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We share our thoughts and ideas on how to grow a business.
January, we started the
month with 18 clients.
Now going into February,
we're at 21 clients.
Yeah, I think this was our highest
growth month in a long time, or if ever.
Good news.
I am Johnny rain cloud.
I will always skip to the current
challenge ahead and the worst
possible interpretation of the data,
but this was pretty cool, right?
18 in January to 21 and that is
officially the highest client count.
Okay.
So January recap, 2024.
Um, well, let's start with the basics and
we, and then we can get into the details.
Okay.
Yeah.
I mean, well, I want to say the date.
So we're recording on January 30th,
so almost the end of the month, but
we already have signed clients for
February, so we know our numbers.
Um, so let's just go through them.
So at the end of December,
I believe we ended with.
16, 17 clients, which is what
we wrote in the blog post, just
kind of stating where we were.
Uh, and then January we started the
month with 18 clients and now going
into February, we're at 21 clients.
Uh, so yeah, I think this was our
highest growth month in a long time,
or if ever, I don't know if we've ever
added three accounts in a month before.
Yeah, and one thing that we need
to immediately get into that you
and I were discussing before we
hit record is the type of clients.
So, we're at 21 for February.
So yes, so first of all good news.
I am Johnny Raincloud.
I will always skip to the worst,
to the worst, to the current
challenge ahead and the worst
possible interpretation of the data.
But like we should say this
was pretty cool, right?
We went from 18 in January to
21 Um, and that is officially
the highest client count.
Um, now this is where, so
that's me trying to be happy.
And then, and then I'm going
to do the Johnny rain cloud and
then we added up the revenue.
Um, and we, uh, which we don't talk
about on these, you can watch our
first episode to, to hear a reasoning
why, um, we just don't want to be,
we want to share the growth journey
without being those guys that like.
about dollar figures or whatever.
So, but anyway, we were like, huh, 21
clients, but in August of 2022, so what
is that a year and a half ago, we had two
less clients, 19, but we're making about
the same revenue, almost identical really.
And we're like, wait, what?
And the answer is obvious, which
is, um, we offer paid search now.
So, well, there's two layers to
the reason why the revenue is not.
Like in lockstep with the client count.
We offer paid search and we
charge a lot less so we can
talk about our rates Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, so our content rate obviously is
public It's on the site for work with us
on the work with us page on our site and
that's $10k a month Standard and I think
we had I don't know if by the time when
this episode is released We may release
this one before the churn episode But at
some point you guys will hear the churn
episode the churn will not come out first.
Yeah, so we'll have the 8k Um, a month
annual, so it's some mix of those, right?
First year, 8k, some people in $10k.
For paid, our standard paid rate, paid,
paid ad management rate is $3,500 a month.
And then, um, for a lot of the clients
that don't have enough paid ad spend
for that to be worth it, we charge
only $1,500 a month, um, for that.
I'm sure we're going to get comments.
Like, I'm just like, as I'm saying
this, I'm like, we're going to get
YouTube comments about people saying
like, that's too little, whatever.
Yeah.
Well, fair, but that's, that's something
that we should discuss because that came
up yesterday and that we might have to
change that rate because there's so much
work that goes into the beginning of a
paid engagement that it's almost just not
even worth it to charge the $1500 a month.
Yeah, we have some paid ad clients
that Benji's referring to that
are a lot of Work back and forth.
Yeah, but anyway So there's a big gap
3, 500 to 1, 500 versus $8k-10k so
a single content clients worth a lot
more The reason August 2022 a year
and a half ago had the same actually
slightly higher but almost identical
revenue to now with two less clients is
because those were all content clients
and It was a much greater mix of $8k.
I don't think we had raised our rate.
We just had more $8k legacy clients.
We used to charge $8k a month,
um, back then than we do now.
Um, so that's why specifically in
that client count, so our public
challenge was like, we're at 17 clients.
Which was, you know, January when
we released this or something, and
now, um, or December, I think, when
we, when we decided to do this.
And we want to get to 40.
That's like our public challenge.
That's all fine and good, but what
we didn't really think about until
today, frankly, is how that, is
the mix, that that's not the same.
Like, it's like some of them are paid and
some of them are content, and the content
ones are like three times more valuable
from a straight revenue perspective.
Um, so, anyway.
We're still gonna just use 40 because
it's the round number right like roughly
20 to 40 is like easy for all of us
to Remember, it doesn't really matter.
The point is we're sharing the
growth journey, but just to be clear.
Let's see one I'm gonna count our
paid clients one two three four
five six in February lined up for
February so 21 So what is that?
minus six so 15 Content
clients and six paid clients.
So if we can get to 40, you know,
it's probably going to still be a mix.
It's still going to be a majority.
I would say content clients.
And I would say that's the main
focus of our growth anyways.
And typically the paid
clients sign on with content.
We have a few standalone paid
ads clients, but yeah, I would
say it's still the opposite.
It's typically our content
clients that, that add on paid.
No, that's, yeah, that's,
that's exactly what I mean.
And I'm saying then we have a couple
that are standalone paid clients.
Our goal, of course, we want to get a
bunch more paid search clients as well.
Um, amethyst on our team who does the paid
search definitely wants, she definitely
does, but, and so that's our goal as well.
So it'll be some mix, but we'll just
keep reporting on what that mix is.
Um, and, uh, no churn.
So is that right?
So January we started off with.
Um, 18, and then we added 4 more, which is
3 brand new content clients, and, oh, it's
actually we added 3, I think, what is the
4, why is it 18 to 21, what am I missing?
No, 18 to 21 would be 3 more.
It's 3.
What I'm missing is that
I literally can't do math.
18 to 21 is not 4, it's 3, oh my god.
The best part is like everyone
makes stupid math mistakes, but now
I'm doing it on So everyone could
just see the level of idiocy that
I have That's what I'm missing.
Is that 21 minus 18 is 3 so 3 new
clients So do we know what I want
to talk about closing any of them?
So just details about them Were they
a fit?, but what I wanted to mention
immediately Wait, you said this is
gonna come out after the churn episode
Yeah, so They are all done, done,
done 10 K month to month clients.
And although that's, so we got
a, a YouTube comment saying like,
we should probably shout out to
whoever it is, but I can't remember
his YouTube handle right now.
It was like guys, like 20
percent discount, 10 K to $8k.
Like, are you sure that's worth it?
But he mentioned that on
the first episode, the churn
episode hadn't come out yet.
So the churn episode
should make that clear.
And he was like, where did
you come up with the number?
Here is the honest truth.
We did not do some right.
We didn't math.
There's a mathematical model that
determined that AK would be like the
exact right discount percentage to
make up for the increase, you know,
like retention rate or something,
something AK, which is historically
what we charged for like years.
So we've just known that 8K, like 8K
is just like a number that's like,
you and I are very comfortable with.
Cause we charged it for years,
we know, we got a bunch of
growth when we were charging 8K.
It was like we really
had a bunch of growth.
We know people will, will pay that
and stick with it for a long time.
So it was just like, this kind
of like emotional default.
And, and that's something that
I'm like happy to say on here.
Because this is the kind, by the
way, are we allowed to swear on
this or is this a family show?
Yeah, go ahead.
I check on YouTube, not
for kids, so go ahead.
Devesh is on the show, so
it's very much not for kids.
Um, because this is the kind of bullshit
that people, like, talk about on these
podcasts and on Twitter and in their blog.
They try to, like, make it seem that
they're so carefully architecting
all aspects of their business.
Bullshit.
Agencies and everyone prices based
on just like, coming up with a price.
Unless you are Amazon.
com, I bet you a huge portion
of your pricing is just made up.
It's trial and error.
Right.
If people would pay us 400, 000 a month
To do our thing, we would charge it.
Like, you know what I mean?
Like, like, that's like
what people will accept.
Um, and so we're, we're like, we're
like, we're like, no, nevermind.
I'm not, I'm going to stop with the jokes
anyway, but the turn episode argues that
we think it's going to be worth it because
a huge issue is, um, that churn rate.
So, so with that said, we
can talk about these clients.
We're not going to name names.
We don't like the amount of
headache it would be to get.
Permission from every single client to
talk about them on our YouTube channel.
No way.
So we're just going to talk
to them in a general sense.
Yeah, because some of the comments
that we got in the last couple episodes
were just about how we qualify them.
And, and I think like, especially the
client issue somewhere like arguing,
well, wasn't this client not a good fit or
shouldn't you have qualified them better?
Yeah.
That was like episode two where I said we,
the first client, um, we had a new client.
Started January, so this last month
and was unhappy with the first episode.
Yeah, right.
There was a comment
being like, isn't that?
Oh, and it was around like they,
me being frustrated that they want
basically Devesh consulting services
to help me like position their
business and write it in the way that
we write, grow and convert articles.
And I was like, and he was
like, this sounds like an issue.
Very, very fair comment.
Sounds like an issue, um, with you guys
not qualifying and setting expectations.
Right.
Anyway, um, that is quite the
conversation to have this month with
these three clients because man,
are we taking a bit of a gamble at
least on one of them and taking some
bets and violating our own criteria.
So I will start with the criteria
and then you can go and, and, and,
you know, sort of talk without naming
them, talk through these clients or
whichever ones you want to start with.
Um, our general client
qualification criteria.
Um, number one, they
have product market fit.
We, the evidence we see that is
obviously a very ill defined thing.
What does it mean to
have product market fit?
People would define in different ways.
What we look for as evidence of that.
The first thing is do they have some
kind of channel inbound channel?
It could be outbound to
any channel where they are
consistently closing cold business.
In other words, it's best to find
why the inverse, what do we not want?
We don't want the company where basically
all of their paying customers are like,
you know, CEO's friends, the board
member introduced me to blah, blah, blah.
Um, and so that's too early.
So we also used to have this criteria
where we were like, you know,
have like a hundred ish customers.
I don't know that that's
kind of arbitrary.
Different business types have different
customer accounts, but a good client
count is indicative of product market as
well from, especially from cold channels.
Not from so cold channels.
So that can be people being like,
we've done a bunch of paid search.
Our content hasn't worked.
A lot of the clients, including one
of them that we'll talk through.
They've done a bunch of SEO.
SEOs are like one primary channel,
but like for whatever reason it
fell off and like this and that
happened and they want to do it.
They saw one of our articles.
They want to do it in like a really
kind of strategic and responsible way.
And then yeah, so like we just basically
want to avoid like not too early.
Established business, ideally profitable,
but we do take VC back businesses as
well, with an existing like proof that
their business has a certain positioning
and messaging that they are set on.
And that works.
In other words, it could be outbound
salespeople that are delivering that
message and closing cold business.
Or it could be inbound to paid
search, social existing SEO, whatever.
That's like when people come in
cold, see the messaging, see that
product space, they buy that.
That ensures that if we do our
jobs and we identify bottom of the
funnel keywords and rank for them.
That the positioning that they will relay
to us that we'll put into the article.
And when the traffic we come in,
then browsers around their site,
they can actually, they'll actually
have a chance of converting.
If that's not true, what we found with
these early stage startups is then
you just have no guarantee that we, if
we, even if we rank that any of that
traffic will convert plus the early stage
companies, they're too shifty shifty.
Uh, we just decided to change this thing.
And then the other one, and then we
had this hypothesis and the board
members We don't have time for that.
So, okay.
So that's our criteria.
Go ahead.
You can talk through whichever
ones you want to start with.
Yeah.
I mean, so the first one immediately
violates our rule of not too early stage.
They, they literally just launched
a product two months ago, but
there are times that we've broken.
rules.
And I would say mainly it's either because
we believe in the product or we believe
in the people that we're working with.
And in this case, I would say we
probably believe more in the people
that we're working with than the product
because the product is really complex
and We don't even fully understand
it because it's a lot more technical,
but how they relate it to me, like how
they relate it, it sounds compelling.
It's not some me too product.
If it was an early stage thing, not
me too, but you know, something like
somebody there's like this VC products
where you just explain it and you're
like, sorry, what the hell does that do?
Like you just like don't understand.
This had very clear
positioning differences.
So there's existing players on the market.
They do something very
specific that adds a lot to.
The existing options, and it's
a better way to do things.
And so it becomes very
clear how to articulate it.
And I think that's always
something that we look for in
any company that we work with.
I mean, the company could be really
established, be it like five or
10 million in revenue and have
undifferentiated positioning.
And I would almost say that that's harder
to work with than a company like this
that has very clear differentiation.
Yeah.
And then the other big thing
about this is this is A coding
product for development teams.
So, so not only is it brand new and
here's a good anecdote of brand new,
we were like, well, something came up
about like doing demos or something
on our sales conversation with him.
And we were like, sorry,
how many demos did you do?
Cause he was like, Oh, I had
a demo last week or whatever.
We're like, how many demos have you done?
And he was like.
That was my first demo.
We were like, what?
He's like, we literally launched
the product like last month.
What's going on?
And then I realized that when he
said demo, he doesn't mean what we
think of, which is like, someone
requested a demo and he did like
a Zoom call with one on one demo.
No, he was at like a conference
for this field and just did a
demo like on stage or something.
That's kind of what I interpreted.
Um, but the people are also cool.
Like, he's passionate.
Uh, the founder and then also the
head of marketing is the one that
reached out and he has been kind
of following Grow and Convert for a
long time and is totally bought in.
So in our conversations with them, we felt
like from a people standpoint, I think
they checked both of those boxes from a
people standpoint, they are bought into
the Grow and Convert process, really want
this to work and are thinking long term.
The big thing with these early
stage companies is they get a bunch
of board pressure and they're just
like, I need results in X months.
And you're just like, this is
not how content works like.
Um, but they're, they were like, you
know, in a year, if we start to see
some traction, like that would be good.
So all of that checks out.
We just.
Yeah, and, and we have someone on our
team who's a little bit more technical
who can do the writing for this,
which was a big thing in, in terms
of deciding to take on this account.
And we, we discussed this at
length, like whether it was
worth it for not for us or not.
And we've historically taken a
couple bets on these earlier.
Earlier stage companies who have kind
of the same criteria in terms of people
they're thinking long term They're bought
into the process and those have been
some of our best performing accounts
and longest standing accounts And so
I think in this situation we decided
to take a bet on the company Yeah, so
we'll see but yes, if you watch the
churn episode, you're probably like
three new clients for them None of
them took the 8k one year commitment.
So they're they're month to month
and one of them violates the criteria
Yes, we know We are reckless and
irresponsible client number two.
Um, I am really excited for this one.
We, uh, a huge chunk of our client
base, as is the case with most
marketing, digital marketing agencies
these days is SaaS because just
like a huge chunk of companies that
spend money on marketing a SaaS.
Um, but this, uh, isn't, it is a, like
in the shipping and logistics space.
Um, so what is it more like a
service, I guess, but they're
coming out with a product.
It is a service and they're coming out
with a, a SaaS product to help, I guess,
with the operations of the service.
But similarly, I think the
head of marketing has been
following us for some time.
So he totally knows and
buys into the process.
I have, and they said something in
the, in the early conversation that
said, we've been following you forever.
And.
We've been waiting to this point
in our business to reach out.
So they, they kind of thought through one
content made sense for their business and
now is when they're looking to invest.
And so just from that standpoint, I
think it shows that they've been thinking
about this, uh, in the right way.
And can I just do an aside?
Sure.
It's really, I think important here.
Those two, like we're talking about
two new clients that have said.
I followed you guys for a long time.
I'm bought in aside on marketing channels
and especially for service businesses,
the only way to get clients like that is
through the content brand framework, which
we should link to in the notes of this.
And like, you can just Google
content brand Grow and Convert.
Like the, you're not getting
that from the dude who emails
you saying I guaranteed 25, if.
Benji, if I could guarantee you
25 leads in the next three months,
would you reply to my email?
You're not getting that
honestly through Google ads.
And to be perfectly honest, if you
are a service business and agency,
you're probably not getting that
from ranking for bottom of the funnel
keywords, which is the process we do.
Like we're, I would debate that.
I would, I would say if the narrative
is right in the article, you can,
you can get those kinds of results.
You can get somebody just Googled like
content agencies and you're on there.
Great.
That's great.
You will close, but it's about,
but it's about your pitch.
It's about what differentiates you from
the other agencies and making sure that's
in your content or on your website.
Clients like that, like people who say
like, I've been following you for a
while, I know the grown convert process.
I've been wanting to work
with you guys like that.
That is awesome and is rare.
So anyway, that that's an aside
of like, you can't have, here's
what I was trying to get at.
I guess you can't hack this.
Like there's no way around being around
for years and writing content and
having a process and a strategy and an
approach that is truly differentiated.
That is good to get like people knock
on, but just say that willy nilly.
Anyway, that's my soapbox.
Um, so that's really exciting.
Founders super passionate
about what they're doing.
Um, you know, large, uh,
account value for them.
ROI should be really good.
Uh, and the third one company
that's been around for like 20
years or something like that.
So really established business.
I actually don't remember what they
were doing before on the content side.
It looked like they had
done some digital PR before.
And there's a lot of opportunity to
rank for bottom of the funnel keywords.
So I feel like this, this last
one is maybe like bread and butter
Grow and Converting type client,
like SaaS established field.
Like in other words, like it's in a
category I think that's equivalent
to like accounting software.
It's, it's not that I'm just using
that as an example where there
should be just a ton of keywords.
Um, really established
product in that space.
Let's see.
Also, also decently differentiated
in terms of being able to really
sell why this is a better solution
than what the niche down to a
very specific target audience.
So it checks a lot of that.
That is like prototypical
Grow and Convert clients.
So that should hopefully,
um, work out well.
Did we start talking to them so
early that we didn't even pitch the
$8k annual or did they not want it?
That seems like, yeah, I think, I
think that conversation started.
Either in October or November, and
it just took a few months to close.
Aye, that would have been perfect for $8k.
It might be, if they start
being happy at the beginning, it
might be something to mention.
Yeah, I know Churn, we're
excited about those.
And then the, the challenge now
going forward, well, we don't
have, we don't have a ton.
Our lead situation, you
might disagree with this.
My memory is horrible.
I don't think we have a ton lined
up right now that would be like.
Yeah, I wish we had our lead spreadsheet.
I think we had maybe like three or
five conversations in January, of
which I know one already responded
and said it wasn't a good fit
because of US to CAD conversion rate.
Just the Canadian dollars
week compared to the U.
S.
dollars, so they're going to
look for agencies in Canada.
A couple of the other leads that we spoke
to could be a good fit and potentially
close in February, so we'll have to see.
I know a couple said they'll
get back to us in a few weeks.
Yeah, the one last week was good.
Yeah, we have an issue
with our lead spreadsheet.
We use a spreadsheet.
Which I'm kind of proud of, but I tend to
like to use the sort of the ghetto method
for as long as possible until the wheels
come off before, like, buying something.
Um, I just like spreadsheets because
you can see a bunch of things in
one shot, whereas CRMs, you're
like, I feel like I'm always like
clicking in and out of things anyway.
And then the spreadsheet lets me.
I, I also know spreadsheet formulas a
little bit, so I, you can quickly add
stuff up or whatever, at least for me.
Um, but, the downside is that, this
is so embarrassing to admit publicly,
but like, some Zapier connection that
we were using to whenever someone
fills out the form, like push it to
the spreadsheet, broke, and I've just
been too Well, it's not even only that,
it's because we updated our site, and
we put a new form on our homepage.
And then we got a ton of form spam.
And so just sifting through the
spreadsheet was impossible when
you're getting like five entries a
day from sites in Russia, but I'm
sure some shout out to our dev team
finally got that fixed last week.
Right.
I'm sure some bigger people with bigger
businesses are going to hear this and
be like, God, what are these guys doing?
Um, there was one comment on
one of the first episodes.
I was like, guys, I'm
excited for this series.
Thanks for your strategies.
They've helped grow our business from X
to Y and it was like hundreds of that.
It was like 400, 000 a month or something.
And I was like, excuse me, what
could you tell us how you're
doing that with our strategy?
Cause that would be amazing anyway.
And so I anecdotally feel like
our lead count, there was like
kind of a spike December, January.
Do you feel like that?
And it's kind of died down.
Yeah.
I mean, I still think there's
open conversations and we'll see
how things shake out in the next
few months, but it kind of just.
brings us to the next point of
conversation is I don't even know how
many we could take from this point on
if we were to close them if we were to
close two more we're probably at capacity
yeah we're back to square one of grown
convert issues from years ago which is
that we I mean how do you want to describe
what the source of that issue is my
opinion is we are anal retentive about
the quality of our writers and so We just
don't have a huge bench of staff and you
know, like yes That is a humble brag a
little bit like you saying on YouTube
like we're just like really careful
about quality It's like when you have
those interview questions job interviews,
like what's your biggest weakness?
And you're like, I just work too hard I
care too much Like that's not a weakness.
Tell me a real weakness
But it's true.
We reject a ton of applicants.
Um, even ones that get
through David and I's.
David is the employee that It does the
recruiting and filtering and then I help
manage them get through our filters We
sometimes get strategists being like
I can't work with this writer because
the pieces weren't perfect I feel like
come on man, and then we yeah So we're
just at that situation that we've been
in I feel like a ton Now, opposite
of Johnny Raincloud, Johnny Sunshine.
Yeah, I was gonna say, it's improved
a lot from where we were a year ago.
Even six months ago, I would
say it's improved a lot.
Our process used to be no process.
It was, I It was, it was, we'd get in this
situation where we'd be like, Oh, so if
we close one more account, who do we have?
And we're like, oh, we don't really
have anyone, so maybe we should
think about hiring writers again.
And then Devesh go the process is we
reveal this Devesh has to go hunt through
the spreadsheet and be like ooh This
portfolio piece is great Try to test
them get frustrated that they're not
good and do this a bunch and get really
stressed out about it And then finally
find someone you're like, oh my god,
they're amazing and then And then we and
then we sort of cycle that through but
since then David on our team has taken
over for the past year plus and And he
goes through every single applicant in
order, I mean this is like, I think in
our, we have a single, spreadsheets,
hashtag spreadsheets again, we have a
single spreadsheet, it's a Google web
form, that's our job application, our
writer application, it gets pushed to a
spreadsheet, I swear we have two to three
thousand total, this is over many years
at this point, um, people applying, and
I think David has literally caught up,
I think he has, At least looked at the
form fields of every single applicant.
It's amazing.
And the last few months, uh, I hope
I'm not lying when I say this, but.
As far as I remember him relaying to
me, he replies to everyone, including
the rejections, which is pretty cool.
Like most companies don't do that.
Um, and so he has this whole
system where he like checks it and
then, you know, their application.
I don't know if we're going to have a
separate video on this or I could go
into the details, but like, um, he, he,
we have this, we have a couple of key
parts of the application, but there's
obviously asking for portfolio pieces.
That's a big one.
And we put in like.
Here's the name of one of our clients.
Can you just like check their
website out and write like a couple.
Sentences or like two paragraphs
or something like that and people,
you know, some people write a lot.
So we were like less that immediately
shows you um What they can do on the fly
because the portfolio pieces we found
the reason we added that is we found
people with amazing Portfolio pieces
we would have them do our test project,
which is a paid project We don't use it
for any client work, but we pay them.
I don't know 150 200.
I think it's like 200 an hour It's
200 we pay them To do this project
that we just don't, we don't use.
It's just like the thing, but
we were like, huh, these, some
of these test projects are, let
me just be honest, horrendous.
And we look at the portfolio because
when you go through the trouble of doing
that, you're like, why, this is so bad.
Like who wrote this?
And then you're like, why
did I pick this person?
And then you go back and second guess
yourself and check the portfolio pieces.
And you're like, this
portfolio piece is amazing.
And David and I were like, I think people
are submitting portfolio pieces that
are like heavily edited by the client.
So you just can't tell
like who did what, right?
They were just in the, in the group at
school with a really smart person in it.
So you don't have to do a lot of work and
then they, and so we were like, let's just
have them like write something real quick.
Like give me like three sentences
and see if you can write properly.
And so it's more than three
sentences, but nonetheless,
they do that in the application,
uh, and that has helped a lot.
So those people are filtered
to the test project group.
It's a paid project where
they basically go through.
Half of an, the actual literal
process of a past client piece.
It's something we've published years ago.
Another funny side note, it was then a
piece that our piece that we actually
published had already moved up the
rankings and, and part of our process
that we asked them to do is to check
what's already ranking on page one.
And so we would be like.
I was like, David, like, they're
gonna see the piece we wrote, and
that's what we're asking them to do.
And he's like, well, you'd be surprised.
A lot of them don't see that.
And I'm like, well, then we can't
accept those people, because then
they're just not doing the job.
Like, the whole job is to, like,
check what's already ranking.
So if you don't, you aren't smart enough
to even notice that our growing of
our piece is ranking for that, then,
like, there's just a lot of problems.
Anyway, I think we switched
it to a different test piece,
but that was kind of funny.
Um, and we pay them for it, and
then Even that, there's like a bunch
that are filtered out, we say thank
you but it's not gonna be a fit.
And the ones that pass end
up on the writer's bench.
And which is, again, managed in where?
Hashtag a spreadsheet.
Um, and so that is usually, the bench
is like, five to ten people long.
Then, he puts it in order of who he
thinks is the strongest, and then when
we need a new writer, we move them.
You know, we, we sort of give them
to, um, a content strategist, but
even that process at some point,
David raised his hand and said, it's
broken specifically content strategist
is then now trying to do a job.
Like they need to get their pieces
out on time, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And they needed to match certain, you
know, grown convert level of quality.
So, and this is a brand new writer.
So the new writer was just because
they passed the test project
doesn't mean they're perfect.
They have all these bumps
and warts and whatever.
So then the person would be like,
well, I got to like rewrite all this.
And David's like, no,
no, no, they're good.
And David was having trouble as a peer.
Like doing that interaction.
So he was like, Devesh,
you got to step in.
So I've a huge part is I'm now
this kind of second coaching step.
So after they go through the test project,
which involves a ton of feedback from
David, I then work with them as like this.
Intermediary editor between them and the
strategist so that their level of writing
is improved and I can spend a lot more
time coaching them than the strategist.
Um, and that's another thing that, like,
I'd be curious what people's comments are
when they listen to this is like, I feel
like this is a good use of my time because
I'm investing that time into a single
person who, if they work out, can Um, and
that kind of recruiting, I think is a good
use of time, but man, it can be laborious.
It takes a lot of time reading, writing,
and editing just takes a lot of time.
And I think there's maybe what,
three people, two to three people
that you've coached in the last few
months that have now been used on
other accounts who maybe we didn't
even think would work out previously
before you stepped into this role.
And so, yeah, if they can move from writer
to then strategist and we train them.
First on the writing side,
then it's a strategist.
Typically that strategist role
can then open up three new
accounts that we can service.
Yeah, I mean just to be clear for
everyone, so our main kind of the
people who do the work for the
clients, then there's like two.
It's a content strategist and writer.
Writer is obvious.
Content strategist
basically runs our process.
So, picking keywords, like interviews
with the clients, and then they all, 100
percent of the strategists are writers.
and still are.
And they typically write,
you know, a couple pieces
themselves, and then they edit.
Like some writer that's paired with
them on a particular account and
usually it's a pairing of just these
two people on each given account.
Maybe, so like one strategist, one writer.
And the strategist is like the
ultimate be all, end all, like
quality control, whatever.
Um, and so what the You know, we, the
writers that are really strong, that
are on the team really strong and want
to be strategists, um, is who we like.
Then train to be strategists.
So that's where we have, you know,
we, we have some new-ish strategists
coming or like, we have some names
in mind of people we'd wanna train.
But basically I think after
the next, what did you say?
Two accounts?
I think one or two accounts.
Then you and I are probably gonna
step in and, and kind of run.
The accounts and train
someone into the role.
And so how have someone shadow us, which
has, which has worked well in the past.
It just, yeah, it's, it's a lot more
work intensive on our side, just really
stepping in and acting as the strategist.
Uh, so typically the split is.
I'm doing a lot of the client calls
and running the reporting on the calls
doing the keyword research And then
you're working with the person on the
writing side making sure the pieces
are good And it's the combination of
both of us just training that person
into the role Yeah, I mean that's
another on the business in the business
thing right like I don't know, like,
should we be doing that at this stage?
It feels like we should, but
are we being stupid by doing it?
I don't know.
We have asked, so historically we had
one of our best strategists, like,
ever, and she was just awesome, but
she left to just pursue a totally
different career in, like, seminary.
But, um, after many, many years,
uh, she was a strategist coach,
and we've talked to some other
strategists that are experienced
that have interest in doing that.
So we have What the seedlings of
possibly having other people take
this off of our plate, right?
Having this be like a process that's
not dependent completely on us.
So it's a little bit more scalable I
don't know like it's tough I think like
when you and Consider us as an analogy
to maybe some other agencies like I think
of like paid media agency like folks that
have like paid ad Agencies or whatever
like maybe you could be like guys.
What are you doing?
Like?
You're spending all this time like
giving line edits and talking through
it on zoom calls to coach these people
like, you know, it should be a business.
That's true.
But also then I think complex
service businesses like strategy
consultants, McKinsey and all like.
Isn't the way they train junior people
is having them just be on accounts with
really, really, really senior people?
That, and I would say that the time that
we invest in our team is worth it because
the people typically stay with us for a
period of years, which, which I think is
also different from a lot of agencies.
There's a lot of agen yeah,
there's a lot of agencies that
go through people very quickly.
Like, they churn
employees very, very fast.
Like, six months a year.
Six months?!
Yeah, there's a lot.
They'll hire in batches just based
on needs and then just go through
like the people aren't a good fit.
Just, just how we had a, an issue
on the churn for, for clients
with not good fit clients.
Same thing on the, on the people.
But again, I also think that our
operations are a little bit different
in that we, all the people are writing
and doing the strategy work and doing
the work on the account as opposed
to just having account managers and
then having to find Kind of those
operational people behind the scenes.
Yeah.
I mean, I heard something else like
saying, uh, someone said this, like if
you're a CEO founder type Um, at some
point when you're scaling, your whole job
is recruiting for 50 percent of your job
or something is supposed to be recruiting.
Yeah.
So, and I would say that's pretty true.
Our jobs are now marketing,
sales and recruiting.
That's it.
Yes.
I mean, I think what we're
bundling into recruiting is the
time we're spending coaching.
Yes, but I think that's part of it.
Well, maybe other people disagree, but
I think CEOs that like venture backed
startups and stuff who are doing that
are typically recruiting senior people.
So it's a little bit different.
We're recruiting people that have the
raw skills and then training them into
the role that we need them to play.
Yeah.
The other thing, I think we touched on
this in some previous episode, I don't
remember, is like, we've tried documenting
these processes too, and we have like
some documents that's somewhat useful
of like how to be strategists, but we're
finding that, like, the majority of the
good training is from just doing it.
So, having someone that's
promising and seems really smart.
Start being strategists with us right next
to them in the background, but like not
even in the background Just like kind of
working side by side with them and being
like, okay, this is how we would do this
differently Okay, those are your keywords.
That makes sense.
This is you know, we would change this.
This doesn't make sense Oh the way
you message this to the client.
I would actually word it this way.
We just continue to do that again Like I
guess if it was a really big company you
just have like employees kind of all like
senior employees trained to junior ones
and I'm okay with that at some point, but
right now, like we don't have that luxury.
We're doing it.
I don't know.
I'm okay with this Yeah, so to recap
I think positives 18 to 21 clients are
17 to 21 because I think the the four
was that When we wrote the article and
counted we were at 17 in December and
we closed one more in January now going
into February We're at 21 second highest
revenue month ever and just under the
all time high From a year and a half
ago, which is another positive challenge.
Then going into the next few months
is on really training our team
and finding the right people to be
able to, to keep growing from here.
Yeah.
I would say that my goal for this
month is to new clients like this
problem, you know, the nice problem to
have, like, do we have enough people?
Let's have that be a problem.
I think if we can close
to, that would be good.
And I feel a little nervous that we
don't quite have, we have maybe like.
Like hot or very active leads
is like three ish right now, and
I'd it would be good to get that
out But you know, let's see.
All right.
Good month.
Yep.
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