From 70 cold calls a day to a group of Singapore brands that have generated over $33 million in tracked revenue.
This is the long version. If you want the one-paragraph version, the homepage will do.
The bedroom, the 70 calls, and the first yes.
Before Jim Ng ran anything, I was a door-to-door salesperson in Singapore, selling fibre broadband and insurance products across HDB estates. The job teaches you two things fast. One, how to take rejection without letting it touch you. Two, that a closing skill is worthless if you cannot put yourself in front of a warm prospect.
I was good at closing. I was bad at generating my own leads. That asymmetry is what pushed me into digital marketing. If I could learn to make a phone ring for any business on demand, I would never again be at the mercy of a stranger opening their front door.
In 2019, I started Best SEO Marketing Pte Ltd from my bedroom with my co-founder Catheryn Wong. The first six months were 70 cold calls a day. Most people said no. Some said yes. The ones who said yes got my full attention, and their results became the case studies that brought the next clients. In 2022 we rebranded the company to Best Marketing Agency Pte Ltd as the services expanded beyond SEO.
The first paying client was a digital marketing agency. They were paying another SEO company $500 a month and getting nothing. I told them to give me 90 days and if I did not outperform their current agency I would not charge them a cent. In 90 days we had them on page 1. That engagement shaped how I price, how I sell, and how I hold my own team accountable.
Seven years, one continuous operating company.
2017 – 2018
Door-to-door sales
Sold fibre broadband and insurance products door to door. Learned how to handle rejection 300 times a day and close a stranger in 8 minutes. Realised I was good at closing but terrible at generating my own leads.
2019
Started Best SEO Marketing from my bedroom
70 cold calls a day. Co-founded Best SEO Marketing Pte Ltd with Catheryn Wong. Most people said no. The few who said yes got my full attention. First client was a digital marketing agency paying another SEO company $500 a month with nothing to show. In 90 days I had them on page 1.
2020 – 2021
First team, first systems
Hired the first content writer, the first technical SEO specialist, the first designer. Built the operating system that the agency still runs on today: revenue attribution reports, 47-point technical audits, white-hat link building only.
2022
Rebranded to Best Marketing Agency Pte Ltd
The company had grown beyond SEO into SEM, social, content, and web design, so we rebranded from Best SEO Marketing Pte Ltd to Best Marketing Agency Pte Ltd. bestseo.sg continued as the specialist SEO brand. Started the PSG vendor registration. Crossed 100 total clients served.
2024
Acquired Singapore Florist
Bought a 37-year-old Singapore florist brand to use as my own live e-commerce and SEO laboratory. Everything the agency now recommends to clients, we ran on Singapore Florist first. Including the shift to fully AI-operated account management.
2026
Declared traditional agency roles obsolete
Replaced the entire account manager team with AI-powered operators. First agency in Singapore to make the change publicly and publish the numbers. Still polarising, still working.
Today
Where I am now
Running Best SEO Singapore, Best Marketing Agency, Singapore Florist, Justswim Singapore and Justswim Indonesia. $33M+ in tracked client revenue. 2,000+ page 1 keywords. 14 specialists. Still reading every morning WhatsApp. Still reviewing every new client strategy before it ships.
Five principles I use to run everything.
Revenue is the only metric that matters
Traffic is vanity. Rankings are vanity. If the phone does not ring and the form does not get filled, nothing we did mattered. Every campaign I run is built to tie back to a dollar amount. If it cannot, I do not run it.
Ship what you would pay for yourself
When I price a service, I ask: would I pay this if I were the client? If no, the scope is wrong or the pricing is wrong. This is why I use my own products. Singapore Florist is the live test bed. If the SEO playbook we recommend does not work on my own florist shop, I do not sell it.
Systems first, people second
I would rather have a junior specialist running a tight system than a senior specialist winging it. Systems compound. Talent turns over. The agency ran through a full generation of staff and kept growing because the operating system stayed consistent.
Transparency beats spin
The clients who stay the longest are the ones who get shown everything. What we did. What worked. What did not. Why. The agencies that lose clients are the ones that hide behind reports. I refuse to run that kind of shop.
Build in public where you can
LinkedIn, YouTube, press. Not every decision can be shared, but most can. The compounding benefit of being visible while building is that good people find you. Almost every senior hire at Best Marketing came through content, not a job board.
Digital nomad, married, running a remote-first operation.
I am a digital nomad and I am not shy about it. My wife and I travel. The businesses run from wherever my laptop is. The team is spread across Southeast Asia, and that is by design.
I advocate for remote work because the only question that matters to me is whether someone is hitting their KPIs. If they are, I could not care less where they physically are. Singapore, Bali, Manila, Jakarta, KL. The results are the same, the overhead is lower, and the good people get to live the way they want to live.
I am not trying to scale to a thousand-person agency. I am trying to run a tight, remote operating company that compounds quietly and pays the people in it well. If that reads as boring by founder-content standards, that is fine.