Robin Waite is the founder of Fearless Business, a business coaching program for coaches, consultants, and freelancers.
From 18 years old until 22, Robin worked as a systems analyst for a medical device company.
Putting systems into play, Robin increased efficiency and decreased cost, helping to make the company 50% more profitable.
For the next decade, Robin ran a successful marketing agency, serving over 250 clients.
He delivered workshops and masterclasses to over 1,000 business owners on subjects including marketing, product architecture, pricing, websites, and more.
Robin now helps other coaches, consultants, and entrepreneurs, offering insights on product architecture, pricing, and sales.
With fearless goal-setting and accountability, Robin’s program is turning dreams into reality for clients around the world, helping them to double their income and more.
How did you start out as a marketer?
In 2004, I was on holiday in Florida and got a phone call from an old work colleague.
At the time, he was building websites, and I was buying and selling computer hardware.
We felt there was a great opportunity to join forces, so we set up a marketing agency.
Over the next ten years, we built hundreds of client websites and also got into branding in a big way.
The agency grew from just us two to a team of six, and in our biggest turnover year, we achieved £250k turnover.
For a small local agency, we were incredibly proud of this.
During the 12 years of running the agency, we specialized in building Google-friendly, good-looking websites that generated leads for our clients.
Looking back, what was your hardest struggle when it came to delivering results?
At the time, the biggest hindrance to our business was saying, “Yes!” to complicated, custom, bespoke website builds.
They always took longer than we’d anticipated, and the clients of these sites were the hardest to please.
After reading “Built to Sell,” written by John Warrilow, we streamlined our processes and created a series of 1- and 2-day workshops to deliver productized websites and brands. It transformed the agency.
How did you get your first client back then, and what kind of service did you do for them?
Most of our clients came from local networking meetings, referrals from existing clients, and local searches on Google.
Our primary offerings were website design, hosting, and branding. Anything from 5-page websites right up to fully bespoke applications
Although we dialed back the custom work to focus on our more profitable work, which was the smaller, more standard websites, with a focus on the care plans, which we then upsold,
What do you find most rewarding about what you do?
Nowadays, with the coaches, consultants, and freelancers that I work with, seeing them grow their businesses is my greatest reward.
We’ve had several “fearless babies” as well as clients who’ve been able to save for their wedding, first house, or take a lease on their first office.
I find their rewards to be my biggest rewards!
We have a lot of readers who are bent on becoming freelancers. Aside from freelancing, how else can someone earn online? And what is your advice?
When setting prices, most freelancers look at their competition to see how much they are charging.
The mistake, though, is assuming that the competition has it right. Many freelancers are operating unprofitably.
Think about it: there could be 20 web designers locally to you; only one of them can be the most expensive, and more often than not, they’ve been in business for a number of years.
So if they can get clients at the top price, so can you!
If you were given the chance to build your career all over again, what would you do differently so that you could achieve your dreams faster?
I built several apps as a side hustle when we started building websites. I wish that I’d taken them more seriously now and doubled down as they had the potential to be great SaaS apps.
Equally, they might have gone nowhere, so I don’t regret it.
We just spent a lot of time building other people’s dreams rather than our own, and we certainly had no confidence in pricing or knowledge on how to make money when we first set up the agency.
How is your typical work day structured?
Right now… It’s a bit crazy. I have two daughters, ages 6 and 4, and they’re both in school, but my day is broken up with school runs and coaching sessions.
I’ve found my most productive days are when I block out my diary in the following order:
Life stuff 2. Coaching calls 3. Sales calls 4. Marketing/Content
Can you tell us about a time where you had to put in significant effort up front and then wait a long time for success?
I’ve written several books, most notably Online Business Startup.
The book required 8–12 months of hard work in advance in terms of writing the drafts, copy editing, proofreading, typesetting, and design, even before they were launched.
And then 6–8 months of solid marketing after launch to get them into the charts on Amazon.
It then took, after 12 months, for the royalties to start coming in and to make an ROI.
It was totally worth it, as the books have helped me get speaking engagements, podcast interviews, and numerous clients since.
You’ve been tasked with redesigning the company’s brand strategy from the ground up. Walk us through your process.
I hope this doesn’t come across as egotistical, but I’m incredibly proud of the Fearless Business brand, design and identity.
Plus what the company stands for in regards to culture, core values and mission. It’s exactly what I imagined the vision for the business would be.
Can you tell us about a past situation where you had to juggle multiple projects with competing deadlines?
I remember a summer in 2008/09 where we delivered a handful of large £10k+ projects and about a dozen smaller £1k projects.
At the time, we were charging £50 per month for support and hosting, irrespective of the size of the project.
I realized at this point that the 10+ smaller projects actually produced a 3x larger customer lifetime value than the 3 bigger projects. because we had more people paying £50/month on the smaller projects.
This was when we flipped our business model and focused on recurring revenue over project-based work. It was an absolute game-changer.
What recently developed marketing strategy, technique, or tool interests you the most right now?
I absolutely love YouTube, and I’m doubling down on experimenting with my own channel right now to gain more subscribers, views, and especially watch time.
Trying to create business-related content that keeps people engaged for a lengthy period of time is actually really hard!
I love the gamification of YouTube, though, understanding the algorithm and ultimately understanding what people want to see and engage with.
What do you do to stay up-to-date with new marketing techniques?
I have mentors and coaches myself who know more than I do; I am subscribed to several masterminds and newsletters that regularly send out updates on the latest software and technology; and I watch some of the more successful internet marketers to see what they’re getting up to.
Which one book or blog post would you recommend every marketer read?
Built to Sell by John Warrilow is by far and away the best book for any creator or marketer to read.
It talks about “product niching,” which is a little known subject; having a solid focus on 3-5 core products and doing them really well.
That’s how you add real value to your clients. I’d also recommend reading Breakthrough Advertising, which is THE BEST copywriting book out there, if you really want to understand your audience and what makes them tick.
If there’s a marketer out there who doesn’t own a copy of Breakthrough Advertising, I’d question their credibility.
If there’s one marketing guru you’d recommend, who and why?
I’m currently following Chris Do (his YouTube channel is called “The Futur”); his approach to productization, pricing, and sales is very similar to my own, and the way he executes it is brilliant.
As a graphic designer himself, his channel is beautiful, and he delivers so much value on his channels and websites.
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