I own a successful South Florida advertising agency. I didn't start out in this career so how did I start an ad agency business?

I went to college after high school and graduated with high honors but I was focused on chemistry and biology. This is when I decided that I really don't want to be a doctor.

I liked cooking but didn't like the hours so although I cooked in restaurants I just didn't see that as a career for me.

I decided to get my Florida real estate license and sold real estate for 11 years. I learned that any advertising you do to promote the sale of the house is not going to win an award or impress anyone unless the house gets sold. I was very good at writing ads that got attention but just wasn't into it anymore and one day I just quit.

I went to work in my dad's company which was a medical linen supply business. Many doctors and clinics were switching to paper so the linen business wasn't doing so great. Just by luck some guy showed up and gave us some dyes and told us he would pay us to dye thousands of t-shirts for his business. Garment dyeing was more profitable than the linen rental business so I decided to learn all I could about this business.

What does this have to do with starting an ad agency? - You'll see!

So I decided that we could get more clients if we advertised (told you that you'd see) so I went to trade shows. The trade shows were sometimes good and sometimes a waste of time. Business wasn't doing so well and we really didn't have money to advertise but I knew that we had to advertise. So I started writing an article all about garment dyeing and sent it in to a t-shirt screen printing magazine publisher with shirt samples. They published my article and next thing you know people were calling us to hire us to be their garment dyer. But something else happened that I didn't expect; other magazines began to call and asked if I'd write an article for them so I did. I had five articles published as featured stories on the cover of internationaly distributed industry trade publications.

What happened next was that this former real estate agent became the nations leading authority on garment dyeing. Then the business was sold and I needed something new to do. So I went to work for a former client and I was just learning to make websites for people that I'd meet. I told my boss, a t-shirt screen print shop owner that we should start an ad agency since he had a t-shirt artist who could learn to make brochures and I knew how to make websites. The boss loved the idea so we did that but then the problem was that he was fighting with his wife, got divorced and that business shut down.

When the business closed it was the kick out the door that I needed to go full time into making websites for a living. Everything was going very well because I was working from my house so expenses were very low.

For several years I made all the official artwork for the City of Fort Lauderdale festivals and events. I made the brochure design, logo, newspaper ad design, poster design and of course the t-shirts. When I say "I made..." what I mean is that I had very talented artists working for me who made these things.

So here I was running RBIweb.com a website design company and I'm making brochures and newspaper ads for the City of Fort Lauderdale.

I decided to start talking to website clients about brochures and catalogs they might need but I ran into a problem. People thought this web guy couldn't possibly make brochures.

So I started a new company Ad Excellence, an advertising agency and began to offer all advertising services. This worked out very well because I had spent two years making websites as a part time job. Then a year at the ad agency my former boss started so a lot of people knew me and liked me. I got a lot of referrals from clients and the advertising agency business quickly grew.

In the beginning I worked from the house and just told clients "I'll make it easy for you and come to your office". I had to do this because I didn't have an office. One day I got a big client and knew that I'd need to get an office. Once I got the office it was as if overnight I became 100 times more credible and this caused me to get bigger and better clients.

Today I also have Viral Marketing as a new service offered by the advertising agency.

The video above shows examples of corporate branding that we have done for our clients.

Great, but how does this help YOU to start a business?

Here are my tips to start ANY type of business!

1. Draw on past experiences for your new business.
2. Start a business doing something that you like to do anyway.
3. Losing a job might be the kick out the door that you need.
4. Look for opportunities everywhere.
5. Always under-sell and over-deliever.
6. Do MUCH more for your clients than what they have paid you for.
7. Look for ways that you can help your clients.
8. Go to trade shows for ideas and clients.
9. Advertise your products or services or you'll advertise your going out of business sale.
10. Get a good website for your business.

Regarding the ten tips above some need a little explanation. I explained about my past jobs because if you think about it you can see how it leads to the obvious career choice for me which was to start a full service ad agency. Tip 2 is simple, if you love your work then you never feel like you are working. This leads to you doing a better job for your clients. If my former boss didn't get divorced and cause my unemployment I don't know when I would have ever just decided to go for it and start my own business full time. When I couldn't afford to advertise I wrote press releases and got them published so look for opportunities everywhere.

Business tip 5, 6 & 7 are critical to success. If you tell someone I'm going to give you 123 and you only give them 12 then they are mad at you. However if you tell them that you'll give them 123 and you actually give them 12345 then they refer their best friends to you. Number 7 works for me like this: Let's say I'm at a chamber of commerce meeting or some type of networking event. I never try to sell what my company does. Instead I try to think of who I know that might be a client for someone else at the event. I do the same with my clients, I try to find ways to help them. I never think about me; people find my website and refer people to me all the time because of tip 5, 6 & 7.

You can attend a trade show or exhibit at one. Any trade show will do even one totally unrelated to your business. In some other industry they might be doing something that you could use in your business.

You do need to advertise any business. OK truthfully word of mouth advertising is the BEST type of advertising and the only type my company can't sell. However, you need to advertise your business to get clients so they can start talking about how nicely you treated them.

A good website doesn't cost money it PAYS you. Most of my business comes from these three things, in this order:

1. Website
2. Client referrals
3. Networking