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Agency Forward explores the future of agencies as tech and AI drive down the cost of tactical deliverables. Topics include building competent teams, developing strategic offers, systemizing your business, and more.
New episodes delivered every Tuesday.
Unknown Speaker 0:00
Hey everyone. Today I'm joined by Mike Schmidt and AJ Rivera. They are the founders of agency coach, where they help agency owners improve all facets of their business. For a bit more background, Mike was the founder of the agency anchor wave, which AJ later joined to lead sales now, that business is able to run without them as they work on other ventures. Mike and AJ are also the creators of funnel hub, which we will get into in this episode. And in this episode, we discuss the greatest challenge agency owners face today, and what to do about it. Why there's never been a better time to own an agency, the biggest domino agencies can knock over to jumpstart their business success, and more. Today's episode is brought to you by Zen pilot. There are lots of tools out there for agencies to manage projects, but any project issues aren't usually caused by the tool. They're from your own processes. Zen pilot helps agencies implement their project management tools, while streamlining operations. So your team can move from chaos, to clarity, you can see for yourself at Zen pilot.com. And now let's get into the chat with Mike and AJ.
Unknown Speaker 1:07
It's easier than ever to start an agency, but it's only getting harder to stand out and keep it alive. Join me as we explore the strategies agencies are using today, to secure a better tomorrow. This is agency forward.
Unknown Speaker 1:27
What are you seeing as the biggest struggle for agencies right now?
Unknown Speaker 1:31
You know, I think one of the common things that we hear people come to us in our world with is usually around the topic of leads, like where do I find the next customer? Where do I find the next opportunity? And it's funny because like there is an abundant world of opportunity out there for all of us. And every agency that exists can be big and successful, yet there is this kind of perception that, like how do I find that customer? How do I have get those leads? And and I think
Unknown Speaker 2:03
the big issue that we're that we try and figure out is like, why do they perceive there be such why do they perceive that there's such a lead problem out there? Right, like, why is there such a
Unknown Speaker 2:17
perception that they can't go out there and have those conversations with those folks? And and the reality is that there's a ton of opportunity for everybody? Yeah, 100%, I think most agency owners just don't realize that all leads start as a cold lead, right, and then they go too warm, and then they go too hot. And the agencies, when are the agencies that are able to warm up their leads, and make them hot. There's a lot of agency owners that work 100% and operate based off of hot leads, right? These are the leads that referrals and word of mouth that gets sent over to them. And I think what they don't realize is that that lead was also cold, right? Somebody just warmed it up for them. And so we see agencies start to go out there and do lead generation and start to build their email list. The piece that they're missing there is they're trying to treat that cold lead, like the hot lead that landed on their plate, right. And what they don't realize is they need to spend a little bit of time nurturing that lead, right and warming it up and helping them understand who you are, what you're about how you can help them so that they raise their hand and ask for help. And that's when you can turn that into an actual customer. Right? Yeah, I think when we were when I was running an agency, those are some of the things we noticed, right? You have your ideal customer profile. And you know, it's the perfect person to work with me, but very few people are already there. And so we kind of work this cold customer profile. It's like, well, what do they look like before they even know about us? Yep. And like, what type? So how do we have to kind of educate them in order to turn them into that ideal customer? On your person? Yeah, made a world of difference.
Unknown Speaker 3:49
I guess, are you also seeing within that Legion, so they're kind of treating everyone as hot leads coming in right away, is their word stream did a study, right? Two years ago, and I keep bringing this up on this podcast, because it's so like, mind blowing to me. They found like 60% of prospects going into agencies were from referrals, and only about 14% We're actually coming in from deliberate marketing efforts. And it's, so for me, it's mind blowing, right? Like, we're marketing agencies, we're supposed to be, you know, killing it for marketing for all of our clients. But then when we look at ourselves, it's like, why is this so hard? And I guess that's my question back to you guys. Like why do you think that struggle is there? Well, it's like, I firmly believe like, this is the best time in history to own a web or digital marketing agency and, like our services are in Super demand, right? Even in a slower economy or one where like, the news is shouting that the world is gonna fall apart. Right? Like it becomes even more necessary. And the reason why is because business owners are worried about their own business and they're in the future and so if they meet someone that they perceive can help
Unknown Speaker 5:00
help solve that pitch that issue or protect them from the unknowns of what might be coming down down the road. That is a massive value. So I think, you know, the reason why so many people operate on these referrals and word of mouth is just because this is an in demand business like this is not something where we've got to go search very far and wide to find someone that needs our services. And I think the agencies that are in lack and don't have those leads, are buying into the rhetoric, they're buying into the story, that business is hard. And this is tough, but the ones that recognize that you could literally walk out your front door and into into town, and every business that's there wants what you know, right, and they want your help. And so I think you said a really important keyword that that we lean on, which is educate, right? And when you are the person who brings the the information and brings the education to that prospective client, you're the one that's assumed to know the answer. And I think the the attitude of a lot of agencies, especially new ones, is they kind of are waiting for someone to hand them the opportunity and say, Hey, I need your help. And they've hung their shingle. Oh, you do websites? Oh, you run Facebook ads, oh, you can help me with an AI chat by like, and they assume that that advertisement, right? Which is funny, because we're marketers were like, we know that that's only sectioning off a slight slice of the market. We need to help them understand what it is we do who we help. And through education has been one of the biggest ways that we found that we can not only attract people into our world, but help them understand what it is we do to the point where they then say, hey, you know, could you help me with that thing, which we all know is way different than us as a, you know, quote unquote, salesperson being like, hey, I can help you with that thing. Right? The trick is, how do you get someone to ask you as an agency for help? Right. And we know that when they come in, then that way that the frame is right. And that gives us a good solid ground, to then explore how we might be able to help and put together a deal. Right? It's always better when they have the cash already out as they're showing up to talk to you. Right. And that's here's the thing is they all have the cash, right? It's whether or not they're telling you they have the cash. Right, right. Exactly.
Unknown Speaker 7:15
So that education can also serve as a differentiator for your marketing agency. How are you recommending agencies get get their educational materials out in front of the right people? To be able to do that? Yeah, I mean, I think if our grandparents knew the access, we had the eyeballs today, like in in, they knew that we could just make a post, and that our prospective audience would see that or pay for an ad it for exactly who needs to see it, or, you know, all these technologies available to us. And they knew that that existed and we weren't using it, they probably would slap us across the face of what you're talking about. Do you know that in today's day, and their day, right, that we've got to meet with the advertising company and the newspapers, ad sales guy, and then we got to develop a plan. And then we got to hire graphic artists, and they got to plot it out. And then they got to bring it to the place and print it. And then they got to put it in a truck and drive it to somebody's front lawn. And that person's got to pick it up off their lawn and open it and look at the ad and then understand what it is that you do. Right. Like,
Unknown Speaker 8:14
like we I think we are lazy because we it's so easy to do that. And so, but bear in mind, like when AJ and I started our agency, like even what we have access to now didn't exist, right? Yeah, 100%. I mean, we started the agency in 2003. And that time was there was no Google, there was no Facebook, right? Like Yahoo was the number one search engine, you know, is in a totally different time, it wasn't as easy for us to get our message out, which is why, you know, we relied on a lot of the face to face, you know, networking, and you know, getting to know people in town and being part of business groups and going to the breakfast mixers, and doing all those different things. And you know, over time, it became easier for us to build relationships online and put our face out there and our brand out there and, and help educate people about the services that we offer. But more importantly, help them understand how the things that we do allow them to get more customer activity, right, because I think a lot of agency owners miss the fact that, you know, nobody really wants to buy SEO, they don't want to buy Facebook ads, they don't want repetition. They want more customers, right? And so if you can help them connect the dots and show them how those things that you're doing will result in them getting more customer activity, the conversation becomes a whole heck of a lot easier, right? Like we take them through a pretty thorough process of helping them understand how the work that we do get some customers because then, you know, typically when we're going through a process, you're seeing a lot of head nodding, right and the small business owners getting it and you know, there's been so many times when they're like, gosh, I finally understand is remarketing now right I understand why that guy might be an AI keeps telling me to do SEO like I didn't get why he kept saying that but now I do understand where it fits in my overall online strategy. And you know, I
Unknown Speaker 10:00
Um, they always say like a confused buyer never buys. Right. And I'm of the opinion that an informed one always does.
Unknown Speaker 10:08
Yeah, that's a good way to the more clarity you can bring to the, to the conversation easier it is for them to take that next step. Yeah. So I didn't want to get into that you guys kind of answered my questions already. But I guess if you were to start anchor wave today, what are some of the things that would be completely different? Like you would just take this approach right from day one, because of the new tech and assets that you have? Yeah, probably the biggest thing I think that we would do differently, is having an intense focus on building recurring revenue for a long, long time. You know, we went out there and we chased like the big upfront one time projects, right. And, you know, I was out there trying to sell a bigger website, and you know, the more expensive website and you know, we went from charging five grand for a slide to 10 to 20 to 30. You know, I sold $100,000 website. And the truth was that, you know, that money came in when, right, like, I remember, you know, the 100,000, our website I sold is for casino in town. And man, it took me probably six, seven months to close that thing. And we're super excited about it. We're high fiving. We're like, cool. Like, the days of us worrying about payroll and worrying about expenses are gone. We just put all this money in the bank. But guess what, like, we went out, we built that site, we hired some additional resources, we wanted to knock it out of the park, which we did, right, we won awards for this thing, but only a few months later, we're looking at the accounts again, and it's like, geez, where the heck did that money go? Right? Like, we're right back in the spot that we were just a few months prior. And I remember going to our bookkeeper and saying, you know, what the heck has happened, we sold the biggest project we've ever sold. And now I feel like we're in the same exact spot. We were just a few months ago. And our accountant ran a report report that totally changed our lives and our perspective. And it was, it was a report that showed the top 20 clients that we had over the past four or five years, right. And I was wholeheartedly expecting casino Del Sol to be number one on that list, right. And guess what, it was barely in the top 20. It was like 19, or something like that. And then I go to the top, and I'm like, Who the heck has given us more money than that. And guess who it was, it was the HVAC company that had been paying us 1500 2000 a month, it was the orthodontist that have been paying us $2,000 a month for that entire time, right. And so what was cool about that was like, you know, I couldn't go out there and find another casino right now, like over and over and over again, month after month, you know, the we don't have a ton of those here. But what I could find was all those people that were at the top of that list, and have been paying us, you know, recurring revenue over a longer period of time. And so that's when we realized man are our targets been wrong this whole time, right? Instead of high fiving. For that big project, I should have been high fiving for the $2,000 a month digital marketing contract that I sold. And so once we realize that man, we shifted our complete focus to trying to sell the services that create recurring revenue share, we still have the you know, big upfront projects, but they weren't our focus, you know, they were just weren't definitely where we wanted to start with people. They were kind of the icing on the cake, right. And it didn't take us long from that point, to build our recurring revenue to a point where that's what I'm the first of the month, I had all these cards, I could charge and all of our expenses were covered, our payroll was covered, we had enough money to pay ourselves and I'll tell you what, your entire world changes when you enter the month with everything already taken care of. Right? Because now it's what we don't have to like go into it, figuring out what Hail Mary we're going to fill this month to try to make ends meet right we we can work on the things that we want to work on, we can work on the business, we can follow our passion, and do the things that we we need to do in order to scale this thing, rather than just constantly always worrying about like where we're gonna get the next book write
Unknown Speaker 13:53
it, I mean, it puts you in a proactive kind of mode right now. Now you can actually work on the next thing that's going to
Unknown Speaker 14:00
take us about 12 years to have that relation, right. So you're talking about what we would have done differently. And if we would have started that focus way sooner way sooner, like one, we would have saved ourselves a lot of heartache that much and slept a lot better for a lot of years. But you know, we got there and we made the chips and you know, got the business into a lot more stable position. And and that's what's honestly allowed us to be able to step out of the agency right and promote our vice president to CEO so she could keep running this machine. Well. We can focus on agency coach who already helped teach this sort of thing to other agency owners so that they don't have to take 20 years to get to where we've got.
Unknown Speaker 14:40
Yeah, hard earned lessons.
Unknown Speaker 14:42
LTV is definitely something under underappreciated, because, like you said, you see that low ticket compared to you know, a massive website sale.
Unknown Speaker 14:52
I guess, when you're working with agencies, coaching agencies, do you have any approach for using that single project as a way to lead in
Unknown Speaker 15:00
to longer term engagements afterwards? Yeah, I think that's probably the the mistake that people go into with is that they think, Okay, I'm gonna do this one time project, we're gonna build this big website or whatever it is. And then I'm going to turn that into recurring revenue, right? And here's what we experienced. I think a lot of other people do, too is
Unknown Speaker 15:23
excuse me, we go and we sell the big website. It's a fairly involved process, right? We get to the end of that thing. And guess what the client doesn't want to do. Now, let's see your face, right? This is long enough of a project. And also we have the best of intentions to go back and resell those clients on other services. But guess what we don't want to do see their face. Right. And I'm being I mean, a little silly here. Because Because obviously, there's opportunity there. But what we find ourselves doing is when we're on this hamster wheel of always having to find new cash projects, right? Their monthly commitment to me, whatever happens after that project isn't going to be as significant as that one time cash project that I have my eyeballs on, I've been working on kind of on the side while this other project is kind of moving along and coming to completion. So it's really about breaking the habit of selling those big ticket items, and shifting your brain and saying, listen, everything I bring in, I want it to be recurring. Right? You know, and you look at a lot of businesses out there, like that's the way that this works is that this subscription model is what they build their whole business around. And I think agencies are missing an opportunity not to do that. But why did they do that? Because they haven't we have bills we have expenses is like I'm trying to decide between? Am I going to sign them up on a $2,000 a month? Plan, right, which is $24,000 a year, which is great. Or there's this client who's willing to start a 15k project with me right now? Do I want 2k or 15k? Right? And we're weighing them these two things back and forth. And every time we're picking the 15k, taking the short term when, because we have near term obligations to me, which makes total sense. But then we're cheating ourselves out of the longer term building up, it's like I think of it like Lego pieces, right? recurring revenue is like small Legos that build up into this big wall of recurring revenue. But it does take time to build that. And the question is, how do you
Unknown Speaker 17:16
if you're in a position where you have to make ends meet, which we all are? How can we balance the need for new projects that are coming in while also making sure that we that we build a recurring revenue, and it's like focusing in on knowing that, you know, a couple concerted months of dedicated work of building recurring revenue adds up really quickly? Right, so the best example I have is, have you ever looked at your bank statement? Right, and you're looking, and you see how much it adds up to how much you spent?
Unknown Speaker 17:46
And you're like, how did that happen?
Unknown Speaker 17:50
I see $1. Here, I see $15. There, I see $100. Here, like how did that add add up to five grand? There's no way right? And then, and then you go and do the math and you're like, This must be wrong, the bank must have made a mistake. And you're like, nope, guess what small numbers, a lot of them add up to big numbers, right. And while that sucks, maybe on your your credit card, when you're the one that's invoicing your clients for $500 a month here, 1500 here, 2500 here, 300. There, you know, 3000, there, right, that starts to add up to something that's pretty significant in a short amount of time. And so it's about being focused in on that and having a plan to enroll your clients in those services from the get go. Right, as opposed to always putting that website project in front of me that says like, we're our identity as an agency for a long time. We're web designers. That's why we showed up to the world, right?
Unknown Speaker 18:47
And I think that if you're a web designer, every project and client you meet is a web design project, unfortunately, right. But that's the reprogram they got to do more, we need to figure out how can we sell this web project as a recurring opportunity, as opposed to just a one time thing? Right. So there's lots of ways to do this. But recurring is what unlocks that power. I think agencies tend to say yes to a lot of client requests and projects that come their way, like, doesn't matter what it is. It's like we're resourceful people, I think agencies are among the most resourceful people on the planet. And when a client has a project that they're dangling in front of us, like we want to figure it out. And the thing is, if it's good money attached that project, we're even more excited about it. Because we know that that's going to help us reach our goals that much faster. But the things we have to say yes to it. If we don't have recurring revenue, when you have enough recurring revenue, you get to be choosy about and selective about the projects that you take on. Right? The reason why we say projects who are that are maybe more complex and more like, you know, we call them snowflake projects, right? They're one of the kinds that you know, we're saying yes to it more because we're
Unknown Speaker 20:00
Excited about the cash attached to it, as opposed to being a really good fit. And then we rely on our strengths as being able to to be able to figure stuff out to get the project done. But it robs us from the opportunity to build that recurring revenue, if you have a ton of recurring revenue, and it's covering your expenses, and it's putting money in your pocket and putting profit in your pocket. Well, then guess what you can start to say no to the projects that aren't perfect and good fit for you. And I think that's a trap that agencies find themselves in, they find themselves trading their time for money, trapped by the very business that they've created, because they have a lack of consistent revenue, lack of recurring revenue, which if they just would have focused in on each client coming in, Hey, come on in, sign this contract. And I'm going to ask you to commit to six or 12 months of this service with me. And you start building those Lego pieces up and suddenly you have a business that's a lot less stressful, a lot less variable, you're not in these feast or famine business cycles, where you're really cash rich, followed by periods of time where you have no money. And and that's why we say it's like recurring revenue fixes so many things, maybe not everything, but if they exist, most agency issues. And but it's still puzzling sometimes when we'll meet a new agency owner, and, and they're in their awareness of that they might want more recurring revenue, but there's really no action happening to to bring that in. Yeah, so a couple things I want to highlight from that the, I think doing if you can set up your contract correctly, right? For recurring revenue wise, you've just lowered that barrier for entry for these for your customers, as well, where now I don't have to spend 50k all at once, right or over, over this project 2k 2k month and knowing that maybe there's a parachute clause, like, hey, if we're not hitting goals by month three, like we can bounce, right, like, right, that's a much easier sale, be able to get someone in the door. But one of the things I've coached some of my clients on when kind of weighing different opportunities, it was because we did have some single project like we knew it probably wouldn't lead to any recurring revenue. And it's like, do you want to put so much of your company's effort on this one project right now? And so we kind of use the scale of like, how many opportunities could it lead to? So like it, you know, it's not just looking at the money, but like, would do over delivering for these people help. We've had like franchises, who by helping that franchise, now we get access to all of those subsidiary websites. So it's like, okay, well, there's something else to look at here. But we're still looking for the recurring revenue right at its heart, I guess.
Unknown Speaker 22:29
So I want to kind of shift gears though.
Unknown Speaker 22:32
As a fellow two comma Club Award winner, I think you guys have a couple a couple more than me.
Unknown Speaker 22:40
But what uh, what inspired you guys kind of get get started with like, funnel lab? And building that out?
Unknown Speaker 22:47
Yeah, it's a funny story, right?
Unknown Speaker 22:50
Yeah, so we joined Russell's inner circle way before it was like cool to be an inner circle, right? It's just a bunch of like, little nerves, or we're going to Boise to like talk shop. And, and I remember when Mike and I first joined, like, we didn't quite know what to expect. We were pretty new to the funnel world. But we just knew like, we fell in love with the idea of funnels, and we're like, we want to deal as fast as possible. So you saw this Russell guy, and we're like, let's go check it out. And when we joined his inner circle week, we get to Boise, we go down to the event center downtown. And I remember we got there like super early, because we were like, really excited. There's like nobody around, right? But somebody had already set up like the tables in there. And so there was like, name cards on all the different seats. And of course, Mike and I are like sitting there bored, like looking at the names like, none of these sound familiar, right? So we started googling everybody in there. And it was just incredible that what we're finding is like, sometimes we couldn't find them at all, right? And we're like, how the heck could they pay this much to be in here, but I can't even find this person online. Right? They have no digital footprint. Sometimes we would find something but we thought it was what they did. But then later, when they went on stage, they spoke about something totally different, right? Or sometimes we'd find like, the application for their mastermind, but I still couldn't even find what the heck they did. Right? So we're finding things that didn't really answer the question as to who this person was. And it was in that moment that Mike and I realized, like, hey, a lot of these people have not done a good job of like communicating to their online, they haven't paid put any focus or emphasis on, you know, making that spot where people could find out who they are, you know, for a long time, Russell said websites were dead, right? And I remember one of the first times that we went to Funnel Hacking live, we were in the front row and and he said, Everyone pull out your phone and everybody tweet, you know, hashtag websites are dead. And I'm looking at Mike and the rest of the team. I'm like, do not do that. We just I just sold the website yesterday, right? I don't want that customer calling and saying what the heck. But you know, I think because, you know, he was obviously throwing rocks at websites because he was like, he wanted everyone to believe in funnels, and I think for a long time, people bought into that and
Unknown Speaker 25:00
And because of that, they didn't think they needed a website, they didn't think they needed this spot where you can communicate who you are, what you're about who you serve the services, you offer all those different things. And so, Mike, and I recognized that there was a gap there, right. And so we took this one step further, we started doing keyword research for those people's names, write their, their name, their company, name their courses. And what we found was that it was a ton of search volume, right? Like some of these people have over a million searches, but for branded terms per year. And when you search for those terms, you couldn't find them, right. And it's just like, holy crap. There's like a huge hole in their bucket right here, right. And so Mike, and I knew that like, we wanted to get out there, we wanted to teach people that, hey, they need to pay attention to their online presence, there needs to be something there when people search for you. Because if you can control what they what they see, when they search for you, then you control the sentiment of how they feel, right. And so we decided that we wanted to present this idea of what we named a funnel hub to Russell. And I remember going into it, I'm like Kashi is gonna kick us out into circles. We're gonna go in here and tell him that, you know, we think websites are a big part of, you know, any business, including the funnel driven one. And so, you know, we started going through the slides, and we were only a couple slides in and he's like, look, I've got to stop you right here. He's gonna kick us out.
Unknown Speaker 26:22
Right? And he goes, I don't know where you're going with this. But I already want to give you money. And I'm like, kicking Mike under a table, my holy crap. He likes this idea. And so we weren't even planning to, like, pitch him. But at the end of what we presented to him, he's like, how do I buy one of these from you? Right, and so he was a card on the spot, we ended up building our first funnel hub, our actually our second funnel hub, we had done like a test to kind of show him what it was about, for Russell. And then, you know, it really caught fire. From there. A lot of people that were inside of the mastermind saw the value that was pretty easy, right? We're like, Look, you like people, there's this thing, people searching for you online. When they do that, they're not finding you, right? So why are these people searching for you, it's probably people that are getting into your funnel. They're, they're at the point where their credit cards in hand, right? And they're probably doing one last search to see if you're legit. And guess what, they're not finding anything. So cards going right back into the pocket. And so it was easy for people to see that and understand that, hey, all these people are searching, not finding anything. What needs to go there. You know, Mike, and I decided to make the whole funnel home strategy, very much centered around expert secrets, right? Because that book, I think, is the definitive guide to like how to represent yourself online, right, and how to build a brand and how to build a movement and how to persuade people who take action and how to throw rocks and you know, all the different things that that he's taught us. And it's really just about putting those those strategies like I know, we've read that book. And we've thought through a lot of the things that he talks about there, and we've taken notes, but guess what, that document ends up in our Google Drive where nobody else can see it, right, like, doesn't do any good there for us to get really clear on who we serve, and what we're about if nobody else can read it. And so it was really just taking that stuff and putting it online. And that's where funnel hub was born. And you know, it's been really, really awesome to see where it's where it's gone. From there. You know, Russell has gone on to actually build it in Click Funnels 2.0, which was super awesome. We we got that box. He's like, Hey, I've got a secret. And you guys can't tell anyone. But would you guys be okay, if we like built funnel hub into Click Funnels? And we're like, yeah, you can do that. Right. And so it's just been really cool. You know, he's included it in traffic secrets is what? What secret is 7017? As I sound like that, but yeah, it's just led to obviously a lot of visibility for us, you know, we still feel like we're just scratching the surface with that. There's so many people out there that aren't aware of what that is. And you know, we want to get louder about it, for sure. And I think it could change the way that the websites are built, or at least how people think about what should go on a website. Right? I mean, it was even, I think, a couple of weeks ago, I got hit with someone's ad, then went through a funnel, and I didn't have time to do whatever, and Facebook refreshed on me in the amount of time. So now I'm trying to search for this person to figure out, it's like, pretty sure I had their first name. And I knew what the offer was, I couldn't find anything. And so yeah, it's It's amazing, isn't it? Right? Like we put so much effort and energy into getting people into a funnel into a webinar into something. And then we forget that they're humans, and that they sometimes need to find you again, even if it's not about trust and credibility. It's just like, how do I go back and refer I know, when we built Garrett J. White's funnel hub, right? Like, AJ has been his programs and was trying to refer Garrett's programs to his friends who were asking about it and there's no place to send them. The other day, I sat on one of Frank Kearns webinars, and it was great. And I wanted to send it to a friend who like should also watch this thing and I'm like, I have no idea how to do that. And I'm like, right, you're missing the opportunity.
Unknown Speaker 30:00
To hear it's like, I mean, he's a legend, obviously. And but the point is, is that there's these holes that exist, but how do we get people back into our world? And, you know, people will say, Well, my ads are not working, or this isn't converting. And it's like, you're running a business on 10% or less of the people coming into your world doing some sort of transaction with you maybe more like 3%, what's happened to the other 97% of people? Again, you're not going to cover it, everyone. But like, if you're putting marketing dollars into something, why are you not making an effort to get back in front of them making it easy to do so you're just because the funnel is the number one place to turn a customer or lead into a customer doesn't mean that a website isn't a part of the buying journey or experience. Right? Right. Yeah. And this is something I think growing in popularity across the rest of the marketing sphere, where it's, you know, you have dark social, and all these other things. And it's like, we know, someone's going to hear about you on a podcast, or they're going to hear about you from, you know, this other asset. So like, not giving them the opportunity to find you in the places where they're going to be looking for you. It's mind blowing. Like, why would we, it'd be like, in the old days is like showing up to a networking meeting and not having any business cards, you'll find me just, you know, I hang out over here, this coffee shop, come grab me, right? No, that's like, like, that's, that's what people are doing today is that they're, they're going out. And they're putting ads out, they're posting on social media, and what you what you just described, Chris is like, so common, or I think we can all relate to that. I saw the thing. I thought it was cool. I didn't save it. Facebook's not like I can't find it. And even though there's a place where I can see where I interacted with ads, like I still can't find it. And I'm searching for it. And by that time, it's like, I'm done. Hopefully, hopefully, I'll enter their their targeting audience again, and I'll see it, but by then they risk me not being interested in that thing anymore. Right. So it's like, mean that the waste is massive. And it's such a simple fix, when it's just crazy that I can't remember who it was now, but they potentially lost the sale, because one of my daughters was burning pancakes on the stove. And it's like, yeah, had to leave and you just lost a sale because of that. Anyways, yeah, life literally gets in the way. Yeah. Yeah. So you guys also have your agency mastermind. And anytime you're you have a mastermind, right, you're bringing a bunch of people together a common goal, we're going to work towards figuring this stuff out. What are some of the patterns, I guess that you're seeing with the challenges that they're bringing up right now? Yeah, I mean, one of the one of the big things that we see, so this is like, it's funny, because a lot of things in our life tend to revolve around the same stuff. And maybe it's just our vantage point on things. But
Unknown Speaker 32:42
along the lines of the funnel hub being a place where it's about capturing that attention and getting people back into your funnels, I think another big hole that we see in an agency buckets, but also just businesses in general, is what are they doing to actually build their own lake of opportunity? And so what I mean by that is like, Are you keeping a CRM full of your leads and prospects and all the people that you interact with? If you're running ads, or doing lead magnets, like where do those people actually live? And go, number one, but number two is, what are you doing to get back in front of them and use like, email marketing is like one of my favorite ways to grow and to scale a business. And I think so many people are missing out on that opportunity. Because it's like, it's, it's maybe boring, or it's old, and you're like, oh, email, like, What do you mean, what is this 1998? Like, give me a break. But it's like, email is such a powerful tool, because it's one of the few and last things that we can truly own and control without having to pay somebody else in order to access it. Right. And so what we've seen as a pattern in our groups is, is how to actually be
Unknown Speaker 33:51
consistent with that. Right? And that's the key. So we've kind of developed a, something that we call a feed and fish, which is basically a really easy way to think about how you should be interacting with your, with your email list, right? So our philosophy is three feed to one fish. And this is kind of like borrowed from, like Gary Vaynerchuk. If you've ever read like Jab, Jab, Right Hook where it's like give value and then ask right? But if you're on most people's email list, what do you see? It's like ask ask ask ask ask, right? It's offer offer offer offer, I want to sell you, I want to sell you. And so I think most businesses are failing to recognize that email is not a one to many platform. It's a one to one platform that we get to do lots and lots of times.
Unknown Speaker 34:35
So like our philosophy is writing email, in a way that it's like I'm writing to you, Chris, right one to one even though there might be like 45 Chris's on my list, but I'm really taking that attitude in the in the, the idea is that we will send those three feed emails which tend to be like, it's like resources, it might be education, it might be something nurture and sharing some vulnerabilities right. And then there's an
Unknown Speaker 35:00
offer which is hey, would you like this thing that I do? And, and we've seen an incredible amount of success with that. Because I think is zigging where everyone else is zagging right, like everyone else is treating their email list like a booty call our friend yada yada gold and says, Are you treating her list like a booty call? You're just like, anytime you need cash or like, let's go to the list, or even like Dan Kennedy, he's like, let's, let's go invoice the herd. And that's, that's his, you know,
Unknown Speaker 35:27
way of saying go send an email out to your list and make an offer to them. Right, which is there's nothing wrong with that.
Unknown Speaker 35:33
But it's like, if you want those people to listen to the offer, what are you doing to build a relationship? And so I think people miss the opportunity to realize that actually, with email, you can certainly build a relationship with folks. And, and so that's something we've just seen a ton of success with is that, you know, most people have built a lake of some sort, and they're probably not talking to it. Right? If you do a lot of in person networking event, maybe your desk has all those stacks of business cards, right? I don't know if anybody has done that before, right? It's like, why are those not in a place where you can meet, you can have continued conversations with people.
Unknown Speaker 36:08
You know, the people that you meet in passing, why are they not someone that you're investing in and nurturing? The people that you've proposed to that never hired you? Like, why would you not keep talking to them? Even your existing clients? Like people ask me well, like, am I supposed to feed and fish my existing clients? So they already my clients? Like? Absolutely, do you think building a relationship with these people is a smart idea, like, you think having a good relationship is going to keep them or help them buy more from you? And answers, obviously, right? So it's like, building that. And, and, and so that pattern we've seen is that, you know, folks already likely have
Unknown Speaker 36:41
done a ton of work to build this list. And all they've done is they've heaped it into the garbage and pretend like it doesn't exist, and they're waiting for those hot leads to come in. And kind of we started our conversation today, like, you know, lead people perceive that leads is their biggest problem, I'd venture a guess that it's they believe it is, but it's actually not the true problem. The true problem is they have no lead warming machine, they have no relationship building that's happening with the folks. And so they're having to run their business on those hot leads, and on those word of mouth, because they're assuming that if you come into my world, and you don't buy right away that you're dead to me, right, which, which when we analyze that and think about that, that's complete nonsense. Of course, people need to be nurtured. And there needs to be trust that's built over time. But, you know, I think as agencies, we've all done campaigns for clients, where the client might have come back and said, the leads suck. They're no good, right? Well, guess what, guys, all leads freakin suck. 100% of them all leads suck, they all suck. They all suck until you nurture them enough that they, they cease to become a lead. And then they become a prospect. I think too many people run ads, or run any kind of marketing and attract leads. And they fool themselves thinking that they're doing prospecting, right? There's a difference between a lead and a prospect, right? A lead is cold a lead is maybe in your target market, but is uninterested and not in the sales process. Right. And that's what lead generation is like, but when the client says or you say the leads suck, we'll say, yeah, they do suck. So what are you doing to warm them up in that feed and fish process is an excellent way to do that, right? And get and squeeze the most out of those leads and build those relationships, you know, more or less on autopilot. Right? Yeah, email lists are, it's surprising that they're under appreciated, right? Like they've been a thing for so long, and you get like, Slack comes around says emails dead. And it's like now, so people are like, okay, I get that off the market here anymore. But we were guilty of when I was running an agency of just hitting the list when we needed, we had an event coming up, let's get people interested. Now with my own coaching business, I've taken a different approach of just doing a weekly newsletter and providing as much value and in that newsletter as possible. And it's just crazy, where I can have 60 plus percent open rates, you know, as my average with decent click throughs on everything, by take that same post and put it on like LinkedIn. It's hit or miss whether the algorithm wants to give me attention right now. But I know like, I'm literally getting replies from people saying, hey, this was awesome. Thank you for providing this value. Like I know that person, as soon as I have something that they need, it's we're going to be a perfect match.
Unknown Speaker 39:18
It's like represent just a lot of people use a list on your audience you gather.
Unknown Speaker 39:24
So there's something that I very much appreciate about you guys is that you understand the tactics, the strategy, the tools that can go along with everything, but you also talk a lot about the mindset. And I think so mindset is one of the most important things as far as like my coaching my philosophies on coaching, because if you're not thinking about the problem, right? It doesn't matter what you do doesn't matter what tools you try to include, right? Everything is just going to fall flat. And I'm sure you guys have seen it with in the military. We have these
Unknown Speaker 39:54
gear lovers, I won't use it was a different term that rhymes but I don't want to become
Unknown Speaker 40:00
Ansel for this, so.
Unknown Speaker 40:02
But it was just these people who buy tons of gear because they thought it looked awesome. And it was really cool. And they put it all over their kit. It's like you just added like 30 pounds of equipment to your uniform. And we got to go rock 20 miles, you sure you want to do that? Right? Like, you're not going to use it like, you don't need that set of binoculars for this, like, it's gonna be okay.
Unknown Speaker 40:21
But I see that with agencies, and I'm sure you guys see it as well, where it's like, oh, I just need to buy these things, right? These the software, this, this product, and it's gonna revolutionize everything? How do you get people to shift to how they're thinking about their agency so that they're not just reliant on tools? And actually thinking about the problem the way that should be? Yeah, that's, that's a really great question. And it is something that we run across all the time, right? I tend to think that, like entrepreneurship, is like the purest form of personal development, right? Like, your business is only going to ever grow to the level that you're at, right? And you're always the bottleneck in your agency. And so Mike and I have spent a ton on investing in ourselves, and masterminds and coaching and programs and all these different things, because we knew that we constantly needed to reinvent ourselves and continue to grow in order for our agency to do that. And so what we see in our world a lot of times is that you're right, so many people are focused on one thing, which is capabilities, right? Like, if I learned this new thing, I just need this new book, or I just need this new course, I just need this new piece of software. And that's it, and then things are gonna change. But what they don't realize is, there's a lot of other things that they need to focus on as well, right? I'm not sure if you've ever heard of the Dilts model for change. But what what this represents is like all the different things that need to happen in order to drive true change in your life, right? capabilities is one of those things, right? But you need to have a clear vision, right? You need to have an identity that's in alignment with that vision, right? Understand, who do I need to be in order to achieve that result? You need to take inventory of your beliefs, right? You need to have the right belief system, like if you think sales are bad, or you think money is evil, or any of these things like there's no sales book in the world, you're gonna read, that's going to help you get better at sales, because you have this internal false belief. That's bad, right? And you need to get past that.
Unknown Speaker 42:13
It's your behaviors and your habits, right? What are the things that you're doing? Day in and day out? You know, if you're staying up all night, you know, Doom scrolling and not getting rest, then it's gonna be really hard for you to perform the next day, right?
Unknown Speaker 42:27
capabilities, and then your environment, right? Like, who are the people that you're hanging around? Do they lift you up? Do they bring you down? What are the other things that you're allowing into your subconscious? Is it the news, right? It's, it's constantly telling you about how everything's going wrong in the world, right? It's hard to come from a place of confidence when internally you're scared, you're scared because of all this stuff that you're allowing into your psyche, right? That's, that's driving you on autopilot, really. And so we tell the story about there's a guy that's in our mastermind that ran 100 mile ultra marathon, right? And it's pretty incredible, right? Like, that's like, Yeah, can you imagine like, if you decided to do that, right? Like, there are some very clear things that you would do in order to make that happen, right, you wouldn't just show up to the race and expect to finish you know, so if we think about those things I talked about, you know, his vision was to run the 100 mile ultra marathon. You know, his identity was like he needed to take on the identity of a runner, right? Like he said, he was never really considered himself a sport or good at sports, or athletic or any of those things. But he needed to change that, right. He needed to make his whole world. Everything he read all those things, videos, he was watching everything revolved around running while he was training, because he needed to be a runner to finish this is his beliefs. Yeah, he needed to believe that he finished, he needed to believe that even if he didn't, that he was going to enjoy the process. It was his capabilities, right? He needed to hire a coach, he hired a coach that helped him with his diet and understanding, like, what do I need to put in my body to fuel it the right way so that it can endure the 100 miles, he needed to learn different mental techniques, right? Like, I know what I was training for a marathon half marathon. And, you know, when you hit that point, your body's like, you're gonna have a heart attack, you're gonna have to stop, stop, stop, right? But you need to be able to learn techniques that are gonna get you past that. He needed to recognize his environment, right? He needed to understand like, first off, need to buy in from his wife and kids. You know, when you're running that much, you've got to train a ton, you've got to run miles and miles and miles every single day and hours. Imagine if every single time you came home, your wife's giving you the cold shoulder or your kids aren't talking to you, right? It's gonna be hard for you to continue to train. And so like, it makes sense, right? That you would address all those things and expecting to complete this race. But how many people go into business and consider any of those things right? How many of them consider what what behaviors do I need to change? What coaches do I need to hire? You know, what line do I need? What who are the people I'm hanging out with what needs to change about that? What needs to change?
Unknown Speaker 45:00
Got my beliefs, right? Like you don't, a lot of people don't do that, right? They just focus on the capability saying, and that's it when they need to really do all those things. Because guess what, running a successful agency running a seven figure agency is just as crazy as running 100 miles. It is. Not a lot of people are able to get there. And it's because they haven't taken the time to really drive change in each one of those areas. And that's why they're falling short is that they keep going back to those capabilities and keep going back to man, if I just I need more knowledge, I need more knowledge, I need more training, I need this secret. Still, hackers a secret tip that somebody is going to give me and then my whole agency is going to change what's not because you haven't changed your behaviors, you haven't changed your environment, you haven't changed your belief, you haven't changed your identity. And that's not going to allow for lasting change.
Unknown Speaker 45:48
That was probably a masterclass in mindset.
Unknown Speaker 45:54
Let's, uh, I got one more question for you guys. Before we get into the last one or last year, the what would you say is the biggest domino that agency owners could just knock over right now that would set up the rest of their business for success?
Unknown Speaker 46:10
Yeah, I'd say, putting yourself in the room of people who are doing that, and, and succeeding or even struggling with it, right, is massive, like the successes that we've had have been because we put ourselves in places where people were all the things that he just talked about that it wasn't just the capability, of course, we got a good idea, oh, we should do this funnel, or we should do this strategy or, or we should use AI, whatever the current thing is, right.
Unknown Speaker 46:44
But it's those other things that we get to borrow from them, which is that environment, it's their beliefs, it's their visions, it's their habits that we could see them. Like, we've all had those friends, right, that have inspired us, like maybe was outside of business, like his friend that crushed it with health and like, they're like a good example and a role model to follow when it comes to working out or going to the gym or something like that, right? Who are those people in your business life that you're surrounding yourself with? at a deep level? Right? And I'm not just talking about, like, it can certainly start in a podcast, and it can certainly start in a book. But it's like, who are the people that are there holding you accountable and setting a good example for you? And that's the difference. Because when you want to give up, right, who's there to say, Hey, that's not that's not an option, right? And here's how I felt, when that happened to me, and here's what I did about it. Right? And so it makes such a difference. And in this world of online, which I think there's a tendency to focus too much on the online community. But where are you putting yourself in a real room to get that kind of support?
Unknown Speaker 47:45
Awesome. Hey, Jane, do you have a different answer? So biggest domino for somebody? I mean, I think it's, I think a lot of agency owners and business owners in general, I think they have this belief that they've got to figure things out on their own, right? Like, we're big believers in taking shortcuts were really big believers and finding somebody that's just a few steps ahead of us. And learning from the hiring them learning from them, right? Like, it's such a shortcut, when you can take somebody that has the experience, and this is a spot where you want to be, it's able to give you the things that you need to just go faster, right? Because I think for a long time, we're kind of trying to figure things out on our own right. And then sometimes we've walked in the wrong direction. 20 steps to realize and this is that right? And then we go next, and then we go next place. And if we would have just found the right people in the right coaches and the right mentors a lot sooner, I think we could have accelerated, you know, how fast we were, would be able to get to where we are now.
Unknown Speaker 48:42
Awesome. All right, I got two more questions for you guess the first thing, what book do you recommend every agency owner should read?
Unknown Speaker 48:50
For me, it's Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod, because I think that is a big Domino. I think if you can structure your morning, the way that he teaches you, and really make a habit of doing the things that he talks about, like the rest of your day, it's just so easy, right? It's like downhill from there, like you've accomplished the toughest part. Anything that gets thrown at you that day, doesn't really faze you, or you're able to get past it, because you're just in such a strong place. From the get go. And you're just feeling good. And it's really awesome way for somebody to start developing better habits about learning and health and all these different things that I think are key in running a successful business.
Unknown Speaker 49:30
I think for me, it's
Unknown Speaker 49:32
it's what I keep on coming back to is E Myth, Michael Gerber. And the premise of that book is understanding the difference between the work of growing a business and the work that your business does, because they're two separate things, right? Are you there's if you're a web designer, you're there's the web design stuff. And then there's the business side of running the web design company and understanding. There's two different roles and that if you want to have ultimate growth and success that you have to really embrace
Unknown Speaker 50:00
The the non work part of your your business, right all the things that go into growing and scaling and managing and systems and processes and all the things that that really are the reason why you can deliver an offer that service, right? Because if you're in love with the doing of your work before you go get a job doing it for somebody else. Right. And I think that's kind of why some people get stuck in those capabilities, right, that they are more interested in the capability acquisition and the performing of that work, and not interested or, or there's limiting beliefs around their ability to go out there and do sales and marketing and, and have those difficult conversations of hire people and take risks. Right? And I think E Myth gives a good, honest look at those two parts of the business. And it lets you assess, am I willing to go all in on this business, which means not just focusing on the capabilities but on the entire business and driving it that way? It's one that's as I've reread it has had lots of repeat lessons and new lessons buried inside those pages. Yeah, I think that's one of the the most challenging transformations that I've seen for agency owners to move from, like, individual contributor to business owner.
Unknown Speaker 51:15
And but yeah, awesome. Last question. Where can people find you if they want to learn more? Awesome, well, you can check out our funnel hub at agency coach.com. But we'll set a special link for listeners here agency coach.com/forward and got a couple of resources for the for you there. If you're an agency owner, you're gonna have access to some of our amazing free training that will help you get in the right mindset to start building some of that recurring revenue, and putting yourself on the path of creating time and financial freedom. You know, it's it's a, it's a recipe, guys, right? Having financial freedom just means that you have more recurring revenue every month than the expenses that you have. And so it's just a process of building that up and we'd like to show you how to do that. So that's agency coach.com/forward. Awesome. All right, Mike, AJ, thanks for joining. Chris. Thanks for having us. It's been a pleasure. Yeah, this has been awesome. Thanks so much, Chris.
Unknown Speaker 52:14
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Transcribed by https://otter.ai