Our Story - Agency Rocket Fuel

Hi there. I’m Fran and this is my partner, Reinart.

Together, we created Agency Rocket Fuel because we realized a fatal flaw after years of working with multiple digital agencies:

Most business owners ONLY Focus on Sales and Customer Acquisition while Overlooking Fulfillment and Delivery

Now, don’t get me wrong… there’s nothing bad about this. You can still end up wildly profitable and make $10,000 to $20,000/month consistently if you hustle hard enough.

But if you want to have a business… AND A LIFE, that’s gonna be tough.

Most clients we work with get caught in their business and they can’t remove themselves from it. As a result, they often feel burnt out and trapped in their business.

If you’re a Chief Everything Officer (where you juggle between the different roles of a CEO, COO, CMO, and Customer Support)… then you’ll know the kind of toll this role will take on you.

And if you happen to struggle with these problems where you’re hitting a plateau in the business— where you’re stuck in the weeds and your business isn’t growing… then CONGRATS!

You’re in the right place.

We’ve worked with enough digital agencies and helped with automating and streamlining their fulfillment. So they can grow and scale while maintaining their sanity.

If you’re having a ton of problems and you don’t know why… then this might provide some clarity.

This is the Agency Rocket Chart we’ve created to help our clients see where their Agency Business is at:

Level 1:

Survivability. Your digital agency is really struggling and you have issues putting bread on the table. You’re running solo at the moment and you’re having a hard time paying the bills.

Level 2:

Safety. Your business is doing fine, but you’re still having ups-and-downs in sales. You make a good $7,000-$8,000 on average. You can’t seem to find the right target market. In some months, you get more clients and some months, fewer.

Problem: Not attracting the right clients, and unstable inflow of clients.

Level 3:

Stability. Your business is bringing in a consistent revenue of $15,000- $20,000— enough to pay off all your overheads without any pressure.

Problems: You’re the center of your business (Chief Everything Officer), and you’re constantly drowning in fulfillment.

Level 4:

Sustenance. You now have a good team and basic systems in place. Finally, you can afford to work on the business.

Problems: Not hiring the right people for your team, and not having the best systems in place.

Level 5:

Self Actualization– Achieving Freedom. Here, you can pursue a greater purpose or solely focus on growing your business. You won’t have to worry about the day-to-day operations since you have a solid team and a set of SOPs created to run it.

The Agency Rocket Chart is something we’ve developed to show how problems in your business change as your business grows. Different businesses will experience different issues when they move onto another stage.

This is why it’s extremely difficult for you to scale beyond $20,000/month without optimizing your fulfillment with systems (we even had clients who scaled up to $40,000-$50,000/month, only to come back down because of a lack of systems).

Now, imagine you’re operating a rocket without the right guidelines, manuals, and procedures. You’re good at running solo… but if you want to reach the Moon, you might hit a wall simply because you can’t keep flying your Rocket all on your own all the time.

Adding more people without having the right processes in place will just worsen the situation.

And this is where we come in and help.

Our Background Before Starting ARF:

Reinart and I spent over 5 years studying Industrial Engineering (the branch of Engineering which focuses on systems). Both of us have spent our youth applying whatever we’ve learned to grow our agency (and our clients’ agencies) to scale past $50,000/month.

Before we partnered up… I ran a VA Agency helping my clients save up to 30 hours/week by automating and eliminating the “Time-Wasting” tasks that were holding them back.

Reinart, on the other hand, was a “Systems Wiz” as he specialized in creating proprietary systems for his clients which helped them scale on Advertising Platforms like Facebook.

In fact, he was the First Person in the Philippines to pass both Facebook Blueprint Certifications.

After joining forces with Reinart, I took whatever I’ve learned from my VA background in helping my clients save time and combined it with Reinart’s genius in building proven, reliable systems.

The Result?

We were able to consistently create systems that blew our clients’ minds – systems that were able to replace VAs and not only help our clients save time but also save money.

One thing led to another one day while reading the book “The Undoing Project” by Michael Lewis – that was the defining day that changed our lives forever.

In the book, Michael Lewis described that work produced through symbiotic collaboration will not only be completely different from what either of them could achieve on their own… but the ROI they get could be easily multiplied.

(If you pay attention to great businesses, that’s how they got started… Apple had Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak… Berkshire Hathaway had Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger.)

Truth is… Reinart was the perfect fit for me. He knew how to build systems. I knew how to help agencies save time.

And from this… Agency Rocket Fuel was born.

And as we worked even closer together, we started to internalize certain Systems Thinking Principles much better.

"A system is a set of related components which work together in a particular environment to perform whatever functions are required to achieve the system's objective." -- Donella Meadows (Thinking in Systems)

When we understand and internalize this idea, we can engineer environments and situations which produce higher levels of success.

Instead of linear thinking, where 1 + 1 = 2, we can think in terms of 1 + 1 = 4, 9, 16 or more…

How?

While I’m experienced in helping my clients save time… Reinart perfectly compliments what I do by creating even better solutions. He created the Documentation Engine, Agency Systems Radar, and The Hiring Funnel.

For tasks that require manpower, we’re able to find the right talent for it. Don’t worry. We practice what we preach… and as of now, we have a powerhouse team of 14 to help us with client fulfillment.

For tasks which can be automated, we do it with tech and the necessary systems— saving not just time… but a lot of money in the process. And this is exactly why our clients love us.

We have been consistently helping them save at least 5-15 hours a week from the boring but necessary “Fire-Fighting” work.

Of course… it wasn’t all sunshine and roses for both of us.

We weren’t successful all the time.

Initially, there was a lot of trial and error. We went through hell and back to get to where we are today—staff betrayal, letting go of clients and partners we really trusted, working with a dozen clients who each want very different things.

You can’t fly a rocket right the first time. The rocket, “Sputnik 1” which first attempted to travel to the moon burst into flames.

And because of all the prices we’ve paid… we’re here now, better and more experienced. Working beside us, you won’t have to do this on your own.

Scaling to over $50,000/month is tough. We get that.

Why do it yourself when there’s a proven and trusted process which has helped dozens of our clients do the same?

If you’re having issues or problems in your business… we’ll be always here to help. Schedule a call with us here.

Why You Should Listen To Us:

Today, we’ve helped more than dozens of companies (6 or 7 figures) with their systems and processes.

The work we’ve done with them has allowed them to save up to an average of 20-30 hours a week. So they can work ON the growth of the business… and not IN the business.

One client we worked with saved up to 1-2 HOURS whenever they enroll a client (If you’re finding onboarding a PAIN… then you might want to find out how we did this).

Another client went from working a 98-hour workweek to about 35-42 hours of high-level productivity. Today, he’s consistently working 28-hour weeks.

We’ve also worked with clients doing $30,000-$50,000 per month.

If you’re hitting these numbers but you’re losing your sanity (especially if you have a family to take care of), then feel free to reach out to us.

Don’t Hear From Us… Hear From Them

If you’re on the fence as to whether you should reach out… then don’t take our word for it.

Have a look at what our clients are saying!

Evan Shapiro, Agency Owner

“Just a couple months in things are drastically different. The ENTIRE on-boarding process is pretty much automated and delegated. One of the great things about them is that there’s a done-for-you component as well. They’re much better at building zaps and SOPs than I am — that piece of it has been huge for me.“

Ashlyn Leyba, Agency Owner

“Before I started working with them, my business was all over the place. I didn’t know exactly what I was doing that day and more importantly i didn’t know what my team was doing.

It’s amazing how quickly we got systems underway. My team knows exactly what they’re doing every day. I know how to monitor progress on every project we’re doing.”