Smart Agency Masterclass with Jason Swenk: Podcast for Digital Marketing Agencies

With just a little over two years as the CEO and co-founder of The Influencer Marketing Factory, Alessandro Bogliari and his team have built an amazing global influencer marketing agency. They help brands and companies launch influencer marketing campaigns on TikTok, Instagram, and Youtube. Alessandro joins us today to talk about how to identify trends and what to do in order to really separate your agency from everybody else.

1. Starting on a budget. Growing his company from just two workers to 20 in a short amount of time, Alessandro highlights the importance of being able to grow your agency on a budget. You can still get amazing results on a budget rather than spending money you don't have.

2. Don't just hop on a trend. Every time you create content for social media you should always take into account the specific medium, demographics, and type of user experience. Don't just hop on the new hot thing before you understand it.

3. Be curious. Dedicate some time to research, listen, and read about what's trending right now. Engage with the new generations and given let them show you how they use social media. You have to keep up. Don't just read about the new thing in the newspaper, because by the time it gets there, it's already been happening for a month and it's old news.

YOUTUBE VIDEO

AUDIO LINK

Oribi: Today's episode of the Smart Agency Masterclass is sponsored by Oribi. Check out Oribi.io/smartagency for a free trial. Plus when you sign up for Oribi get 20% off the first three months with promo code: Smart Agency

Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM

HEADLINE

Jason: [00:00:00] On this episode, I talk with an amazing agency owner who's grown his agency to really big and in a very short time for really looking at the trends. And so we go through, how can you identify the trends and what do you actually need to do in order to do that major land grab and really separate your agency from everybody else?

It's a really cool story. I hope enjoy it.

Hey Alessandro, how are you doing? Welcome to the show.

Alessandro: [00:00:30] Yeah. Thank you so much for having me, Jason.

Jason: [00:00:32] Yes. I'm excited to have you on and tell your story. So tell us who you are and what do you do?

Alessandro: [00:00:39] Sure I am the CEO and co-founder of The Influencer Marketing Factory. We are a global influencer marketing agency. We specialize mostly in TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram. Um, we are based in the States, but we also have people in Europe I'm from Italy originally. So I understand the importance of having people both in the US and Europe.

And we mostly help the brands and companies from Fortune 100 up to, you know, direct to consumer stuff of companies, get in front and engage with gen Z and millennials on like major social media. So that's what we do. We help them from the beginning of the like, understanding the KPIs up to reporting and digital analysis.

Jason: [00:01:17] That's awesome. Now, how did you get started?

Alessandro: [00:01:20] Uh, I started a couple of years ago. So the agency is like, you know, fairly new. Uh, started no funding, no VC, just a couple of people. Uh, both Italian and because we started that as a new journey and we understood before I'd say anyone else I think is like, you know, one of the few agencies that understood the potential of TikTok, back in late 2020, early 2019.

Although other agencies and companies were still thinking that like, you know, TikToK was a kids app. It was just something for lip-sync and dancing, but I was a big fan of Vine and it was discontinued, but I was so love with it. When I saw TikTok and I was watching so many videos on YouTube about TikTok compilations, it was a different environment.

It was a little bit more cringy, let's say that, you know, with furries and gamers and everything, but I saw the potential. I was seeing Instagram going down in terms of organic creation. And TikTok was giving the opportunity in a really democratic way to give like in a meritocratic way for everyone to get the spotlight that they did deserve.

And so we said, let's really focus on that and invest on that. And we, we, we have done that. We started growing, we started getting amazing clients on like Sony Music, Universal, Warner Music Group. And then we got Google and some others. And these friends.

And yeah, from two people now we're 20. Again, between Europe and the States. And, uh, so again, it started like, you know, uh, just totally like organic and we're actually growing in that way. And I'm so proud of what we have achieved so far.

Jason: [00:02:51] Tell me a lot of people listening want to understand, because there's always new shiny red objects out there. Okay. And so kind of what you described is going after the shiny red object and it actually working, which is amazing.

And there's always, you know, new apps coming out like clubhouse is out and everyone's talking about it and you know, saying, oh, that's the next big thing and all that kind of stuff. So tell me the, kind of the, the story about. How did you go, all right, let's go all in on this and not just get distracted by all those other things.

And then how did that turn into landing the Fortune 100 companies that you're talking about. Cause a lot of people are going well, how do you land some of these big brands? Like I remember that's how, you know, my agency brain worked many years ago going, man, how does this one company get, you know, to work with Coke and how does this one company get to work with Home Depot and that kind of stuff.

And then, so tell that story a little bit.

Alessandro: [00:03:51] Yeah, of course. I have to say that I have to mention that I've done many years as a growth hacker and a growth marketer, as you want to call it. So it's a lot of like out of the box marketing ideas, it's a lot of like data scraping, SEO, both like white and black and gray, you know.

It's understanding how you can be on a budget. And still get amazing results also without adding maybe millions in your pockets. Because when we started, you know, we, we started at zero in terms of investments. So you have to think about like, okay, what is the typical way we don't have the money to do that. How can you start in a little way? And so, to be honest, like I spent a lot time doing SEO since day one and, um, thanks to that, we got the majority, like we get 95% of our clients, maybe now 90 because of a lot of it it's retention and word of mouth.

But we've got those thanks to SEO, good positioning, referrals, the position we're on listed. I mean, now just today we are fourth on Google for in terms of marketing agency. And, again, we started two years ago. If you look for TikTok, like, marketing agency, we are second in the US.

So what we have done is that, while we saw for that opportunity especially for TikTok, we created a landing page. And we started doing some backlinking and the competition was zero, right? Like no one had anything about TikToK. And we went all in. We had nothing to lose. We were not like in, in this for two-three years, we were starting from a few weeks. So we said, you know, why go, yeah I mean, we were doing Instagram and YouTube of course, but it was so competitive.

So we said how we can get like an advantage on that and getting in on SEO where no one is dealing there. That was TikTok, we thought. We did that, we did our landing page, easy one. We created some really good backlinks. I've been also working a lot with journalist that we'd did a lot of for free. That's why we have been featured on a lot of publications. Writers, Wallstreet Journal. I personally write on Forbes and many others. We got on ID week and so on.

So, you know, those really good backlinks at Google understands that they are valuable and you start getting the right positioning. And what happened is that managers at these big companies, they, what did they do, they, our people hopped on a ride, so they go on Google and they look for a solution and they find you.

And then after that to start creating case studies, you build up your credibility, your awareness of your branding, your positioning, and after that. If Sony is doing something, Universal Music and Warner Music Group, are going to look at that and say, hey, they are doing this, can we do that? They do some digging and then they found out about the company or the agency behind that, and we start growing.

So it's, step-by-step, it's super long. It's super like, you know, sometimes probably it takes a lot of energy, but again, you can start for some action. I think the SEO is an amazing way to start, especially if you think about budget.

Jason: [00:06:54] If you're like many agency owners, it's very hard to show results and show value to your clients for the hard work that you've done. And up until now, you've probably been using Google Analytics, which is really kind of clunky and hard to use and just been around a long time. And there really hasn't been an alternative until now.

And I want to tell you a little bit about, Oribi now I've checked out this tool and it's really pretty cool. It doesn't require any code for you to track interactions and conversions. There's no more jumping from different platforms. You can track your social and paid media really all in one place.

And it really allows you to build smart funnels and get tons of insights. I mean, literally I've even set it up where I could say, I want this visitor to get to this particular page and it will tell me what's the likely chance that they actually get to this page and what pages are actually coming from.

It's really pretty cool. So, if you want to really kind of get away from Google analytics, I want you to check them out, go to Oribi oribi.io/smartagency. And just for my listeners, you're going to get 20% off the, for the first three months using coupon code smart agency.

I think it's really, really smart. Like you said, there's nothing for you to lose. Like let's just go after TikTok, there's no one doing it. And especially if a big company comes to you for TikTok, they're going to want Instagram and all the other ones out there. So it's just a really smart strategy. And I like how you systematically went through it.

Let's kind of switch focus a little bit, and let's talk about Instagram Reels and TikToK, and let's have some fun about how agencies could use it, because I see a lot of agencies using it very poorly. So let's talk, what's working, you know, when it comes to developing that kind of content or content strategy around it.

Alessandro: [00:09:01] Definitely. Yeah. Good question. I can see a lot of companies that are trying to understand the differences. We just released one week ago, uh, an infographic about basically Reels versus TikTok. We have scrapped and analyzed the 60 active influencers on both platforms that, that, you know, like uploaded at least many videos.

And what we noticed is that in terms of the average views it's pretty the same, like the same in terms of like, you know, of course, like, you know, there are some people getting 50 million, others are getting less, but on average we saw the same. Instagram Reels, Instagram is definitely pushing a lot Instagram Reels, but just because they want to be like, you know, still they're the cool kids, right? They want still to be in a way understanding, especially gen Z.

But what we noticed is that this is that, this is what I say all the time. Instagram Reels is still, in my opinion, even if it's pushing, Instagram, it is still network-oriented, you know? So you follow your, your friends and friends of friends, but at the end of the day, it's mostly about like the people that you start following. While on TikTok, it's a sort of an inverse funnel. No matter what we're following, you're going to see all the time, new content, amazing content from people that you do not follow. Based on the content that you liked. So it's more content-oriented.

That means that, um, what we see is that we can see on TikToK, a better engagement into sub-community. Whenever you go to a TikTok video and there is a trend, or there is a meme on that video, you're going to find tons of people commenting on that and making references to maybe a sub-Reddit that they saw like, you know, some time ago. Or they are talking about now, like, you know, the Game Stop, everything that happened there.

While, um, Instagram it's, a bit more still on the likes, but the comments are more like, you know, I want to say didascalic, but, um, they have less engagement and community, like no type of things. So again, they are pushing a lot on that. But TikTok, the big difference is the strong community.

So brands, I think that they should understand that, that difference. What I say all the time is that you, if you're a brand, you cannot expect to take it on YouTube video, cut it, putting it vertical and put it on TikTok. It's a different medium, different demographics, different type of user experience.

You should shoot all the time a video thinking about the type of medium is going to go. The same also goes for Instagram reels and TikTok. Just one week ago Instagram said, if you're going to put videos with TikTok watermark on it, we're going to show it to less people, right? They want to have original content on that.

So I think that a lot of brands sometimes fail it because they make cringey media started to jump on trends, but they have the opposite effect. They try to be cool, but actually they don't understand what happens. That's why I think that only few brands, whenever they give the opportunity to gen Z employees in the company to jump on that and actually really like make content, in that way they kill it because it's not trying to recreate something that is cool, but actually it's sending someone that understands their own generation and make that type of content.

So long story short, make a content all the time for the right type of audience, the right type of medium, and try not to repurpose the same on different social media, because the majority of times it's just not going to work.

Jason: [00:12:17] Yeah, it's kind of like doing a commercial for CNN and then running that same commercial on the Cartoon Network.

Alessandro: [00:12:23] Yeah. Exactly.

Jason: [00:12:24] Or Nickelodeon, I would be like, people are going to be like, what, what is this?

Alessandro: [00:12:29] Yeah, exactly.

Jason: [00:12:31] Awesome. Well, this has all been great, Alessandro. Is there anything I did not ask you that you think would benefit the agency owners listening in?

Alessandro: [00:12:40] I'd say, try all the time to understand what is trending. Like not only of course reading the different newspapers out there. Whenever you read the news, it means that it's already been happening for a month, you know, in the communities. Go on, uh, different apps go on the app store, like, and see what apps are trending. What is going to be the future of things.

Whenever possible, talk with gen Z and millennials to understand what is really happening in the background, you know, behind the scenes, because they're gonna go and look for the next app. Right now it's TikTok, what is it going to be next.

Personally, I'm watching a lot closely what is happening in China for such a commerce. And I'm pretty sure that we all know what is happening there. Uh, like, it started already two years ago. It's going to be now in the US and after in the, in Europe and then after Latin America. So instead of just watching what is happening on, in the US and only closely, like, reading the newspaper, try to get like really in the work in progress. Talk with people that are creating the next trends.

And if you jump on those and you're going to be, as we have done in the past, that the agencies that are going to not just understanding those. But understand a blue ocean market getting there before the others and you're going to have a super competitive advantage. So yeah, listen, read a lot that talk with people, do surveys, getting the game there because at the time that you see that in the newspaper, it's already old.

Jason: [00:14:03] I love it. I love it, man. And, uh, what's the website people can go and check you guys out.

Alessandro: [00:14:08] Sure, uh, they can check on influencermarketingfactory.com. It's our website. They're going to find, find the case studies. We also trying to keep up like it with different blog posts about of course, like, you know, TikTok, but also now more and more on social commerce, we're going to also work now in our reports.

So yes, that is the best way to do that. And I need to want also just to connect with me. Uh, you know, they can find me on Instagram with @alexeidos, that is my username, if they want to. And I'm always open to like, you know, get, if they have any questions super epic to like, you know, help anyone that wants maybe to start agency or some young people that want to understand more about what does it mean to be an entrepreneur.

Jason: [00:14:44] Awesome man. Well, thanks so much to go check out those resources. And if you want to be surrounded by amazing people that can see the things you might not be able to see that understand the agency world, and you want to be in the know and really see those trends. I would like to invite all of you to go check out the Digital Agency Elite.

This is our exclusive agency owner mastermind, where we're constantly scaling faster. We're growing and having a lot of fun. So make sure you guys go to digitalagencyelite.com and until next time have a Swenk day.

When Ben Childs founded Digital Reach in 2011, his mission was to create an agency that operated with integrity, honesty, and skill. Over the years, he has grown to become a leader in the B2B digital marketing space throughout the country, leading a team of 38 people. Today he's here to talk about the things he wishes he knew in order to scale his agency faster.

1. Raising prices is terrifying, but necessary. Ben recalls a time when he thought that raising prices was a risky move. But when a new Director of Sales doubled the company's prices, he found that clients would take them more seriously and expected a higher value service.
2. A little outside perspective makes all the difference. Having a network of other agency owners, like the mastermind, can help you get some perspective. Sometimes the answer you're looking for is right in front of you but you're too close to see it. Sometimes you did not do your due diligence and need to be held accountable.
3. Competition and differentiating yourself. Ben has never considered himself to have competitors. If he's going against others that are too similar to him, then he tries to be different. He asks himself if they are doing what he's doing, how are they different?

YOUTUBE VIDEO

AUDIO LINK

Wix: Today's episode is sponsored by the Wix Partner Program. Being a Wix Partner is ideal for freelancers and digital agencies that design and develop websites for their clients. Check out Wix.com/Partners to learn more and become a member of the community for free.

Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM

Jason: [00:00:00] On this episode, I chat with one of my mastermind members that has grown a really nice size agency. And we talk about culture. We talk about some of the things that he wished he knew about in order to scale his agency, to close to 40 people, and really still enjoy it and create that freedom that he wants, rather than that prison.

So. Let's get into the episode. I think you'll enjoy.

Hey Ben, welcome to the show.

Ben: [00:00:32] Good to be here, Jason.

Jason: [00:00:33] I'm excited to have you on. We've known each other a while, you've been in the mastermind. So tell us who you are and how did you get into this crazy agency life?

Ben: [00:00:42] Yeah. So my name is Ben Childs. I'm the president of Digital Reach Agency. We're a revenue-focused B2B digital marketing agency focused on SAS, tech, startups and enterprise, search, marketing automation, design development, and Account-based Marketing.

How I got into it is not too dissimilar than I think most people. I had a job at an agency that was pretty crappy. I kind of woke up one day and realized they were pretty churn and burn. So I moved up to San Francisco with a lot of my buddies and I got a job, this is dating myself, at a Daily Deal startup back when those were a thing and they ran out of money and didn't have a lot of prospects.

So I took the, uh, computer. That was my severance package from that job, went to RadioShack next door and got a Magic Jack. And just started calling people from my grandma's dresser that I used as a standing desk saying that I could do their digital marketing.

I had sold it before, but I had never done it, so just, I knew the holes in the market and just said, "Hey, I'll be doing the work. I'm going to undercut everybody on price. And you can trust me because I need the money for rent." Sold my first few people without a website, cause they were like, yeah, I love it. Let's do it. And that was nine and a half years ago.

And now we're 38 people and. Doing bigger stuff than that.

Jason: [00:02:00] I love it. I always tell everybody when they come to me about starting an agency and they're like, what do we need? I'm like, you need to know how to do something really well.

Ben: [00:02:09] Yeah. One of the things I like about the podcast is there's no real like service kind of education, because if you're not good at what you do, there's not a lot that you can learn from an operations or client management standpoint.

And so I think that's something that, you know, when I talk to people about starting businesses, I'm like, well, are you like good at it? And they're like, yeah, I guess it's like, well, maybe you should. Look, I learned on the fly and I was up at 12:00 AM, blowing up Adwords accounts, learning on the fly.

And I, you know, I wished I had known better, but the fact is, is you're going to learn some hard lessons along the way, either way.

Jason: [00:02:44] Yeah. Well, yeah, I mean, you never do it perfect. And especially too, when we look back and we go, oh man, I wish I knew this before I hit the million mark or before I hit the 2 million mark.

So, what did you wish you knew back then that you know now.

Ben: [00:03:02] I wish I knew that I can raise my prices. Raising prices still is terrifying, but I hired a Director of Sales from a bigger agency. Gosh, like five years ago. And the first thing he did is just like doubled my prices. And I was like, that's scary. You can't do that. And he just goes, just shut up, Ben, just watch this.

And honestly, people took us more seriously. We started getting more kind of rarefied clients and got taken seriously at the table. And we've just found that raising our prices, you don't want to make it too necessary due to expense creep, but just kind of the more we charge, the more seriously people take us.

And you get to the clients who expect that and expect to get longer contracts and expect to have a more gentlemanly relationship than, um, a lot of the riffraff that you're going to get undercutting everyone's prices.

Jason: [00:03:54] Well, yeah, I mean, I was kinda like you in the very beginning. It's like I was on a race that I didn't want to win, a race to the bottom.

I'll be like, oh, I'll like he said, I'll undercut anybody just to make rent. But I feel that a lot of times you have to do that in the very beginning in order to really kind of cut your teeth to figure out. It's kind of like, I always use it as like a buffet. Like you got to try out all this stuff, but it's almost like figuring out which buffet to try.

Like, you remember when you're in college or really young, you go to like the $5, all you can eat buffet and then like you would leave feeling really, really bad.

Ben: [00:04:34] Yeah. It's, um, but you don't know how to do it. And I know you had someone on a while ago who I think they were doing PR.

I remember that person who like. Bought a warehouse to like ship a bunch of stuff and it was insane and she knew what she was doing. And she was like, I started off boutique and I started off charging huge prices because we are good. And I started off like many people kind of owning a job being like, I guess I'm doing this now. And I was 23, 24, whatever it was.

So it's been a ride. It's amazing. Looking back.

Jason: [00:05:06] Yeah. And now with a team of almost 40 people, you know, a lot of times probably looking back too, and some people listening are like, man, that just seems like. A lot of headaches. And I remember kind of thinking back because I looked at it in phases. Right. And you probably look at it in phases as well.

Like, you have five people and they're all reporting to you, you know, it's overwhelming. And then you start getting up to 10 and they're still all reporting to you. And you're like, how do people do it with more people than this? So, did you go through that situation?

Ben: [00:05:38] You know, what happened was, is about a year and a half on, I brought on a couple buddies who were just kind of looking for either. One of them had gotten cut from minor league baseball. One of them, uh, was a professional poker player looking for an additional revenue stream. They're both geniuses and we've been friends since we were kids. They're geniuses. And I brought them on and, um, we ended up kind of doing it together. And so I had a pretty good team from day one in terms of people that could handle stuff.

So I would say that the issue for me is they do still handle stuff, and this gets into culture, but talking to the 37th or 38th person here, I just can't handle their problems. And I'm such a people person, and I just radically validate people, which I think comes across to clients and it comes across to employees too.

But you get to 38 people and you kind of have to focus what your time is on and be okay delegating to other people. And I know there was a person who was afraid of us hiring someone over him. And normally I would have been on like a two-hour call with them, you know, saying it's all going to be okay. But you know, you're at 38 people and I told you earlier, our biggest client raised their spend to a lot of money with us. And I can't spend two hours on the phone with this person talking about their job. They're either going to leave or they're not.

And that seems cold, but it's not because I have people that deal with that and I need to delegate to them. And they're very good at their job and they're better at that than I am. But choosing where to spend your time just becomes more and more imperative because I just love talking to everybody. It just makes me feel good and doesn't make me any money.

Jason: [00:07:15] Yeah. There's like a mind shift that I feel you go through when you really truly start scaling where you go. Well, I could do it this way. And I could do it myself and save money, but then you're like, well, all my time is in this. Versus just outsourcing it or bringing on someone to go do that where you might make a little less profit, but you know, at the end of the day, you're trapped.

Ben: [00:07:40] Yeah. I think of the book "Built to Sell." Where he talks about owning a job. And he talks about almost like a cause that's about the difference between an entrepreneur and someone who has an entrepreneurial seizure. A lot of people that start agencies have an entrepreneurial seizure where they're just like, I'm going to do my own thing. And then you end up owning a job.

And the fact is, is he says, it's better if you don't know how to do the thing you're doing. I have that benefit. This world passed me by, I'm a caged lion who forgot how to hunt. My partner, who's a genius, is deep in a lot of this stuff with clients. And that's something that I've worked on because he needs to work on other stuff, but he keeps getting pulled back in because as our clients go up and he just gets better and better at this, you know, we need to take a step back and work on processing and scaling.

And it can be difficult because it's always easier to just say, I'll do more myself. Great. I'll do it. And it's a tough mindset. And also you just have to make that decision over and over again. It doesn't just happen once.

Jason: [00:08:44] So when did you start realizing the role that you needed to kind of transform into in order to really scale the agency?

Ben: [00:08:53] Probably, uh, just recently it took me a very long time to get out of, um. Well, I'm still very involved in sales, but it took me a very long time to get out of every fine detail of sales. And that was a process. I think you remember you posted to the group, Marty chiding me in his legendary.

Jason: [00:09:14] Oh, I remember that day. I was like, oh wow.

Ben: [00:08:53] I, um, Again, I just love to love if you're listening to this. So, I interviewed a salesperson who I just loved and we had a great time at like an arcade in Seattle and it was great. And I was telling the group, I was so excited and, I just did not do my due diligence. And Marty from Bad Rhino just, just gave a 15 minute. Just tongue lashing. And I just sat there and took it because he was right.

Jason: [00:09:44] It was out of love too.

Ben: [00:09:46] It was, it was honestly, he was like apologizing. I was like, no, this is great. This is why I'm talking to others.

Jason: [00:09:48] He called me, like, after he was like, man, I kind of feel bad. I was like, no, no, no. I was like, that's why we're all in the mastermind to hear the honest truth. It's not all sunshine and rainbows.

Ben: [00:09:58] Well, and Jason, I think, you know, I'm super transparent and super honest. So I'm not there defending myself saying that what I did is amazing. Cause I have an ego. It was very educational. But to that point, I ended up, uh, having another Sales Director come in, that was at a different agency.

I actually think it's valuable that they weren't sales-focused before. I like to see my sales team as almost more like project managers, kind of, that are just like very consultative and then getting our subject matter experts involved. That can end up being a little bit more expensive, but you just show people that you're the real deal.

And so that's only recently happened. And so if you're talking about what role I fill, I'm kind of learning that every day. Being an entrepreneur, you can wake up in the morning and just stare into the abyss and you could do anything, which is kind of awesome, but kind of terrifying.

So I'm learning more about culture. I'm learning more about process. I'm learning more about integrating the 39th and 40th person. I'm learning more about finances. You could be at a premium and lose money. You can be dirt cheap and make money. What happens on the backend matters. So I'm learning more about that. I'm trying to shed my kind of fun character that I play when I'm just ignorant of the day-to-day business and just here for fun.

Because, you know, if you're down 10% at a million. Yeah, it's a little bit. If you're down 10% at 4 million, that's a lot. And if you're up 10% at a million, it's a little bit. And if you're up 30% at 4 million a heck of a lot.

Jason: [00:11:36] When you're an agency partner with Wix, you wanna lock entire digital ecosystem for creating, managing, and growing your agency. Get the full coding and design freedom to create anything your clients need along with the tools to manage and collaborate with your team seamlessly from anywhere. And when it comes to growing your agency, you can get matched with new leads every day and earn revenue share for every website you guys create.

They're backed by the Wix industry, leading security and cyber performance. You'll also have a dedicated account manager on standby 24 seven. So you can reach your goals and start setting new ones. See for yourself, head over to wix.com/partners. And re-imagine what your agency can accomplish.

Love it. Well, let's talk about the benefits of niching down and not niching down. Because we see this a lot and I always chat about it. What are your thoughts on this?

Ben: [00:12:38] It's easier at the beginning to not niche and it's, you just need the money. You take everything, all money is good money, and you just kind of need to learn your lessons along the way.

If you start niched, that's great, but it can be difficult to find the right opportunities. For us, we went hard B2B like five years ago, but like, if an e-commerce company wanted to pay us money, like, okay, super top secretly, I'll take it and not tell anybody. So we niche down to a persona. Really. There's usually niching verticals and there's niching services. We've just decided to niche down to a persona.

So, in our industry, B2B SAS in tech, the director of demand gen and the CMO, we just want to like wake up in the morning and know what they're thinking. And any service we provide, we need it to be, you know, we, we do a great job at marketing automation and it's in direct response to enough of our clients saying, we will pay you for marketing automation, because no one does it good.

Just being like, okay, let's do it good. And then we can here with them. They tell us what's wrong, what needs to happen. And we build and build, and now like you present it to someone and they're like, holy crap. Like, I didn't know, an agency could do that for me.

That has its own downsides. You know, the Chris from Rankings.io, we always joke that he does SEO for personal injury lawyers that are 40, that have two kids that live in this specific zip code, and he charges a heck of a lot of money. And he probably doesn't have to worry about the utilization rate of different people and stuff like that. But there's benefits to some niching. As we've seen, it's a differentiator.

So we're not entirely a me-too agency. And there's benefits to doing a lot because you can fulfill needs. And, you know, I mentioned the client that's spending a lot of money. I can pivot a lot of different ways to make sure that they're getting value. So last year our churn rate was positive just because of upsells and various people getting involved.

But. You have to, this is one of the reasons why I'm trying to get a better handle on the backend and the finances. It's you run a little thinner, you know, we're awesome at chat, but it's like, okay, do I capitalize that department to basically get ready to go out of the gate? Do I make it run on its own revenue?

All of a sudden you have several little digital agencies that you need to be an entrepreneur on.

Jason: [00:14:58] Yeah. It's, I always tell everybody in the very beginning, you got to kind of try out everything. Unless you really know what you're meant to do. And then even as you do it for years and years, and you see a lot of the bigger agencies doing this, they become the masters for that vertical or that horizontal niche. And then they start creating other practice areas.

Ben: [00:15:20] Yeah. Yeah.

Jason: [00:15:21] And they can actually grow. And I always tell everybody too is like, look, when you pick a niche, you still can take on work outside of it as long as it fits it. It's just, you're just marketing to that. And it's weird. When you market to a particular niche like a lot of us have seen, we'll have people from outside that they were like, we've heard your stuff. We want you to help with this.

And we're like, you came off the website? Like most of this. So I just want to kind of get rid of a lot of people's worry because so many people fight it for so long. Or don't fight it. Like just keep going after all of them, but it just, when you can get a little focused, it makes things a little bit easier in order to, uh, to grow.

Ben: [00:16:03] Yeah. And it makes sales easier. I mean, if you're doing one service on one vertical teaching someone to sell it and be able to speak words that the other person just jumps at is real easy. You know, for what we do, I need someone to come in with a little bit more experience who's done it. And that costs money.

But, you know, the idea is that makes money, but things get a little simpler when you niche down and we're continually niching down on who we work with and what we do.

Jason: [00:16:32] That's awesome. And tell us some of the benefits, because I always joke that when I ran the first agency, I was in search to kill mode. Like I would have never talked to any other agency owners.

I would have just like searched and destroyed. And I always joke, like I would have never let myself into my own mastermind, which is the wrong mentality. And I've learned that over the years. And I want everybody regardless if it's our best run or whoever's mastermind, or you guys create your own, what's the benefit that you get from chatting with other owners?

Ben: [00:17:04] Yeah. I've never considered myself to have competitors. Even people that we go up with. If I do, like, I should just be more different. I should just look at what I'm doing and make it different than they are, because if they're doing what I'm doing. Like from the prospect, why are we different? I think there's a major benefit because it just frees you up.

And this is just from an entrepreneurial perspective, it helps justify some of your decisions and make you more confident. I was giving the example, like we were having trouble getting paid from a client and I brought it up to the mastermind and you gave a great, great answer, which was like, yeah, you can do whatever you want. Why don't you like send them flowers?

And I was like, I didn't know. I could do whatever I want. And that seems like a silly thing to say, but you get into your routine of day-to-day. And honestly, like, that's a lot of my job now, now that you mentioned it, as president, is I talk to people on the team and they have this problem. And I say, well, why don't you just stop doing that?

And they're like, I can? And it's like, yeah. And I don't expect them to wake up in the morning and stop working on a client just because they want to, but I have the opportunity to say, why don't you just not work on them and let's fire them. And that's the benefit of talking to a mastermind group is they're able to just be like, Hey, why don't you just not do that? I'm like I thought I had to.

Jason: [00:18:28] Yeah, I know. It's just getting that outside perspective. You're so close to it. And I think a lot of times we're so emotional. Mostly connected to it where we just can't see the solution that's really apparent. Like you talk about something and like literally the other 10 people are looking at you going, you know exactly what to do, and then you hear it and you're like, Oh duh, that's so easy.

Ben: [00:18:52] And, and that gets to the other benefit for me is I just realized I had something to offer. There's just been several questions where I go, oh, I absolutely know this answer. I did it. The prospect said this, it went great. Or just people have different personalities. So I can open up someone to be a little bit more direct, a little bit more transparent or something like that.

But to your point, yeah, I mean, we're talking and someone in the group was like that wasn't the first time I blew 30 grand. And I was like, oh, that guy has his stuff together. And he makes mistakes too.

Jason: [00:19:24] A lot of times what I've found too. Uh, even when I'm leading it or been in other masterminds myself, I'll give someone advice and then I'll have to ask the question. Do I do that?

Ben: [00:19:38] Yeah. You almost like put on a brave face and you're like, why don't you tell the client this? And then it's like, you get on a call and it's like, whatever you want, Mrs. Client. How high?

Jason: [00:19:48] Exactly. Yeah, exactly. Well, awesome. Well, Ben, this has been amazing. Thanks so much for coming on. Is there anything I did not ask you that you think would benefit the audience?

Ben: [00:19:57] Yeah. I just want to say, as you scale culture becomes more and more important, and that is like such an amorphous word. I'm a big football fan and culture is just being used over and over again to where it's overused, but really it's, if you're listening to this podcast, you probably started an agency and the agency is really you.

And the goal of culture is to just scale that out to where people make decisions you would make. They act in ways that are congruent with how you would act, even if it's not exactly how it's to where, you know, the 39th and 40th person can come into a, oh, this is how this works. And it's different than my previous agency.

And it gets to everything in your agency from employee experience perspective that clients can tell that you have a great culture and your client wants to be there. So, that's something that I'm really working on and I've just found it more and more important because when you do that, all of a sudden employees give you the benefit of the doubt. All of a sudden employees buy in and want to help you throw out a goal and people use their creativity to help you.

And it's not an adversarial relationship. They're part of something. So that's, um, it's something that I'm working on and I've seen the value of. And, maybe next time we talk, I'll give you an answer as to how I found it.

Jason: [00:21:14] That's awesome. Well, I mean, it's always accidental and I always tell everybody, as, as you're building your culture, it's what you believe in. And you have to figure out and let everyone on the team know, you know, where you're going and why. And that gives them the power in order to make those decisions. And it's, it's great to see you figuring that out.

And that's why you've come so far along. It's like, you know what to focus on now and you've been focusing on it and that's great.

Ben: [00:21:40] You also have to pay attention to your habits, you know, how you live your days it's how you live your life. And so for me, I've had to really guard because scaling, you can just like, oh, just work more. Or, oh, sorry, you're going to have to work the weekend. And then you start building those habits and that just quickly becomes how things are done. And expectations. And so you really have to be on guard for getting in front of the right habits and taking a stand and be willing to lose a client or be willing to give someone a break for screwing up. And you learn it when you learn it.

Jason: [00:22:15] Exactly. Well, awesome, well, thanks so much Ben for coming on. And if you guys enjoyed this episode and you want to be surrounded by amazing agency owners on a consistent basis where we can see the sh*t that you can't see. And we can, uh, help you along. And so you can scale a little bit faster and have a lot of fun doing it.

I want to invite all of you to go check out digitalagencyelite.com. This is our exclusive mastermind where it's only for experienced agency owners. So go to digitalagencyelite.com. And until next time have a Swenk day.

Chris Dreyer is the founder and CEO of Rankings.io which is an agency specializing in SEO for personal injury law firms. Chris believes in being super niched in order to be successful for his clients. He says it takes extreme focus to deliver great SEO results and therefore his agency does not offer any other services or work with clients outside the legal industry. Chris is on the show to talk about how he's grown his agency beyond the first million and is now looking at an 8-figure revenue.

1. What got you to 7-figures won't get you to 8-figures. Referrals aren't scalable. Realizing this, Chris focuseds on marketing and has an employee dedicated to marketing for the agency, rather than just relying on referrals.
2. Revenue doesn't mean anything if you're not profitable. As the agency revenue grew, so did expenses netting the same profit. Chris implemented the principles of Profit First and the agency's profitability has improved because of it.
3. Get and keep the right people in the right seats. Whatever work is being done in-house, constantly evaluate whether those team members are actually contributing to the bottom line or causing a financial leakage.

Oribi: Today's episode of the Smart Agency Masterclass is sponsored by Oribi. Check out Oribi.io/smartagency for a free trial. Plus when you sign up for Oribi get 20% off the first three months with promo code: Smart Agency

Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM

Jason: [00:00:00] On this episode, I bring back a repeat guest, friend, member, client on the Masterclass, and we're going to talk about how he went from a million in revenue all the way up to eight figures in the past couple of years. And we go over all kinds of really amazing stuff. So I think you're really going to love this episode and let's get into it.

Hey Chris, welcome back on the show.

Chris: [00:00:30] Yeah, thanks for having me, Jason.

Jason: [00:00:31] Yeah. I'm excited to have you back on. It's been a while since you've been on the podcast. Obviously, we chat all the time in the mastermind and back and forth about Star Wars and all goofy stuff. But for the people that haven't listened to the first episode, tell us who you are and what do you do?

Chris: [00:00:49] Yeah, my name's Chris Dreyer. I am the CEO of Rankings.io. We own a personal injury law firm SEO agency. So very hyper niche, both horizontally and vertically, and yeah, just excited to be here and happy to discuss it.

Jason: [00:01:05] Yeah. So last time you were on, you were just kind of cresting the million in revenue, and now you're a much further, so kind of take us through that journey a little bit about where you're at now and what are some key things that kind of looking back of going I wish I knew this time and I could have even gotten to your level now faster.

Chris: [00:01:30] That's a great question. That's also a really loaded question. Jason, still try to talk about all the areas. I feel like I had my white belt and then I put on, I don't know the jujitsu levels, but I felt like I had my white belt and then you kind of get your brown or whatever the next level is at a million.

And I think, you know, we're, we're approaching that. I don't even know that I would say black belt, but. Yeah, we're probably on target for our goal. This year is $9 million, stretch 10. And so it's, it's been a huge change across the entire company. I feel like we have a real business now. I think the difference is when you go to that million mark.

The owner can wear a whole bunch of hats and really hustle and get to that million mark and just fill, you know, use their, their sphere of influence and kind of depend upon referrals and get there. But I think that you actually have to do marketing, have to generate your own brand, your own inbound leads to really transition towards that, that eight-figure mark.

There are, if you think about the main components of a business, so you've got finance, you've got marketing, you've got sales and you've got operations. Finance wise. We implemented Profit First because I found out the hard way. I took my licks. The first three or four years of my business, we kept growing a hundred percent, but my revenue wasn't increasing now, it was investing back in the business.

But for me, it was becoming more stressful in those times. I'm like, well, why do I need a $2 million business when I'm making the exact same? So I had to learn how to be financially healthy. And as we grew, also, our profitability would grow. That was a big one. It took some time. Anyone that's read the book Profit First, it's this lean mentality of working off of less and considering profit.

And when you're don't have any profit to create those percentages, it takes a lot of work. So I would say that was a big learning lesson. The second on marketing again, we were depending upon referrals, our entire staff. I think I had one marketing individual and. Which is funny. We still have one marketing individual, but our marketing spend's way higher because we used strategic partners, but everyone was centered around operations and doing great work.

And that helped us get referrals from our clients and helped us build to that seven-figure mark. But continuing off of that, it's feast or famine on referrals, which I know you've talked about.

Jason: [00:04:02] But I like the way that you do referrals. And I love that, you know, at the experience you were like, I want to call you out, Jason, about referrals.

Cause you know, I always joke with people. And I'm serious about referrals aren't scalable if you're waiting for them. But the way that you do referrals is you're not waiting for them. You're giving ammo and you're building strategic partnerships where that is scalable and you've built an amazing business from that.

Chris: [00:04:31] Right, right. But yeah, we kind of joke back and forth. You and I, and. Basically is anytime you put attention towards something and you're intentional, it can create something and activates it. So we, after reading Chet Holmes book, the Ultimate Sales Machine, where he talks about his dream 100 clientele list.

I'm like, well, what if we did our dream 100 referral partners and were because we were so niched that there were a lot of services that our clients needed though, that we didn't provide. So I went and sought out individuals that we were trying to find and identify the best Facebook ads individual, the best pay-per-click the best, everything, video production, the services that our clients needed and really develop those intentional relationships.

So that, that really was very powerful. I think a lot of people have a scarcity mindset when it comes to competition in air quotes. When in reality, there's a lot of abundances. There's a lot of opportunity and you can actually have this rising tide type of effect, where we refer a PPC company, PPC leads, and maybe they don't do SEO and they can refer us SEO leads.

So it's, there's some mutual benefits there.

Jason: [00:05:43] Yeah, I love that. I mean, yeah, that's something I wish I did better at the first agency because I was just trying to murder everyone. If you had agency in your title, like, you know, you were my enemy and I felt like you were trying to take from me. But I liked how, you know, after I sold, I realized seeing a lot of what you do and what other members do and all that. About how that's has helped you and just also seeing how much work is actually out there and only taking on that perfect work that you look for is really big.

In switching focus a little bit. I think too, one of the main things that really changed a lot for you. I remember lots of conversations around this, was pricing, figuring out charging the right amount.

Because I feel a lot of people are way undercharging and you've kind of take it up a notch even above that.

Chris: [00:06:41] Yeah. It's a great question about pricing and. I think one of the benefits of niching, particularly as niche as we are with just personal injury firms, you can really understand the market and understand the levels of competition.

I know the SEO specialists with giant egos listening are probably thinking, Oh, I can just go to Moz or SEMrush and do a competition analysis and know exactly what I should charge. No, that's probably not the case. There are, there are intangibles that play into competition, and really understanding those intangibles and what it takes to create leverage to rank a particular industry is different.

And that's the thing that we started understanding is, by working with just personal injury law firms, we could model the individuals that were successful and apply that to the other firms. Because the legal vertical is a very fractured environment. They're geography, they're there in all different places around the country, around the world.

They have different practice areas. It's a very fractured type of environment. So the competition in Los Angeles is entirely different than St. Louis. And in some cases, Atlanta and the, uh, Orlando could be more competitive than a Los Angeles or Chicago, it's because of who's there. And who's investing in their marketing. Several years ago, Louisiana from a digital standpoint, had no competition.

Now you've got Morris Bart. You have Gordon McKernan, and you've got these individuals Labrador Earl's investing a lot in their marketing. So the dynamic has shifted, but that was a very long-winded way of saying it really helps to understand your market. But we started, I think in our first conversation, we talked about that foot in the door, the audit.

It basically allows us to set strategic targets and really understand who our client is, what their assets are, what their unique selling proposition is and what their competition truly is on a deeper level. And a lot of our competitors, they kind of try to play that against us. They'll say, Oh, well, we do an audit for free and other people charge $5,000 - $7,500 bucks.

Well, guess what? Your audit sucks because if it's free, you're not putting a lot of staff and time, and effort into that audit. It's automated by some tool. And it's garbage. So that's the difference. And the discoveries really helped us determine what we needed to do to get results from clients.

Jason: [00:09:16] Yeah, I love it. And the last thing I want to chat about, that I, I feel that you've done really well is kind of the structure and the different levels that you've created within the agency. Because a lot of people are like at the million, I feel that anybody can get to the million mark and a lot of people can maintain the million mark, but getting to the next level like you are, it's very challenging.

And a lot of times we go, well, who do we need to hire in order to get further along and really scale the agency rather than just kind of hit that glass ceiling? So what were some of the roles or what was the mindset that you had a couple of years ago in order to make that transition and really start scaling?

Chris: [00:10:05] It's a great question. And I obsess about operations and the right people in the right seats, more than any other thing. I think it's the most important aspect of running a business, particularly in having the ability to scale and scale with quality. The things that we've done is we've created, there's this big controversy, right?

You've had the pod people on and let's do the nomenclature really quick. So a pod is a cross-functional unit. That is cohesive. They're self-governing. Each individual has their own function in the pod that contributes towards a goal. And then you have, what's more traditional; the traditional hierarchy and the teams where a team has individuals all in one function.

So you have all the developers together, all the account managers together. And there are pros and cons to each. The pros of a pod is communication, collaboration. It's, they're self-governing, they can operate in their own P&L. That's kind of the pro. The con is they're harder to start up. You have individuals who don't have soft skills.

It's harder to, uh there are a lot of challenges and those situations, um, then with the team. The pro and I'm kind of getting long-winded here, but the team is you have a deeper level of expertise, but there's challenges in those communication silos. So, we really embraced after a lot of time and energy and reading about the biggest organizations, whether it's GE or a Ford motor company or Toyota, or Apple, we really embraced teams. Functional teams.

Because even though there's the downside of communication silos, you have extreme levels of expertise, deep level of expertise. Which by the way, Apple who is gigantic, that's how they operate is, they have teams, not pods and they have this deep level of expertise and they talk about their challenges.

There's a great article on Harvard business review that talks about their organizational structure that I really encourage individuals to read.

Jason: [00:12:16] Love it. Well, this has all been amazing, Chris, and I appreciate you taking the time for coming on the podcast and everything you do to help out the mastermind.

Is there anything I didn't ask you that you think would benefit the audience listening in?

Chris: [00:12:29] Geez, I think the most important thing is to, you know, think about your operations. Right people, right seats. And then also one thing that's not talked about as much as to eliminate waste, where are you leaking money?

What tools should you not be using? What individuals aren't truly driving an impact for your organization? You need to evaluate those situations too.

Jason: [00:12:50] What, uh, I guess the last question, since I lied. In figuring out how to eliminate the waste, what's the best way to figure out where you're wasting money?

Chris: [00:13:00] Yeah on the tool and software aspect as an owner, or if you have a CFO or Director of Finances to do consistent reviews of your P&L and your vendor expenses. That's a big one that you can bring your leadership team. Uh, from a utilization standpoint, it depends on if you're using vendors or if you have in-house labor.

If you have in-house labor and you're doing almost everything in-house, you need to track it to see if individuals are really contributing for utilization. If you're using vendors, you're paying for a unit. So it's a little bit easier to track that.

And, um, it's having a scorecard or jumbotron, whatever you want to call it, to have this top-level view of your metrics, to understand where there are leakages because you can see on the scorecard where they exist.

Jason: [00:13:46] Awesome. Well, thanks so much, Chris, for coming on, everybody, go check out Rankings.io and follow Chris and what they're doing, they do an amazing job. And it's been an honor to see how far you've progressed year over year. That's why we do what we do.

And if you guys want to be surrounded by amazing owners like Chris, and figure out the things that you might not be able to see in front of you because you're just too close to it I want you guys to go to DigitalAgencyElite.com.

This is our exclusive mastermind for really experienced agency owners wanting to scale faster, do really cool things, and be surrounded by even more amazing people. So go to DigitalAgencyElite.com and until next time have a Swenk day.

Brent Weaver is the CEO and founder of uGurus. He leads the vision for the company and creates educational programs that help agency owners work on their business to drive additional revenues, increase profits, and create freedom in their life. Brent is here to share his insight on referrals and the importance of choosing a niche for your agency.

1. Niching helps you fish in the right pond. Figuring out a niche where you can be profitable and deliver the best results is "fishing in the right pond" according to Brent. The key is testing out different ponds in order to find the best fit for your agency.
2. Pareto Principle: 80% of outcomes are from 20% of input. Is worthwhile and valuable to determine if you're spinning your wheels on small clients that aren't helping contribute to your revenue. Going through this exercise is key to being more profitable.
3. There are 3 marketing engines agencies need. These are: content, partnerships, and paid ads. Relying on referrals is not scalable. It's like sitting on a one-legged stool. You must add these 3 marketing engines into the mix.

Wix: Today's episode is sponsored by the Wix Partner Program. Being a Wix Partner is ideal for freelancers and digital agencies that design and develop websites for their clients. Check out Wix.com/Partners to learn more and become a member of the community for free.

Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM

Jason: [00:00:00] On this episode, I talk with Brent Weaver about why referrals just aren't scalable and why it's so important to pick a niche. I hope you enjoy this episode. Hey, Brent, welcome to the show.

Brent: [00:00:13] Good to be here. Yeah, I'm excited to have you on, so tell us who you are and, uh, a little bit about the agency that you're in and what you do now.

Yeah. So, uh, my name is Brent Weaver, CEO, and founder of uGurus. We are a business school for digital agency owners. We primarily work with agencies that are kind of 1 to 10 person range, really helping them to track more leads, win more deals, delivering delight for their clients. They can profitably scale their agency and achieve some freedom in their business in life.

Before, uh, we're coming on into the ninth year doing this business. But before that I ran HotPress Web, which is a digital agency based in Denver, Colorado for about, I guess, about 13 years. And, uh, grew that from, uh, my business partner and I from, uh, us in our bedrooms and high school to a 14 person thriving agency in downtown Denver, uh, serving over 300 clients.

And, uh, we had clients like Dish Network and Anheuser Busch Inbev and all sorts of, uh, smaller and medium-sized businesses across the board.

Jason: [00:01:17] Awesome!. Did you sell the agency? Did you were like, Oh, we don't want to do this anymore? What's the what'd you do?

Brent: [00:01:23] Yeah. So we did the business did get acquired by another shop in Denver.

We had probably about two years before we sold the business. I started to blog and build some training programs for agency owners, and we had done some deals with Adobe. And so we, um, Kind of started kind of riding two horses at the same time we had the agency business, which was growing really well. And then we had this thing that, uh, myself and my business partner would do, you know, a day or two a week.

We'd go and, you know, create videos, we'd go do our own thing. And, uh, and so we kind of felt like we were starting to run two businesses at the same time, but also I think just as I'm sure, you know, right. The impact that we had on. Other agency owners that were like following our processes and our methods, like we were getting all of these, thank you letters in all the time for people that we'd really helped them transform their life and their income and their freedom.

And after a while, it was kinda like, Hey, we really enjoyed doing this. And we wanted our agency to go and be in a good place. So we had some really great opportunities to get that business acquired. And so we pursued one of them and it turned out really well.

Jason: [00:02:24] Awesome. Let's talk about after high school, um, and do an agency, right?

Because I think I know how, how it goes in high school. It's like, dude, I can, I can get some money for a year.

Brent: [00:02:37] I was basically working uh minimum wage $6.25 I think an hour, at the time, at a fabric store and somebody paid me $500 to build them an order form for a candy store out of Michigan. And it took me about a day and I was like, cool.

When I went to my boss at the fabric store and said, I'm going to go ahead and do this other thing. Cause I basically made like, you know, two months wages in a day. So, so that was that.

Jason: [00:03:03] That's awesome. And so if you could go back to when you were starting, what would you have done differently? How would you grow the business?

Brent: [00:03:14] I think for me, it's, you know, finding that audience, a high-value audience that you can leverage your skills to get really great results. For, as I mentioned, our first project was a candy store in Michigan. The only reason we got that client was because my business partner's dad would go hunting in Michigan and, you know, he'd go buy at this candy store and he'd pick up, you know, they'd order stuff.

But then they'd grab these order forms, uh, to order stuff. When they came back to Dallas and they would have to fax the order form in, and Shernis, uh, the woman that owned the store would always, you know, have to call it. Well, I can't read your handwriting, you know, there's this like whole thing, a community that supported this business.

And we just happened to kind of be a solution for that business. Right. But this tiny little candy store in Michigan, right. I mean, she wasn't making massive money. And so yeah, we built this thing, but the value of it right. Was great for her, but like, you know, it wasn't like it was worth $50,000 or $500,000, right.

Or something like that. But I think that we could've, our same skills could have easily fetched us a lot more money sooner, but because we were fishing from this pond, that was kind of like the local neighborhood pond. Right. Like we only had the network that we had access to. I was making a lot more money than I would at the fabric store.

Uh, I think there were other high-value ponds out there. And I think that's the thing that. Um, when we eventually figured that out, right, let's go hang around businesses that are, you know, making millions of dollars or tens of millions of dollars or like Dish, you know, billions of dollars. And it's just a totally different way to do business.

Right. I mean, I remember when we got Dish Network as a client, I mean, they'd come in with these like last-minute deadlines, but they'd basically give us a blank check. They'd be like, Hey, as much as you guys can work over the next two weeks like we'll take all of your team's hours for the two weeks, and we'll pay you a premium on that time because, you know, we have some big deadline or whatever, right.

And so it was just fundamentally a different type of client to work with versus where your, your skills might not be as valued. So I think that the audience component is something that we eventually learned. And once we started hanging out with businesses who, you know, in the millions of revenue, like budget became not like inconsequential, but it became a much less deciding factor in terms of like who you were, you know, what kind of work you were doing.

Jason: [00:05:36] Yeah. I always found that when you first start out and I started out doing websites for 500 bucks too, I don't know why it's always, you know, 500 bucks, but you always think, well, that's the max someone will pay. Or if I charge them twice the amount, I have to do twice the amount of work versus figuring out that audience, like, you know, Dish Network. Like our first one, I think our first big client was like Wter.com.

And they were a billion-dollar water brand, like Crystal Springs, Hinckley Springs, Belmont Springs, all these different Springs. And it kind of changed our mindset of going, Oh, there are these bigger companies that will pay for value rather than pay you for the amount of hours that you actually work.

Brent: [00:06:20] Like a lot of people, I got convinced that your prospects sometimes start to dictate your mindset a little bit.

And when we first opened our office in Denver, we were trying to, you know, we're in a conference room, we were thinking about, hey, where should we get new clients? And we thought, hey, maybe the chamber of commerce, right. Or something like that. And they were running these classes for brand new businesses.

We thought that was a prime audience, right? People are like, ah, you know, all these new businesses, they all need websites. Right. But the problem was, they weren't established. They were $0 revenue. They were sole proprietorships. You know, these businesses that maybe had 10, 20, $50,000 a year in annual revenue, which is, there's a lot of businesses out there.

There's like, almost 20 million businesses in the United States that are making $50,000 or less per year. So there's a lot of them out there, which is why Wix and Squarespace and GoDaddy and all these major brands are going on volume. Like they focus on that market, but for us as a small services shop, not a huge market like that.

And so I was going and teaching these classes and I'd have all these people come up to me and say, oh yeah, maybe you can help me build a website. And so we'd go through the proposal process or I'd go through even qualifying and they'd say, well, yeah, well, we only have $500. We only have $1,000 dollars.

And while we had done some projects for $20 or $30K, I started to convince myself that that was the market now for websites that like getting $1,500 for a website was like becoming really, really difficult. And, and I started thinking, okay, well, we should build our business based on volume or this or that.

Like we were trying to solve the problem. And the only issue at the time really was. I was fishing in the wrong pond, right? Like, no matter how many cool sales methodologies I could use, no matter how much, you know, value-based language, right? Like if the pond that I'm fishing from literally has businesses that are, you know, $50K a year in revenue, like, you know, selling a $10,000, $20,000 website to them, it doesn't really make sense.

Jason: [00:08:13] Very cool. And so how did you figure out the pond that you wanted to the fish after? And like, how would you do that over again? Cause I find that a lot of people struggle with that. And like you were saying, you kind of go to the chamber of commerce, you get a couple of clients and then those referrals actually dictate how your next couple of years are going to go because it's always the same or lower.

Brent: [00:08:35] So I think once we sat down in a room and said, okay, this is not working. Right. So we looked at, you know, where was all of our money coming from, which I think is a really good exercise. There's this concept of the pareto principle where 80% of your yield or revenue comes from 20% of your inputs or originally it was like somebody looking at, uh, land ownership.

Right. But this concept is, has played really well in business. So somebody had kind of taught us that we looked at our client base and we looked at who you're making the most money from. And yes, we did have a lot of clients that were small potatoes and they were taking up all of our time, but they weren't really getting us the results.

So we looked at all of our clients instead of, hey, who's actually driving results for us. And it was, by and large, it was organizations that had, you know, had been established for five or more years. Had over a million dollars in revenue. Uh, for the most part, they had dozens of employees, whether it was a nonprofit or whether it was a business, you know, some of our clients had tons of employees.

So we started looking at this and saying, look, let's just at least start saying no to anybody that hasn't been established for more than five years, it's less than a million dollars in revenue. And, um, you know, that has less than, let's say, 30 employees. So that was step one was at least identifying, Hey, here are some qualities, some constraints that this audience has that is actually driving revenue for us.

And let's start saying no to all those other things. So which created some capacity for us to look at other types of businesses. The second question to that though is we started asking ourselves well, okay. So these are the clients that are driving all of our money. We know who is helping us make more money.

We want more of those clients. So the second question is where do they hang out? Where do million-dollar businesses hang out? Right at that time, I really wasn't super educated on like verticals or really this idea of niching. To me, it was like a foreign concept. And if anything, it evoked a little bit of like resentment or disgust like, Oh, I could never niche. Right? Um, but we at least started asking ourselves that basic question, right? Where do these million-dollar businesses hangouts? And we start identifying organizations, there's organizations like EO. YPO in the Denver area, there were organizations like it was called Diner. It was like Denver Independent Network of Restaurant, uh, something.

Right. And we started identifying these groups that these businesses hung out. And so for example, I went and gave a talk at the Diner Organization, which was basically this group of about a hundred Denver-based restaurants that were all roughly over a million dollars a year in revenue, right. There were the most successful restaurants in Denver that were independent.

So I wouldn't give a talk at this group about how to leverage their website and social media to get more butts in seats. And there was like the same number of people that were in my old Chamber of Commerce classes. You know, there's about 15 restaurants, right? Except in this instance, I gave this talk, and then, you know, half a dozen restaurant owners came up to me and said, Hey, I love what you're doing.

We don't have anybody that can do this. It's great that you're teaching me this, but can you just come in and do it for us? And every single one of those clients turned into a 10 to $20,000 initial project with ongoing, you know, 10, 15, 20K a year in work. So like one talk in the right audience. And it was a fundamentally different conversation afterward.

And so that was where a real light bulb I think happened for us, was like, Oh wow. We can go in. Share do the same thing, right? The dynamics are the same, go teach stuff, share stuff, give tons of value. And if the pond is just a fundamentally better pond than, you know, we're going to have different results.

Jason: [00:12:02] Yeah. I love to teach how to do it because there are so many agencies that think if they do that well, you're giving away the secret sauce. And at the end of the day, there's no secret sauce, but people will actually decide to work with you if they actually understand the plan. Like, I always tell everybody when I used to race cars and I would teach people how to go through a corner at a hundred miles per hour, like a 90-degree turn.

And they'd be like, there's no way. But if I could actually communicate and show them, there is a plan for them not to die and then actually demonstrate it to them. Then they're going to always. Be able to like, Oh, I can do that. And then like, I'd always laugh with my other buddies and be like, oh, now they're faster than me.

I was like, crap. I need to tell him, be like, hit the brakes harder there.

Brent: [00:12:54] Well, I think that the fundamental, like, I mean the classic agency business model of staff augmentation, where at the time we had, let's say a dozen people working at our agency for a company, even an established company to go up there and hire a team full-time to be a part of their organization is a lot of money, right?

I mean, if you're going to go hire three people to be part of a digital department, I mean, that's $50K in salaries a month, plus all the other stuff that comes with having a team. Right. Whereas you can pay an agency, you know, maybe even, it sounds like $50,000 is a lot of money, but when you put it in the context of the alternative for most businesses, or maybe they hire a, a jack-of-all-trades person that has 19 responsibilities within the business, and one of them happens to be maintain a website.

Right. And they don't have the experience to, you know, really do like hardcore SEO or pay-per-click or build funnels. Right. Uh, so I think at the core, right, like agencies. Want to showcase their skills, uh, almost like a job interview, right? I mean, it doesn't make sense for most businesses to go out there and hire an entire team.

Right. That's why agencies exist. Cause you can snap in those skillsets for a fraction of the cost. I think going out there and teaching what you do showing the results, uh, also is a big part of that showing your potential clients, Hey, this is what you can get with this kind of, to your point, right?

Demo-ing, I think is a big part of that pre-sales process.

Jason: [00:14:14] When you actually start doing this and you're, you're growing your agency, what's the mistake that you see a lot of agency owners make, or a mistake that you guys made with, you know, in terms of referrals.

Brent: [00:14:27] I mean, look, referrals are, referrals are great.

I mean, who doesn't love a referral, right? Uh, when, when somebody sends you an email and says, Hey, you got me great results. And here's my friend. You know, Joe and Joe need your results and you should, you guys should talk. Right? Cause then you get that a little bit of that credibility passes on. Right. And so referrals are, are great.

Uh, the problem is they're not really predictable. Uh, they're not really scalable. Now I've published content. We've published blueprints about how to create systems around referrals, but even that right is kind of dictated based on the size of your network. Right? How many clients do you have? If you have 10 clients, you probably can't go to all 10 of them every day and be like, Hey.

Can you give me another referral, right? Whereas, you know, with something like Facebook ads, right. I can go to Facebook every day and they will take my money and they will put my ads and in front of audiences. Right. So I think that referrals as a strategy, I call it kind of a non-strategy. Uh, it's hope marketing.

It's, you know, referrals are table stakes. You should be out there doing good work and that should create referrals for you. And that will be like one leg of marketing, you know, game plan. Right. But you're, you can't really sit on a one-legged stool, right. It's not super comfortable. So we need to have a couple of other legs on that stool.

And so I call those marketing engines, right. We want to have a couple of additional marketing engines outside of referrals. To help, uh, your business get those consistent leads that are predictable, repeatable, and scalable. Those are kind of three qualities that we want to see out of them. When I, when I say marketing engine, we should be able to put in a fixed amount of money, money, or time and get a predictable result on the backend of that.

So the biggest mistake kind of back to your original question is that I think agencies, a lot of times they're so busy doing the work. And building stuff with their clients that they forgot to go out there and build awareness for themselves because they're so comfortable. With referrals because referrals are so easy.

Like it's like the difficulty from relying on referrals, actually building marketing engines, uh, for the first time is actually a pretty big jump because referrals require you just to focus on your clients, which is what a lot of people are used to. Right. But going out there and proactively building a marketing engine feels like a lot of work.

And so they don't do it. And I think that that was the biggest shift for us, right. Where we went from being passive, passively engaged in our marketing to going, Hey, you know what we need to actually. Really invest in this. We need to put somebody in the business. That's in charge of this, of the marketing component of the business.

A lot of agencies out there treat themselves as they're, you know, they try to treat themselves as their own best client, uh, which is just, I mean, it's a recipe for disaster, right? I mean, we know that, that just doesn't work typically. And so we started this to shift resources, right? Both hiring internal staff members, dedicated to marketing the agency and then also hiring other agencies.

To help us market our agency.

Jason: [00:17:14] Very cool. And so what's one example of a marketing engine that you see really working well.

Brent: [00:17:21] So I think there are three kinds of categories of engines. One is content. I mean, you're definitely awesome at this, right? You publish a ton of content. You're super consistent. You've got the great frequency of it.

Another engine kind of category is partnerships. So finding other people that have your ideal client, either as their own clients or on a list. And then the final one is a paid advertising. So I kind of focus mostly on a track-based strategy where we're putting out. You know, the information we're putting out messaging and then the right people are coming to us.

I'm not a huge fan personally of operating outbound and no, it's a great strategy out there. But I think for, if you're trying to get into a position of authority with your clients, I think that publishing becoming an influencer in your niche is the way you create raving fans. Right? It's really hard to create a raving fan through, uh, through outbound connection where somebody has never heard of you before.

So in those three categories, I mean, one example of a content-based strategy. One of my clients does is they, um, they speak on stages. So it's pretty simple calculus day. Every time they go and speak on a stage where they're virtual or physical. Right now, right now, the physical is not really happening. So they've moved a lot of their stuff to virtual.

They get anywhere between five and 15 qualified leads. These are longer sales cycles. But they have found that if they get about 20 to 30 qualified leads a month, that gives them enough energy to like to keep their sales pipeline like over full, right. They always have plenty of opportunities for them.

Their marketing engine is really simple. Get on two stages a month and that's a solved problem for them. So their only marketing activities are really. Booking out those stages. So at any given time, they might have four to six months of stages booked sometimes even more now, before COVID hit, I think they were up to like 12 months of stages.

And then all of a sudden, a lot of it evaporated and they did have to kind of rebuild that in the virtual space, but you know, that's a marketing engine, right. They know that if they go put their hour or two hours a week into outreach to, you know, other associations or organizations in their niche, that they're going to get that next stage book.

Right. And they just keep kind of putting some time into that engine. No, they're not out there doing Facebook ads. They're not out there trying to publish blog posts. They're not out there on social media. Like their whole engine is just getting those stages, uh, booked onto their calendars. And then they're, they're just done.

Right? So that's an example of content, right? Where you're out there, gigging in your market.

Jason: [00:19:50] Awesome. Very cool. Well, this has all been great. Brent, is there anything I didn't ask you that you think would benefit the audience?

Brent: [00:19:58] You know, I think that I mean, just on that last point of gigging, I think that this is kind of back to that.

The core of what agencies can be doing for them. It's probably one of the one areas that I spend the most time coaching, which is. Helping people get out there into their market and building that confidence to share their content, share their expertise, start running ads, those types of things. And, um, I think that's probably one of the areas that I think people could always spend more time on or, or spend more money.

Right. I've got clients who, before they came to us were like a Facebook ads agency. That's not spending any of their own money on Facebook ads. Right. And so, so trying to figure out how to fuel your engines and being confident that if you do that, You know, you're going to get results. I once had a client that before we started working together, you know, they're trying to attract $50,000 clients and they were scared to spend $500 in advertising.

And that's one thing that I think. You have to think about it in the context of your client's value is like, if you're going out there trying to attract $50,000 clients or a hundred thousand dollar clients, right. The amount of effort that you need to put into that engine is probably at least somewhat proportional to, uh, to the output.

So that's something to think about as you're starting to build your marketing engines

Awesome. And, uh, you have a book out that everybody can go check out on Amazon. Or tell us a little bit about the book.

Jason: [00:21:16] Yeah. So the book is called, Get Rich in the Deep End. And, uh, the basic premise is how to overcome that dependency on referrals and word of mouth as a digital agency owner, uh, how to identify your audience, build those awareness channels, attract the right clients, establish yourself as an authority in your niche, and then build systems and processes to acquire.

Those prospects and leads. So we walk you through basically those five A's of audience awareness, attract authority and acquire. And the book is a little bit different in that we follow an agency on our story. This is kind of an amalgamation of a bunch of different clients that we kind of created a narrative in the story.

So it makes it really easy to read. It's a pretty simple concept. And, um, yeah, we'd love for you guys to support that it's called get rich in the deep end. I think your viewers would love to read that book. Awesome. Well, everybody go check it out. And if you guys enjoyed this episode and you want, and to be surrounded by amazing agency owners that can, you know, really see the stuff that you might not be able to see, and really know what it's like in order to grow above the eight-figure Mark or beyond.

I want you all to go to a DigitalAgencyElite.com. This is our exclusive mastermind where we're always looking for the right. Agency owner that can have fun that can share that'd be transparent. And that really wants to scale very quickly. So go to a DigitalAgencyElite.com, and until next time have a Swenk day.

Fran Biederman-Gross has grown her firm Advantages from a local printing business to a global end-to-end communications agency. As the CEO and founder an Inc. 500 company, she leads her clients on an invaluable journey of brand discovery that reveals their 3 keys: Purpose, Values, and Story. She joins the Smart Agency podcast to get really deep with understanding your purpose and communicating it in a way that gets your team and clients behind it.

1. The quickest way to become profitable to attach it to your why. There is an overarching commonality in everything that you do. Understanding it and harnessing it for your business is where profitability becomes possible.
2. Company core values don't exist. Values are very individual. They can be shared within an organization or community but not dictated. You want to align yourself with a team that shares your values and can contribute in a way that supports them.
3. Knowing your why will win more agency business. As Simon Sinek puts it, "people don't buy what you do. They buy why. you do it." Don't take the easy way out. When you're identifying your why, go five levels deep and get to the real core of it.

Oribi: Today's episode of the Smart Agency Masterclass is sponsored by Oribi. Check out Oribi.io/smartagency for a free trial. Plus when you sign up for Oribi get 20% off the first three months with promo code: Smart Agency

Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM

Jason: [00:00:00] Hey on this episode, I talk with an agency owner friend who talks about the real importance of having that North star, that why. And what are some of the things that you can do in order to figure your why out. Or make sure that your North star is the real deal. And then you have that complete clarity to make the right decisions that your team has the right decision.

So I hope you enjoy. Hey Fran, welcome to the show.

Fran: [00:00:32] Thank you Jason so much for having me today. What a fun time we're gonna have.

Jason: [00:00:36] So, uh, tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do.

Fran: [00:00:40] My name is Fran Biederman-Gross. And I am the CEO of an agency called Advantages. I'm a co-author of How to Lead a Values-Based Professional Services Firm, wife, mother, all those other titles that go in there.

But most proud of my professional work on the Three Keys and the agency that we have that in this demand generation bringing ROI to close the gap between marketing and sales.

Jason: [00:01:07] Awesome. Well, the mother is the hardest job. Uh, that's what I've learned. And, uh, the thankless job.

Fran: [00:01:17] You know, it gets better as they get older. I'm going to say not easier. Just better.

Jason: [00:01:21] Yeah. Well, I'm still waiting for the easy part.

Fran: [00:01:26] Yeah. I don't know when that comes.

Jason: [00:01:28] Exactly. So tell us, how did you get started in the agency life?

Fran: [00:01:32] Oh, in short, my late husband and I started a printing company pretty much out of college. It actually started as like a stationary business of taking overruns and pedaling, if you will, all over the streets of Manhattan and Queens, because there was a stationary corner virtually in every store, you know. There was a store on every couple of corners, if you will. And in the back, there was a printing company where you could order stuff that you need.

And then in the early nineties, I'm going to say that Staples opened up and really revolutionized how we bought things and then the internet exploded and how we bought things. So there wasn't really that need, but we really evolved into this incredible agency because I asked a lot of questions.

Like, why do you think you need that? Or why do you want that print quote? Or what are you going to do with that? So that whole curiosity of why really resonated, especially when I met Simon Sinek back in 2004 or five. And really, and pretty much as an innovator of taking the golden circle and bringing it to life. And that's how the agency, of course, I bought one and took that apart and created this really phenomenal Inc 500 agency in New York. That's very, purpose-driven.

Jason: [00:02:48] Let's talk about why did you buy an agency? You already had a business because you know, I'm always very curious on why people buy when it's pretty easy entry to get in. But I'm also on the flip side, like the agency that we're running now is like, that's all we do through growth is buy.

Fran: [00:03:04] So it's, you know, it's actually a really great question and I'm going to say that.

If you just isolate my life experience just as a matter of fact, not to get emotional in any way, but my late husband passed in 2001 and he was the debonair, very suave, very emotional, very friendly salesperson, and he would walk all the buildings. We went through 5,000 business cards, literally in every three months and he passed his card out and was so personable and was so memorable that we helped people all the time.

Not only in stationery and supplies and print, but we began to solve problems. And when he passed as you know, his voice still rings very clear in my head. You're such a waist behind a desk. I had to get out there and figure it out.

But what really resonated with me was the, problem-solving it wasn't what form do you need, or what brochure do you need or what trade show are you going to and how do I help you? But like, how do I really solve that problem? And what do people care about? And I needed, um, it was a very expensive education.

That's really why I bought the agency so I could actually dismantle it, which is what I did.

Jason: [00:04:18] Yeah, I see. So many times people will buy their first agency and then they just shred it apart. But it's just, it's a process like anything, and it's exciting to see and see where people have, uh, you know, taken it.

Let's talk about like, I love Simon Sinek. Like I haven't read any as books, but I love the Ted talk. I don't read any books. So.

Fran: [00:04:40] Hey, listen. As long as we're open and honest, I read my book probably more than any other book out there as I was writing it, but I'm not a big fan or a love of, you know, just reading.

I don't think I get so much still time either. So I'm right there with you. Ted talks are amazing.

Jason: [00:04:56] Yeah. I love them. So people always struggle with figuring out their why, and it sometimes takes them a very, very, very long time. And they always think like, well, let me like, just jot something on a piece of paper and that's my why. And I checked the box.

What was the process that you went through legal? I feel it's so important. You know, as I talked to thousands of agencies over the years, A lot of us were accidental kind of like you, right? Like you open up this printing shop, stationary shop, and then you start asking questions.

Right. And it was an expensive education for a lot of us, rather than coming from the agency world and knowing exactly what not to do from the big firms. Right. And going to go do it. And we never spend time figuring out that why or getting that clarity. Until five years later or sometimes, or how long did it take you to figure out that why?

Fran: [00:05:56] Well, I was in a unique situation. I was married to a very dynamic best friend who was very clear that he just loved when other people would get attention and they would stand out for all intents purposes, get noticed. Right. As our tagline still states to this day. And while that attention is really important, the question is how do you manage through the clutter of it?

But it was very clear to him and I, as we founded the company, you know, that's really what we love to do. When you really can connect with that, and I'm going to be honest with you, sitting down to do a wide diagnostic is a slog. That's the best four-letter word I can use to describe it. And until you surrender to it, you're just not going to do the deep work that it requires.

And what's amazing is when an entrepreneur does it and goes through that slog doesn't matter what business they own. It doesn't matter what industry it's in. There is an overarching thread and commonality between everything that they do. And this has really been my life's work because you know, the book is all about the three keys on how to unlock purpose and profit.

How do you get to profitability? Well, the quickest way is to do what you say we're going to do attach the dream. Cause that's where you know, all of your emotion and your drive really comes from, cause it's what excites you. So when you can articulate that really simple statement, that has a cause and an impact. And sometimes "so that" in the middle of it, it guides everything.

And it, look through the pandemic, it's made us almost infamous on mergers and acquisitions and how we can get people to come together. And how we can get people to pivot. And what's the next thing they should do. It's such an unlock, right?

So you have to discover it. You have to unlock it and then figure out a way to infuse it. Everything we do is always in those that three-step process discover, unlock, and fuse. But honestly, Jason, you gotta surrender to the slog.

Jason: [00:08:02] Yeah. When I start working with agencies, I tell them like, look, this could be a long process of figuring this out.

We'll keep doing other things, but it's very hard to figure out what's the next move when you don't have this. I was working, uh, I was telling you in the pre-show, started working this one agency that goes after nonprofits. And I was like, why do you do this? And they just kept repeating the typical BS that agencies... we want to make a major difference in the world.

And I was like, no, that's not it. That's not, it. It has to be that North star, which gives the ability to your team to get excited, to make a decision behind it. And then he was just mentioning, he was like, well, I would love in the next five years to help nonprofits raise a hundred million dollars.

I'm like, You're getting closer. It's measurable. People can get behind it. And then I was starting to tell them about ours. I was like, look, I just wanted to be like our whole why, our North star has to be a resource we wish we had when we were running the first agency. And then enabled our whole team to be like, what do we need to do?

They don't have to come to me as the toll booth and everything flowing through me, which is, this is just stressful shit.

Fran: [00:09:21] Here's a really good news. Jason, we have synthesized this so succinctly that you can pick up a copy of the book and read the appendix and it'll give you the whole outline and the theory and the things that you need to go through if you want to DIY it.

Or inside of pretty much, I'm going to say between six and eight hours, we get really clear. And you know, for us, when we, when we take on any client, we have to really identify these three keys that we talk about, right? Your purpose, your values, and your story. Now, a story there's a million books written and how everybody can tell a great story.

But the bottom line is it has to be memorable and you can't be the hero in it. Right? That's the big takeaway from story. And values to me, you start with that because you can actually separate the things that you value, that are wired to you as an individual. And that we can almost have another session on values, but when you just talk about purpose, like that's right, that the two, the fragment of the two sections of the equation of what this formula looks like, you're talking about the contribution and the impact.

And once we can identify what those two things are and not confuse them with the things that we, that we truly treasure and, and value, then you really get somewhere. And that will help any agency owner really get very clear on where the organization is going and how to rally the teams around them.

Like you said, it's really important to do that.

Jason: [00:10:52] So for the people listening that don't really have their North star, maybe they have a North star, but it's really it's like the East star. They're not there. Right? Where can they start? Like, what are some of the steps?

You know, the actively people listening, they'd be like, all right, let me get the sheet of paper. What do we need to do?

Fran: [00:11:09] So the first thing is you need, you need your mindset. There's one famous exercise that I'm really infamous for is, you know, on a sheet of paper, write 1 through 28, and just tell me what motivates you to get out of bed every day? And just keep going down.

And for some, it's funny, why 28? Because that's the page that we designed that had enough space between the lines, it was just an arbitrary number. The point is, is to get to the place where it's actually hard because people.

You know, we'll start with the easy things or like, Oh, I got a bed 'cause my alarm clock rang or I have to go to work today. And I have to brush my teeth and I get out, I get out of bed because, you know, I want to make the world a better place for my kids. And then you start getting to the hard stuff and the stuff that you don't, they can't really articulate.

And there's a good reason for it. Right? So this is science. This is biology. You know, your brain has a has a section. That doesn't have the ability to speak and you have to actually force the feeling to articulate the feelings, right? Like as, as agency owners, as marketers and branders, our job is to articulate how other people feel, if we're purpose-based anyway.

So if you think about it, we have to do it for ourselves. So the way that I want to make people feel, how can I articulate that? Even though I don't have the words. So that's one of the reasons why it's such a slog.

Now, being an outsider. Right. I've done thousands of these. And it's really easy for me to see viscerally, emotionally, where somebody's going, what's hard, help them through this slog to kind of like, I wouldn't say babysitter handhold, but just make it easier. Because you know what happens. Right?

We get stuck on something. We struggle. We procrastinate. And like, yeah, we'll pick that up later. Yep. It's going to take a long time. So I'll give myself permission to do that. But if you really want to get a headstart, you will sit down. And you will work through the hard stuff and you will really well slog through it and you will get to a place that it's in the ballpark.

Might be not wordsmith might need, you know, you would get the essence and the essence is really all you need. Cause that will manifest differently depending on what you're doing. The essence never changes.

Jason: [00:13:22] So after you write down these 28 line items and really like, really spend some time on it. And I love that you have, you know, go past the easy part because people are like, cause I want to make a difference. Like, yeah yeah. Well, and then tell me more about that. Right. It's kind of like the Larry King, like tell me more, tell me more, tell me more and then tell me that again.

And then you really kind of drill down into it. What's the next thing that the listeners need to do?

Fran: [00:13:48] So it's the same thing, but instead of telling me more, it's just why. You got to go five deep probably. Right? Because one, two is probably surface. You know, if you're really self-aware, you're gonna, you're gonna nail it and you're going to get clear or you can answer in less than five.

But the fuzzier you are, the more it takes and there's no right or wrong. There's no judgment on how many times I have to ask you that question. It's just about getting you to think and ponder to tap into the emotion of what feels right.

And then what I like to say is we have to pressure test it. Okay, great. So there's just, again, a series of other questions that I would think about, but what you're looking for is the secret sauce of looking through the patterns of your life, on anything that comes to mind. There's no right or wrong. So it's like, if I ask you to do this right now, like Jason, if I said to you, I'm going to ask you, tell me three different points in your life grade school, high school, college, you know, the most memorable event.

You could tell me something different today and something different in a week from now. And it wouldn't matter because I'm looking for the pattern. Trying to understand why, what were you doing? Were you so excited about something you accomplished? Somebody else, you know, you attributed somebody else to accomplish it?

We're just looking to identify those patterns. And once we can really articulate those patterns, we can decipher. And that's a very important word, right? Is it the way you do it? Or what you believe in. So deciphering that, and that's where a lot of people get really super fuzzy going through core values.

Like I was, I hate the word "core values". I believe that values are individual to a person or shared to a team organization or a community. So help me understand how I contribute and align to the organizational values as opposed to, what I call pin the tail on the visceral verb, right? How are you feeling today?

Because if I had a really crappy day or somebody, something really traumatically impacted me the way I go into that exercise with my team would suck and would totally influence it. And this is why people, you know, redo their values every few years. And this is why they put them on walls to remind them, but they don't live them because they don't...

Jason: [00:16:01] Yeah. I hate the exercise that people do around core values, because it is like total BS, like, you know, as we're recording this, you know, over the weekend, Tony Hsieh from Zappos passed away, which is horrible. But he was a big believer in really living the values. And I had a number of different people from Zappos on, and we talked about how those values actually go throughout the whole company.

And it all is like you were saying, it's you mentioned the key word believe. Right. And I think even Simon Sinek talks about it in his Ted talk is like, people don't follow you because it's you. They follow you because of what you believe in or something. I might've butchered it or something.

Fran: [00:16:45] I'll give you the quote, cause I say it a lot. "People don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it." So when there is an emotional connection Between people, there's a commonality, chances are and something they align that they believe in, even if they can't articulate it. Right. You feel it, you feel it with your best customers, you feel it with your best clients, you feel it with your best employees, you feel it. Right?

It's this unspoken feeling again, going back to the biology of it. We can articulate it. The famous the Groundhog Day. What gives you the most energy? That's definitely a tip and trick to, to pressure test. Like, did I get it right? And I want people to be complete when they build a why statement, you know, you talked earlier about your own. Right?

Creating a place I wish I had for myself and that's mission-driven. But what's the impact on the other side? Right? So that these agency owners can have the life that you had or could have the life they want.

Jason: [00:17:45] Yeah. And so, yeah, we always talk about like, so they have the freedom to pick and choose and do the things that they love.

Fran: [00:17:50] Exactly. So that's a complete statement. See, I knew you had it. I just didn't get it earlier, but I, you know, when you remain focused, you know, the clarity that brings. Every program you do every, whatever it is podcast episode, everything is anchored to will this serve that or not? And that's when you have a permanent North star.

And when you get clear on that really early on. The exponential hockey stick growth, you can get to profitability really clearly.

Jason: [00:18:18] And so after now do the 28 things we asked the why, right? Like we have real core values, which I believe they're just your core values because you surround people that believe in those not that are your identical twins. So then what's next after that?

Fran: [00:18:33] So, I mean, there, you have it right now. How are you going to tell that to other people? So breaking it down a little bit on the three keys, purpose inside purpose is your why. This is exactly Simon's point. Everybody has one. You only have one. I don't care how many businesses you have.

I could debate that with anyone and show you the common thread. And you also have your vision. So you were very mission and vision-based inside that permanent North star.

Jason: [00:18:59] Describe the difference between vision and mission. I think that's important.

Fran: [00:19:03] So a lot of people get this really confused. Right? So tell me the dream that you have and tell me what you're going to commit to doing or dedicating yourself to doing every single day to achieve it.

So it's easy to look at a nonprofit that says I want to eliminate hunger, right? That's the vision, that's the dream. And what is this nonprofit going to do to actually contribute to that? You know, move the needle effort. Are they going to open a soup kitchen? Are they going to raise money to feed starving children?

There's all of these different missions that strive for that bigger vision. And by the way, we might have one organization dedicated to that vision and we might have different divisions that activate it in different ways. So common vision, differentiated mission. Right.

Someone's physically feeding children. Someone's physically taking care of vaccination. Someone's, you know, there's water, right. You can get so, so detail-oriented on what that vision could be.

That's another reason why people partner together, right? We both want, we have common vision, but we go about it differently.

And then you go into the vision into the values. So like you said, right, everybody has our own individual values and this is really why I try so hard not to use the word core. Yes, they are core to each of us as an individual. But when you look at an organization, we have to share them.

We might go about them differently. We might believe there are different aspects to them, but again, we'll go back to essence. The essence is the same. So when you can discover what these values are as an organization, you can really unlock them. We've built a really great framework, which is also easily identifiable in the book. Right?

Very simple path. They can't be aspirational. They have to be actionable. And you will use them as a decision-making filter for everything you do. And when you can empower your team and align them on what I call the underpinning of your brand foundation, which are these three keys, which is the verbal side of your brand. You will empower your entire team to mobilize further, faster with greater efficiency, hence the result of profitability.

So the way that you do that is the third key is through story, again. You know, starting with the emotional, why is this important? Like I've rewritten the way that a case study should be rewritten. Why, how, what -very simple Simon Sinek golden circle rule. Start with why this is important because nobody cares.

What's the opportunity, or I wouldn't say the problem, but what's the risk? What's in it for me? How can I identify to the problem that you were having and what was the result? Right. Because we all want the results. Nobody really cares about how we did this. Oh, we built this website and did it with... no one cares about that.

We just want the result of whatever it was that achieved this common opportunity or problem?

Jason: [00:22:04] My really good buddy. Ian Garlic, AKA Sasquatch, he calls me his little friend and I'm 6'3". He's bigger than me, but, uh, he calls them case stories and I hated case studies. But you know, how he taught me over the years is like you were talking about, is start with the results.

Do you want to know how one person did X, Y, and Z? Yes. And, really go into it and tell a story around it about around, like you were saying, you know, the emotions. Cause that's why people really buy or engage with you is to fix something that they feel or to get something that makes them feel good or something.

Fran: [00:22:41] Achievement is very fulfilling. And when someone can call me and say, wow, I had the same problem that this guy did on your, in the cases of, you know, that I see, or I heard about this, or someone told me about that. It's like a double brand validation because they're coming to me to solve that same problem. And they understand that we understand how to solve it.

I mean, that's the work of a case study, case story. And I love that word. We also call them, you know, like story sharing, story, doing story, being so almost to take case stories to a 2.0. How does the brand play out the story that they tell, right? How does their culture, how are they being, how are they doing?

What are they doing in the world? And what are the story that they're telling? So it's, um, it keeps going and going and giving and giving if you will.

Jason: [00:23:35] Yeah. Well, Fran, this has been awesome. Is there anything I did not ask you that you think would benefit the audience?

Fran: [00:23:40] I would just look at the pandemic as a really interesting opportunity.

As I sat down, like most of everyone else in the shock and awe of what the world was starting to experience thinking like this wasn't real. And then it was, and then for some businesses, it was much more impacting than others, but it's like follow the money and follow the opportunity.

We talk about results-driven and performance-driven, but the money is now from the government side is really going to be repairing these small businesses.

So how can you activate, you know, a grant in the marketing space, in the branding space to upgrade your team's skills so that you can actively participate? And we've really stumbled and proven a number of times now in the last few months, how well that's working. And for the smaller companies and I mean $25 million and under, a quarter-million dollars of budget and under, there is local and state grants that we have triangularly figured out how to actually help you. So as an agency, you can unconventionally figure out other programs where you can add other lines of business that you can expand on your own. Like we have.

Jason: [00:24:52] Yeah. I love being resourceful. You know, I always, when people come to me, they're like, I've tried everything.

I'm like really tried everything? Tell them to start listing. And then I tell them, make a list. And it was like two things I'm like really? That's it? And then they start laughing. I'm like, got to keep going, man. There's a solution out there. Somehow.

Fran: [00:25:13] There always is. It's like Jason, if I had more time to just, you know, go down my own list, I would, I'm sure I could learn a few things myself, because I don't know. I guess resiliency, I've been through a lot in my own life and we've come up from the ashes a number of times before 2008 to 2010, there was a whole revolution in what's needed. And 9/11, you know, took out a fair amount of manufacturing and businesses that we were very involved in.

And we've been there, done that. So this time the belief and the historical understanding, knowing that there is opportunity out there. I just had to find it.

Jason: [00:25:51] Oh yeah. Yeah. I always tell everybody I'm like, this is the perfect time to really kind of grow. Like I know everybody freaked out in March 2020. And then I think like a month later, then it was just like, you know, everything just kind of just kept skyrocketing in agency space. You know, because everybody started realizing how important agencies are to them and how digital and online and all of that. And there's, there's always opportunities.

So, and, uh, when I look back at, you know, when we started in '99 or 2001, or like you said, '08 and even, you know, I guarantee you're looking back in five years from now at this point, right now. It's a golden opportunity, even though there's lots of people hurting right now, you know, medically and that kind of stuff, but economically there's huge opportunity.

So hopefully all of you figure out your why, your value, you guys tell the right story and you guys can get there. What's the title of the book and where can people go buy it?

So the title of the book is how to lead a values-based professional services firm. The three keys to unlock, purpose and profit.

Fran: [00:27:02] They can go to 3KeysBook.com and explore a download the intro, et cetera. See some videos why we wrote the book. You can also find it on Amazon and pretty much every other book reseller. And I would say, check it out.

Jason: [00:27:02]Awesome. Great. Well, everybody go do that. And if you guys enjoy this episode and you guys want to be surrounded with amazing agency owners that share the same values that you do share, probably the same why about growing their agency and scaling agency.

I want you guys to go to DigitalAgencyElite.com. This is our exclusive mastermind for experienced agency owners, where we're sharing what's currently working, we're the support group, we're are the ones that you can share the wins and we'd actually get it right?

Like if you fired that awful client, you can't really tell your spouse - they'll be like, okay, good. But everyone else can celebrate with you and just have a lot of fun with it. Go to DigitalAgencyElite.com. And until next time have a Swenk day .

Mark Sullivan is an agency owner who has also spent over 22 years in public safety. He has seen people in the best and worst of times. When he's not working as a firefighter, he is the founder and creative director of the 7-figure agency he started in 2014. Mark is on the show to talk about the similarities between fighting fires and running an agency. He's also sharing the #1 lesson he wishes he had known much sooner.

1. Running an agency can be like fighting fires. Your clients are trusting your agency with their livelihood, the same way firefighters rely on each other to get out of a fire. Everyone has to have trust in order to be successful.
2. Trust your gut when a client doesn't feel right. One thing Mark wishes he had known sooner is that it's OK to walk away from a client that is a bad fit. You don't have to take on every prospect. It's better to take a chance at offending them than add stress to yourself and your team.
3. Empower your team to make decisions. Stand behind your team on the decisions they make. When they feel supported and appreciated, they will make smart decisions that support your agency vision.

Wix: Today's episode is sponsored by the Wix Partner Program. Being a Wix Partner is ideal for freelancers and digital agencies that design and develop websites for their clients. Check out Wix.com/Partners to learn more and become a member of the community for free.

Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM

Jason: [00:00:00] On this episode, I talk with a firefighter who also has an agency and has built a really amazing agency. And we talk about one of the number one lessons that he wished he could go back over. He actually learned the lesson from listening to the show.

As well as what you can do in order to really keep and build an amazing team and really be that right leader and what you should really focus on in your agency that can make all the difference, not only in your agency but also in your life. So I hope you enjoy this episode with Mark, the firefighter slash agency owner, and now let's get into it.

I'm excited to have you on, so tell us who you are and what do you do?

Mark: [00:00:45] Well, my name is Mark Sullivan. I'm the founder, creative director of Lime Biscuit Creative. We're a branding and design agency, just outside of Atlanta. We do a lot of web design, logos. We love to do startups or total rebrands for companies. Have been doing that for six years now, working on year seven.

And I also serve full-time as a Lieutenant at a fire department, just outside of Atlanta and been doing that for 23 years. So stay pretty busy.

Jason: [00:01:11] Yeah, it's a definitely interesting story. So what made you want to kind of do the agency biz? How'd you get into it?

Mark: [00:01:19] Well, it was kind of a backward, a way that we got into it.

I ran a music agency where we basically would help bands and speakers get events and get into like car shows, where they would sign autographs and stuff and get reimbursement for it. They would do a concert, or stuff like that. That kind of rolled into us, working with some talent from A&E and the History Channel.

And through that process, we learned real quick that, uh, those guys become divas really fast and it's not worth the hassle to work with them. But in that process, we learned that so many of them didn't have any kind of brand awareness. They didn't have any kind of design, uh, understanding of how it worked.

And so we pretty much started learning on our own, how to create a brand for someone, a personal brand, a company brand. And from that, we started doing what we're doing today and as they got more difficult to work with, uh, we decided we were just going to kind of abandon that part of our business and strictly focus on the agency side. And, was turned out to be a really good decision for us.

Jason: [00:02:23] Very cool. And what made you get into the fire department?

Mark: [00:02:26] Well, I was, an ADD sufferer from day one. I knew the traditional school route was not going to work for me. And, uh, I'm one of the kids that, you know, from kindergarten, my mom's got these books. What do you want to do when you grow up? And mine's been a firefighter ever since I can remember being in school.

It's always just been attractive to me as something to do. And I love the whole idea of you never know what's coming next. So for somebody with ADD, it works really good. It keeps you changing up things on a regular basis. And, uh, just set out to do that. And I got about two to four more years of that hopefully I should be able to retire from that. So looking forward to that now, especially my body is.

Jason: [00:03:07] I bet. I remember when I sold my agency, I didn't know what I was going to do after. And I went to, you know, I was talking about it to my cousin-in-law, being a firefighter is what I've always wanted. I thought that would be the coolest job.

And then he kept telling me stories about most of the things are car wrecks and involving very, uh, disturbing stuff. And I was like, I would pass out for that. So I kind of nixed the volunteer fireman route.

Mark: [00:03:35] Yeah, it is. It's definitely not what you see on TV, but it does have its moments. But it has been a culture change in the 23 years I've been doing it. It's nothing like when I first got into it, but, uh, still wouldn't trade it for anything.

Jason: [00:03:49] Okay, cool. So let's talk about kind of the agency. You know, you're a Lieutenant in the fire department. Is there some parallel between the agency and fighting a fire or saving people's lives?

Mark: [00:04:02] Ironically, there is some, it's been a very unique journey to kind of see how those things kind of correlate.

But you see a firefighter on TV, you know, going into these house fires or going into a building that's on fire and the camera follows them around and they can see everything that's going on and they walk right up to somebody and grab them, throw them over their shoulder and walk out. But, in reality, when you enter a fire, most of them are zero visibility.

So you're basically feeling your way around the whole time, trying to figure out where you're at, trying to find out if anybody's in there, if there's anybody that can be recovered or saved that's in there. And through that process, you learn, you know, which direction to go first based on the time of the day.

And it is a lot like working with a company. People will come in here in total darkness. They have no clue where they're at in a house, so to speak. They have no clue how to get out. And so their message is stuck. And so it's easy to relate a lot of those things. So it's actually been pretty cool to be able to talk with clients and just say, look.

You know, it sounds like what I was learning how to fight a house fire and going in, I have to learn these certain patterns to keep me on target of what I'm supposed to do. In a business is that same way. You know, there's certain things in business that if we forget to do, you know, we can stray away and wind up completely lost.

So, uh, there's a lot of, of, uh, similarities with that. But then at the same time in the business realm is keeping those people at the firehouse close to you and trusting you is a huge, huge thing. And you're literally, depending on someone else. Doing their job for your life to be safe. And, uh, a lot of times in what we do, I think we forget that we're entrusted with a lot of people's livelihoods and, uh, they want to trust us and know that their best interest is at our heart all the time so that they know their business is safe, their finances and their family are safe.

So that's kinda the two ways that I see that they kind of go side by side a lot of times.

Jason: [00:05:58] Yeah, I was, um, yesterday as we're recording this, I, uh, chatted with Nick a former Navy SEAL. And he was actually saying, look, I'm more stressed out running a business than I was getting fired at and in combat. And I was like, really?

And he was like, I was just more prepared. And he also said cause I asked, I said, well, was there ever a time that you didn't trust your teammates? Or how did you pick your teammates? And he goes, well, they, they were always assigned to us, but they had to go through a rigorous process that was proven.

Versus a rigorous process for hiring an agency employee. Cause everyone does really well in the interview. And then they all go to shit, you know, after that versus, you know, having a hell week and B.U.D.S. And probably the same thing at the fire department where you're, depending on someone's that your life is in someone else's hands.

But I like your analogy with, the same thing with an agency, right? Yeah. Your livelihood for a lot of your clients, especially in these crazy times of going, you know. Of going, hey, if they have an extra 20,000 to spend and you spend it incorrectly, you know, they could lose their house, they could go homeless, you know, and there's all kinds of repercussions that go into there.

Mark: [00:07:16] And that's caused a lot of sleepless nights here lately, for sure.

Jason: [00:07:19] Exactly. As you're growing your agency, how do you reassure? And I like that analogy that you use with the fire department to your prospects, how do you reassure or what's the process that you walk people through to reassure them that they're making the right decision?

Mark: [00:07:38] It seems to differ from person to person. The one big thing that we're lucky about here is almost all of our clients come exclusively from referrals. We do very little advertising. We do very, and when I say little less than $5,000 a year, total in advertising. So one good thing we have is that when they come to us, they already have a little bit of trust because somebody, they trust refer them to us.

But once they get to us. And we're talking about this marketing package or this brand package and launching this. Either a new company or whether it be just rebranding or a marketing idea for a company. A lot of times they'll get those cold feet right at the end. And we get a lot of clients that come in here, as you can imagine with our name, Lime Biscuit.

We don't do things the normal agency way a lot of times. And so when they come in here and they talk to us, they want it to be kinda like us and that I want a crazy name. I want to do this. I want to do this. But then when it comes down to it, they're like, no, I can't do this. It's just not in my DNA to do this.

And so they go back to their, their old path and stuff. And so we have to kind of just sit with them and say, look, this is something we have proven results with. It's something we've done before, it's something that we're comfortable with. And our goal is not to be a one-time check for me. Our goal is to continue a relationship with you and build with you.

And we wouldn't lead you down this path if we didn't think it was also going to turn into revenue for us at the end of the road. So they kind of understand that this is a process we're walking through with them as they stay in business. We're not just somewhere that wants to launch a logo on a website for them and walk away.

And I feel like once they understand that we're kind of their partner in that, they tend to trust us a little more and they get a little bit more gumption to kinda go forward with it.

Jason: [00:09:29] Very cool. What would you wish that you knew toward the start that you know now that you would tell yourself?

Mark: [00:09:36] That's an easy one.

Uh, and I actually learned this from listening to the Smart Agency podcast. So credit to you for this, because I have told this to so many other business owners. It's all right to fire somebody. And to say no to them. And for the longest man, we were just like, you know, we thought we had to take everybody.

We thought that it was, these people were coming to us. We have to do this with them. We have to take their money. We have to help their company. And man, it drove us just crazy. And we were working with clients. We knew we didn't align with, and it was just a struggle the entire time. But I remember specifically the day I was listening to the podcast and I was actually sitting at the firehouse.

It was about eight o'clock at night. And you were talking with somebody just about how, you know, we're not made to work with everybody all the time and that it's okay to fire a client. And man that from the beginning, it would have saved a lot of years and a lot of wrinkles on these eyes. Because that was the thing that, you know, I've learned that my gut instinct, when they come in and I'm like, I really don't think they're a client for us.

And I don't think we're a client for them. I've learned to just trust that and just chance offending them and just saying, we're not right for you. And man, I wish I'd have known that from the beginning.

Jason: [00:10:57] Oh, I'm glad that helped. Um, how do you tell if they're the right fit for you in the very beginning?

Like, I think it's different for everybody. Is it like a gut feeling or is it more of like, oh, you have to check the box for these four things?

Mark: [00:11:13] I think for us, a lot of it is gut because when we have somebody come in, like each client obviously starts at a different process, but like I said earlier, we do a lot of either rebranding or startups.

And so our first process in that is beginning their visual identity and how their logo is gonna look, how their colors are gonna flow. And if we come up with a really cool concept and just right off the bat, they're like, I don't like this. I like this. And they show us something that is so far removed from us.

That's generally an immediate response of, we're just going to give you your check back and you can go somewhere else. And we handle it with a lot of tact and we try to even give them other contacts to reach out to. But for us, we do, honestly operate differently. Like you don't go into many agencies where, you know, you got a firefighter with only a high school degree that's this coming in here doing this.

So, we tend to, to act differently with our clients. We like to have fun. We like to cut up with them. We like to show up at their office on announce with ice cream and stuff and whatever. And so if we don't see that they're going to enjoy that and something, that's going to make them feel more comfortable with us then that stomach just tells you this isn't right.

Jason: [00:12:35] That's good that you really kind of found the lane and, you know, who your ideal client is that you want to work with. It took us many years to figure that out, takes many. Sometimes people are still figuring it out. You know, maybe if there's someone else sitting into, you know, their own firehouse or somewhere else, listening to this and be like son of a bitch, like I can get rid of the pain in the ass client? Like it's very helpful.

Mark: [00:13:01] We've learned that there's usually somebody else there to give you a check, so to speak. So, for the long time, it was just terrified to fire 'em because where's the next revenue stream going to come from? And then we've learned. And like I said, it's compliments to you, man. It's been a lot of our staff listens to the podcast and it is the only podcast that we all listen to and that they're required to listen to.

And it's just been one of those things where, and you just got a grin and bear it and say, We're just not your team. Sorry. And after you do that, a couple of times it does seem to get easier, but you still worry about that income.

Jason: [00:13:39] Yeah. When, uh, I always tell everybody I'm like, your team is your number one asset.

And, uh, I will always stick up for my team. If someone comes along, I don't care if they have a billion dollars. I may, I may think of it a little bit different. But it would be a little harder to have that decision, but I would still choose the team because team's, everything.

So if someone gives you a billion dollars and then you have no team to execute on it. I mean, you're on the Island, you're on this little Island that you can't get off and you're imprisoned.

And we really, uh, we don't create our businesses to be in prison. Most of us are, uh, unfortunately without figuring out the right systems and, and figuring out that, you know, that getting that clarity. For, hey, these are the clients is, really kind of step one. Right?

Mark: [00:14:25] Right. We empower our team to make decisions without asking.

Like I'm gone every third day to the fire department. Most of the time they can reach me by phone. But yesterday for instance, I just got off this morning. Hadn't slept. So if I sound groggy, that's probably why, but uh, sometimes they can't get in touch with me and I want them to know that you've got my blessing to make this decision.

If my lead designer says this client is just not having it, then she's got full power to tell them to go somewhere else. And I try to make sure that they are equipped with that, and that gives them a buy-in and they understand that I trust them. And I believe that goes a long way.

Jason: [00:15:04] Well, I think he hit on something that most of us take for granted, right?

As we're being leaders and we're leading our team, most of us, we don't tell our team that we trust them, literally. Like, I trust you to make the right decision and whatever decision you make, I will stand behind you. And like, I think when your team members hear that, because you got to think of as like human beings, we all want to be part of a community.

We all want to have that significance. That's why they're probably working for you. They're probably not working for you because of what you're paying them. Right. Like, honestly, probably go somewhere like at the agency, like they could go work for a huge agency or a huge business and make more money, but they're not going to get all of that community, the accomplishment, the recognition, all of that.

And I think we forget a lot of times, like, I was talking to my buddy Gene and he coaches a lot of people on the business side. And, uh, we were talking, it was like, when's the last time you went to some of your team members and said, hey, I trust you. I really appreciate you. And a lot of times, most people will be like, I've never done that.

But they talk to their are other people like us coaches or advisors, and like, oh man, I could not do this without them. And I was like, why didn't you tell them that?

Mark: [00:16:21] That reminds me of The Office. I'm a huge fan of The Office where Michael Scott, you know, says behind Pam's back. He said, she's actually really talented artist, but I'd never say that to her face.

Jason: [00:16:32] I've watched one episode. I was kinda like that with Seinfeld when it was on, I thought it was probably the dumbest show ever. And then I watched it like the last season and then I've been hooked ever since.

Mark: [00:16:42] Exactly. But it is the team. If you don't have them to support you, especially with my schedule, it's not going to go anywhere.

And, you know, we try to do little stuff for them. It's, they'll walk in and there's literally something as simple as chocolate bars are laying all across their desk and keyboards and stuff like that. And it'll be on their Snapchat story later. My boss knows how to get to my heart by chocolate.

And it's just little stuff like that, but I'll make sure I send them a text or Snapchat when I'm at the station frequently, that just says, thank you guys so much. I love you guys. You don't have any clue how much it means to me and my family that I can trust you at the office. And just to let them know that I don't take them for granted.

Jason: [00:17:23] Awesome. Very cool. Well, this has been amazing, Mark. Is there anything I didn't ask you that you think would benefit the audience?

Mark: [00:17:30] And I think coming from the firefighter side of agency owner, uh, side of it is, is that we spend so much time, uh, sometimes investing in our clients and in their lives and, and what they have going on. And we obsess over what we can do for them. And. I think sometimes you just gotta stop and think about yourself.

Think about your own agency. And I think about your own family. And I have seen hundreds and hundreds of times, people who never planned on their life-ending on a certain day. And it's so easy in the agency life to get wrapped up and even sitting at home, watching TV in the back of your mind is spinning like, well, what are we going to do for this client?

Or what are we going to do for this client? And. It gets so easy to rabbit trail and forget that we have our own lives and our own agency that we have to protect and watch out after. And I think it's just that as, you know, watch out for your family, watch out for your own employees, your own agency, because, if you don't do that, it doesn't matter what kind of clients come in.

Eventually you're going to falter. So take the time to stop. And you know, like you said earlier, spend time with your own clients and your, or your own employees and just say, hey I appreciate you and you know, how do you think our agency can be better? And you might be surprised the answers you get.

Jason: [00:18:48] Yeah, no, I totally agree.

It's a crazy world. And, uh, you know, we all, we try to work ourselves to death and we're like, well, in 10 years, when I sell the agency, then I'll be able to spend time with my family. I was like, that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard, because I think there's certain people out there that really preach work all the time and hustle, hustle, hustle, hustle.

And I don't agree with that at all. I agree. There's times to work hard and put your head down, but if you dictate your whole goals, all based on revenue and growth, rather than think about why are you trying to get that? When people talk to me a lot of times about, you know, my goal is to sell an agency like you did Jason.

I'm like, why? Well then, so then I can have fun. I can do. I'm like, you can do that now. I was like, you don't need that. Yes. It's a couple of little more zeros at the very end, but, but why do you want more zeros at the end? Right. And I'm like, look, if you start with a time goal and maybe keep it very simple. I want to take off Friday afternoons and not work on the weekends and just start there and think about in order for that to accomplish what systems do we need in place?

What team members do we need? What different types of clients, what do I need to charge? And you start there. I think a lot of us listening will be a lot happier rather than just chasing money. I heard something too. It's like maybe, maybe this was from the hustle King, Gary Vaynerchuk, which he is very brilliant.

And he talked about don't chase the gold, sell the pickaxeto the people going after the gold. I was like, that's kind of, that's pretty smart.

Mark: [00:20:27] I like that. Yeah. I listen to Gary all the time, but there's certain parts of that I just, I can't go along with, on the nonstop all day long. Doing what I do. It's just, I'm already working 60 hours a week doing that and, this is kind of my segue to retirement. I want to retire early from there and this will be my full-time career. And it just went a little quicker than we anticipated.

So luckily surrounded with great family and great staff that, that helped me keep it going. So, uh, I'm just blessed in that part.

Jason: [00:20:56] Awesome. Well, great. Uh, what's the website people can go and check it out?

Mark: [00:20:59] Uh, they can check out our agency at LimeBiscuit.com, just like the food.. And then my personal one on the fireside, my blogs and stuff is MarkTSullivan.Me and they can check it out there as well.

Jason: [00:21:13] Awesome. We'll go check it out.

And if everyone listening enjoys this episode and you really want to know what are the right systems that you need to put in place in order to really get a hold of your agency, where you can scale it on a consistent basis where not every decision has to go through you.

You're getting consistent leads. You're charging the right amount. You're not getting crushed on scope creep. I want you to guys go to check out the Agency Playbook at JasonSwenk.com/playbook request an invite. And check out the systems that have worked for thousands of agency owners over the past couple of years. If you do jump into it and you get a lifetime access to it and we're always updating it and it will show you that framework that you can follow.

So you can really scale and grow the agency that you really want. So until next time have a Swenk day.

Steve Pockross has been the CEO of Verblio for nearly five years. As CEO, he applies leading marketplace and SaaS principles to create an industry-leading content creation platform with 3,000 U.S.-based writers supporting the creation of premium content at scale in every niche. Verblio has grown over 400% in the last four years. So, Steve is sharing his insight on why it's important to lead by putting people first and how that contributes to your agency's growth as a whole.

1. Exhibit your agency's values. Don't just say what your values are but actually exhibit them. Lead by example and personify the company culture you wish to set.
2. The key to finding great talent is marketing to them. Treat your recruitment like you would a client. Write a unique job description that appeals to the right person and then market to them. Attract agency talent the way you would attract customers for your clients.
3. Three keys to putting people first: (1) willingness to sacrifice other areas, (2) constantly seek feedback, (3) reward people who identify holes in the culture.

[smart_track_player url="https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/jasonswenk/How_to_Lead_Your_Agency_Team_By_Putting_People_First.mp3" ]

Verblio: Today's episode of the Smart Agency Masterclass is sponsored by Verblio. Check out Verblio.com/smartagency and get 50% off your first month of content creation. Our team loves using Verblio because of the ease in their process and their large pool of crowd-sourced writers.

Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM

Jason: [00:00:00] What's up beautiful agency owners! I'm excited. I have another amazing podcast guest who actually has been back several times. I don't know why we keep inviting you back. No, I'm just kidding. He's a good friend of mine and, uh, we'll provide lots of value. And we're going to talk about leading with people first for your agency.

Now, before we jump into the show, I want you to do something. I want you to take a screenshot off your phone, listening to the podcast, upload it to Instagram, tag us. And give us a shout-out on Instagram. And then I can shout you back and say, Hey, thanks for listening to the show. So let's go ahead and get an episode.

Hey Steve, welcome to the show.

Steve:: [00:00:40] Hey Jason. Good to be back.

Jason: [00:00:42] Yeah. I don't know. Like I said, I keep inviting you back, I guess you do well each time. So now we'll welcome back for the people that have not checked out the other episodes and we'll link those. Into the show notes of the episodes to make sure you guys go to JasonSwenk.com and check those out.

Tell us who you are and what do you do?

Steve:: [00:00:58] So I'm Steve. I am the CEO of Verblio. Oh, we are a Denver-based marketplace, content creation platform. So we have a network of highly curated, fantastic writers that we put together with our unique business model and put it on our platform so that we can do high quality content at scale for any niche. And we work primarily for agencies.

Jason: [00:01:19] Awesome. Well, welcome back. And let's kind of jump into it, right? So, Let's talk about what does it mean to lead with people first and a growing company? I mean, you guys are, I think, 30 plus employees on your team. And I think a lot of agencies will relate to this.

Steve:: [00:01:37] We've been fortunate to have some really high power growth in the last. So I took over as CEO four and a half years ago, and we were talking about what are some of the lessons that we could really pass on to agencies to help them with their growth as well, that can relate between the type of business that we do and the type of work that agencies do.

And so one of those big strategies is putting people first. And that might sound like the most cliche strategy of all time. Going back to "Good to Great." Put the right people on the bus first. I think we took a really, well, we think about it and brought it to every aspect of our business. And so I think bringing it to life is really interesting.

And hopefully, some of these nuggets that helped us can really help others. And has helped us grow 400% over four and a half years as a bootstrap startup. So with no investment in order to fund that growth, all being organic growth. And it's also helped us grow when I first started, we were 11 people for the first three years.

And over the last two years, we've gone from 11 to 30. So how do you accelerate that growth with the right people strategy? And then also, how do you ensure that it continues to build, even as you're expanding rapidly?

Jason: [00:02:38] Yeah. A lot of times I see kind of people, they get to certain stages of climbing the mountain, and they kind of backtrack.

Right? And like, I'm looking at growing any business or really growing an agency. And it kind of like six phases, right? Like you got staging base camp, the climb, the crux, the crest, and then obviously the summit. And each one of them you're focused on different things.

Like at the very beginning, you're focused on how do I build this company and then like, what do I need to focus on? How do I get further ahead, all that kind of stuff.

So when you came in and you guys were 11 people, what was the main thing that you were focused on? And what was the big challenge that you were trying to overcome?

Steve:: [00:03:18] Well, it's hard to boil it down to just one, considering anybody who's ever taken over a company or a division knows that you're kind of moving into somebody else's house.

It's kind of like this: I'm very grateful to have this house. It's really beautiful. I'm excited to live here. And then you question every single choice made about that house. Why are the carpets on the floor? Why are their sconces all over the place? And so I think a lot of those decisions are really frequent to that.

So number one is to keep an keep in mind that a lot of people put in a big deal in order for you to get there. And the second is to question everything.

So the first thing that was most important to me was instilling my values in the company and then making them not like imposing them, but creating an, "our values."

So I knew that whatever I started with, there are things that are just deal breakers for me, like follow up on what you say. If you commit to it, you're going to do it, or you're going to create a natural distrust throughout your organization. And so the very first thing I said at the meeting when people ask me: What would new leadership be like? We started creating those values.

And the most important thing was less to say what they were, but really to exhibit them. That I follow up on everything that I'm standing for. That I bring enthusiasm and excitement to my meetings and my projects. That I plan them out.

And my very first hire was Paul, who, you know, very well. Whereas partially 'cause I knew he was an amazing marketer, but we really invested very little in marketing at the beginning because we wanted to focus too much on the product. And the most important piece was that Paul exhibited all the values to every other new member of the team. This is what good looks like.

The CEO can be there all the time and having members of your team that just emulate those values for you and can start bringing them to life is critical. So that was my first big investment.

Jason: [00:04:55] Well, I think you just brought him on because he looked like Will Ferrell.

Well, you said a couple of really cool things and a lot of us, I think, you said question everything. And this was for you coming in from an outsider with no emotion coming into it. Now, most people that are listening to the show, they've created it from the ground up.

And a lot of times, kind of, what I want you guys to unpack is: you should question everything that you've made the decision to get here. And question everybody on your team as well on an ongoing basis. I mean, I almost think it's kind of quarterly. Like, I live and die by 90 days rather than the year. Sure. We have yearly goals, but I'd rather be able to adjust quicker and, you know, I try to question everything as well. I think that's really good.

And then the other thing I love that you mentioned was, you know, marketing. That's one of the first things I tell people is like, you gotta bring in marketing, you know, in the early stages, in order to really build that pipeline. And then, you know, marketing should break sales and sales should break operations and blah, blah, blah, and so on and so on.

So I love it. What are some surprising things that happened to you about, you know, building this culture?

Steve:: [00:06:13] I think one of the most surprising things was that the values that I, that I set out to create took their own form. They really bonded with the people that we brought on board. So I always talk about my management style as being, I want to run my company like run my ultimate Frisbee team, so I want it to be incredibly, it's funny cause the ultimate Frisbee teams are the maximum size of 30 people and I just hit 30. So I don't know what I'm going to say now. But it's being super collaborative. It's rooting on for people. It's focusing when you're in your huddles and you're down 12 to 2, you get into the huddle and you talk about how much fun we're going to have and how much enjoyable this is gonna be. And cheer for each other. As opposed to going around and talking about all of the different processes you're going to create to win the game. It just brings everybody down.

And so I really wanted to call it the spirit of the game value and the rest of my team. Uh, there are almost no athletes and they all refer to it these sports is "sports ball," so they captured it. And they basically said that even we, we played like can ultimate Frisbee team, even though 73% of our company doesn't know what a sport is. And then kind of wrote it up in our own really distinct way.

It's really interesting how culture is not you. Culture is how all of you make it together. And then when, before we leave the 90 day feedback thing, I think you said something really important. One of my favorite, most important concepts to me of 90 days is every new person, especially if you're an agency owner. You started this place, you're going to have a very distorted view of your reality, because this is yours. This is your baby.

And so 90 days is such a great time. Every new hire that comes onto your company, to ask them a really explicit. What happened to the company that wasn't what you expected to happen? How was the setup for you ahead of time? How are we not living up to the things we talk about? Cause I can't see these things. So the question that I asked my teammates and every one on one. And I talked to, I have a one-on-one with everyone in the company, at least quarterly is what are the things that you're seeing that you think I would want to know?

Jason: [00:07:59] I love that. Well, you know, I talk with someone recently and we talked about everyone says they have an open door policy. But most of your team members are not going to step through that door. You actually have to go out after them and ask those direct questions like you just did. Be like, what are you seeing that I'm not? Because they're going to see things differently than management and leadership.

Talk a little bit about, you know, especially coming in from the outside and having a team of 30. Are you more the mentality now, like when you came in, were you focused on kind of like the what and the, how? Or were you focused on the who? Like, who do I bring in? I know you mentioned bringing in, you know, Will Ferrell.

Literally. I wish I had a little overlay right now. I could pop side by side. Like everyone would like, yeah. He's Will Ferrell. I really don't think he looks that much like Will Ferrell, but..

Steve:: [00:08:52] I know you're the only one that doesn't.

Jason: [00:08:54] Could we do a vote on your podcast to have people write in.

We should, we should. We we'd literally.

What we'll do is we'll put a picture of a, him and Will on the very bottom. And then, uh, or maybe we'll put it on Facebook when we post it up. I think that's what we'll do.

Steve:: [00:09:12] So back to your actual question. Yes. So you get the what, the how. A lot of people refer to that in another business framework for the exact same question is, do you focus first on the people, the product or the processes?

Because these are the three ways you can address all problems. To me, you have to focus on the people first because they decide the processes. They decide the product. They're the ones who are going to be taking your vision 10 levels down and making every decision to bring it to life. And so hiring became our absolute priority of making sure we were bringing on the right people and not making mistakes.

And then our second became making sure we kept these people. So our churn levels are just ridiculously low. We waste very few cycles. They say that every person churned might be worth double the amount of their salary in lost time. And the third benefit of having a great culture is you get incredible amounts of productivity and excitement out of it.

So we definitely focused on the who first.

Jason: [00:10:04] Very cool. Which leads me to kind of the next question is, how do you find really good people? And how do you know when you find really good people? I think that's what a lot of people, you know, in the agency, world struggle.

Steve:: [00:10:19] So our hiring strategy and a couple of the things that have that I think have been keys to access.

And a lot of these were learning and iterative as we went along. Uh, one of the things that's really important to me that I think everybody can do. And it's all in your power, is to write the most unique killer job description that just attracts the type of people you're looking for. Our job descriptions are fun.

I want to read them. I want to laugh at least three times is what I tell my people as they're running them. But I also really want to feel what the job is. So we write killer job descriptions and they'll stand out. How many people actually put that in. That's a big part of your marketing. You are marketing to talent.

Most people only market to the roles and responsibilities and the experience. That's a huge way to stand out. The second is to create the criteria of what you're looking for. And if you can be very specific on it and also make it different from what others are looking for. So the hardest way to get talent is to hire, been there, done that.

Those are the most expensive, they're most of the competitive. You're going to be fighting in a red ocean for the exact same people. All the other agencies are looking for. Are there qualities that you like in people? For us it's curiosity, creativity, and passionate about something that is not their work.

So my number one question in an interview is, if you're ever interviewing with me is what's a class that you took an undergrad that you didn't think you'd be excited about, that you became unbelievably passionate about and why? And somebody who can be passionate about something that's not the job function to me shows distinct curiosity.

And I think that's particularly important to marketers out there. So there was a study like most of the skills in marketing in the last three years are different than they were the five years before. Which means you need people who are going to constantly looking for how to improve their skillset. And to me, curiosity is that way to get there.

How do you find somebody who just wants to do it and be passionate? So find your unique skill set that other people looking for, make yourself unique, market to them, and then have those as your criteria when you're interviewing.

Jason: [00:12:14] Yeah, I would have failed that question. I'd been like, Steve, I hated every class I ever had.

Steve:: [00:12:20] That's not true. I refuse to believe

Jason: [00:12:23] it's pretty true. But then again, I tell people, I still want to get this shirt going "I'm retired because I'm unemployable." I'm retiredfrom working for someone else. So that would be a good t-shirt. Now that Verblio is 30 plus people. What are some things that you're doing to maintain?

You know, the environment, maintain the culture? Because it starts to get out of control.

Steve:: [00:12:49] It gets completely out of control. So it's interesting there. Um, so startups like agencies, I mean, we're all kind of at the same ilk, which is that we start at a certain size and we go through these growth phases, which you coach a lot of your agencies on.

So there's the right amount of process for each phase. And someone told me that when you're, uh, when you're a startup, it's like wearing the wrong size clothing all over your body all the time. You either have too much or too little at all times. And so we're working on our people in culture processes really diligently.

We brought in a couple of much more process driven people who are much better at this than I am to focus on how do we bring it to life? And we're focused on a few areas. One is we just had to have a platform it's all consolidated in one area. We found an ingenious, one called Leapsome. If anybody's looking for one that brings together so many of these disparate HR platforms. As everybody only seems to be able to do one thing on an HR platform, which I don't know why.

One of the most critical factors was be really clear about reviews. What we're looking for are. Creating a much better goal setting platform. So everything rolls up in our OKR style, to very top five goals of the company. So everyone knows what their role is. They update them quarterly basis. It's really process driven and it's way outside my sweet spot.

It's not what I like to do. And the last is it has cultural surveys. Every month we send out 10 questions that takes less than 10 minutes to get the feedback from our team. We started this there was no one more than two levels below me. And now there are people five levels below me.

How am I going to get that information? How are we going to make rational decisions about what we think is our culture? What we think our communicating, conveying versus what people are actually feeling at different levels of the company. And the last for me is those one-on-one meetings, which is I meet with everyone at least quarterly. But we do probably more one-on-ones at Verblio than anywhere I've ever been.

It's a huge investment in time. It means that you're putting people first. This is really key to how we bring this to life. We could be spending that time doing more sales calls. We could be spending that time doing more platform, but we're making sure that we're empathizing with our team or understanding where they're at and we're really communicating.

So we're, so we're all working more coherently together. And I think that's an investment that pays off.

Jason: [00:14:55] Yeah. You know, it's kind of like when you start having a bigger team or as you start to grow that team, you're all thinking about like, how do I build the right team? And then once you build that right team, you're kind of like, how do I become that leader to them?

And then, you know, the next is, is like, how can I actually grow the leaders? Especially when you have that many different layers of going well, I need to make the decision-making spread out. So it's not all flowing to us, you know, and then I'm the toll booth or even my leaders. It's like, how do I create many layers of decision-making power and freedom?

And, you know, I was chatting with one agency, and, uh, he was the biggest bottleneck on the operations for a while. And he said, for many years, it was a big struggle on it because on himself, on his family, even on the agency. And then finally, he just got to a point where it was like, I'm going to document 50% of what I know.

And then the team could use that as a foundation to build upon and then innovate from that. And it changed everything for him. Uh, and now they're well in the eight-figure mark and just flying to wherever they actually want to go. So, love it.

What are some three tips for the listeners who want to make a decision to focus on culture and really kind of catapult them to the next level?

Steve:: [00:16:21] I'll see if, I'm going to start talking and see if it ends up being three. So the first tip is what are you sacrificing when you say you want to put culture first? You're going to have to deprioritize something. We invested in an executive coach. When I'm investing in people. And I'm basically trying to find junior talent that has never done it before.

What's the one area they're not, they're going to lack is that level of executive coaching. So I sacrificed the salesperson. We didn't bring on a professional salesperson until last year, after growing 300% before we did. So then we focused on an executive coach first. Cause I thought that was more important.

That's a big call. That's a hard thing to tell, if you're the owner, then it's a hard thing to tell yourself. And if you have a board like I do, it's a hard thing to argue to them. So how much time is it going to take and work backwards? It's really easy to say, this is my number one priority. It's not easy to say this is my number one priority, and I'm not going to do these three things because of it. So that's my number one.

My number two is to get constant feedback. It's really similar to your 90 days, like check in, do surveys. How do you keep yourself honest so you don't believe it? Come up with the right set of questions of celebration.

And then number three is every opportunity you can. One of my favorite podcast guests recently, he was telling me about the hardest thing to be a CEO is to not just say one thing once. You have to say it a hundred times and keep repeating yourself until you're bored, is to keep repeating your values. This is an example of why this reflects my values, reward the people publicly. If somebody comes to you with criticism about your culture, where you're not living up to your own values. And you worked really hard to ask people, to give you a feedback, call out that person at the all hands, give them a reward and say, thank you. You are right.

You're going to get a better culture, a more curious and critical thinking culture. And you're going to get less yes-people in your company.

Jason: [00:18:10] Yeah. I mean, you said it. You got to kind of stand by your values. You know, just literally a little while ago, I was chatting with one of our team members and we, unfortunately, had to ask one of the mastermind members to leave.

A new member over two months, there's just too many red flags, just didn't mesh. And we just didn't want it to pollute the rest of the culture. And so it hurts to say no to reoccurring revenue, but at the end of the day, you gotta know you're gonna stand on your values and not sacrifice that. And be kind of a whore for sacrificing it, which a lot of people, you know, do.

Steve:: [00:18:53] There could be very few things that are more powerful to a company than fire a client that's been abusive to your people. I think one of the things I've gotten the most positive feedback on is when there was a client that was kvetching about my, uh, some of my people while they were in the room. And I just told him that was absolutely unacceptable on the call.

And I think it really, like everyone on the team felt supported. Like they could do whatever they wanted and I'd have their back. But it's hard. I feel that in the moment, especially when somebody is paying your bills and you really need them.

Jason: [00:19:21] Oh, yeah. But you know, you get to the kind of the next stage where you're like, I'm not going to sacrifice us.

We'll figure it out. And it's just going to be that much better because yeah. Your people are everything. And if you don't have their backs, well, then they're not going to have yours. Like literally they'll hang on until they find the BBD, right? The bigger and better deal.

Steve:: [00:19:46] So we've talked about kind of hiring as a people strategy, investing in people and bringing culture to life.

And I think the last piece is thinking of, uh, thinking of all of the people related to your company, as your stakeholders, as your clients. For me, it's my writers. We need to treat them special. And like, I want them to have the best writing gigs in the industry so that they feel like this is the place they want to be..

Cause the more excited they are about their job, better the writing and the product will be for our clients. And all around. And so if you it's a virtuous cycle, you bring on the good people who are empathetic and excited and creative and passionate. And they start feeling all the other stakeholders in your business the same way.

Jason: [00:20:22] Love it. I love it, steve. Where can people check out more about Verblio? Especially if, uh, if they need some help around content writing, which I highly recommend you guys. You guys rock and are awesome and use you guys for so many years.

Steve:: [00:20:36] Cool. Thank you so much. So you can find us at Verblio.com.

And you can find my podcast, the Yes and Marketing Podcast, about 54 episodes, which is a broader marketing leadership and people who bring creativity into marketing. And then we have a special offer for jason Swenk listeners out there: get 50% off your first month at Verblio.com/smartagency telling me you heard about this on the Jason's Swenk show, and we'll give you two months of free onboarding as well to help you out.

And which we hope is an easy process, but we know that's a big lift for some of you.

Jason: [00:21:09] Awesome. Well, thanks so much, Steve. And thanks for coming on the show. And if you guys enjoyed this episode, make sure you comment below. Make sure you subscribe, so you don't miss out a new episode and make sure you actually take Verblio up on that offer.

I mean, that's killer, they're giving you 50% off the first couple of months, so it's amazing. Thanks so much for doing that. And if you guys want to leave a comment or review, that will help us out to reach more people, especially if you listen to the whole way through. And until next time have a Swenk day.

Laura Tolhoek is the owner of Essential HR, the business she started three years ago in order to provide HR relief to small businesses. Her company provides an ultra-flexible way of managing HR so businesses can focus on their core operation and growing their business. Laura shares the best practices and tips on how to hire and fire digital agency employees. She covers everything from creating your employer brand to the details of the offer letter and how to protect yourself when letting someone go.

1. Building an employer brand is as important as your agency brand. The employer brand is the reputation your agency has as a workplace. It defines the experience you're giving your employees before they even come on board.
2. An interview guide helps guide your internal process. An effective interview guide maintains consistency throughout the interview process as well as helps narrow down who and what you're looking for in the position.
3. A well-written offer letter is essential. The offer letter outlines policies, sets expectations, and even lays out how the end will go. This protects your agency from any potential misunderstanding or potential liability down the road.

Oribi: Today's episode of the Smart Agency Masterclass is sponsored by Oribi. Check out Oribi.io/smartagency for a free trial. Plus when you sign up for Oribi get 20% off the first three months with promo code: Smart Agency

Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM

47 Laura Talhoek

Jason: [00:00:00] On this episode, I talk with an HR agency about what's the importance about building your employer brand? What's the importance of the offer letter and how it can actually protect your agency later on. And also making sure you follow a process in your interview process, which, I just said process a couple of times, but that's okay.

I think you're really going to like this episode, especially if you're in a growth phase and you're bringing on more team members. So let's get into it.

Hey, Laura, welcome to the show.

Laura: [00:00:36] Thank you so much for having me.

Jason: [00:00:37] Yeah. I'm excited to have you on. So tell us who you are and what do you do?

Laura: [00:00:42] Yeah, so my name is Laura Tolhoek. I am the owner of EssentialHR and EssentialHR is a business that was created to help small business owners with their HR systems and structures.

So a lot of times when you're growing a business, You would really benefit from the help of a professional person who understands the legal, the risk side of things, as well as best practices. But you often don't need somebody who's there full time. So we come in and we help small business owners with those small retainers and HR projects where they could use an HR professional but don't want to have one on their team full-time.

Jason: [00:01:15] Awesome. What's your theory of wind to bring someone in full-time? What's the employee count?

Laura: [00:01:22] You know what I would say about 50, you could use somebody, you know, at a moderate level. I don't think you need, you know, the, the pinnacle director of HR. But you could use somebody, certainly, because at that point you already have someone in admin doing a lot of your recruitment things.

You probably have somebody in admin doing payroll. And if you bring all of those things together to one, one system, it might be a little bit easier.

Jason: [00:01:48] I always looked at a lot of our HR people also did recruiting as well. Not just, you know what I used to think when I would go back and I'd be like, oh, HR is just making sure I don't get sued.

Making sure people don't get hurt. Like I didn't really look at it as making sure employee retention's there, you know, recruiting new talents. So I don't have to interview all these people and just try to keep up with the amount of business coming to us. So do you feel the same way, like HR is more than just pushing paperwork?

Laura: [00:02:20] Well, of course, yeah. I'm actually not a huge fan of the paperwork side of things. And automation is a big part of what I like to implement, but there's so many facets of HR. You know, you have the benefits side, the compensation side. Are we paying our people appropriately? Is there other things we could do, you know, for a smaller boutique operation, you know, maybe the top salary isn't what's there.

What else can we provide in order to build that culture? So we're not competing on price alone? Recruitment, obviously health and safety onboarding, and bringing on new team members. And just the general upkeep of employee engagement is a lot of what we do with our clients and what I did previously in my former life within operations.

Jason: [00:03:03] I gotcha. Why is it important for employers to kind of build their employer brand before they go into, you know, kind of scaling their agency?

Laura: [00:03:13] So employer brand, we obviously all know what branding is and we put a lot of effort and a lot of time into making sure our branding is on, on par, and on spot.

But what sometimes we don't think about is what is our employer brand? So if you think of those big companies, you know, the Targets, the McDonald's, the Southwest Airlines, and you kind of think immediately, you know what their brand is. You know, what to expect as a customer and so on and so forth, but then when you think about your, like, what do you think about when you think about Target as an employer?

Or what about McDonald's as an employer and those are the employer brands. So what is the employee experience or what do you think of when you think of them as an employer?

So you may think, well, I'm just eight people. Why do I need to worry about my employer brand compared to McDonald's and target? Let me tell you, you are competing for the same talent.

So just because you're eight people and they may be 800 at one site doesn't mean that you can't compete for that same talent. So I'll, I'll give you an example. I have a client and they were competing for a fresh out of university graduate. And the things that made the difference at the end of the day, because she offered her the job and the young lady said, I just, I have one other interview I want to take.

And she's like, it just won't feel right unless I, you know, follow through and take this other interview. And that was on a Monday and by Monday afternoon, right after lunch, she emailed, she's like, I'm accepting the job going through the other interview only solidified what I thought was the right decision, which is going with you guys.

And that comes from the employer brand, which is the experience that you're giving clients as customers and your employees before they even start coming on board. So there's a lot of things that go into employer brand. It could be just first understanding who you are as an employer. If you can put into words who you are as an employer, you can start explaining that in your copy and you can start standing firm in that when you advertise your job postings.

So that's why I say level one, you got to know who you are as an employer.

Jason: [00:05:18] One of the exercises we make people do in our Agency Playbook is be like, how do you want your internal team to view the brand? It's not all about outside. I even remember too, like even in our interview process, we would make it kind of, I think at first started, it was just fun for me.

Um, but then I think it was the conversational starter. So a lot of times when they would have the first interview with me, I would walk into like with my full race gear, from the race caron. I had a tutu on over jeans, one time seeing if like, would they want to take pictures with me? Are they going to share it socially?

Like just to see how people react or are they just going to ignore it? And like if they just ignore it and don't mention like the big elephant in the room, like there's no way I want them working for me.

Laura: [00:06:10] Well, and that goes into your culture of candor, you know. Do you want people to talk or do you want them to just say, Nope, this is the way we're going. We're going forward. No questions asked. And a lot of that works right into who you are as an employer.

Jason: [00:06:28] Is it important to have like an interview guide? Like I see a lot of times people are all over the place in interviews. So what are you talking about? Like with an interview guide?

Laura: [00:06:39] Right. So let's go back to the elephant, you know, the tutu over top of the race car gear. So if that is something that's important to you to understand how people are going to react in unusual situations, we need to make that consistent within how you're hiring. Because if you do that for one person, but don't do it for all three that you're interviewing all of a sudden, you have a disjointed view of your candidates.

So the first thing that the interview guide helps with obviously is consistency. The second thing is going to help you with is really narrow down what it is that you're looking for in your role. So if you're looking to hire flexible and adaptable people, or perhaps you're looking for a part-time role.

So for example, we only hire part-time as part of our culture and our practices. And the reason for that is I believe very strongly and having a workforce that is passionate on, on a multitude of levels. So whether that be family, whether that be, you know, rescuing animals, whether that be building your side business.

We want to make sure that that time is available for our team. So when we hire and we're looking for that adaptability and that flexibility, there are certain questions that we ask. Because what we don't want is somebody to come on board who actually wants a full-time job, but it's just taking the part-time work until they can get there.

And that's, in all honesty, it's happened before. And I'm sure anybody who's looked at that has seen that happen as well. All of a sudden, you know, four weeks in and the full-time gig shows up and the person who apparently only wanted part-time has gone. So how do we really dig into those questions?

And, that all comes from the interview guide.

Jason: [00:08:16] Gotcha. Very cool. And what's, let's say they pass the test. They tweeted about the tutu. You know, they ask questions, all this what's important about an offer letter?

Laura: [00:08:28] So gone are the days where you can shake somebody's hand and. Hire them and move forward.

And it's unfortunate because a lot of people build that environment of trust and they build that, you know, idea of just a very informal atmosphere and they don't want the heavy paperwork. But as an employer, you have the responsibility to protect your business. And you also have the responsibility to be clear and upfront with the person you're hiring.

And that offer letter is going to do both. It's going to explain the vacation, the salary, the hours of work. You know, what, if it wasn't clear that, you know, you have a 48-hour workweek and they thought it was 35, that's going to be a big misunderstanding upfront.

The most important thing that an offer letter's going to do for you is, though you're in the romance stage of your relationship. And though this person could do no wrong ever, or perhaps your business is in such a good place you could never foresee the opportunity that where you might need to let somebody go. There is going to be a time where that relationship needs to come to an end. And that offer letter is going to outline how the end is going to go.

And that as an employer is the single most important part of the offer letter.

Jason: [00:09:41] Gotcha. Let's say we hired someone they've been working for us for four months and we realized this cat's not the right person for us. And, you know, we need to send them on their way. What's the best way for us to do that without putting our agency in danger.

Laura: [00:10:01] The single best way is to make sure that you have a solid offer letter four months before. That's going to be, you know, whether it's by a seasoned professional, whether it's by a lawyer providing you with that information. That's very, you know, each state probably has certain things that needs to be included. That needs to be required on the offer letter.

But that offer letter is what's going to make that four-month termination go a lot easier.

Jason: [00:10:24] Gotcha. Okay. I see a lot of times people are just like, Hey, you're gone. And they don't have, you know, whenever we were, terminating a relationship, we would always have to make sure that we had multiple people in the room. Uh, so it wasn't like, Oh, you know, well, you did this. And they're like, no, that didn't happen.

Laura: [00:10:47] We just had that last week, actually with the client who, you know, they wanted to terminate the person early, cause they always came in early. So before I even got there, cool, that works.

But I said, make sure you have someone else in the room. Well, who? Nobody's here. And I said, well, just, just make sure that there's somebody, it's all glass walls. I said just, you know, outside the office, even. And lo and behold, we did not expect this person to turn. And it was like, Oh, thank goodness somebody else was there.

You know, as just a frame of reference to say, Nope, this is exactly what went down. So yeah, definitely having that second person is important and providing the person with paperwork as well. So when they go away, they're not interpreting what you said, but they actually have it written down.

Jason: [00:11:30] Yeah. We've had people go kicking and screaming, like literally like the most calm people that you would never expect it. It was almost like going up to like this little baby Chihuahua and then this Chihuahua turning into like this Wolf, trying to like kill you. Like, literally I'm like, I did not see that one coming.

Laura: [00:11:50] And then the ones that you think in your all prepped for and, you know, perhaps even on, you know, very rare occasions, we've, you know, had the police on speed dial in case need be. Those ones are like, all right, we'll see ya.

Jason: [00:12:02] I think those are the ones that they're just used to it.

Like I've been fired from every job I've ever held. Like okay. Yep. Sign this. Okay. Here you go. I'm good. Cool. Awesome. Well, this has all been great. Um, is there anything I didn't ask you that you think would benefit the audience?

Laura: [00:12:25] You know what I think at the end of the day, understanding who you are as an employer and making sure you're hiring for that, building yourself an interview guide, that's actually going to dig deep for that, and then making sure that you're protecting your business with that offer letter.

Those are the three most important things you can do as you build your team.

Jason: [00:12:43] Awesome. And, uh, where can people reach out to you guys?

Laura: [00:12:47] So you can find me at www.essentialhr.ca and then if you go essentialhr.ca/swenk, we have a great little five steps to finding and aligning your employer brand with your HR systems. So people can grab that there.

Jason: [00:13:03] You don't look old enough to use www that's only for old people.

Laura: [00:13:08] Well, I appreciate that. And so would the person who sells me my skincare.

Jason: [00:13:14] I always laugh when people are like www. I'm like really? Usually, my 70-year-olds always say that I'm like, no, no, no, no.

Laura: [00:13:23] Yeah. So I was talking to a friend, who's building a business and I said, well, make sure you start building your email list. And she's like, I don't check my email. I was like, and there's the generational gap.

Jason: [00:13:33] Awesome. Well, cool. Well, thanks so much for coming on the show. If you guys liked this episode and you want to know even more systems for really being able to truly scale your agency. I'm not talking about growing your agency because growing is just growing your revenue.

But if you want to know how to truly scale and what are the right systems you need to put in place, make sure you get a JasonSwenk.com/playbook. And that will show you all the systems that you need.

So then you can have that freedom in your agency that you always wanted rather than be that prisoner and be that toll booth owner for everyone coming to you.

So go to jasonswenk.com/playbook. Until next time have a Swenk day.

Lacie Edgeman is a Partner and VP of Finance at PrograMetrix. She has extensive experience in finance within the marketing and creative industry. Lacie prides herself in helping hold her agency to high standards while keeping their projects on budget without sacrificing vision or quality. She is on the show to share the importance of niching down in order to scale. She also explains the difference between growing and scaling and why both are important.

Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM

1. Grow your profit margins with a niche. Lacie says without a niche, you're looking at 10% margins, but with a niche, it's 25%. With a specialization, revenue increases becoming more efficient, yielding a net profit increase.
2. There is a difference between growing and scaling your agency. It's important to know the difference and know when it's time for each. Growing requires the investment of time and resources. Scaling means bringing in more revenue without additional expenses.
3. Use your right project management tool to its full capability. It's one of the fastest and easiest ways to scale. Rather than just using your PM software for task management, you can automate things for efficiency. That provides true scale.

Verblio: Today's episode of the Smart Agency Masterclass is sponsored by Verblio. Check out Verblio.com/smartagency and get 50% off your first month of content creation. Our team loves using Verblio because of the ease in their process and their large pool of crowd-sourced writers.

Jason: [00:00:00] On this episode, I talk with an agency owner about the difference between growing your agency and scaling. And there's a big difference. And I think all of you will really like this. She comes from a finance background, she's a co-owner at an amazing agency. And so she gives us a really good perspective of what you need to do in order to scale your agency. So, enjoy.

Hey, welcome to the show.

Lacie: [00:00:30] Hi, nice to be here.

Jason: [00:00:00] Yeah, I'm excited to have you on and tell your guys' story. So tell us who you are and what do you do? Yeah, so we are PrograMetrix.

Lacie: [00:00:30] We are a PrograMetrix media buying agency and programmatic is such one of those terms that is a little bit confusing to people, but it's really just simply the automated buying of ad space.

So think about Hulu. The commercials you see on Hulu or Spotify, or even those display ads you see on forbes.com. And I am a partner here at the agency and I have a background in finance and operations. And I know we're going to be talking about niching today, which is very important. And my career path has been a little bit of a niche as well.

So I started out in a traditional creative shop. Moved into a B2B agency, then finally made my way to digital and then niched a little bit further into programmatic, which I'm very excited about. I really do feel like it's the future of advertising.

Jason: [00:01:31] Awesome. So tell us, how did you get started in the first agency?

Lacie: [00:01:35] What was that story? Yeah. So somebody took a chance on me. I think, uh, probably a lot of the viewers have nonlinear paths into marketing or were into advertising and mine was very similar. So I was actually in the construction industry and was getting my degree in finance and wanted to move to Austin, Texas, and had an agency that kind of just rolled the dice on me with my finance background and, uh, started working there.

And I just love, I love agency world. I think people either love it or hate it. And I just absolutely love it. Fast-paced, exciting, never a dull moment.

Jason: [00:02:14] That's awesome. So let's kind of jump into it a little bit about specialization. You know, a lot of people struggle with this because they feel that they're going to miss out. But you know, how did you guys go about specializing? And not per se, just picking programmatic, but how did you guys have the confidence, and what were, kind of, some of the steps that you guys went down in order to specialize?

Lacie: [00:02:37] Yeah. And I know this I'm probably preaching to the choir here. The specialization is so important. So one of the things we looked at when we specialized is, you know, what were the advantages and disadvantages. And we just felt like we weren't going to be able to scale the business. So there is a difference between growing and scaling and, I want to talk about that a little bit later.

But that's one of the reasons we really looked at it and programmatic specifically because it is at the forefront of advertising. And really what we feel like as the future of advertising. We also, our co-founders kind of grew up in the ad tech space. So it was kind of a natural fit, but I think there was a year there where we kind of experimented with the whole full service and it just wasn't working out.

So what we found is that it is very counterintuitive that people think, Oh, I want to capture this revenue going out the door and I don't want to let it go. But what they don't realize is it really hurts their business. You can not deliver at a high level to your clients. So you're, you're hurting your reputation by taking on work that you're just not specialized for.

Jason: [00:03:44] Yeah, I totally agree. What's the difference in your eyes about growing and scaling? Because it is a pretty big leap between the two. So can you talk a little bit more about that?

Lacie: [00:03:56] Yeah, of course. Growing and scaling. I think a lot of agencies don't really understand how big of a difference it is. Right?

So growing is where you add revenue at the same rate as you're adding expenses. And so what happens again? He'd been in finances there's less leftover at the end of the day. If you can scale, if you can be efficient, if you can put in those processes, you can scale meaning that you're adding more revenue with less expenses.

And you're really making that amount at the bottom, that kind of you're left with, a little bit bigger at the end of the day.

Jason: [00:04:31] Yeah. There's so many people and me, and I've gone through it in the past where, you know, we kept growing and I was like, oh my gosh. And agencies are notorious for this.

Be like, Oh, we're, you know, so-and-so millions in revenue. And everybody's like, Oh, that'd be nice. But. Can you look at, you know, oh man, I'm actually making less this year and we grew. Rather than figure out those efficiencies and those systems.

So what were some of, I presume you guys probably learned this the hard way, is that true? Or did you guys just pop right out and be like, we figured it all out.

Lacie: [00:05:07] Well, I think there was, like I said, about a year of us experimenting, but it was pretty, we like figured it out pretty soon. It was like, okay, we know what we're good at. We know what we're not good at. And. If we just realized we were using a lot of extra time to do those things we weren't good at. And it just wasn't sustainable for long term.

Jason: [00:05:27] For the people listening, because a lot of them are in a growing phase, but not a scaling phase. Or a lot of them say, I don't want my agency to be any bigger because they really haven't figured out the growing part or the scaling part. Right. So was there steps that you guys took that made this process easier that they could be like, Oh, let me look here.

Lacie: [00:05:51] Yeah. So I think first of all, you need to identify what you're really good at, right? And what you can do at a high level, deliver great results. Where you can be the best in the industry, go with that and then create partnerships. So one of the things we've done and we do believe in true partnerships, both on the client-side and the vendor side, create those partnerships where you vet those companies.

And you can feel very confident that if you don't do that, you're not good at it. That you have a partner that can do it. Our clients love that. Right? When we commit to doing something, we're going to do it very well. And if we can't, we're going to let them know, Hey, that's not something we specialize in, but here we can actually help facilitate that process for you. Make it easy for you.

Again, I think that the hardest thing is that fear. That fear of that revenue going to another person. But, you just get more if you are collaborative and have those partnerships. So that would be one of the first things; a partnership level.

The other thing that's really important is that process, right? And I know we actually use the Agency Playbook and so looking at those processes. So a lot of the things we do is we have daily huddles. So we're always on the same page. We have weekly meetings and then we use a project management tool. It's very important. We have, um, I know you talk a lot about having those automated systems in place. We do as well.

We have intake forms. Where somebody fills out a form and then all of the tasks are created in the project management tool. So that's very important for that scaling as well, instead of just growing.

Jason: [00:07:24] Yeah, no, I, I love that. I mean, it's, it's the little things that you do. A lot of us, you know, as we're trying to scale agency, we just look at kind of the shiny red objects and we think.

Well, the cure or the end all, be all is to just get more revenue in the door and sell more. But it's, if you don't have the right foundation, you know. Kind of like when you guys probably jumped in the Playbook, you know, you got a video from being like, hey, focus on the first three systems. These are the most important.

And then you can go on to all the other ones. Cause we all jumped to prospecting and sales and think that's it. Or, we don't even think about kind of the delivery part.

What were some of the other efficiencies that, or processes that you guys put in place to make you guys more efficient?

Lacie: [00:08:14] Yeah, so kind of going back to that form. So one great example is the project management tool, right? And, and I think people don't utilize that. First of all, some people don't even have a project management tool.

Jason: [00:08:26] Yeah. It's more like task management.

Lacie: [00:08:27] Yeah, right. So using, using that to its full capacity is one of the best things I can recommend.

And there's a lot of really great tools out there, but the tool we use, we can actually have our clients submit a request form. Um, again, it automatically schedules all of the tasks for us. So there's, there's no question about when something's due, how we go about it. And then we're able to actually organize all of the internal stuff as well.

All of those internal projects we have. And, I think prioritizing those internal projects, um, to your point, you know, spending that time on those first three sections of the book is really important. Like people don't think about that. They're worried about everything else, but, um, until you do that, you will not have that, that scaling capacity.

Jason: [00:09:15] So I'm not very good at finance at all. So I love talking with people and surrounding myself that are really good at finance and having that kind of background. Because like you start putting spreadsheets. I'm sure you probably love spreadsheets. Like I look at them and I feel kind of a little dizzy, you know, looking at them, but it's awesome.

And I think all of you guys compliment each other from, you know, the other owner and owners that you guys have. So what are the things on, um, a weekly or quarterly basis that you're looking at from finance to make sure that they didn't cease going in the direction that you guys want it to go?

Lacie: [00:09:52] Yeah. So we do have like executive meetings, bi-weekly executive meetings, which again, I think it's important to get that time. But one of the things that I keep a pretty close eye on, is the revenue, right? I think that's, that's one of the things that you have to keep an eye on. And we have like a revenue forecast sheet and I created that.

And again, in the efficiency lens, you can pivot all of the data. So it makes it very easy to see what's going on. What are we doing next month? Where do we need to fill the gap? We have it split out by, you know, revenue that's under contract, revenue that we expect to get, and then revenue, that's kind of up in the air so that we can, um, go after that.

And that's very similar to your process, right? That, you know, kind of keeping those in sections and then focusing there so we can very easily see just with a glance. Okay, we need to go get some more new business. Or we need to double down on what we think we should expect, get those contracts signed. So from a finance perspective, where we look at that a lot, we know that revenue isn't the important number.

And I know you would agree with that as well. Right? The net profit is the important part, but it does start somewhere. We've got to make sure you've got that coming through. So we look at that. We also look at our client roster, right? We want to make sure that we're not too heavy on one client versus another client.

We're very lucky here that we have a very diverse portfolio, but I have worked for other agencies where you have that one big client and it's just, it can be very detrimental to the agency. For the staff and for the management, I think everybody's constantly looking over their shoulder saying, okay, I hope the client's happy.

And, um, it also gives us a lot of flexibility to be honest with our clients, which is really important to us. I don't think a lot of agencies get that opportunity because they're worried about that revenue, you know, going out the door and I can't speak honestly. And, and that's really important to us so that, that we actually have that flexibility is nice.

Jason: [00:11:49] There's so many people that they do, their budgeting kind of looking at their bank account. But with, you know, when you guys do kind of the proforma or projections. You know, can get a really good snapshot of, you know, like you were saying. Like when the bad times are going to come and usually if you have six months to plan for it, I think that's more than enough time. Sometimes even a quarter to plan for that.

Cause I always found that what we do today actually affects us three, four months down the road. So if like, if you're looking at your pipeline and it dried up. You know, the next quarter is going to be hard to start.

Lacie: [00:12:28] Yeah. I think that's a great point and something that we, you know, do very well is keeping an eye on that.

And what I always say is because I know there's a lot of philosophies out there and people really care about cash, which you need to be concerned about cash don't get me wrong. But I always say that your P&L or your proforma is the canary in the coal mine. Right? It's going to tell you what is happening.

And, and so, you know, cash is important, but it's the end of the day, your P&L and what you're forecasting is going to tell you what's going to happen with cash. So we do focus most of our energy there in the forecasting piece. And I will say, you know, when the pandemic hit, I think a lot of agencies had a hard time and we were able to pivot very quickly and we kind of knew what was coming down the line.

We were able to make some changes, communicate those changes to our team. And we came out even better, I think after that because we had that battle scar. I think everybody has, uh, has those battle scars now?

Jason: [00:13:26] Yeah, I think I, I saw, um, a huge step for a month, like in March for everybody where it was just.

It was so new. Everybody was panicking. Everybody was stopping their marketing, which I always loved that quote by Henry Ford. He was like, stopping your marketing is, like stopping your watch to save time. And then people were like, Oh, well, stopping marketing is the dumbest thing because especially digital marketing because we need to reach our people, but we're not.

We're not able to right now. And so I've seen so many agencies like yourself have such huge growth through such a hard time. Um, you know, for certain businesses, because, you know, we offer a unique solution. They're kind of the frontline people for business. You know, I'm not taking anything away from the doctors and nurses are, the first responders and that.

But, you know, for business, like all agencies are really kind of that first responder. So it's, um, it's exciting to see what people are able to do and really create.

If an agency's listening right now, you know, since you've worked with a number of different agencies and you own, you know, part-owner of this agency, what's a good margin that you guys are shooting for, or that you think people should shoot for in the agency space?

Lacie: [00:14:47] Yeah, that's a great question. What I would say is it kind of depends on what you're focusing on, right? If you're a creative shop, I think your margins are going to be a little bit lower. If you're just doing digital advertising, specifically social and Google. I think your margins are going to be a little bit lower because again, that tends to be more commoditized.

And you have to try a lot harder to be kind of out in front of the pack. Um, but if you are able to niche again, this is the whole part about niching. If you're able to really niche, you should be able to get those margins close to 25 at a minimum 25% is what I would say. But if you're not niching, you're probably at the 10% range, that's the importance of niching.

So I think, you know, you have to stop looking at the revenue, going out the door, and think about the ability to really, to get those net profits up.

Jason: [00:15:38] Yeah. I mean, when you have that specialization, you know, like, this weekend, my poor son was playing flag football and uh, snapped his shoulder. And so, you know, we're not going to go to a generalist.

Right? Like literally, and it's, it's the same thing. Like we're going to go to a specialist that he's literally right there right now, going to a specialist to figure out what we need to do. And they make a ton of money because they are the specialists because they know that one craft better than everyone else who's like, oh yeah, your temperature's high. Take this and call me in the morning. And that's what I tell agencies all the time. And they fight it for so long. And then once they make that decision, they're like, why did I wait so long? But I think it's a process that you have to go through and it takes some people a decade. Sometimes longer, sometimes years, months. You never know.

So let's switch focus and kind of wrap up a little bit about, and I love to interview women on the show. Especially women owners, because there's far fewer than men. Why do you think that is?

Lacie: [00:16:49] You know, that's a great question. I don't know the answer to that question.

What I know is that it seems to be getting better. That's what I know. I know there's a 3% conference that happens every year and that I think has brought some attention to the problem. I am also a part of a group called Together Digital, which is a women's group for digital specifically. So there are some new avenues for us.

Um, and there's a lot of agency owners there. I don't know the answer to that question. All I know is that I feel like women, in general, are working on it. Right. We're trying to figure out why we're trying to create the solutions to be more present in the space.

Jason: [00:17:32] And I, I see a shift coming and I get real excited because more and more, the people that we interview are women.

And I'm like, this is awesome. And so, that's always really good. So I'm happy for that.

Is there anything I didn't ask you that you think would benefit the audience?

Lacie: [00:17:48] You know, I, I think we did a really great job today. Just covering off on just that, that niching and I know again, you and I think very similarly, I just wish I could encourage everybody out there to really take a look, even if you're just want to take a piece of your business and try to niche there and see how it goes.

But it's so powerful and you can be doing so much more with your agency. If you could take a lane, stick to it, and you will see those revenues go up. Well, you'll see the bottom line go up really. And that's the most important part.

Jason: [00:18:21] Yeah, I just had to commit to it for a while. And I always tell people, but I'm like, look, as soon as you pick a specialization or a niche, whichever you want, you'll still get work outside of that.

It's just, you're marketing to that particular audience and you know them better than they know themselves. So they're going to listen to you and, and then you really stop being that commodity or that "me too" agency, I always tell everybody about. They have a problem, they come to you to solve it.

It's kinda like that Vanilla Ice song. You got a problem. Yo, I'll solve it.

Awesome. So you guys don't want to hear me say, obviously. What's the website address that everybody can go and check the agency out?

Lacie: [00:19:05] Yeah, it's a PrograMetrix.com and, um, definitely check us out on LinkedIn. We have a ton of marketing content out there. Even some things that you can use to learn and, and even go back to your clients with too.

Jason: [00:19:19] Awesome. Well, thanks for coming on the show. And if you guys enjoyed this episode and you want to be surrounded by amazing agency owners, where they can see the things that you might not be able to see, that can challenge you to hold you accountable, have fun with, I want to invite all of you to go to DigitalAgencyElite.com.

This is our exclusive mastermind for agency owners that really want to grow and scale faster, and they want to do it with a group that understands and empathizes with them and likes to have fun. So go to DigitalAgencyElite.com. And until next time have a Swenk day.

Jacque Spitzer is the CEO of Raindrop, the direct-to-consumer marketing agency he founded in 2014. He's committed to bringing fresh, new creative to his agency and their clients. Jacque's been involved in some of the most creative and entertaining videos on the internet. And he's sharing some of the lessons learned and insider secrets on making great videos for your agency brand. Generate more leads when your video ads don't suck!

1. Test your video creative to figure out what messaging resonates. These are solution statements that typically come from the sales or customer service team. Don't assume the target audience already knows something. Instead, test out four or five statements to see which ones stick.
2. Make sure you have the right creative talent. We all think we're funny. But if you're trying to go for humor in videos, copywriters need a comedian's help. There's comedic timing and delivery to consider.
3. Be authentic, be yourself. Don't worry too much about appearing goofy. In order for your video to be entertaining, be less concerned with the perception of silliness and more concerned with energy and animation. The camera adds 10 pounds. and also take away 20% of your energy.

Oribi: Today's episode of the Smart Agency Masterclass is sponsored by Oribi. Check out Oribi.io/smartagency for a free trial. Plus when you sign up for Oribi get 20% off the first three months with promo code: Smart Agency

Jason: [00:00:00] On this episode, I talk with an agency that's been a part of some of the funniest videos on the internet from like Dr. Squash to you, name it. And we talk about how do you not make your video ads suck? How do you really take your videos and make them entertaining? It's a lot of fun in this episode and I hope you enjoy.

Hey, welcome to the show.

Jacque: [00:00:28] Thanks for having me. It's an honor.

Jason: [00:00:29] Yeah. I'm excited to have you on, so tell us who you are and what do you do?

Jacque: [00:00:34] So my name is Jacque Spencer. I'm CEO of Raindrop. I started the agency pretty young, about decade in now and, we are D to C focused, about 80% DTC. We do about 20% B to C. So very consumer brand-focused agency.

And where we really kind of come into being known nationally is for our top of funnel, social creative. So we created ads for brands like Dr. Squatch and. Crossrope, Omigo, Shady Rays.

Jason: [00:01:05] Wait, you did the Dr. Squatch one?

Jacque: [00:01:07] Dr. Squash, yeah. We had been on a tremendous journey with these DTC clients over the last three years or so.

And it's a thrill. It's amazing to see these companies grow by 10 times, 20 times, 30 times their revenues, and being part of a creative engine behind it.

Jason: [00:01:24] That's awesome. Well, let's go back a decade. How'd you get started?

Jacque: [00:01:29] Well, I was working at NBC, as a journalist and, um, one of my colleagues now, my wife, asked me if I would help shoot a video for her personal trainer.

And I started shooting videos for him. And one thing led to the next, I started getting referrals and I didn't have a plan to own an agency. I didn't, I'd never worked at an agency before. I didn't know anything about marketing per se, but I just followed my instincts for storytelling into problem-solving for businesses.

And yeah, I was 24 at the time. I had a bunch of roommates and so I was fortunate to not have a lot of life responsibility and I just went for it and it started slow. To say the least. And, um, you know, this year we're at about 50 employees and I've grown tremendously and have had a lot of fun along the way.

Jason: [00:02:19] Well, take me back to the point when, cause there's a lot of different things that we go through from accidental agency owner, like we are right. To you know, actually bringing on a team to growing, thinking that growing is the better option versus scaling. So walk us through some of the phases that you went back.

If you can remember, like, I know, I remember when, if I was interviewing myself like about like the first agency interview, I'd be like, I don't remember anything.

Jacque: [00:02:49] Yeah. I mean, you know, it's interesting how much, like, just how much self-reflection is involved. Because I think about the fact all the time that I started an agency, well, I started a business, I shouldn't say I started an agency. I started a business. It became an agency.

And I didn't have any direct background in the agency world, or life. And in this type of structure, I've never had managed anyone directly. And now I'm partially responsible in some way for all these people. And so for me, there was different like milestones where I was like I remember the first one was when we started having actual overhead.

So like an office and health insurance, and starting to realize like, Oh, this is why you can't charge $50 an hour for your time all the time.

Jason: [00:03:32] Like what year was that?

Jacque: [00:03:35] For me? That was like year three. Yeah. So, I mean really the first couple of years, and it was enough to feed myself and then, um, you know, a couple of subcontractors and then our first employees were year three and the hockey stick growth has come in the last three years or so.

Jason: [00:03:52] And what was the mindset shift? Because there's a lot of people listening that they go, well, I'm kind of doing everything from three years and below of like, I'm kind of doing everything myself. I'm using contractors, that kind of stuff. What was the shift of going, Hey, let me get an office, let me start hiring people. And then like, how did that go?

Jacque: [00:04:13] I was really fortunate. I have a business partner named Madame Wagner and Adam had worked for two other very large agencies at the time. And so it was kind of a nice mix of my creative storytelling and just passion and hard work and desire. And his ability to see what was missing in terms of structure, even in the way we contracted things. Introducing service lines, that weren't just project-based.

And we still do a lot of video, photo, and web work, but it was just so many project based things. So every year we started at zero. And so that was a big aha. Um, and he was like, I can help you get there if we work together. And so we made an agreement that at a certain revenue number, we would form a partnership and we were able to do that.

And so once we had some annual contracts in place that were a little bit more steady, we felt better about making the leap to taking on some of the overhead.

Jason: [00:05:06] Awesome. Let's talk about video, you know, many years ago even before I started this podcast, I wanted to do video because there were so many people out there just putting out blog posts.

Right. You remember years ago? Yeah. There are so many people outsourcing it. Like you never knew what, like, what were their tone? What was their personality? And I was like, look, I just, I don't care how bad I look on camera, whatever it is. I think my first video I was trying to be serious at first.

And, we'll link up in the show notes or you go on YouTube. It's like one of the first videos. I remember seeing, cause this was in '14. So you remember, like, the Dollar Shave Club video?

Jacque: [00:05:47] Of course.

Jason: [00:05:48] You guys didn't do that, did you?

Jacque: [00:05:50] No, but like, if we were creating our own barbecue sauce, that was like a main ingredient of the barbecue sauce. Like, no, you need what they have.

Jason: [00:05:57] Yeah. So I was recording this video, trying to be serious about like, hey, you know, my strategies work and that kind of stuff, but my cat kept coming up and bugging me. So finally I was just, I picked up my cat. I was like, my tips are effing. Awesome.

And, and literally it was like a parody off this one and it was got really successful. So let's talk about how agencies listening. How they can use video. And then I also definitely want to get into the Dr. Squatch video. Cause I watched that all the time. Cause I just, I think it's hilarious.

Jacque: [00:06:29] No, I appreciate your enjoyment of it.

We enjoy making them just as much as people enjoy watching them. So the question is more so the idea around video for agencies?

Jason: [00:06:39] How can agencies really use video and really get to the next level. Right. So yeah, people are just using video and whatever it is, or just putting like these awful ads together. So like how can we step it up?

Yeah, I think

Jacque: [00:06:53] one of the kind of secret starting point tips that I would give to people when it comes to video storytelling is to, and you mentioned earlier, like, not to take themselves too seriously, because when you think about the different mediums where you're consuming the video, cause you can't just think about video in a vacuum. It's like, where are you actually watching it? You're probably watching it on either Facebook, LinkedIn, maybe even Tik Tok these days, Instagram.

And so it's like the other competing videos in that space that you're watching are usually a dog that is really well-trained and bouncing a bone on its nose, or some girl talking about her political affiliations while she does her makeup, or, you know, it's like the, the world that you are swimming in is a world of entertainment.

It's not a world of information. And so when I think about making video, it's truly table stakes to be entertaining when you tell your story via video, then that's what you were talking about with your cat. I mean, you experienced it firsthand and you're like, oh my gosh, of course like, cause this is what I would want to watch if I were on the other end.

As much as we all want to sound like we have some kind of PhD in brand or something. People want to see the guy with the cat that says, you know what, or in some cases, the guy with the Tesla or whatever it is on YouTube where these videos start and people have these fancy cars.

Bottom line is when it comes to video storytelling, uh, for anyone, but particularly for service line businesses like an agency or anything else is you have to be entertaining and otherwise it's like, why exist on the internet?

If you want them to have your own coursework or something, that's like, you know then, okay. Be serious all day. But if you want to keep people's attention and grab people's attention, you have to be interesting.

Jason: [00:08:32] So it's easier said than done. So let's say you're an agency. Cause I always tell agency as I'm like, look, just start off doing it.

Like you're going to suck in the very beginning at video. And if it's just like telling someone how to do something, do that. And then like, how can they go from just educational content to more entertaining content? Like what's that process that you walk your clients through in order to create the Dr. Squatch video?

That's a

Jacque: [00:09:05] great question. I will, here's what I will do. I will go macro to the micro. So the macro is that certain people think in a way where they understand attention and entertainment and what will connect. So our business, we work with five full-time comedians and we pair them with our writers internally as well.

And the reason is, is that we see people who are on one extreme or the other. So sometimes people make something really, really funny that doesn't sell. Right. And like people will watch, but it's like at the end of the day, maybe the product seems like a joke or the service seems like a joke. It doesn't, it's not structured right.

But then if you have all these people that understand the structure of how to tell a story, but not how to hold people's attention. So we pair our comedian with our internal writers. Our internal writers are fantastic. Like, I don't know that they could probably write one of these types of scripts on their own, but that added spice of having someone who's professionally entertaining, it does make a difference.

And we learned that. We learned at firsthand by what happened was we watched the Dollar Shave Club video and studied it, some of the very early Harmon brothers stuff. And, you know, I literally made a recipe out of it. I was like, what is going into this? That seems to work. And we'll tweak it from there.

The first video we did, did not do well. It was a dud and we tried to write it all internally. It was like half my jokes. Like it just wasn't that good. And when I went back, I learned that the owner of the Dollar Shave Club, who, the guy who stars in the video. He was an improv comedian. And he talks about in one of his articles, he talks about that being like the most underrated component, but like people are like, you have to understand comedy in order to pull off the timing, in order to make a video work.

And that's what led us to, uh, finding James Schrader, who is a star of the Dr. Squatch videos, that he was a local comedian. And he was doing all right, but we saw him and we were like, that guy is perfect. It was actually our senior videographers bachelor party that we were at. And so we tracked him down and the rest is history in terms of that.

But that's, that's where it all started, where we realized if you want to make professionally entertaining content, you should probably talk to professionally entertaining people and not just try to be something that you're not. And to your point earlier, when we were talking offline about putting people who are smarter and more creative around you.

Well, that's a great example. People that are in front of people every night, they know the pulse of America. What people are laughing at, they're touring America. They're great. So our comedians are definitely a big part of what we do.

Jason: [00:11:44] What other ingredients, like when you were deconstructing the Dollar Shave Club video, which is so instrumental to so many different things, what other ingredients did you find? You know, obviously one of them's use a freaking professional comedian that will help. So what were some of them?

Jacque: [00:12:01] I think one of the things that, um, what's fascinating to me about like, again, going back to the micro is. I actually don't see Dollar Shave Club as the beginning of this. What I see Dollar Shave Club is the first to do on the internet. But what I went back and we've really realized, especially in working with a company like Worx power tools, we've made like eight or 10 videos this year just for works.

They got their start in direct to consumer power tools through infomercials. And what I realized is that, you know, Jason, you and I grew up watching infomercials and they keep our attention for 30 minutes on television. Even though we didn't want the ad, we knew it was an ad. And we're like, well, why? Why are we spending 30 minutes of our life watching an ad for something we'd probably never buy, especially as like a 14 year old? Like, why am I watching this like toaster oven that can do it all or Oxiclean, like why am I watching this? And so for me, I look at it like the attention has shifted online, but the overarching human interest in something like an infomercial always existed and it exists now. And these three minute type videos that we make is the infomercial of the internet age. I mean, so for me, it's like, when you talk about those specific ingredients, it's like the numbers of call to actions.

The ability to remain entertaining, but not make a joke of the actual product. But I think is the biggest rookie mistake we see, is that people, you can make jokes around the product, but the product itself is not a joke. Right? You want people to buy it and you want them to take it seriously in some capacity.

And so I would say that's, if you were to look at infomercials, they are the predecessor of the online, they call them, uh, you know, anchor videos or, or hero videos. And then from there, I mean, like, I would say that like anything, the structure's there and then the rest of it is freestyle. And sometimes something just really resonates with people.

Jason: [00:13:56] How many call to actions? You mentioned like how many call to actions. So what have you seen works the best?

Jacque: [00:14:02] You know,, we do about three to four throughout. And then we usually end out with making sure that we're like, okay, you've spent three minutes with us, you gotta click the, like, you gotta go. Like you gotta check out the site. And the beauty of these longer videos, like I think about.

You know, if you're paying for an impression, I'm gonna get a little, little, little agency meta on you here. But if you're paying for an impression, it's like, okay, I'm paying a couple cents for an impression. And let's say someone watches your video and they watch 90 seconds or two minutes of it. They go from, I've never heard of this product or service to I now I'm pretty educated on it.

And not only am I do I know about it. I know enough to potentially refer someone else who might actually need it. Like maybe I'm not the target audience. So in other words, I watch a video on a gasless leaf blower, and maybe I have a gardener and I don't need it. But I see my neighbor with the gas leaf blower and they're like, oh there's an ordinance and you have to have electric leaf blowers now, which is really happening in my city. I can be like, oh, you should check out the Worx leaf jet, it's I saw a commercial for. It's it's electric. Oh, Hey, thanks neighbor. I mean, that's the power of actually understanding the product or service and spending time with it.

And it costs the same to reach someone for three minutes as it does for 15 seconds. And so at scale, it really works well.

Jason: [00:15:25] What's the best way to start off these videos to capture their attention. Right? Like I, I look at it as the first couple of seconds are literally going to engage you. You're going to be like skip next or whatever it is. So what have you seen works the best?

Jacque: [00:15:43] Yes. Great question. So, the answer to that is partially, you don't know, which is why we create multiple openings and we test them on YouTube unlisted to find the winner. Because statistically, they can be very, very different. Um, in terms of the openings, typically we're doing something that grabs people visually and, or challenges their own perception of the reality. Like I love the original Dr. Squatch where we say the soap you're showering with is shit and then we go into, you're probably using the same bar your mommy bought for you.

Well, if you are, in fact, someone who's using the same bar soap you've been using for 10 to 15 years, like you have my attention because you're like you called me out about something I didn't even know I was doing.

And so we try to create those types of moments where like for instance, we made a video for, We Ship Floors and I didn't realize until we started getting into their video, like how gross carpeting is like, it's disgusting. Like when you realize like how much stuff gets trapped in carpet, like you'll never, you'll never enjoy carpet the same way ever again.

Jason: [00:16:50] That's why my wife, uh, when we built our house, she was like, no carpet, all hardwoods.

Jacque: [00:16:55] I know it's the way to go. So, and specifically We Ship Floors because they're water resistant, no just kidding, but a little random plug. But yeah, no, I mean, that's, that's what we see.

It's like challenging people's perception of the reality and giving them something entertaining. I mean, look, if you can make a video better than the video that we're about to watch. They'll stick around.

Jason: [00:17:15] Yeah. You know, I like calling them out on something. I know one of the videos that was really popular for us is like, Hey, are you, do you constantly keep sending proposals only to have people go completely silent on you?

And they're like, yeah. Or like you think of that guy on Instagram. I think it's like, I think he's in New York, but like he never says anything. He just holds up signs. Signs of shit we think of but never say. And I think those always work, you know, the best because it's like, Oh, finally someone said it, but you had the freedom to call it out.

Jacque: [00:17:50] What's funny is I remember your ad. Like, I didn't realize it was your ad, but when you just said that, I was like, Oh my gosh, I've seen this guy before. Was that on YouTube? Where'd you run those?

Jason: [00:18:00] On Facebook. Yeah. But you got to call someone out on it and then, you know, and then I think too, it's what suspense, so it's kind of, what, what are some other other elements I see is, is like going well, here's probably what you're doing now.

And then here's what you could be doing. And it's a little suspense about like, Oh man. Like you were saying, it's a story. It's like, they want a happy ending to all kinds of funny stuff on that one. They want a happy ending, but they don't know how to get there. So they're going to keep watching or listening to what's going on.

Jacque: [00:18:37] So I think. We use them as like, we call it like problem solution statements and going all the way back to our predecessor, the infomercial. One of the things that they do so well is they'll say, Oh, like you can do these three obvious things. Right. But then here's 10 things you've never thought to do with this thing.

And all of a sudden you're like, Okay. Like, I can see myself getting some Oxiclean because I could, I don't own a boat, but like I could wash it if I had one. Like, you know, it's like, you're just, it's crazy. But like, if they do it and it's like, Oh, you can cut through this and that. And like, watch me cut through a shoe when you're like, why are you cutting through a shoe? But if I needed to, I can cut through a shoe.

And so it's like a, to your point that suspense and that like, It's an art and think about like, when you go to a fair and there's someone doing a live demonstration, same idea, right? Like they just suck you in. They're just so good. I feel like I should go to the local fair and get some of those people, man. That can make some great videos.

Jason: [00:19:30] Oh yeah. I mean, like this summer I got a boat for the family and I was going to buy a Boston Whaler and I was talking to the salesperson and he goes, well, you could cut the boat in half and it's still gonna float. I'm like, that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. And they literally have a video of them cutting a boat in half and still working.

And I'm like, all right. As I started watching, I'm like, wow, they're going to cut this boat in half? Like, I want to know what happens, but it's just talking about like, you know, no one's ever going to do it. Well, I'm sure people like you will do it demonstrating this.

Jacque: [00:20:08] I think that's brilliant because it's like taking safety to an extremity and you're like, you're not going to sink in this boat. It's like, let me prove it. And I've had it in half. It's pretty good.

Jason: [00:20:18] Yeah. Or, calling out something that really gets their attention. Like I love if I can remember right on the Dr. Squatch video, it's like you're using the same ingredients as like dishwasher or something like that. Like I'm like, oh, that's gross.

Jacque: [00:20:33] Yeah, no, I mean, it's, uh, we've played with so many different like intros and hooks and what matters to people and to your point, those, like, I never thought of that type of moment where it's like, it's, it's the same ingredients inside your dish soap. And you're like, oh, yeah, you're right. Like it happens to be Old Spice and it's called like tropical breezes or something, but it is the same type of formulation.

Again, it's like challenging people's perception of their own reality. And you can't unhear that. Right? It's like, I never knew that, but then I can't unhear it.

Jason: [00:21:07] Yeah. I'm just trying to think, like how could we help people really kind of position this more like, like when I'm working with someone and I asked them, I'm like, hey, walk me through the process of how you're pitching to people.

And then I kind of go, well, this is how we did it. Like, we did a lot of web design back in the day and I would say, just to get the person to really compare everyone else to us, I would say, well, you probably get asked the question all the time. What websites do you like? And they're like, yeah, it'd be like, do you want to know why? They're like, yeah, this is because they're going to copy someone else's work because they're freaking unoriginal.

And that's probably why your whole industry looks the same. And then they're like, Oh, that makes sense. I'm just trying to like break down a little bit more of what we can give everyone listening. Like how can they come up with moments like that to really kind of stop someone in the tracks. And then they can kind of go or, or what do you see like, I don't want to obviously stop the creator in these people too. Right? Like they think I have to start off with the dollar shave club video, or I can't release it, or I can't start off with, you know, the Dr. Squatch video. Like I need to come up with something that good and then they never release anything.

Jacque: [00:22:24] That's a great point because with all of these brands, I would say with half the brands we work with, we don't start with an anchor video because what we're trying to figure out is, what kind of messaging are people resonating with? So I call them doors to knock on, like, we're trying to figure out like these four to five doors even early on, we talked about when you said, well, what openings work?

And I'm like, honestly, I have my guesses. And then I'm always surprised by what does and doesn't work and we call them doors. And so those doors are usually created by really looking at those problems, solution statements. So some of those best statements can come from people's either their salespeople or their customer service team, or even just combing through reviews and seeing how people talk about the product. Because people will give you like, oh, I expected this, but this is what I got. And that was even better.

Or, you know, it's right there. Right. And so. We find it more challenging for people that are more startups because they don't, they haven't narrowed their number of doors. They haven't gotten that feedback. So people have been doing this it's more so they just take it for granted, like the thing that makes them give them that moment.

It's just so obvious to them or they don't even see it anymore. Right. It's like, Oh yeah, of course. People know that. And I was like, no, they don't, you know, like if you're a, a do it yourself installation thing, and you're like, oh, we've already made 15 videos about how to install it. Why do I need to show it in this one?

It's like, because fundamentally your brand. Like you'd have to show people that easy to install and they're like, Oh, I see what you mean. Because like, we're assuming that people saw our ad before. I'm like, correct. And so it's like creating those problem statements, like for instance, for, soap. It's not the fact that like, the reason that Dr Squatch is reaching the scale and the meteoric levels that they are isn't because it's an all natural soap. It is all-natural soap, but like if we had gone into this like it can cure psoriasis and in all seriousness, like some of the early messaging was posed that way, you know, it was very like almost clinical and like it's going to cause you cancer if you don't. Like that kind of stuff, it's like, okay, look like, I think we can all appreciate that.

Like we deserve better than laundry detergent out of our bodies. And so just trying to find a way to really like take this more clinical thing, but put it in a way that people can appreciate. But ultimately I hope I've answered the question, but it's really to create these doors and you never know which one's going to open.

And I think that's important. Cause I feel like people are trying to like their mindset sometimes is, I have to pick the perfect door and then, then they get stuck to your point. It's like, no pick five and like, see which one's open. And if none of them open, then figure out why didn't they open? Like, why are people not resonating with this?

Jason: [00:25:12] So let's use me as an example to kind of wrap up. So. I agree with the multiple doors, but like a lot of times, like we're just having a challenge. And I think you're talking about with doors for maybe the opening of the video. So how do you guys test it out? Like a lot of times, like how I test out and just put it out there, but how can I put the same kind of five of the same videos out in order to see how it works at the same time? Or like, how are you guys testing that?

Jacque: [00:25:43] Well, okay, so. I'll give the more complicated answer and the more simple answers. So the more complicated answer is most of the brands we're working with are spending tens of thousands, if not millions of dollars a month on social ads. And so they're very, very savvy.

And so they can, they can find out in 48 hours, which one of these are going to be statistically relevant or different. And so we're talking about like, at that scale, at that production level, like. It's kinda like they say ball don't lie. Like the numbers don't lie, but for more, what you're kind of, I think where you're coming from, which is like, look, someone's just trying to get started.

And they're just trying to put content out there. There's an interesting, I don't know if you've ever seen this show. Uh, what is it? It's like Master Chef or something.

Jason: [00:26:27] Yeah. And you know you're old when you start watching the home and garden, right?

Jacque: [00:26:31] Yeah. I know they have, um, the food network. They have this show well, the whole time what's my POV? What's my POV? What's my POV? Because I realize that like, at the end of the day, you can't be everything to everyone. So like, what's the thing that you're going to like to hang your hat on and not give up after like one or two, but like, to your point, like plug away and have like, chart a course on what it is that you think you can provide the most value on, of course.

And when it comes to capturing people's attention, being like, what is authentically me, but I think also don't be afraid to take some risks. What I mean by that is it's like, I think people feel goofy or silly or, dumb, like being animated and like being like to your point, grabbing their cat and saying something they wouldn't normally say.

And it's like, that's okay, because people are expecting to see something extraordinary, not something ordinary like they're expecting to see something that is different than what everyone would do with the same energy. And so don't feel bad about getting deep about performing, because I think people are like, oh, it's inauthentic.

And it's like, you can be authentic all day, but if people don't want to watch like you're not helping them. So, you know, it's okay to ramp up your energy a little bit and give yourself permission to do that. But I learned that back to my news days because they say that the camera adds 10 pounds and it takes, takes away about 20% of your energy it's lost, in the vapor.

So it's like you have to ramp yourself up at least 25%. And that would be something that would, I would pass on to anyone making a video.

Jason: [00:28:06] Yeah. I heard that about the camera adds 10 pounds and then I would go to people. I'm like, how many cameras are on me? Take them off. Give me half a camera, so I look half as fat.

Oh, awesome. Well, this has all been great. Is there anything I did not ask you that you think would help out the listeners?

Jacque: [00:28:24] Oh man. I could talk about it for hours, but also I'm like, I don't know.

No, no problem. You already put a bunch of bombs on them. So the biggest thing everybody is is you got to go do it.

You got to start somewhere. Remember everything big starts off small. So go back to some of our original videos and, you know, we look like a hostage from Iran. You know, it was really, really bad, but. They worked. They, they did what they needed to do in order to get us to the level we are now, which is still very low, but it will keep going up.

Jason: [00:28:56] What's the agency website, people go and check you guys out? Raindropmarketing.com and you can also find me on LinkedIn, pretty active there.

Jacque: [00:29:05] Awesome. Well, everybody go check that out. And if you enjoyed this episode and you want to be surrounded by amazing agency owners that can really push you along, see the stuff that you might not be able to see, really understand what you're going through.

Jason: [00:29:19] I want to invite all of you to go to DigitalAgencyElite.com. This is our exclusive mastermind where we get together on a regular basis, have a lot of fun. Grow and scale our agencies and just not have to go through all the pain, even though you will go through pain. That's inevitable. There's no silver bullet, but go to DigitalAgencyElite.com and until next time have a Swenk day.