them. Throughout all of this, you're managing objections, getting verbal agreements, and eventually closing the deal. It's a process, and the better you are at selling, the more clients you will sign. Now, let me show you the new way. And this is fundamentally different. You see, with the new way of doing things as a shadow operator, you don't have to worry about selling. In fact, I want you To

forget the word sales for a second. Because remember what I said earlier, you're not selling anything to these micro creators. You're not convincing them to pay you any money upfront. No, no, no. There's a very big difference here. You're not overcoming objections about why they should trust you with their marketing budget. You are simply presenting an opportunity to make them more money. And the best part about this is this is very easy for them. You're Not asking them to learn a new skill or become an expert in something. They're already the expert. They already make

content. So, it's very easy for them to create these digital products. And like I said, it doesn't even require them to pay you anything upfront. They can continue posting all the content that they already do and interacting with their audience. The only difference is they're going to see a few extra zeros in their bank account. Let me ask you This. If I offer to help you make an extra $10,000, would you decline? Of course not. And that's essentially what you are doing. The first call is similar to the traditional agency way. This is where you're

going to be asking them questions and gathering information. No pressure at all on them. You just want to be a sponge and soak in all the information. These are some questions that you can ask them. What are your goals for the next 6 to 12 months? How Much would they like to be making from their audience? What's holding them back from monetizing right now? Then learn about their audience. What's the biggest problem that their audience is facing? What questions does their audience ask frequently? What transformation does their audience want to experience? What have they tried

to sell before, if anything? And finally, understand their vision. How do they want to help their audience beyond just free content? Are They interested in coaching, creating a course, building a community? The goal of this call is to gather as much information as possible. So that way you can create a customized plan for them. But here is the key. You are not pitching anything on this call. You are just learning. At the end, you can even tell them, "This has been really helpful. I can definitely see some opportunities where I can help you monetize your

audience. Let me put Together a plan for you and we can jump on another call where I'll walk you through all of it. Sounds good. And they're going to almost always say yes because who doesn't want to make more money? Okay. And this is where you're going to take some time to refine the initial audit. Go through some numbers and present everything to them on a second call. The second call is where you're going to present the opportunity to them highlighting how much money They're leaving on the table. And for this, let's quickly run some

numbers so that way you can understand this. And by the way, you can literally run them through the exact same exercise. Let's say you partner with a creator who has 30,000 followers. You help them sell a product for $95. Let's say you do a terrible job, okay, and only convert 5% of their audience. That means, as I said, just imagine a room of 100 people. 95 people in that room are like, "I Don't care. I don't want this." Even though it's a cheap product, and their audience literally knows, likes, and trusts them. So, I know

that might be hard for you to imagine. So, you know what? Let's even half it. Okay? Let's make it a 2 and 12% conversion. Literally meaning that 97.5% of their audience is like, "You know what? I don't want this." Well, if that's the case, you're still making 750 sales. Let's do the math here. 750 * [music] 95 Is $71,250. Yes, you heard that right. You would have made him $71,000 just like that. And depending on your partnership split, you would then get paid a percentage of that. Let's say you have agreed on a 50/50 partnership.

You would have then made $35,000 with just one launch. And by the way, if more people continue to buy that product, you continue to make more money from that with no additional effort. If it's 7030, then you would Still make $21,000. But let's be even more conservative. Let's say that worst case you split the partnership so much stacked in their favor. Let's say they made 90% and you only made 10%. Okay, they would make $64,000, but you would still have made $7,000. I mean, it's pretty good for your first partnership. No. And by the way,

with shadow operating, all of that money you make is pure profit all in your pocket. When you show them these numbers on a call, it Becomes real for them. They start to see the opportunity and how much money they're missing out on. And that is when you can discuss the different types of products that you could help them create. And the last thing you also need to do is to discuss the partnership structure like we discussed earlier in the offer creation step. Do you see how this gets rid of any of the big barriers that

comes with [music] sales? Do you see how instead of selling, you're Simply offering them a way to make more money where there's literally no risk to them? Now, here's something that makes this even more powerful. One of the biggest problems I personally had with my agency back in the day was convincing my clients to continue to pay me every single month. It feels like every month I had to resell myself to them. I had to give them additional reasons to keep paying me and it was exhausting to say the least. And I actually started to

see This problem even for shadow operators that were using WAP. You see some of the more successful shadow operators running their businesses on W partnering up and splitting revenue with creators. They were doing well, but I started to notice a problem. Every time these operators needed to split their payments, there was friction. Okay, the creator would receive $10,000 and then would have to transfer $3,000 to their partner because that's what the shadow operator was Owed. And every time they did that, they felt in a weird way like they were paying you, but they were not

paying you because that's just your fair share. Okay? They would think about that $3,000 leaving their bank account and that alone would create resistance. It reminded me of something I always said back in my agency days, which is every recall is a reframe. Basically, every time someone needs to remember to pay you, they reconsider if it's worth it. They think, "Do I really need this?" And that creates friction. So, we decided to take matters into our own hands. As some of you may or may not know, I made a very very very very very large

investment in order to become co-owner of And by the way, if you don't know what is, it's a platform that processes almost $200 million per month in payments for digital products, creators, software businesses. Long story short, people make almost $200 Million a month on my platform. And what's great about being a co-owner is when I see problems, I can just fix it. And that's exactly what me and the team did. We built a feature that removes friction entirely. It is called autorevenue split, meaning money can now be automatically split at the moment of sale. Let

me give you an example. If a $100 payment comes in, given that there's a 7030 split between you and the creator, they would get paid $70 Straight away and you would get paid $30 automatically. And this is all handled in the back end by Wall. This way, the creator doesn't ever feel like they're paying you because they're not. You're just getting your fair share of the split. Psychologically, it's because the money never hits their account. They simply receive their part and you receive yours. It's very similar to what happens with Uber, for example. Uber takes

a percentage of the payment, but You don't manually transfer money on the app. It's all automatic. The driver receives the share, Uber receives their fee. No one feels like they're paying anyone, and this eliminates all friction. Now, once all this has been squared away, outline the next steps and onboard them as your partner. And just like that, you have successfully partnered with your first microcreator. But we are not done just yet. There are two more key steps that we need to go Through. Service delivery and then launch. Step eight is service delivery. Once you've locked

in the partnership, now it's time to actually deliver on your promise. For traditional agencies working with local businesses, this will depend on the service you selected. Whether it's Facebook ads for dentists, SEO for a roofing company, or email marketing for an e-commerce store. Either way, at this point, you should know whether you're the one delivering The services, or whether you're going to use a contractor. And that's okay. Here's what I did when I first started my agency. Now, I ran a creative agency initially, but then I later decided to transition to paid advertising to line

with my goals. Since I wasn't an ads expert, I had to hire someone else who could run the ads while I handled everything else. And like I said earlier, this is the beauty of the agency model. You get paid upfront, Meaning you don't need to pay your contractor out of pocket. This way, you're always cash flow positive. Now, you might be thinking, "But why would an expert work for $500 per client per month when you're charging your clients $2,000?" Two words: contractor arbitrage. There are some incredibly skilled marketers in Brazil, South America, Serbia, the list

goes on. Countries where $500 goes a lot further than it does in the US or UK. For them, It's a great salary. And you can find skilled contractors on Upwork, Fiverr, Facebook groups, and online jobs.ph. They handle the technical execution. You handle the client relationship. You're essentially the middleman. But here's the thing. I would still encourage you to least know the basics of what you're selling. Otherwise, you can't sell it confidently. You can't manage your contractors, and you can't quality check the work. That is the traditional Approach. Now, with shadow operating, service delivery becomes infinitely

simpler. Two fundamental things change everything. First, you don't need to be the expert because the creator already is and the product will be all about whatever it is that they already talk about. Think about it. When you're selling Facebook ads to a dentist, the dentist knows nothing about Facebook ads. They're relying on you to be the expert. But when you're working with a Fitness creator who has 50,000 followers, they already know fitness inside out. They know their audience's problems. They know how they can help their audience. They just need your help to put everything together.

Second, and this is the massive, massive game changer, you don't need contractors anymore. AI has replaced them for the most part. And this is why I keep seeing more and more shadow operators emerging and crushing it with their SMMAS. Which Is why I think this is the big cheat code going into 2026 because it means that you can benefit from all the agency model has to offer while being able to make life-changing money with zero employees. Contractor arbitrage is getting replaced by AI arbitrage because it means that you can benefit from all the agency model

has to offer while being able to make life-changing money with zero employees. Contractor arbitrage is getting replaced by AI Arbitrage. You see, there's specialized AI tools right now that exist that can handle the entire process for you. They can take care of the marketing assets that you're going to need to create for the microcreator. Sales copy, landing page, course outlines, everything. And it does it better than most contractors ever would. Tools like Ghostriter OS were built by the best marketers and copywriters in the world. And also think about this. AI doesn't ask for raises. It

doesn't get tired. It doesn't take sick days. It doesn't deliver work late because the internet went down. What takes a contractor a week, AI can now do in minutes. and it does it better than most contractors ever would. Now, let me show you how this actually works in practice. Let's say that the creator wants to offer a one-on-one mentorship plus a community. This is actually one of the easiest setups. You're going to build all of this on WP for them. It's Super simple. You're going to create their account, create the product, then you would create

their store page, then you add the calendar bookings app where people can actually book calls directly with the creator. You can also add the forums app where members can interact with each other and ask questions. The creator just shows up for the call while you handle everything else. Once that's all set up, you're pretty much set for launch. Now, let's say they want to Create a video course instead. Still, you would set things up on WP pretty much the same way. The only difference is that you would add the courses app. This way, you can

put the course together for them. Now, of course, they would still need to record the modules and phases of their course, but you can even help them put together the outline for that. [music] Tools like Synthesize AI can create the entire program outlines for you. This way, all the Creator has to do is to record the videos and send them to you, and you can upload everything to WP. Do you see how all you have to do here is to connect the dots and make everything 10 times easier for the creator? And do you see

how you can do all of this without being an expert and without even having to show your face? Well, once this step is done, then all we have left is a launch. Step nine, launch. The first step is actually one that I've added for shadow Operating specifically. Because when it comes to shadow operating, it's important to build anticipation before you get the product in front of the creator's audience. What you need to do is you need to agitate that existing desire and get people excited before they can even buy. Now, there are 15 different launch

frameworks that you can use here. We don't have time to go through all of them here today. So, I'm going to give you one of the most Important ones here today. The one you should focus all your efforts on when first starting out. It works extremely well for micro creators, and that's the Instagram story sequence. By the way, this is the exact same strategy that I personally use when I'm doing launches, and it's quite cool. Even though I'm co-owner at I've broken the WP records twice this year. So that proves that this works at any

scale. And here's why. Firstly, because people who watch Stories are the creator's most engaged followers. They're checking in daily, sometimes even multiple times a day. Second, stories feel quite intimate. They give you a unique outlook on the creator's life. And because of that, it feels like a conversation, something the creator is sharing with only those whom they want to share it with. Similarly, because stories disappear after 24 hours, this also creates a sense of urgency and FOMO. If you're not paying Attention, you might miss out type of thing. And since this is likely the first

time the creator is properly monetizing their audience with their own product, there's already some pent-up demand. People have been waiting for a way to go deeper with this creator. They just didn't know that it was coming until now. So, let me show you how this works in practice. You run a 14-day launch sequence that follows three phases: warm-up, pre-launch, and open Cart. Each day, the creator posts 5 to 10 stories following the simple structure. Hook, story, CTA. The hook grabs attention. The story builds a connection, and the call to action drives engagement or sales. Day

one might be something's been on my mind lately. Then you share a story about the problem their audience faces. Then you ask, can you relate to this? Day seven might be after a week of sharing this all with you. Then you reveal what You've been building. Then you say doors open tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. Day 14 might be last chance cart closes in 2 hours. Then you share final testimonials and you say link in bio before it's gone. Well, I know what you're thinking. Well, I'm not a copywriter. How am I supposed to write 14

days of story sequences? Two things. First, remember the creator is the expert. They already know what resonates with their audience. They know the problems, the desires, the language. You're just structuring it for them based on the information that they give you. Second, AI tools like Ghost Writer OS have specific agents. It's literally like having a specific employee that's the number one expert in the world built just for this. Okay? It can generate the entire sequence for you. By the way, just so you understand, look at the story sequence Ghost Writer created for my last launch.

You can see right there, all of these were created with Ghostriter. I use this tool day in and day out. This creates expert level copy in minutes. Then the creator just needs to post the stories after you've structured it for them at the scheduled times. Do you now see how this eliminates all the complexity from the process? And here's the beautiful thing about this new way. Once you've done one launch, you can refine and repeat. And you can even launch again in the future and continue to make money because with Shadow operating, the sky is

the limit. You can take it as far as you want. And that's it. That is the entire process. The complete road map to starting an SMA from scratch in 2026. All nine steps. Nothing held back. Look, I know we've covered a lot of ground here today, but I wanted to make sure I gave you the entire step by step because that's what you guys asked for in my last video. By the way, if you're still wondering like what are the best business models I can Take advantage of for 2026, go watch my recent videos where

I break down the three best AI business models for 2026. Anyways, now that you understand how to start an SMA from scratch for 2026, you really have two options. the traditional way or the new way with shadow operating where you partner with micro creators, leverage their expertise and their audience and let AI help you connect the dots for them behind the scenes. Look, I'm going to be honest with you, both Paths do work, okay? The traditional path is the one that worked for me back in the day, back when I didn't have all the options

and all the AI tools that exist today. And then there's the new way, which I see more people taking advantage of. If you're starting from zero with no experience, no network, and you want to get results fast, partnering with someone who already has an audience is a huge competitive advantage because you get to skip steps. And like I showed You in this video, a lot of the traditional steps are actually easier when you use the right specialized AI tools and you leverage the creator's expertise. With this new way, the creator gets to do more of

what they love while getting paid. You get paid and their audience gets the help that they desperately need. Do you understand how powerful that is? Well, I hope you do because this new way is going to change the SMMA game going into 2026. I Know this is a long one, but I just wanted to get this all on paper for you guys. This took me a long time to put together. Please come back, re-watch this video. I know there's a lot here today. So, my recommendation is watch this video 2, three, four, five times. Save

it to your watch later because maybe you might get stuck on a small little thing. So, you can always come back to this video and rewatch just that specific section. So, with all that Being said, as always, I'm watching from afar and I'm rooting for you.