Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Nikita Vakhrushev. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Nikita, thanks for joining us today. Your ability to build a team is often a key determinant of your success as a business owner and so we’d love to get a conversation going with successful entrepreneurs like yourself around what your recruiting process was like -especially early on. How did you build your team?

Initially, we did not have any employees. I was a freelancer, and I handled all the work for our clients. As I started earning enough to support myself and realized that I couldn’t handle the entire client load alone, I began to hire employees. Even after hiring 5 to 10 people, I still don’t know the hiring process inside out. However, we’ve been fortunate to have hired some great individuals, and we continue to refine our hiring process. One thing that has helped us in finding the right candidates is providing a skill test, whether it’s setting up an email marketing campaign or managing Facebook ads. These tests have significantly aided us in finding the right fit for the position we’re hiring for.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My name is Nikita, and I am the founder and CEO of ASPEKT, an email and SMS marketing agency. We specialize in setting up campaigns, automations, organizing contact lists, and increasing revenue for e-commerce brands through email and SMS channels. I didn’t start with email marketing. Initially, I focused on SEO and accidentally became an email marketing specialist when I wanted to increase sales for my e-commerce store. After some research, I discovered that email marketing and Facebook ads were effective ways to achieve this goal. As I learned more about paid advertising, CRO, landing page and website design, I also gained expertise in email marketing. I started freelancing and helped my friends’ and other businesses’ brands with Facebook ads, email marketing, and other related services. Recently, we decided to fully pivot our focus to just email marketing for e-commerce brands. We learned that being an expert in one specific field was more important than offering multiple services to have a successful client base. Email marketing turned out to be our niche, and we excel in it.

Have you ever had to pivot?

A few years ago, when we had six to seven employees on our team, we provided our clients with a range of marketing services, including Facebook and Google ads, email marketing, and conversion rate optimization. We had around five clients who were signed to our full-service packages, which was lucrative but also challenging to manage. Handling all these different services while trying to excel in each of them was a huge headache. We dropped some balls, and sometimes Facebook ads didn’t perform well, while email marketing did or vice versa. So, we had to reflect and prioritize what was most important for the agency. We realized that email marketing was our strongest suit. Hence, we pivoted towards only taking on email clients, and this decision has been a game-changer for both our agency and our clients. Our clients stay longer with us because we can provide better services that generate more revenue for their brands, and we specialize in email marketing, knowing all the details that go into it. We also expanded our services to include SMS marketing. Overall, we are glad that we made this pivot and wouldn’t have it any other way.

How did you build your audience on social media?

Currently, my most significant social media following is on Twitter. Social media can be tricky since you don’t want to waste others’ valuable time, but at the same time, you don’t know what to post about when working in a business-to-business setting. Generating content is crucial since it serves as your digital resume. However, it requires patience and a lot of time to develop content for your ideal audience while growing on social media. I recommend focusing on a specific niche. For me, it’s direct-to-consumer or e-commerce brand founders and other marketing agencies. I specialize in providing my target audience with valuable content that they can take actionable steps from, such as creating an email marketing plan or setting up email marketing automation and SMS marketing. Providing valuable content helped me grow on social media. For me, it’s not about the size of the following, but the types of people that follow me. While having 7,000 to 8,000 followers may not seem like much, if they’re all business owners, that’s a different story.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://aspektagency.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nikitavakhrushv/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikita-v/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/nikitavakhrushv
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@NikitaVakhrushevTV