Will Wang of Black Belt Consulting joins Jeremy Rivera to discuss his journey from corporate IT analyst to accidentally building a seven-figure marketing agency. In this candid conversation, Will shares the expensive lessons he learned about hiring (including a $500,000 mistake), how he's leveraging AI for market research while keeping humans in the loop, and why he's betting big on YouTube and Instagram while going bearish on LinkedIn for 2025.
This episode is packed with practical insights for agency owners, consultants, and entrepreneurs who are scaling their businesses and want to avoid the costly mistakes that come with rapid growth.
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Guest Information
Will Wang

Company: Black Belt Consulting
Instagram: @blackbeltconsultant
LinkedIn: Will Wang
Email: [email protected]

About Will: Will grew up in Sydney, Australia, worked in corporate IT making $130-150K/year before taking the leap into entrepreneurship. After two years of struggles and making every mistake possible, he built a seven-figure marketing agency which he sold 12 months ago. He's also a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt (earned 4 years ago) and now runs Black Belt Consulting, helping businesses scale from $25K to $250K per month with strategic marketing consulting.
Key Topics & Timestamps
The Corporate Escape

Growing up as an immigrant in Sydney, Australia
The soul-crushing reality of corporate IT ($130-150K salary trap)
The difficult decision: when to make the leap with a family to support
Two years of stumbling through every possible business mistake

The $500K Hiring Mistake

Why he hired a general manager when the business wasn't ready
The account manager who created an unnecessary layer between clients and strategy
The remote copywriter problem: why proximity matters for creative roles
Key lesson: "We weren't big enough for a GM. We just needed me to spend less time working in a few of the things on the business"
Taking full ownership: "It was all my fault... their abilities were hampered by how I supported them"

Building Lean, AI-Enabled Teams

The shift to small core teams of highly competent people
His new hiring framework: creativity vs. process-driven roles
When to hire locally vs. when to leverage cost arbitrage with virtual teams
Using online jobs.ph and Upwork strategically
"Give people a goal, give people a vision, and then hire people who are competent and disciplined enough to do what they need to do"

SOPs and Systems for Non-Operations People

Using Loom videos to document processes instead of writing SOPs yourself
Having your VA or operations person create the documentation by following your recordings
Why being the "big picture creative" doesn't mean you can't systematize

AI for Market Research (Not Delivery)

How customer research went from weeks to minutes
Using ChatGPT and Claude to build detailed customer avatars
The critical rule: "Nothing that gets delivered to clients is actually AI done"
AI for research, humans for delivery—that's the framework
Building AI-enabled teams in 2025

Content Strategy & Platform Bets for 2025

Going all-in on YouTube: "YouTube is the big one for me. I'm investing a lot into that this year"
The Instagram surpri...

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