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Hosted by Toby Cryns and Kurt von Ahnen, the Agency Action Podcast (Part of the WP Minute Podcast Network) dives into the real-world ups and downs of running a WordPress agency. Each week, Toby and Kurt share open, honest conversations about the challenges and victories that come with building client relationships, pricing projects, finding the right tools, and growing a sustainable business.
Whether you’re just launching your agency or refining your systems, you’ll get practical insights from two agency owners who live it every day—along with stories that remind you you’re not alone in this wild WordPress world of global teams, AI disruption, and constant change.
Follow the show and explore more at TheWPMinute.com/podcasts
Toby Cryns (00:00)
I'm with Kurt Von Ahnen and myself, Mr. Toby Krynz. Kurt, have you received any email spam recently?
Kurt Von Ahnen (00:07)
Toby, can't even, I can't even put it into words. And I saw, ⁓ I think it was Blake Whittle did something on X. was talking about spam, the amount of spam and the different ways that it's coming in now. Like I keep getting a, ⁓ thanks for signing up for our zoom meeting. And I'm all, I didn't sign up for your zoom meeting. And then I get like 16 reminders about the zoom meeting I never signed up for. And I'm afraid to unsubscribe because I feel like I'll be unsubscribing from zoom.
But I keep getting messages from users of zoom. Like, like it's a crazy new way to spam people. And I just think, I think to myself, how can I possibly be getting 200 messages a day that I got to throw in the trash bucket? And I'm afraid to send an email out to people I know, because I'm afraid they're going to call me a spammer. Like I don't understand how I'm so afraid to spam people when my entire inbox is full of spam.
Toby Cryns (00:59)
Yeah. And there's spam
and scam. Like I got dragged in. I don't know. It seems to have decreased a little. And it might be because I changed my Google calendar settings, but for a while events were popping up on my calendar that I would show up at. Cause like I'm a slave to my calendar and like, be like, what? Wait, did I sign up for this? And I'd be like halfway through and be like, what is this thing? ⁓
Kurt Von Ahnen (01:16)
You're in!
Toby Cryns (01:21)
So there's scam, which I would say that's scam and the whole like, hey, you didn't come to your Zoom, like, or you got a Zoom tomorrow, like that's scam. But then there's just spam. you go like, even if this is what we'll call it white hat and black hat, like the white hat stuff is this like, this is just an email someone's sending and acceptable solicitation for email. And why are we so afraid to email even existing clients like that?
Kurt Von Ahnen (01:21)
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Toby Cryns (01:47)
love us and would hire us in a second, you know?
Kurt Von Ahnen (01:50)
I have, okay, so I'm going to be horribly transparent here cause I, cause I am, I'm that kind of person. I used to have an email list that was almost 8,000 people deep and I would send emails out and, and there was a certain percentage that was an open rate, but I really started to look at, it was from Mena No Mas, like my digital agency business. And then I started like looking like who's opening these emails. Well, one was this like sweet old lady I used to go to church with when I lived in Colorado. Well, that's
20 years ago. Why, why is this woman, why, why am I burdening her with these emails in the first place? She's not a digital agency client. She has no relation to the business. She's opening the emails. And then I'm looking at people that aren't opening the, I it was, I was shaking when I did it, but I just deleted the whole list. I was like, this list is junk. I might actually know these people, but the list is junk. It's not serving a purpose. It's not relevant. And so I started my email list.
from scratch and it got up to, I don't know, 16, 1800 people or so. And I actually had some people that like legitimately signed up to be on this list, subscribe through the website or whatever. And then we're like, please stop spamming me. And I'm like, I only send like a newsletter once every two weeks or something. Right. And I'm like, and I would take it so personal.
And so I stripped the list down again. went ahead and stripped a bunch of people out and now it's at like 420 people. But I will say this. I am happier that my list at 420 people has a consistent open rate of like 50, 55%. Whereas it was two or 3 % when it was 6,000 people.
Toby Cryns (03:26)
What do you put in your emails? That's
so interesting.
Kurt Von Ahnen (03:28)
Well, you know, I'm on like five podcasts a week. So, so I'll pick like my favorite podcast that I was on and I'll, and I'll put a link to that in, ⁓ I do a shout out to new customers or to new projects that we've recently published because I want my existing base to visit those sites as well. Cause a, maybe they see something and get inspired in it's an upsell opportunity for us. Right. But it also gets our newest customers that
instant exposure right away and gets a base looking at stuff. ⁓ So we do that to try and give them a kickstart. And then we also take our new customers and put them into our social feeds, ⁓ if it's applicable, if it makes sense. But we'll say a shout out to our newest customer and we'll put that in our social feeds again, just trying to get them that first injection of attention. ⁓ Sometimes I'll put in something
Toby Cryns (03:58)
Mm-hmm.
Kurt Von Ahnen (04:22)
that I think is relevant and valuable, like a new AI skill or something like that. Now I'm not like one of those AI bros, right? But like, ⁓ here's a unique use case. Like I used Claude, I was using ChatGPT to ask about the SEO of my websites to try and get like some kind of an audit kind of a thing. But I found that if I use Claude, it's much more thorough. So I did write an article like, hey, you should try Claude if you haven't already.
You know, this is an example of a prompt to get it to look at your website and give you real feedback. ⁓ And I think clients find that useful. I say, and obviously everything leads to the relevancy, right? And purchase intent. Hey, if you don't want to do this on your website, we're available to run that service for you.
Toby Cryns (05:06)
Mm-hmm.
And I think like, so I don't do email marketing at present.
And I, you know, part of me goes like, it's a, it's a bit of a, minimum it's work to do that properly. And I don't even mean like super proper, but just like, let's say you're going to do a monthly newsletter, which is similar to what you're describing. And some, know, like, Hey, here's some content that you might find interesting. Basically. I get those from my house finance bank. You know, they, they're like, here's some tips to improve your house. And I'm always like,
Was this worth the $13 it took to get to me, you know, like between salaries and maybe it is.
How valuable is it really compared to other efforts?
Kurt Von Ahnen (05:50)
So I'm going to be a little more blunt with, I've been really blunt with a lot of people lately. Like I have a lot of people right now that are struggling with their businesses, right? And they'll talk to me. I'll say, well, what are you doing to increase sales? And they start talking to me about all kinds of stuff, you know, like about customer acquisition. we paid for this with SEO or, know, we've been to this event we've done. I'm like, okay, that's branding and marketing, but what have you done for sales? Right. And I'll say that
the newsletter angle is a type of marketing, but I have found it is easier to sell to people I've already done business with that are happy with us than it is to go through the expense of customer acquisition and getting new customers. And so when I send the newsletter, it's, believe in this thing called the emotional bank account. And this is one of the things I do with every relationship, right? ⁓ When people interact with me,
Every interaction is either going to be an emotional deposit or an emotional withdrawal of some type. And so I want as many deposits as I can with people, right? Add value to people. Cause sooner or later, I'm going to ask for a withdrawal. And that withdrawal is like when I go to make a sale, right? Like, Hey, we could, I noticed your websites running slower, right? We could do an audit on your unused plugins that you've been ignoring, or we could increase your hosting package or blah, blah, But at any level, I'm trying to sell them something, right? That's a withdrawal.
So if I have more deposits than withdrawals, I've always got something in the account to withdraw from.
Toby Cryns (07:12)
Yeah.
Something that I struggle with in this is just finding time. it's the flip side of the question is, you know, what am I spending my time on? ⁓ and if I'm not finding it, what I'm saying is that it's not as valuable as this other stuff. And I think this is what probably a lot of agency owners struggle with when it comes to consistently doing marketing of any sort. It's like,
How do you determine the value of marketing is kind of
Kurt Von Ahnen (07:38)
It all comes down to that. mean, I interviewed a woman that is a guru with Facebook ads, you know, and she was talking about different levels of ads and, you know, I thought it was very interesting. She said that she doesn't even really work with a client, let's say of $20,000 a month to spend on their Facebook ad campaign. And that really hit home with me because most people that I work with don't have $20,000 a month to spend on a marketing campaign.
And so you think about, well, what's the return on ad spend, right? The ROAS, what's the, what's the return on ad spend? What's this? And you start analyzing all these things, but from a business perspective, Toby, there are a million things that want our attention and our dollars. And as agency owners, we have to figure out what brings us that best return and the quality of the return. Like again, I go back to if I can keep a good relationship with my clients.
and I know that I can generate more revenue and staying in touch with them and adding services with them and keeping them happy than I can with bringing in new people, then I'm going to keep working that best I can.
Toby Cryns (08:37)
And this kind of leads to
another question. It's like, uh, we, as really marketing agencies, mean, probably could classify ourselves as dev developing agencies or design agencies, like, um, most of my clients are looking, coming to me at the end of the day to get more money. They want to make more sales. And so the question is like, at what point do we focus these efforts that we were experts on?
generating someone else more sales and looking inward and say, okay, how do we generate, use these very same methodologies? Maybe we're doing a newsletter for them. How do we do it? Why don't we do a newsletter for ourselves?
Kurt Von Ahnen (09:14)
You, this is something Toby that has been grinding on me. ⁓ so I have a training product called the power sport Academy. We're in our sixth year. We finally started generating revenue off of it this last year. And I gotta tell you, like I was going to turn it off. Like I was, didn't say, forget it. You know, turn it, but then it hit me. was, I was like, I help other people make e-learning projects.
I should be able to succeed with an e-learning project. it just like that whole thing, like, um, people that can do and people that can't teach, right? It's like, I'm going to keep making people e-learning projects, but yet I can't run one successfully myself. Like it really bothered me. And so I was like, I'm going to figure this out one way or the other. I'm going to figure this out. And now that project is generating roughly $60,000 in revenue for us a year now. And so, you know, starting last year, we started to turn, turn the page on it and start, it started to generate revenue. And so I'm like, ah,
but now I've got a taste of it. And so how much time do I spend helping new people interested in having their own online course or online membership or, know, these dynamic websites that our agency specializes in, a lot of these people are going to build these products and never succeed because they've heard the hype where it's a side hustle, right? Like, I'm just going to build it. And then it's going to be passive income and all these lies that people hear.
When you run a learning site and a membership site, it takes moderation work content. Like it takes constant influx, right? So at what point Toby, do I keep concentrating on helping other people try to get their start versus just making my own e-learning sites and selling the product and making revenue off of it.
Toby Cryns (10:51)
Yeah. And I think that the trap is
that, ⁓ that everyone who does this learns is that there's no free money out there. There's no set it and forget it unless you just get super lucky. You know, you're the first guy to invent Facebook. Okay. Here's your trillion dollars. Like a first, you know, your Google, you you figured out the search thing first. Like, ⁓ but I think like everyone else is running small businesses and
Kurt Von Ahnen (11:09)
Yeah.
Toby Cryns (11:17)
you gotta sell it and that's like where the rubber meets the road. If it takes you to sell or you to spend time doing the marketing and maybe money to invest in ads and all that, like at that point it's just a business.
Kurt Von Ahnen (11:30)
Yeah, I have a passion of mine and I've been tempted before I've even started like making a course about it. And I was like, wow, that's stupid. How that's stupid. And then I was talking to Chris at, at lifter LMS. And he was telling me about this customer that has this, this course. And I've mentioned it many times has this course on how to make balloon animals. And he's made a ton of money off of this course on how to make balloon animals. And here I am afraid to make my course. Cause I'm thinking, well, my passion's stupid. Nobody's going to want to pay for that.
Well, somebody's paying to learn how to make balloon animals. Right. And so I did some searching and I did some, I did some AI work to research the topic and where it would fall in with SEO and sales and conversion and all that. And I'm like, Holy crud. I'm sitting on a really good idea. So we started, I got my son involved and I said, son, I'll do a revenue share with you. If you're, you know, if you help me make these courses, blah, blah, blah. And we're moving forward. And it's like, if
Now this is a big if, if that starts to bring in revenue like the power sports Academy is bringing in revenue. At what point would I change my focus and say, look, I'm just going to start building these e-learning sites and making revenue off the training itself, rather than running an agency that's building sites for a fraction of those dollars for me for, for other people.
Toby Cryns (12:42)
Well, and there's other questions
potentially to ask is like, like, ⁓ there's traction on this specific site. Maybe rather than you could be a company that builds many e-learning sites and that's your expertise. I I'm someone who knows how to build e-learning, how to market e-learning and, you have a hundred e-learning micro empires and they're paying the bills and that's great. Or you find one of the, you start building you're like, this one has traction. ⁓ let's cancel the rest and do this.
⁓ Yeah, and that happens a lot too. And there's people, I have a friend who's kind of a serial website app builder and he makes a good living. He has like 10 apps and they all, one generates the bulk of it and the rest kind of fill in the gaps and just kind of what business do you want to run really? want, know, like, yeah.
Kurt Von Ahnen (13:11)
Let's cancel the rest.
Yeah.
When, so I'm curious when you're helping your clients with their projects.
I'm sure it happens, right? But do you ever like make that judgment call? Like they're gonna make it, they're not gonna make it. And then at what point are you vested in in the project where you're like, if I just put a little extra effort into this, I could probably help them find success where or do you sell that as a service?
Toby Cryns (13:49)
⁓
I have a client right now that from my vantage point, they could do it. They have a niche and a thing that I go, gosh darn it. If we could partner, you could do it. The problem is I don't think we would make good partners and I haven't even pitched it. I've done work and I've helped with the site, but like, I look at it every time I talked to this person, I'm like, ⁓ if I could just give this, you know,
20 hours a week for the next three months, I think we could do something huge, like huge for me. I'm not saying a billion, but maybe a million dollar company, you know, over time. ⁓
But the problem is in this case, and this is the human problem, I've had some already, I've only done a bunch of small projects for this person and already there's been friction. I'm like, I don't want to get in deeper with this person. I also have ⁓ a meeting this afternoon that I told you about earlier that...
Kurt Von Ahnen (14:25)
Yeah.
Toby Cryns (14:49)
This one, I really like the person. I've collaborated with them over the last 15 years on a number of projects. I could see a scenario, depending on what we come up with. I'm meeting this afternoon to brainstorm ideas and stuff. I could see that turning into some sort of a value play where I'm like, hey, think if I do 10 hours a week or 20 hours a week based on where your vision is, I think we can get somewhere. And I might be willing to do an equity thing at that point with that person.
Kurt Von Ahnen (15:14)
Yeah. Would you call that like a fractional CMO kind of thing?
Toby Cryns (15:17)
⁓
could be. Like, I actually missed the boat on one huge one. I could be, I could be, had I played it properly, we wouldn't be talking. I'd be on a beach. I played it. ⁓ I just said, I just want money. Just give me money and I'll be good. You know, I made good money and it was fine. ⁓ But in hindsight, I, the problem is I didn't see, they ended up making it. They ended up cashing out for
Kurt Von Ahnen (15:35)
Yeah.
Toby Cryns (15:43)
hundreds of millions of dollars within three years of me joining and helping and really getting them there. So I was instrumental in getting them there. I came away with a nice monthly salary for two years. And I could have come away with life-changing money. And so just misjudged it. And the problem is when they came in, I didn't see it for the opportunity it was. I didn't have the context.
Kurt Von Ahnen (15:47)
Yeah.
It's, it's really hard to look at a project from our vantage point sometimes and recognize, you know, life changing money. I have a client that was also a friend, right? So the friend referred me to their girlfriend, their girlfriend owned a company and she needed a website. And so, ⁓ we met, you know, and I said, Hey, I'll give you the, I'll give you the brother discount. We'll just get you going. You know, we'll do an MVP. We'll get you launched.
Toby Cryns (16:14)
Right.
Kurt Von Ahnen (16:31)
And I gave her some training sessions and I said, here's how you'd put in a blog post. Here's how you this, here's how you that. And I'm sure everyone's listening going, okay, I get that. get it. Right. And then like a month went by and I noticed things hadn't changed. And I emailed her and I said, Hey, you know, we built this as an MVP. You really need to update some of this information. You need to update some of this content. We need to have an events page for you. They have like an events kind of competition business. So
So it's very ⁓ dependent upon participation, right? And things like that. And building a fan base, like it's ripe for a fan base. And once it would have a fan base, it would be ripe as a community page. Like if you build this in the right phases, this could be a really big entity based on the niche that they're in. And I would keep making suggestions and then never hearing anything back. Well, it's been about a year and a half.
their most recent blog post is one that I wrote them as a sample because I tried to repitch them some monthly services. But before that one, it's like November of 24. Right. So if a customer goes to their website, the assumption is they either don't care or they're out of business. Just being real.
My friend calls me last week and he's asking me all kinds of questions about the website. And I said, where, where is this going? Cause I have sent you guys, I've sent you hints. I've sent you emails. I've made you tutorial videos. What, what do you guys get that? And he goes, we had a customer that was going to hire us and it would have provided us about a hundred thousand dollars a month in revenue, but they went to our website and they said our website sucked. So they went to the competition across town.
Unfortunately for them, the competition across town that we know very well really does suck. Like their website's nice, but their business is horrible. Whereas we have a great business, but our website sucks. And then we had a very real come into Jesus meeting about the lost opportunity in this website. And where I go with this, Toby, it's kind of like what we were talking about is, you know, I was pitching them services that would have been five to 750 bucks a month, maybe. Right.
Toby Cryns (18:19)
Mm-hmm.
Kurt Von Ahnen (18:31)
I mean, very modest, you know, I'm like, let's just do the bare minimum to get you guys like where you should be, you know, if you're not going to do it yourself, you can hire me and I'll, I'll do this as affordably as I possibly can for you. And it ended up costing them a hundred thousand dollars a month with just one client.
Toby Cryns (18:48)
Yeah. Mm hmm. Yeah.
This leads us to another question. In that scenario, what if you had pitched them the wishlist items earlier? Maybe you did, but what if you said, like, look, I know these people are getting these 100 grand a month contracts. If you just up your game a little, I think you can get those if we do X, Y, and Z.
Kurt Von Ahnen (19:10)
Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, what a difference a year and a half makes, right? I started their project a year and a half ago. I have projects right now that we're bidding on and my proposals literally say, this is the bare minimum. The next fit. The next level is what I think we should do for you. That's justified. And then the third option is if I had my druthers,
This is the wish list I'd love to do for you and help you find success in this path. And we've had some really positive reactions to the wish list. And the wish list is from an agency. When you say I'm a full service agency, the wish list is a full list of like, you just focus, you run your business, you focus on what you do, have a conversation with us, you know, once every 10 days, twice a month, whatever. And we'll take care of everything on this bullet list for you.
You know, is it cheap? No, but are we, are we going to knock it out of the park for you? Yeah. Right. And I'm amazed at how many people are interested in pursuing that as the option. Like we should have been pitching that from the very beginning.
Toby Cryns (20:06)
Mm-hmm. Yep. Mm-hmm.
Kurt Von Ahnen (20:10)
How many, so I know you talk to a lot of agencies up there because you go to events and meetups and stuff and you're no code buds. ⁓ how many conversations center around, we just can't seem to find new clients or we can't find people that have budget. Everybody's everybody feels broke lately. Cause I keep hearing that. And then like I said, my last few proposals, I said, here's my wish list. I would, I would do all this for you. And they're like, I think I'll do that.
Toby Cryns (20:35)
There are
always people that can find those deals. You know, those people, maybe it's you and your network, but there are always people who are struggling to find deals. And then there are people who know how to find them. So I think that there's a, there's talent like in finding these deals and everyone's born with a certain amount of talent. And then there's just hard work and you start at a certain talent and then you through process and work, you can figure it out. I don't feel like it's much different today in terms of like,
Kurt Von Ahnen (20:52)
Yeah.
Toby Cryns (21:04)
Those same people who were complaining 15 years ago are still complaining that there's no leads. The ones that are... Yeah, the one thing that I think is helpful is like, your pitch probably needs to change on a person by person basis always. And I think that fact is not absorbed by a lot of people out there.
Kurt Von Ahnen (21:10)
Yeah, yeah, I need more leads.
Yeah.
I have seen so many people in our shoes pitch a job that, I would say is eight or $9,000, just say, right. And they go, Oh, I pitched it for $4,200. And I'm like, Ooh, cause I'm thinking to myself, I'm always thinking how many meetings is this customer going to require? Right? Each meeting's an hour. Each meeting costs me 150 bucks. I just, so that's gotta be part of the quote, right? But they don't, they don't quote it like that. And so they go, Oh, probably about $4,200.
And then they negotiate and settle on three grand. So now what I would have charged 9,004, they're charging 3,004. and, and then what happens is they finished the project and they, they bail out, they don't upsell. They don't say, well, here's the SEO, here's the maintenance. You know, we'll do the hosting for you. We'll manage your videos on your video server. Like they don't, they don't, they don't land and expand. They do the three grand.
Toby Cryns (21:55)
Yeah.
Right. Yeah.
Kurt Von Ahnen (22:21)
And they act like they should be thankful for getting the three grand. And then what happened? What's that?
Toby Cryns (22:22)
Why don't they land and expand? Why don't they land and expand?
Kurt Von Ahnen (22:27)
I think they're just scared or I hate to say lazy, but I'll go with scared, but then invariably they'll meet that customer, see that customer interact with that customer three, six months later and find out that that customer is struggling with their project. And they've already hired someone like a go high level expert, or they've hired an SEO expert, or they've hired, you know, someone to come in and redo some graphics. And you have to ask yourself if you're in that position and that's happening to you, why didn't.
Why didn't I sell that upfront? Cause now you're not in control anymore. Now you've, now you've got these third party influences and they're all going to say the same thing. I don't know who built this website for you, but this isn't the way I would have set this up. And it makes you look like a moron, even though they're still not getting the results for the client.
Toby Cryns (23:10)
Yeah.
There's something to be said for just continually looking for opportunities to help. And I think part of the problem when you low ball a bid is you don't want to do more work for that low ball bid. So why would you, why would you pitch it? Like, and I think like, I struggle with this with internally with my sales guy. I am, I always tell them like, we should double this pitch, whatever the X is to exit. And he's like, no, but the value and I'm like,
Kurt Von Ahnen (23:18)
Yeah.
Toby Cryns (23:36)
I think they might pay it. I don't know. You don't know. I don't know. I'm not saying like, I'm not, he's a big numbers guy. like, well, here's all the hours we're gonna invest. I'm like, that's all fine. Let's double it for the money. I'm not saying we worked twice as hard. And you never know. You just never know. And it's all about the pitch and the relationship. You were talking about sharing this wish list. If you come in with the wish list, they're like,
I didn't even know that was possible. Yes. Let's like, you can change the frame of reference just by, and this is what the great salespeople do is like, especially in an agency, you have all sorts of potential upsells that you don't even know about. Like you mentioned go high level. like, I've heard of that. I've never pitched it, but why not?
Kurt Von Ahnen (24:27)
I've heard of it. We one of our pitches last week, just like you just like you're talking about. She is it's an e learning project and the government's involved and she's like, we have all the scripts, we still have to record them, blah, blah, blah. And I said, so your timeline is going to put you out some for production of video content. And she's like, Yeah. And I said, I said, Well, are you are you the talent for that? Or do you need someone to help you with curriculum development and ⁓ video production?
And you could see like it was like she had like two kettlebells that she was holding. Right. And as soon as I said, do you need help with video production? Her shoulders just went. You can you do that? And I was like, ⁓ absolutely. We're a full service agency. Right. And then she said, and I said, well, how much is it? And then she said, well, we're each each courses, six hours. And there's so many courses. And I said, OK, do you understand how production works?
Toby Cryns (25:02)
Right.
Yeah.
Kurt Von Ahnen (25:18)
you know, if you need 45 minutes of video, you're probably looking at four and a half to five hours of production work to make that video. Right? So whatever the allotment is, we're going to multiply that by five. So if you've got a six hour requirement, you know, I'm looking at 30 hours of production work minimum to meet your requirement. And so in our agency rate is this much. So automatically we're going to add this much to your proposal. goes, that totally makes sense. You know, and you're like, okay, boom.
Toby Cryns (25:39)
Mm-hmm.
Right. Yeah.
Kurt Von Ahnen (25:47)
We're just adding lines in a column, man.
Toby Cryns (25:48)
I had an email. So
we hired someone and they're still in the process and they're great. They're working on the Mightemo brand website verbiage. We're changing our website verbiage. It's a brand project though. It's in the sense that, yeah, it's, so we're like, currently our customers are this profile. We're trying to like reach into this other profile and we don't think the brand is matching. And so she's helping us with that. But anyway, while she's doing that, she sent me an email saying like,
Kurt Von Ahnen (26:02)
Yeah, like a style guide gig.
Toby Cryns (26:16)
Hey, you know, after this project, I was thinking like, we could, I could do your social media. Cause now she knows more about my business. She knows we probably need help with marketing and social. And she pitched a bunch of stuff. And I was like, we can't even do that until we have a strategy. like, I appreciate it. I was like, do you do strategy by chance? She's like, yes, I do. have no idea if she does strategy, but she said, yes, we're probably going to hire her. You know, we'll give her a shot and we'll see.
Kurt Von Ahnen (26:40)
Yes, I do.
That is all good stuff. I'm going to jump down in our notes. I had made a note about something and then we were talking about customer successes. And so I'm curious, do you currently have like a conversion tracking tool, not just for you, not just for the mighty Mo, but are you using like a conversion tracking tool with your clients?
Toby Cryns (27:05)
We set up
conversion tracking and Google analytics. ⁓ so if they, let's say they're using a gravity form or a form, we will track that data. Also, if they have e-commerce, we'll hook up the conversion tracking in Google analytics. ⁓ what this is my experience with conversion tracking. Generally, if you don't have a dedicated person on your team looking at that data and comparing it. So, you know, they need eight hours a week just to like.
Digest that conversion data if you don't have someone who can invest eight hours a week on that that data is worthless ⁓ One thing I have found to be better than that if you don't have eight hours a week, maybe you have two hours a month And I might actually start selling this as like a monthly project product, but like I've had gone on So hot jar and we use something called Microsoft clarity, which is a hot jar clone. The idea is you're you're ⁓ you're looking at
heat maps for your website and you're also watching videos. And I found the heat maps less valuable. The reason they're less valuable is when you're a B2B company, you don't get a lot of traffic. You don't get enough traffic for these data sets, even conversion tracking data sets. They're not, they're not valuable data sets purely because they're not, there's not enough data. And so like, but I have found a lot of great insights come from watching these videos over like, so I'll jump on a call with a client.
Kurt Von Ahnen (28:18)
Yeah.
Toby Cryns (28:24)
and we'll just pull up Microsoft Clarity. I'll be like, here's somebody they visited at 2 p.m. They're from Minneapolis, it appears. We're not sure, we get enough data. like, we think this is a real person. They were on the site for two and a half minutes. Let's see what they did. And so we'll just sit there for two and a half minutes, watch them navigate the site, where they click. And we found that to be hugely insightful. Like we have like, I come out of those, and this is another thing.
If you can schedule that call, even as for free, even for free with a client, I come out of there with three hours of work.
Kurt Von Ahnen (28:57)
Yeah, yeah it's the conversion tracking thing is an interesting topic to me because a friend of mine has a plugin in that space and He's super adamant like he's like the conversion tool isn't even really for the client It's for you so you can look at the conversion report and then you can report to the client Hey, you know due to our changes due to whatever blah blah blah. We've increased your
impressions, your form downloads, your video plays, like whatever it is, you know, we've increased the consumption on your website by 47 % or whatever, right? To kind of create that stickiness. So you use it like a sales tool more than a guide for the client's business. And, uh, so I've been, I've been kind of playing with that and trying to figure out how I want to incorporate that. And I'm kind of on the fence a little bit about it. It's kind of like, um,
I signed up for PatchStack and I put PatchStack in all of my clients websites and I give them a monthly report about the security of their sites and reassure them that, we're looking at plugins for conflicts before they happen and, and all of that. And so I see there's again, emotional deposits versus withdrawals, right? Trying to communicate to customers, the stickiness of like the hosting and the maintenance we provide on the backend of the site building.
Toby Cryns (30:10)
Mm-hmm. I like that.
Well, what that gives is you the freedom to use the data how you how it best suits you really, which is.
I like it. like the theory like of the agency owner, the agency owner looking at that data to support their efforts or to make pitches or whatever. ⁓ I just, when I coach my clients, I, my position is usually like, it's probably not worth it. We can set it up. It'll it'll be set up. It'll be there, but like, you're to have to either pay us to look at that data or beyond the raw data. We can tell you how many clicks and all that, but.
Kurt Von Ahnen (30:24)
I like it.
Yeah.
Toby Cryns (30:47)
I just find like that raw data isn't useful in making conclusions unless there's a ton of data, like a thousand clicks every month. Then you go, okay, I'm starting to see trends, you know.
Kurt Von Ahnen (30:49)
Yeah.
Yeah, it's kind of like looking at a YouTube account that doesn't have a high subscription rate. I see people with like high subscription rates and they're like, this video peaked out at six minutes. This video peaked out at eight minutes, you know, and then I look at my account, I've got a hundred subscribers, videos are looked at like 12 times, right? Well, how these 12 people, 47 seconds. So I guess my dad is not too strong.
Toby Cryns (31:11)
Right, yeah. Right, yeah, exactly.
And the flip side is there's a guy on YouTube
that I know who makes two hour long videos and his average time watch is like an hour and a half. Like, so he gets like X amount of people and it's a good amount in his case, but they watch for the almost the full video every time. And he's like, that's, that's how you make money on YouTube. If you can get people to watch it through an hour and a half, they sit through 10 ads, 10 ad breaks. And, um, so that, but, but, in terms of these conversions, like
Kurt Von Ahnen (31:45)
Man.
Toby Cryns (31:46)
For a lot of the businesses we collaborate with, they only need 10 sales in a year. And so you only need 10 conversions over the course of 12 months. That's less than one conversion a month that turns into a sale.
Kurt Von Ahnen (31:58)
That's the conversation I had with my own wife recently, because we had gone for a while without making any new sales. were maintaining our existing client base, but we hadn't made any new sales in a while. And I was starting to get a little concerned, just be transparent. started making content online. Like we are open for business folks. And, ⁓ and then all of a sudden we started like bidding out a couple of pretty decently sized jobs. And then I was talking to my wife. said, babe, these are the home run jobs, you know,
We only need two or three of these home runs a year. And then everything else, everything else just falls into place after that. Like once the pressure is off, once we hit one or two of those home runs, the pressure is off. hit a third home run, easy street, everything else. Now, now we're in the position of being able to say yes or no to any project. And it doesn't really, now we're able to help, you know, our, our mental wellbeing, our stress levels. Everything's great. After we hit, you know, that,
Toby Cryns (32:43)
Mm-hmm.
Kurt Von Ahnen (32:53)
If we can hit three home runs at the, the beginning of the year, then we are set. And, ⁓ like to your point from a business to business perspective, I don't need or need, nor do I think I want 300 new clients a year.
But I guess it would be different if I had a whole team of people. If I had a whole team of people, I'd have to have the volume.
Toby Cryns (33:12)
Well, this is the thing. was talking to a guy who
runs a very successful business in town and I was like, I have X amount of employees. He's like, Oh, I have less than that. Yeah. Cause I was like, you probably have more than me. He's like, no, I have less than that. Like interesting. Like, uh, part of it is like, um, yeah, it's. There's like this idea of efficiency and people, but more people doesn't necessarily mean more money and nor does more efficiency mean more money, but you can run it. could run it and have run a totally different business.
Kurt Von Ahnen (33:26)
Cheers!
Toby Cryns (33:41)
Within the context of the mighty Mo, like we could go and say, yeah, we're only accepting 50 grand or more projects. That's a totally different. Setup that I have, like, in terms of my team, like we have a team that's really good at delivering many smaller projects. Let's say three months to six months long projects plus smaller than that even, um, versus a team that's like, no, we're going to take a big budget. We're going to, this is going to be a year and a half. Uh,
Kurt Von Ahnen (33:49)
Yeah.
Toby Cryns (34:08)
you know, that's a different business. And it reminds me of the guy, what was the movie where the guy sold the stocks at the end? ⁓ Famous, big short. He was, so he's like this investor and the picture we have of investors is like those 80s movies where people are like going crazy and doing 100,000 trades a day. And he's like, no, I do like one trade every six months.
Kurt Von Ahnen (34:23)
yeah, yeah, yeah.
Toby Cryns (34:33)
And I just sit there and watch my computer for six months. And I just, I just, have a number in my head when I'm going to sell.
Uh-huh. And so he was describing in the book, they describe his office and it's basically like six computer nerds just sitting in quiet looking at their screen. And the juxtaposition is this whole other world of stock trading where they're going nuts. Both are making great money. And that's kind of like how I feel the mighty mo. Right now we're kind of like this like busy company and it is, you always wish for one or the other, you know, like
Kurt Von Ahnen (34:41)
And when it hits, I hit.
Yeah.
Toby Cryns (35:04)
I've been the calmer company, you know, now we're a busier company. Like I kind of, at some point, maybe I'll get back to the calm. Where are you at with, you know, in terms of the, I don't know, fewer, bigger, what do you prefer at this moment? Fewer, bigger, you know.
Kurt Von Ahnen (35:18)
This morning I put a pork roast on the smoker and I'm going to work on my mountain bike this afternoon after a customer call. And I am going to build a mountain bike trail tomorrow with the team. And I'm going to a trail on Sunday for a 20 mile mountain bike ride. Like that is where.
My mental wellbeing, my physical wellbeing. I am, I'm all in the relaxed side of things right now. I need customers. need revenue. have, you know, a small team that I got to keep working. I get all that, but I'm not looking to. I just said no to a job because it just, quite honestly, it just seems stressful. I was like, I know this is going to be too much. I don't know. I don't want to it. Like, and that's just the position we're in right now. that changes. mean, everything ebbs and flows with time.
Toby Cryns (36:01)
Mm-hmm.
Kurt Von Ahnen (36:03)
Right. But, that's where we're at now. Now, if I hadn't hit, you know, a couple of home runs already this year, I wouldn't be in that position. I would be a little more like, we got, we got to get some revenue. got to get something going. But I take small jobs too. I did an e-commerce job this week, literally like a $900 mini project. Boom. Done.
Toby Cryns (36:12)
Yep.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, great. You know, and that's the
thing, like, is I think a lot of people think you gotta be one thing or the other, too. That's actually a great example of, no, you can still do the other stuff. Like, some things are big, yeah. ⁓
Kurt Von Ahnen (36:31)
Yeah, yeah.
So I know that we wanted to talk about what would be the earmarks of favorable hosting from an agency perspective, but that's going to be a whole other conversation. Toby, I think we saved that for another time. Another cliffhanger tune in next week, folks.
Toby Cryns (36:40)
Yeah. I think this is another cliffhanger that we're getting famous for. Hosting, WordPress
hosting. Which host, which hosting provider you need to choose and which are garbage. ⁓
Kurt Von Ahnen (36:50)
you ⁓
I don't think that's gonna be I don't think we're gonna talk
Toby Cryns (36:57)
It won't be. That's going to be our headline, our
clickbait, but it won't be anything like that.
Kurt Von Ahnen (37:03)
Yeah. Yeah. No, it's, ⁓ I think it's definitely a conversation worth having. Like how do we make these choices? but we just don't have the time today. Toby. I really enjoyed our conversation today. I hope, I hope people out there did like share, follow the comments are huge folks. I w for comments on this show. I would love to hear from you. Like, how do you know when to say yes or no to a client project? ⁓ how much
You know, how much buy-in do you have when you take on a client that you know is probably going to fail? Like that's a hard one. Cause you got to, you got to overcome your internal feelings. we talked about a lot of things today, Toby, how can people reach you?
Toby Cryns (37:38)
I could be found on LinkedIn,
T-O-B-Y-C-R-Y-N-S, or at themightymo.com. That's T-H-E-M-I-G-H-T-Y-M-O.com. How about you, Kurt? How can I get in touch with you?
Kurt Von Ahnen (37:49)
I'm the only Kurt Von Annen on LinkedIn. I'm easy to find. ⁓ LinkedIn's a great place, except for all the spam that's in there. ⁓ And then ⁓ Manana No Mas is our company name. That's all of our socials and manananomas.com for the website.
Toby Cryns (38:03)
All right. Thanks everybody. Hope
you have a great weekend and week ahead.