How Google's Endorsement Unlocked Millions in Revenue
With Guest Feras Alhlou
From $500 Websites to Fortune 500 Clients. How Strategic Partnerships Built an 8-Figure Business.
The How to Sell More Podcast
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March 7, 2025
Twenty years ago, Feras Alhlou drained his 401(k) to start a digital marketing company. In 2019, he sold that same company for eight figures to Dentsu, one of the world's largest marketing firms. The journey between those two points is a masterclass in business growth.
In this episode of How to Sell More, Mark Drager and seasoned entrepreneur and business advisor Feras Alhlou explore how strategic partnerships can unlock higher-quality leads, increase deal size, and create premium positioning to differentiate your company from competitors.
How? By becoming an evangelist for your partners.
“Treat your partnership like a primary marketing channel; put in the time and effort. Visit the partners, show that you’re doing amazing work with their product, bring case studies, bring clients, be their evangelist.” - Feras Alhlou
This strategy paid off big time. A few years into startup, Feras’ firm niched down their services and became a Google Analytics Certified Partner. He even went on to write the book on it with Google Analytics Breakthrough: From Zero to Business Impact.
In Episode 102, you'll learn how persistence through difficult times and a growth mindset can help you move upmarket to larger clients. Feras explains why niching down drives massive growth, how to treat partnerships as a primary marketing channel, and the crucial difference between passion and skill in building a successful business.
Your takeaway? When you consistently deliver value to your partners, they become invested in your success.
Feras and his company’s success didn’t come down to luck—growth came from making strategic decisions, taking consistent action, and building lasting relationships.
This episode illustrates that if you’re willing to invest the time and effort, strategic partnerships can lead to high-quality referrals. So ultimately, you can sell more.
Connect with Feras Alhlou
More About Today's Guest, Feras Alhlou
Feras Alhlou is a seasoned entrepreneur, author, and business advisor whose entrepreneurial journey began after an unexpected layoff in 2003. From this challenging start, Feras built and scaled multiple businesses to 7 and 8 figures, including a web and marketing analytics consultancy that was acquired by the global media company Dentsu in 2019.
As the co-author of Google Analytics Breakthrough: From Zero to Business Impact (published by Wiley with over 15,000 copies sold), Feras has established himself as a thought leader in the analytics space.
Industry giants like Google and Tableau have recognized his expertise, and he's shared his insights at prominent conferences, including SMX Advanced, Digital Experience, and INSPIRE.
Beyond his business success, Feras is deeply committed to giving back. He serves on the board of directors for the Silicon Valley chapter of the American Red Cross, chairs the board at e-CENS, and co-established the Feras Alhlou Scholarship in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Tulsa. His dedication to community support extends to providing a year of pro-bono management consulting and mentoring over 150 new businesses.
Today, through Start Up With Feras, he's on a mission to help aspiring entrepreneurs navigate the challenges he once faced, sharing the hard-won wisdom gained from his own journey of wearing multiple hats, overcoming setbacks, and recognizing when to pivot toward new opportunities.
Mark Drager: So Feras, you and I met what seems like a lifetime ago. We're coming up on almost 20 years. But we met because I worked at the head office of an internet marketing franchise, and you were one of our rock star franchisees - out of all places, but Silicon Valley. But if you can, take us back to 2004 - what was it like selling internet marketing services to businesses when the web was still relatively new.
Feras Alhlou: Really a pleasure reconnecting again, Mark. 20 years ago, a long time ago. So, it was the dawn of the internet. I remember going to these small business owners, because initially I didn't know how to sell, I didn't know how to market, so I figured I'd go to small restaurants, my dentist, and I would tell them, "Hey, you know, you could have a website." And I remember the looks on their faces. "What's the website? I'm a small business. This is for big companies." And there was a whole lot of education to these business owners on why they need to be on the internet. And a few of them, these early adopters, including non-technical restaurant owners, saw something in this, and they invested, and they reaped those initial benefits of being early adopters. So AI today reminds me of that era where it's like, "Oh my God, is this real? Is this not real? How do I use it? Is it going to benefit my business?" So there was a lot of education that we had to do to convince customers to believe in us, to help them deliver leads and have them present themselves better on the internet.
Mark Drager: Well, when I was reflecting on your story, as well as some of your career highlights, I kind of have these two thoughts looking back on it. So 2004, you start your internet marketing company. 2009, you become Google certified in Google Analytics and start to lean into the idea of analytics and measuring and reporting. By 2016, you write, basically the book on Google Analytics. You're a Google Certified Partner. You are doing a lot of business. You build your agency into an eight-figure agency that by 2019 you are able to exit and sell it to Dentsu, one of the world's top five marketing agencies. And so there's two things that I think of. One, I'm amazed that when you started, you were selling $200, $400, $500 websites to restaurants and to, you know, dentists and all of this stuff. And so it shows that you can start small and grow, but at the same time, you were able to ride what could be a wave of technology, of growth, of boom. That may have been a once in a lifetime opportunity. How do you look at that 20-year run?
Feras Alhlou: That's an amazing articulation there, Mark. I need to borrow that summary that you gave. Thank you. You know, we struggled a lot early on, like the first four years, for all of you out there listening. I was laid off from a tech company. I was a VP. We ran out of money. We couldn't sell the product. So I was forced into entrepreneurship. No sales background. Had to learn sales and marketing. And what do I do? You know, in my previous job, we were doing infrastructure Voice over IP systems to Comcast and Cox and AT&T and the likes of the world. So we had to find something where we could leverage our skills. So I'm good in project management. I think I'm good with people. I didn't know how to sell yet, but looking at me and my business partner sort of complementing each other, like looking at the skills that we had that were transferable to something new and at that time, like, what's new, what's it that businesses need? It was web design, it was online marketing. So we got into it, and from there, after that initial year and a half, couple of years of really struggling and putting a lot of resources, including depleting my 401(k) plan, with the blessings of my wife. I mean, we put everything in once we saw the light that this has something that can grow.
Mark Drager: How long did that take? Like, because my experience the first time, it took me five years, I think. And in my second startup, it took me about a year and a half, two years. But while you're going through it, it could feel like agony.
Feras Alhlou: The first two years. I mean, for the first two years, it was really hard, like we wanted to grow, so we hired a little bit ahead of the curve, so cash flow, making payroll, trying to sell in there. So a lot, a lot of work, but once I think once we figured out how to sell, that growth mindset and learning, reading books, talking to others. I think following people, being surrounded by people who, I always say, one of the black belt principles we use, like follow or take advice from those who have been to where you want to go. And I learned a lot from these other rock stars, you know, and in the franchise at the time, I would take notes on like how they would sell, and I would go and try to apply them, maybe tweak it. So learning, doubling down on learning, and putting the time, putting a lot of effort, a lot of hours, and starting to see the results and having that growth mindset. I think that's really important. What's the next thing? Like, how do I go from small businesses to mid-sized businesses? How to go later. As we got certified by Google, how do I go from mid-sized businesses to selling to Fortune 1000?
We ended up selling to Fortune 50. We ended up selling to Google. We ended up selling to Salesforce. I mean, later, once we had the case studies, once we had the 10,000 hours, right? Once we had the, you know, we had our framework. We had it in the book. But I think it's that growth mindset. I say, passion is optional, but sacrifice and skills are not, so that's really important, because sometimes we get sidetracked, and sometimes it's a disservice to young entrepreneurs, or entrepreneurs in general, about the passion. Passion. Passion is important. You can't work 40, 50, 60 hours a week on something you hate. Passion is important, but skills and being ready to put the time, the 60-hour weeks, the 70-hour weeks, traveling to conferences, networking with other people. And that growth mindset, I think it was really, really important. And you build it over time. It's not like you don't wake up one morning and say, you know, I want to grow. It's just, you know, growing one rep at a time.
Mark Drager: I know a big part of your success came from specializing in analytics when everyone else was trying to be generalists. In my experience, I've found that generalists may pick up clients, but they're certainly not going to keep them. Generalists might look good on paper, but if anyone cares about results… And I've tried, I've done both—I've run highly specialized agencies, and I've even gone the other way to become more general to try and do more for my clients. I found specialists tend to keep clients longer and deliver better results. What was that decision to niche down like for you? Was it an obvious choice or did you have concerns about becoming too specialized?
Feras Alhlou: You know, there's a book I read last year called Niching Up by Chris Dreier. Great book on niching down. It's funny—Niching Up is the book. But there's marketing, there's digital marketing. Within digital marketing, there's paid search, SEO. I mean, going back to 2005, first we were trying to throw things at the wall and see what sticks, right? And then you start to have some success. For whatever reason, it could be luck or maybe you read more about it, you ended up doing two, three projects, like we did a lot with dentists, right? So I was able to sell to dentists very quickly because I understood how their businesses were running. So I think if you're just starting, don't niche down right away. That's my guideline. Try different things for the first few months, and then start to—now your target audience can’t be the universe, but it can’t be just very, very niche initially. I think getting specialized, getting certifications, getting recognized, maybe writing an article in that niche area, maybe on your blog or whatever you do on social media. If you start to focus on one area, you'll know a lot more about it, and then people will gradually recognize you. As you said, I was the analyst guy, right? So people start to think of me, and then we would get referrals from other consultants. In terms of getting clients, you're doing your own marketing to attract clients, but then your network, once you are recognized as a leader or a thought leader, an expert, they are likely to send leads your way. Potentially, you would be sending leads their way for what they specialize in. And so it works really well.
Mark Drager: And I know a big part of your growth was becoming a Google Certified Partner, if that's the terminology, but a preferred partner, an approved partner, whatever it might be. Was that something that kind of just happened? Or was that something where right away you spotted that this was something you could pursue?
Feras Alhlou: Yeah, it was a bit later. As you get to know the space, right? I think at the time, there were like one or two books on the topic. This was 2009, 2010—we got those two books, and I wish I still had them, Mark. I remember we had these sticky notes, those markers. The book was 300 pages. We had like 100 of them, and each one was a tip, a strategy, a tactic. So we started building our analytics framework by reading these two books and just networking, going to these events. Through these networking events, I saw some agencies with the Google Analytics certified logo, and I was like, "Wait a second, how come they have it? I don't have it." So I started to explore, and then I went to the Google Analytics website. They had all these partners. I said, "Oh my goodness, look at this." So I started to learn more about it. It wasn't as formal as it is today. There was a list of requirements you were supposed to meet. It took us a few months to meet those requirements, and then we had the application. There's a story about luck—how luck comes into the picture after all this hard work: reading the books, applying what we learned, getting the individual certification, having some projects under our belt, then making that connection. I can get into it later if you want.
Mark Drager: What happened? Tell me now.
Feras Alhlou: So again, you have to do the hard work. Then, one November—right before the holidays—I get a call from Toronto. "Hey, we have this small conference for 70 of our top consultants and want you to come out and speak about analytics, right?
Mark Drager: Because you're “the analytics guy.”
Feras Alhlou: Exactly. So December, the holidays, Toronto, Canada—not a good idea. They weren't paying at the time; I think they weren't paying for the trip. So I said, you know—
Mark Drager: Oh, we would like you to come, out of pocket.
Feras Alhlou: And it's good because you meet other business opportunities. So I said, "Why not?" I'm a big believer in networking. Just tell all entrepreneurs, you gotta be out there in person. So I flew out there, prepared, and it was a smaller room with 70 people. I shared with them what I've learned about analytics and how it's helping me sell my other services. After the talk, this tall guy named Jeff—Jeff Gillis. He's a friend I haven't talked to in 20 years now—comes up and says, "Feras, that was a great talk. I just love the passion. You know so much about the product." Thank you, Jeff. So, by the way, I'm the Channel Partner Manager at Google Analytics. I kid you not. It was like, I don't know how—there were all these emotions like, "Oh my goodness, this is the guy I've been wanting to connect with to become a certified partner." And then other emotions like, "Did I do a good job? Did I say the right thing? Did I make fun of Google?" All these emotions were going through my mind. It was a brief conversation, and then he said, oh my God, I'm going to get emotional. But he said, "Hey, Feras, why don't we connect after the holiday and see if you want to be part of our program?" So, of course, “Jeff I would love to.” And here's the thing, Jeff was not going to be the guy to come out because he spoke after me. Someone else was scheduled to come out, but that guy couldn't make it. So Jeff, on his way to see his mom on the East Coast, said, "Okay, I'll stop in Toronto and speak with you folks." So this is luck, you know, this is a gift from above or whatever belief system people have. Things happen your way if you put in the time and effort. You know what comes to those who are prepared. We know that.
Mark Drager: Where opportunity and preparation meet... Crossroads or luck will find you. So you become this partner. What are some of the lessons in terms of one, because I've actually entered into a few partnerships. We did some work with Adobe, and they hired us to promote their products. And I always jump into these things with, you know, we have to be optimistic as entrepreneurs. So I'm like, "This is the greatest thing," and then it never goes anywhere. Maybe I don't put enough attention into it. I have come to realize, or almost recognize, that every activity is almost like its own business. It's like its own mini business, just keeping this channel going, keeping this relationship going, whatever it might be. So you really did quite well by being in the Google network. Can you talk a bit about that? What's required and some of the lessons learned if we're looking to replicate this type of distribution, affiliate growth through an ecosystem or a network-type relationship?
Feras Alhlou: Yeah, absolutely. I think what came initially was we got certified the following January, February, and then we got listed, and we started to get those leads. We doubled down on analytics, and basically we shut off everything else. We handed off business.
Mark Drager: Was that a hard decision to make, to shut everything?
Feras Alhlou: It was hard. It was hard. So we did it gradually, though, because cash flow is king, and cash flow is important. So web development gradually got shut down because we were not making money on it. That was just, "Oh my goodness." Then web design, then PPC, SEO gradually.
Mark Drager: Were you good at these other things, though? Was it hard to let them go? Because you were actually great at them as well?
Feras Alhlou: So we were getting the analytics business—bigger business, better margins—so gradually, like, "Okay, no more web design," and then "No more SEO." And then we left Pay Per Click till the very end, and then we let go of that as well. We had one client. We were doing some work for a friend, and he stayed with us even after the acquisition. He was a client with us for like 17 years, and he was more like his marketing consultant, and he was paying us handsomely, so we stayed. You know, that's a different story. But for 95-98% of the revenue, we basically over a span of a year and a bit.
Mark Drager: What would have been your annual revenue at that time?
Feras Alhlou: I think we were seven, eight hundred thousand at that time. Pretty sizable. But it was gradual, so for anyone who's specializing, you gotta watch cash flow. You gotta watch what's going on.
Mark Drager: You don't like to burn the boats. I've done that once or twice where I'm just like, "Forget it," and I just cut everything.
Feras Alhlou: Well, it depends if you have people, if you have employees, and payroll is different than if you're by yourself. I don't know. So in terms of your question about the partnership, I think you might have three or four partnerships in your agency, right? But if there's one that, let's say, you want to ride that wave, there's growth in new markets. You want to treat it as a primary marketing channel, which means you have to put time and effort into that partnership—getting to know the people, going out and visiting the partners, showing this partner that you are doing amazing work with their product, bringing case studies, success stories, bringing clients, being their evangelist. And then it wasn't just luck. If you do this, they'll give you money. Or you do this, it was really—they were Google, an amazing partner. There were a bunch of glitches here and there, a bunch of issues here and there, but in general, the more we invested in that relationship, the bigger and better things happened to us. When Google made an introduction of Salesforce to us, Google for their top clients, would do everything for them.
They would sell them the license—the Enterprise license at that time was $150,000—and we were a reseller. Then they would actually provide a team of Googlers to do the implementation and ongoing support. At one point, they realized Google is a product company, and they wanted to rely on the network of certified partners. So I remember going to San Francisco in person and getting introduced to the Director of Analytics, a good friend now at Salesforce. They were on Adobe, and they had this two-year project to re-platform and implement Google Analytics instead of Adobe. I kept my cool, but I was getting introduced to Salesforce by Google. I didn't have to have a set of slides, like how many logos we had, how long we'd been in business. I didn't have to do any of that, Mark, because I was introduced by Google.
They brought me in. So all this hard work and being a good partner, doing the case studies, and knowing the product really well—plus we had a very active blog at the time, publishing weekly—meant that investment in learning the product and being on top of it led us to be introduced to Salesforce. That ended up being, over the span of many years, and they're still, actually, after the acquisition, they stayed with us and are still a client of the agency with Dentsu. I mean, you were talking about millions of dollars in revenue over the span of so many years. It started with, I think, like a $25,000 audit or something. But that introduction to Salesforce in 2016, I think 2017—I don't remember exactly when—like all that hard work, all that investment in that relationship, that's the payoff. And there were many other payoffs, like many introductions, but that's the one I vividly remember. And the Salesforce team, they're not going to bring anyone to Salesforce, right? So having those relationships with the channel partner, having the know-how, and demonstrating your knowledge and being there for the partner—just like any other relationship—you invest in it, a good partner will reciprocate.
Mark Drager: And so it sounds like you wouldn't have earned or kept either the relationship, the respect, or the business without the skill sets in-house. So you have to be good. I'm assuming you guys were good. Would you say you're as good, better, or marginally better than others in the market? Like, from a skill set point of view,
Feras Alhlou: Initially, we had—remember the books? We knew zero about this.
Mark Drager: You were the professor who's reading one chapter ahead of the class.
Feras Alhlou: Thank you very much, right? And testing this stuff, like at night on the weekends, okay? Like, how do you track a form submission? That was a big deal at the time. How do you handle basic e-commerce? How do you track when someone scrolls? All this stuff—investing in learning and then writing about it on our blog at the time.
Mark Drager: I was gonna break these out because I have a little pie chart I wrote down, like skill relationships and then content marketing, or essentially advertising and growing the awareness of your knowledge base. But I'm curious because skill is important and relationships are important, and speaking about it and sharing this good news story is important. I'm curious whether you would give, you know, 33% to each or whether you would at different times over-index and say one of these pieces of the pie is actually more important.
Feras Alhlou: Very good question. I would say 50%. No, you gotta know this stuff. Maybe even more than that, that's foundational, especially in the service business. In the consulting business, you are the consultant. You are the expert. People are coming to you because you know this stuff and have invested time to learn it and be really good at it. It requires the reps. It requires doing 20, 30 projects. It requires you reading about it. It requires you going to conferences. It requires you being aware.
Mark Drager: That's where that passion comes in.
Feras Alhlou: Exactly, exactly, because I mean, later, before the acquisition, we were the top three or four globally within the Google-certified network of certified partners. We were the top three or four resellers, and then when we merged with and got acquired by Dentsu, within Dentsu, there's another Google Analytics Certified Partner, Cardinal Path. So we merged with them and became number one. From a know-how perspective, we had the numbers, the projects, the licenses we had sold, and the variety of different verticals. And, you know, we obviously invested in having someone write about it. So I would say—
Mark Drager: When you exited, how many people were on your in-house team?
Feras Alhlou: We had—we were close to 50. I think we were at 47.
Mark Drager: Yeah, that is massive from where you started.
Feras Alhlou: From literally the beginning. I mean, this is Silicon Valley, the garage, but we did work—not a tech startup—but we did from very humble beginnings, from not knowing how to sell, not knowing digital marketing, not knowing anything about this stuff. You know, I came from a corporate background. I was a manager, I was a VP. I knew business, but I didn't know P&L. I didn't know legal stuff. I don't know about taxes. I didn't know how to sell. So sometimes it's like, "Oh my goodness, how did we get there?" It was the first few years, and then the phases, the inflection points where you make those bets, like dropping all the stuff and focusing on analytics, focusing on Google Analytics, because there were other players at the time—not going the Adobe route.
There's nothing wrong with that, but I think Google was investing heavily in that. I think the repeatable process is important for the listeners. In your space, whatever skills you have, whether it's accounting or IT or coaching or technology, whatever space you're in, let's talk about it. Just to bring a real example, let's say you're an IT consultant, and you have Cisco and Juniper certifications, major players in that space. Is there a new entrant? Is there a new company, some startup out of, I don't know, South Dakota, doing specialized routers? They're busy technical people building these routers. They don't have a network of IT consultants to implement them. This would be an opportunity to partner with them, and then they will send leads your way because they're focused on selling their products. They're not focused on building a network of resellers or people who will implement and do maintenance. So in your vertical for the listeners, are there new entrants or companies who have maybe a new line of business and are looking for a go-to-market partner, looking for other people to customize, implement, support, train on—all of these are things we ended up doing. And once we've done them, and we've done more of them, then we—like Google said, "Wait a second, these guys are doing amazing work. They're helping us sell the product. They're helping us show that this product is useful." That's when they start to get you more leads.
Mark Drager: So there's a number of things that come to mind here. You're talking about finding partners who need implementation support. And I've actually run into this myself, but I've never thought to approach the company about becoming a reseller or implementation partner. So for someone listening who sees an opportunity like this, what's the actual process? How would they go about forming these partnerships? What's worked for you?
Feras Alhlou: I would do some outreach to some of these vendors, technology providers. They might have an existing ecosystem of partners. So, for example, we use GoodJob for the online program. The course we have, we use Kajabi, so we need some integration with some system. Actually, just yesterday, we had something very technical. They have a list of approved vendors within the Kajabi system. So we said we're looking for someone to help us with this. We got a couple of requests. We hired the guy—just a very small project, $250, very small thing, too technical for us. So this person who invested to be a certified partner with Kajabi just made $250 with zero marketing costs. They invested with zero cost of acquisition, exactly. And they had to be there. They responded on time, unlike some other folks who did not respond, right? So you still have all those best practices—responding on time, being professional, all that good stuff.
But I think it's an underutilized area. It does require investment. It does—luck again—you could invest a lot in a relationship, and that might not pan out, and we've done a few of those. But I think if you look for technology providers in your space who have either a new line of products they're promoting or some new players, they typically have a budget to go to market. In some of them, they don't have their own resources, and part of their strategy is to support partners. For example, with the analyst company that I'm still part of out of Dubai, now back in North America, we have Beyond Analytics. We work with a bunch of partners, including More Engage. It's on the customer experience side of things. They want to penetrate the US market. So they do events, invite partners, do all the planning, host events, invite people, and then we're there to present.
So there are always opportunities within these verticals of companies that want to promote their product, and they want people—consultants again—to help strategize, implement, customize, train on, support. They want to focus on their product. So I think there's a lot of opportunities, and you might have to try two or three different things to find the right sort of horse to ride or the wave to ride. But it definitely paid off handsomely for us.
And one last thing here is some people think it's just a relationship. It's not going to be perfect. So if you are going to be out there, products have bugs, products have issues, your customers are not going to like the product. Some aspects of the product—you get a request to the vendor—the vendor is not going to solve it right away. So if you go online and start bashing your partner, you are not going to get leads. Just like any other relationship, you have to be honest. You have to provide feedback, but be a good partner. Talk about the issues, provide workarounds. You are the expert, but bashing whatever partner it is publicly on social media is not a basis for a good partnership.
Mark Drager: So then, what do you think of last year's antitrust stuff with Google then?
Feras Alhlou: I mean, okay, so with this whole thing with privacy—oh my goodness, this is like a roller coaster. Roller coaster, man.
Mark Drager: Oh Feras, it's been so good catching up with you and being able to really dig into this. Now, maybe you are in a startup, or maybe you're running a 20-year organization. Maybe you're in a professional services or service-based business, or maybe you're in a more traditional manufacturing or industrial services business. But the point remains that if we look at the commonalities between these business models, these tactics, these strategies, these approaches, they can work across different industries. And that's part of what I really like to explore here, part of the benefit I had working in 29 industries with hundreds of companies and producing thousands of projects, is pattern recognition and realizing what works in one—you could be in the most advanced, leading industry, and you can take some hard knocks and start learning some lessons. You may even realize that you're not good enough to operate that quickly or in that industry, but there are others that might be a few years behind, or others that even a few decades behind. And so whatever we can learn from one, we can carry over to another.
Now, I do like to end, and I have one final question for you. I always love to end with this question, which is: If you had to give us one tip or strategy to help us sell more, what would that be?
Feras Alhlou: It's a numbers game. No matter how good you are, no matter how much you learn about sales, you should always be learning at the end of the day. It's a numbers game. You gotta be out there selling yourself or your team, finding ways to meet people, finding ways to solve these problems and be genuinely, like, sincerely, wanting to help others. But I think a lot of people—and with that maybe like one point, 1.1 like another point—is to be out there and follow up. I make it a habit to go to a networking event at least twice a month. And Mark, for this last year, less than 10% of the people I meet follow up, but I make it a habit because this is what I teach, I preach. I make it a habit. Within less than 48 hours of attending a Chamber of Commerce event, before the end of the day today, I'll make sure I reach out to everyone I met at that event. To me, it's mind-boggling. People go there, they're struggling entrepreneurs, and they're not following up. So why did you go to this event if you're not going to follow up? Being out there and following up is really important. It's boring and knowing, but you gotta do it. There's no other way. So there you have it.
