Pulled in $4.5M this year - thinking of going solo. Thoughts?

bouncekiller

I've been doing the marketing grind for nine years - startups, scaleups, enterprise, you name it. Currently head of marketing for three SaaS brands and head of growth for a Hungarian corp. This year alone, we closed $4.5M in contracts from a qualified pipeline worth over $20M, all through B2B LinkedIn lead gen. Honestly, watching leads sit in the pipeline for eight months then finally convert is like a slow-motion trainwreck that ends in confetti. Bloody satisfying.

But now I've got that itch to build something of my own. Made a similar post elsewhere and had over fifty people reaching out for feedback, plus a handful of offers. So I'm trying to figure out what my offer should actually be:

Consulting - strategic analysis, step-by-step GTM. But I'm not about that high-level fluff, I want to get my hands dirty.
LinkedIn lead gen retainer - monthly fee, priced by sales cycle length. My results come from manual follow-ups and contextual replies, not that cookie-cutter automation crap everyone sells.
One-time payment - charge once, show my entire process, train a couple of team members, and hand over the system. They run it themselves and save cash long-term.

Which one would you B2B folk actually pay for? I'm done with the 9-5 and ready to play by my own rules. Thoughts?

trafficcop

Who are you? I need to stalk you and your game 😂

But that’s very cool! Your experience sounds solid!

datanerd

If you're scaling demand gen and need someone who actually understands pipeline mechanics rather than just running cold outreach sequences, I'd be keen to throw my hat in the ring. Been working ABM in a B2B SaaS environment-mostly targeting enterprise accounts where deal cycles stretch beyond six months and the sales-marketing handoff is the difference between a closed-won and a ghosted opportunity. happy to start as an intern if it means getting hands-on with your attribution model and campaign architecture.

cyberpunk

From my experience, start with retainer (2a). Most clients want results without having to manage the process themselves.

Keep the one-time setup (2b) as a lower-friction entry point or for smaller teams.

conversionninja

Hiring interns? I'm in, let's build something beautiful.

bouncekiller

Oh, congrats! Love that for you. 😏 What's your industry, anyway? Always curious where the big money's hiding-aside from my client's ad spend, obviously.