Steven Khanna on Growing an SEO Agency Sales Team to $500K a Month
Steven Khanna went from running Michelin-star restaurants to growing an SEO agency from nothing to half a million in monthly recurring revenue in 18 months. He now consults for agencies on sales. Michael met him at Link Building Mastery, a conference where Steven is the go-to sales presenter. They cover how Steven landed his first clients, how to turn conferences into deals, what to do if you're not a natural salesperson, and two habits he swears by: speed to lead and booking a meeting from a meeting.
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Topics covered
- From Michelin-star restaurants to SEO
- Growing an agency to half a million in MRR in 18 months
- Landing the first 5 to 10 clients and asking for referrals
- Systems, success plans and adjacent verticals
- Getting clients at conferences
- Where to start if you're not a natural salesperson
- Speed to lead and booking a meeting from a meeting
Key takeaways
- SEO agencies often struggle with sales because many SEOs are technical rather than client-facing. That gap is an opportunity.
- Warm up leads before you pitch: engage with their posts, wait about 72 hours, then soft pitch with voice notes, Loom videos or a call.
- Ask happy clients for referrals. Steven calls it the easiest pipeline to attack, and many agencies never do it.
- Conferences shorten the sales cycle, but only if you set clear lead and revenue targets and book follow-ups on the spot.
- Don't skip the networking after the conference. Steven says the biggest deals usually happen late in the evening.
- If you're not good at sales, use AI automations or bring in a salesperson. Budget for sales from day one.
- Respond to new leads within five minutes, pick up the phone, and end every call with the next meeting booked.
Show notes
🍷 From restaurants to SEO
Steven's background is in sales, though not the usual kind. He ran Michelin-star restaurants in the UK, where selling to guests was a big part of the job. After moving to Poland around 10 years ago, he was selling wine B2B and B2C when he ran into his future boss at a Friday language exchange. He was offered a job in SEO and gave himself three months.
He loved it because early success gave him the spark to do more. He quickly noticed that many SEO agencies struggle with sales, since SEOs can be "quite geeky, quite techy" and not very client-facing. That's where he stood out. In one of his first roles, he grew the agency from nothing to half a million in MRR within 18 months, starting with plenty of cold calls to a tightly focused ICP. Today he does sales consulting and training for some of the bigger players in the industry, which he jokingly calls "agency hopping".
🤝 The first clients and the referral pipeline
His first five to 10 clients came from warming up leads on LinkedIn rather than spray and pray. He engaged with their posts, waited about 72 hours, then made a soft pitch, using voice notes, Loom videos and some cold calling in between. Every time he delivered results, he asked for referrals and gave something back in return.
He sees a lot of agencies skip that step. When he asks agencies he consults for how many active clients they have, they might say 15. Then he asks whether they've ever asked those clients for referrals.
“Have you ever asked them for referrals? Because that's the easiest pipeline to attack.”
Steven Khanna, 5:07
📋 Systems once you hit 20 to 30 clients
With 20 to 30 active clients, systems had to come in: an account management team, SOPs and a tech stack. Steven also looked at the team's strengths and the vertical where they'd had the most success, then built a six-month success plan for that vertical with milestone reviews at 30, 60, 90 and 120 days. After that, they expanded into connected verticals, such as moving from real estate into mortgages.
That's how the agency went from no clients to 87 active clients in 18 months. His view is that sales needs a bit of obsession plus a lot of structure. He points to Julian Goldie as a founder with very high standards, with reporting and a KPI for almost everything.
🎪 How to win clients at conferences
Michael met Steven at a conference and notes that his conference schedule is impressively busy. Steven calls conferences the best way to shorten your sales cycle compared with paid ads or cold outbound. His playbook:
- Pick conferences that are a perfect fit for your agency or tool, get a booth and bring the right people.
- Set clear targets: a number of leads and an amount of revenue that should convert within 30, 90 or 120 days. Otherwise the trip becomes "a glorified holiday".
- Give a short demo as a lead magnet, then book the follow-up call on the spot.
- Send a Loom video 24 hours before that call so they actually show up.
- Use booth competitions that drive action. His team ran a fortune wheel where some prizes were a $50 voucher for the tool, which required registering on the platform.
- Don't miss the networking events after the conference ends.
His biggest casino client, worth 80 grand in MRR, came from an evening networking event. The prospect was stuck at the back of a long bar queue, so Steven used his restaurant experience to get him a whiskey on the rocks. They talked for 30 minutes, and Steven closed him the next week. His advice: be charming, don't be salesy or pushy, and business will follow.
“The biggest deals usually happen late evening.”
Steven Khanna, 10:01
🤖 Not a natural salesperson?
Michael says he struggles to answer this one because sales has always come naturally to him. Steven gives two options. Use AI automations, even an AI avatar, to handle the first touch points, or bring in talent. In his words, "you can't polish a turd". Founders who won't let anyone else face clients are often the bottleneck holding the agency back.
He thinks a salesperson should be part of the cost structure from day one. If two co-founders are both shy and not good at sales, he would bring in a talented salesperson and give them a share of the business, because no matter how good the product or service is, it doesn't matter if you can't sell its value.
⏱️ Speed to lead and book a meeting from a meeting
Steven's one piece of sales advice is speed to lead: respond within five minutes of someone becoming a lead, and talk to people instead of hiding behind a screen. Conversations by phone or face to face give you the feedback and insight to close the client or improve your business.
Michael brings up an acronym from Steven's presentation that he has used in his own coaching: book a meeting from a meeting. Instead of the lazy "I'll send the deck and get back to you next week", Steven suggests a specific time, like "How does your calendar look Tuesday? I've got 10am or 1pm", so doubts don't creep in. He says 50% of sales come from follow-ups and bumps.
His long-term goal is to "be the Gordon Ramsay of SEO sales" over the next five or six years, and then maybe enjoy a mojito on a Caribbean island. To reach him, connect and message him on LinkedIn. He says he usually responds quickly.
“don't hide behind your computer screens. Pick up the damn phone.”
Steven Khanna, 14:40
About Steven Khanna
Steven Khanna spent upwards of 20 years in restaurants, including running Michelin-star restaurants in the UK and working with Gordon Ramsay in the first five years of his career. He moved to Poland about 10 years ago for family reasons and was selling wine when a chance meeting led him into SEO about five years before this interview.
In one of his first SEO roles, he grew an agency from nothing to half a million in MRR within 18 months, starting with cold calling. He has since moved into sales consulting and training, helping agencies with average order value, churn and sales structure. He's very active on LinkedIn and has a website at stevenkhanna.com.
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