Speaker 0 00:00:00 You were charging for audits, most freelancers and small agencies. I speak to do free audits as a way of getting in front of the client and establishing a relationship. But you were charging from audits, like right from the get go. Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:00:13 Yeah. Yeah. I, and I started at a low price. I think I probably charged like 1 99 or something. I was like, oh wow. They didn't even flinch at that. Right. And I kind of kept playing with the price. So we, we kind of settled on 4 97, um, cuz we don't want to be too big of a roadblock to get someone on like $150 a month or higher plan. But, um, it's also enough that I know they're not gonna drop off the plan after a month or two of on the plan because they've invested $500 up front. So they're not gonna just disappear. After two months of service,
Speaker 2 00:00:43 If you have a vision for the agency you want to build, then we want to help you build it. Welcome to the agency hour podcast brought to you by agency Mavericks.
Speaker 0 00:00:51 Hey ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another episode of the agency hour live here in the digital Mavericks Facebook group. I've um, I've started listening. Well, not started actually. I've been listening to this kind of stuff for a few years. It's known by a bunch of different names, a bunch of different playlists on Spotify. It's called jazz vibes on title, which is my new streaming service that I just absolutely love. It's called, um, work jazz or jazz beats. And it's kind of like this electronic, uh, jazz, couple of my MUO buddies hate it. They call it elevated music. I call it the music that stops me from killing people. It keeps me calm. Anyway. I love it. It's just like smooth. I find it incredibly healing, which is why I listen to it. I listen to it and I'm like, oh, everything's gonna be okay. And more than that, everything is gonna be fantastic because joining me today live on the episode of the agency are, is my good friend and uh, alumni of WP elevation and coach in Maverick's club. Please welcome the one and only Johnny flash.
Speaker 1 00:02:10 Hey Troy. How's it going?
Speaker 0 00:02:11 I'm good, man. How are you brother?
Speaker 1 00:02:13 Uh, I'm doing great man. Thanks for having me on.
Speaker 0 00:02:16 Oh man. Thanks for, thanks for joining in. You're normally at band rehearsal at this time of day. Is that right?
Speaker 1 00:02:21 I, I still have it in about two hours to go. Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:02:23 Oh, okay, cool. After
Speaker 1 00:02:24 We get done here, I gotta run through my tunes and then we got rehearsal. Yep.
Speaker 0 00:02:28 And you're a bass player, right? Yep. Yep. Dude, I man, I can't wait for the travel restrictions to just get over and uh, me, you and Adam Silverman go and hang out down on his, uh, farm in Nashville and just have a jam
Speaker 1 00:02:42 Dude. That'd be awesome.
Speaker 0 00:02:43 That would be amazing. Uh, good stuff. How are you, how are you now for those who don't know you? Who are you? Where are you and what are you doing here?
Speaker 1 00:02:52 Yeah, well, um, I'm a coach with Mavericks. Uh, I run an agency called Johnny flash productions. I'm located outside of Washington, DC in the United States, uh, found Detroit back in, I think it was 2016, like the spring of 2016 early in the 2016, I had just left my day job. Um, at the end of 2015, I was trying to do this thing full time. I, I had done a lot of websites, but the business part was where I needed. Particularly the coaching, uh, found the blueprint, went through the blueprint, tried to apply it all as best as I could. And we have been going ever since. So it's been six years since I, uh, six years and a few months since I quit my day job. Um, wow. We, we passed the uh, half million mark in revenue last year. So that was a big milestone for us. Wow. And um, we've hired three team members in the last week. <laugh> So we are, we've got uh, there's 13 of us now. My wife works in the business. She does the branding and everything 13. Um, we've uh, I'm doing like the more of the sales and the team leadership. And then we've got three account managers, three developers, four designers, plus my wife and I. So that is our 13, um, and a virtual assistant that's that makes the 13.
Speaker 0 00:04:16 Yeah. Right. And where, where are your team based?
Speaker 1 00:04:19 Uh, we are outnumbered in the Philippines. We have seven in the Philippines and five in the us.
Speaker 0 00:04:26 Cool. That's 12, where's the other one?
Speaker 1 00:04:28 Um, 2, 5, 8 in the Philippines and five in the us. There we
Speaker 0 00:04:33 Go. I thought you were gonna say one is in the matrix. <laugh> never to be found
Speaker 1 00:04:36 Again. We do have, yeah, a few in the matrix
Speaker 0 00:04:40 Now. Um, I have a question for you before we, cuz we're gonna talk about, uh, essentially we're gonna be talking about letting go of the steering wheel, right. As you grow and how that's been a key part of your growth and you know how you actually do that through processes. But I wanna just talk before we dive into that, I wanna talk about if you could go back to Johnny flash six years ago, when you just started out and you just discovered the blueprint, knowing what you know now and the team that you've built now and reaching that milestone of half a million dollars in revenue, which is dude like, like 98% of small agencies just never get there. Right. There's there's a, some statistic. Like I think it's 2% of small businesses in Australia across the $2 million mark. Right. 2%. So the odds are not good. The odds are stacked against you. So if you could go back and talk to Johnny flash six years ago, what, what advice would you have or what would you say what's been like one of the most important lessons you've learned over the last six years that you'd like to give Johnny flash back in 2016.
Speaker 1 00:05:44 Um, wow. Good question. Number of things. I think that I would encourage myself with one before I even started the eight before I kind of went out full time. I would've tried to build up my recurring revenue a little bit on the side, cuz I literally quit my day job with no recurring revenue. When I was doing it just 10 or 15 hours a week. I really didn't want the maintenance kind of clients and stuff because I wanted to just do new projects in the 10 or 15 hours I had, I didn't wanna have to like deal with support stuff. Had I known what I known now? I would've just hired just like I did when I started offering monthly plans, I would've hired someone in the Philippines to take care of 'em and I would've sold a bunch of those before I left my day job or got some recurring revenue of some kind.
Speaker 1 00:06:25 So that then when I took the leap, it would've been a little bit less stressful at the beginning. Cause I didn't have any recurring revenue till I found you. And I think it was, uh, Christina Rome at the time and everyone kind of, you know, helping with the recurring revenue. So, um, I would definitely build up the recurring revenue quicker and I'd probably hire a little faster, um, or just be willing to let go of things. I think when you're like a solo entrepreneur, you're pretty good at all the different things or at least you figured out how to do them. So the thought of, and I, this is what we run into when we're coaching in Mavericks even right, is that you've got someone they've always been the, the designer, the coder in the business or whatever it is. And they like don't feel like they can let it go because no one else is gonna do it to like their level of excellence, which as I've let go of more things I've realized our designs are better now than when I did them.
Speaker 1 00:07:16 You know, <laugh>, our websites are built better now than when I did them. And I did a good job. I did a good job and I cared a lot. But when you have someone who's just focused on web design and they know the ins and outs of F and good UX UI and all that stuff, like I'm kind of embarrassed now about any project that's still in the portfolio. That was like that I, that I was the brain child behind because they just don't look nearly as good as the ones that the team are putting out now. So totally,
Speaker 0 00:07:41 Totally. Um, I just wanna give a quick shout out to Amber Rushton who is, uh, in sales accelerator and is here, uh, said, wow, that is awesome. I want that James Mero who's in Mavericks is, is in this exact spot now and is looking to hire his first Dave Jeanette, Elton, who is also in Mavericks are, or we think we are good at all the things. Exactly. Um, so good idea. You guys watching our thanks for joining in, by the way, if you're listening to this on the podcast, because this of course now is a podcast. Thank you. Uh, massive shout out to max Jeff cot and the, the team here who have made the agency out into a podcast and it is now live on all the podcast channels, apple podcast, Spotify, uh, downcast, wherever you get your, your, your, your podcast. Uh, if you're listening to this, come and join the digital Mavericks Facebook group and, uh, be a part of it.
Speaker 0 00:08:27 Uh, you get to watch us record this podcast live in the group. So you get to have a look at us, chatting to each other and you also get to join in the comments. So if you're listening to this as a podcast, please come and join the digital Mavericks Facebook group and be a part of the conversation. So here's the thing I've learnt is, you know, I used to try and be the Superman and think that I had the answer to all the problems, which is great for your ego, by the way, it's, it's fantastic when you can solve all the problems, the one thing, but it's also exhausting man, having that responsibility, right? The one thing I've learned over the years is to be humble enough to say, I don't know, I'm not the best person for this job. We need to find someone who's better at this than I am.
Speaker 0 00:09:07 Um, that is liberating. Uh, it's also, it, it, it, it kind of takes a huge workload off your shoulders and a huge responsibility off your shoulders. So you don't have to be the one that's coming up with all the answers, but also you exactly what you said. You realize that if someone's, this was paramount. When we hired Emily to run our Facebook group full time, Emily who's now our operations manager. She came on just to run our digital Mavericks Facebook group, the group that we're live in here now. And we, I just saw like within six weeks it was transformational. It was like, what? Of course, because someone that's her job, like she's focused a hundred percent on that. She's not trying to do everything else. And it was a real vindication of what I'd been thinking for a while, which is there's one of me and there's, you know, 15 to 20 roles in, in the agency that need to be filled.
Speaker 0 00:10:01 I can't be the best at every one of those roles. And it would be arrogant and foolish of me to think that I can be the best. Exactly. So it's, it's wise humbling and, and mature to go. Let's get some good people who are better at this. And then let's them let them do their thing and champion them and elevate them and, and rise them up. And, and I think the, the mindset for me around this is really came from, um, reading, uh, good authority, which is a fantastic book by I'll find the author in a minute. Um, one of the things that he says, basically his mantra is as a, as a leader or a business owner, you should be more Yoda and less Superman. And when I read that, which was just last year, I read that it was like a crystallization of everything I'd been thinking about.
Speaker 0 00:10:51 That was like, yes, that's exactly right. Whenever I feel like I'm putting the Superman Cape on, or I'm coming in to save the day I go, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Just stop. Cuz if you do that, mm-hmm, <affirmative> you then create a loop for the rest of your team to go, well, it's like the teenager who doesn't clean their room. Well, I don't have to cuz mom's always gonna do it. You're actually enabling that bad behavior. So yeah. Um, awesome. Love it. So now, Hey, we do, we do wanna dive into a little, a little bit about how you've actually empowered your team, who was the fir, who was your first hire, who was the first person you hired on the team?
Speaker 1 00:11:22 The first person I hired was a front end developer slash VA. I was trying to get like kind of the unicorn that was good at communicating with the clients and good at solving the problems. She was actually pretty good. And she was on our team for two years. Um, she would, you know, respond to the clients. She would do most of the tasks. Sometimes I'd have to like write a reply for her. Um, and she was in the Philippines then when she had some medical issues and kind of, you know, decided to kind of move on. I decided to hire a front end developer in the Philippines and then kind of a support ticket account manager in the us that worked a lot better because then the us person could be kind of the communication with the client, create the task for the developer, check the work of the developer and then reply to the client.
Speaker 1 00:12:07 Um, that worked really well. And so I, I kind of operated with that for a while where I had a developer handling the support tickets, an account manager, handling the request coming in the developer could help a little bit with some of the, the website builds. Um, and then started helping more with the website builds. I was just doing the design at, in the sales and that stuff at that point. Um, and then we brought on a, a designer eventually to design the sites, developer building 'em answering support tickets, account manager. The thing that I had to really like work to let go of was that, which I think is what we're gonna talk about today was how to let go of the management of say like a full website build. Um, mm-hmm <affirmative> and that, that took like some thinking through, in terms of like, how can I let not have the, a call with the client during the pro you know, the, every week of the process and get their content and show them the designs and get their feedback and do kind of all the middle work, which I think a lot of agency owners or freelancers feel like they're the only one that can do that stuff.
Speaker 1 00:13:08 Even if they have someone helping with the, the development or the design.
Speaker 0 00:13:12 Why do you, so why do you <laugh>? Cause I see this all the time and I've, I've been doing this for a long time now. And so I say this without trying to be, you know, a smart ass, but I look back at it and I, I did it as well. Right. Uh, I thought I was the only one that could manage the client relationship. And I was the only one that could turn the client's vision into, into pixels in the browser. And I was the only one that could interpret the client's content and all that kind of stuff. And then you realize that's just, that's just a it's it's, it's arrogant. It's not, it's not based in arrogance. I think it's based in fear. Right. But it is actually quite arrogant to think that you are the only person that can do that. And I think it's not wanting to relinquish that control.
Speaker 0 00:14:00 And I mean, this, I don't mean mean to be, you know, harsh, but, um, I think we think that we are unicorns mm-hmm <affirmative> in the business and we're not. Yeah. Right. And so how, how did you let go of the, when you hired the developer to do the, you know, do some of your care plan stuff and do some of your basic web builds, did you have really well documented processes that you then put your developer through? Or did you collaborate on the process with your developer? Like talk, talk me through before we get onto the project management stuff. Talk me through your process for letting go of the control around the dev stuff first, because I think that's where that's usually the first role that freelancers and small agency owners look to hire for mm-hmm
Speaker 1 00:14:46 <affirmative> yeah. And, and just to add to what you were saying right before your question, I think not only is it fear, but sometimes we're time strapped. Right. So the thought of trying to get someone else to do it the way that we do it, there's, there's, there's a time issue sometimes with that. And then I think there can also be a, I don't want laziness. Isn't probably the right word, but it takes effort to actually think through how you do things and communicate that to someone else. And so when you have the fear, the time strap, and then don't want to take the effort to kind of put it in writing or show someone how to do it. I think the combination is what paralyzes us. Right.
Speaker 0 00:15:25 Hmm. So how, how, how would you rate your processes when you hired your first developer?
Speaker 1 00:15:32 When we, when I had my first developer, I think my strategy was figure out how other people who are further down the road than this than me are doing it successfully. And then try to kind of build my version of that into the business. So even though my developer and he's, uh, the, one of my, a couple of my developers been with me for a number of years. And so they've kind of we've iterated and stuff, but I think, you know, even if you have a front end developer who's really good, they may or may not have been in a good, healthy ticket desk situation before or whatever. Right. And so kind of wanting to find those best practices, which I think is what's so great about Mavericks, right? Is that we've got all these agency owners who are doing things well, they're learning, there's, it's kind of a iron sharpens iron kind of approach, right.
Speaker 1 00:16:16 Where you're being able to see what works really well for. Oh, wow. There's a bunch of people that are doing this really well. They're, they're willing to share things about how they're doing it well and what that looks like and, um, kind of you can level up quicker. Right. So I think for me, it was kind of figuring out like, what were other people doing that works well? And how could I put a version of that into my business and kind of train my developer on how I wanted it done. Cuz the other thing is if I rely, in my case, if I relied too much on the developer setting up the process, then they moved on after two years and then a new developer comes in, you know, that may or may not be the best way to do it. That was just how the one developer knew how to do it. So kind of thinking of it through, at a higher level of like, Hey, how are people doing this? And I've had, we've had to adjust things cuz it's different when you've got one person handling pretty much all the tickets and one person responding to all the tickets coming in. Whereas now we've got three people on the desk and three different developers and there's a lot of different pieces that our system that worked for just kind of one set of people. Wasn't quite the, we needed to tweak some things to make it scale.
Speaker 0 00:17:20 Yeah. Um, Amber mentioned, uh, the cash flow is the thing that gets in the way not knowing when you can afford to hire someone. How did you think through that? How did you work through that? I, I know you have a, you have like a, um, like a barometer in your office, like an old school printed out barometer that you color in every week to see where you say to target. I love it. It's so it's so not digital. It's fantastic. I love it. And there's something really tactile about it, which is nice. But how did you know at what point? Okay, we can afford to hire a developer now?
Speaker 1 00:17:52 Well, so the first developer that I hired, she was in the Philippines. She was working a full time job made in the Philippines, going physically to an office. This is pre COVID, obviously. Um, and she was making $386 a month working 40 hours a week, going to a physical location. Wow. And so I was offering her at the time I, this was my first hire, so I didn't know what I was doing, but I offered her 25 hours a week for $450 a month and she could work at home. So suddenly she was getting paid more. She had more free time. Uh, she didn't have to go to a bad work environment,
Speaker 0 00:18:30 Man, life changing life, changing
Speaker 1 00:18:32 Life changing. Yes. Life changing for her. And she was, we still stay in contact. My first team member, we still, we still email back and forth. Um, and she, uh, was so grateful for it. She was such a hard worker. She was really great. And I only needed a few care plans to pay for $450 a month. You know? So I pretty much, I'm, I'm big on the cash. I'm big on, uh, profit and keeping my profit. Um, and so I don't like to outspend my, you know, my income. So I, my, my thought was, I'm gonna sell five care plans and then I'm gonna put that money toward my first hire, which is what I did. And then every, and then I know she could handle 20, 30, 40 clients, you know, at 25 hours a week on a support desk. And so I just kept selling the things and I didn't have to increase my cost at all. I could just, I could get her taking care of 25 care plan clients and I'm paying four 50 a month, you
Speaker 0 00:19:26 Know? Okay. Coup couple of things that you've said that, that maybe just came naturally to you, but I know are a startling block for a lot of people. One culturally, had you had any experience hiring people in the Philippines before and if not, how did you get your head around? Cause I speak to people every day who are just like, there there's some block for them in hiring people remotely, whether it's the Philippines or south America or, you know, Eastern Europe or whatever. Yeah. Like how did you get your head around that? What was the
Speaker 1 00:20:01 Like, I think I had been to enough of your, uh, I don't know it was, it was through WPL elevation at the time it was through, um, you know, going to a, me a few word camps or whatever. And it was just hearing enough other agency owners saying and normalizing it to the point where it was like no big deal, right. That they had a couple of team members here were there or wherever. And I was like, wow, this isn't just like, I ran into one person who's doing this. This is, there's like a lot of people that are doing this and it seems to be going great. You know? And so I think that was kind of what gave me the courage of like, I need to try this. And then I, I've kind of learned over the years, even from my, before I was doing my agency full time and I've hired a number of different people in the different jobs and stuff, working at a church and running a whole creative department.
Speaker 1 00:20:46 It's like, anytime I've hired out of desperation or fast, I usually hired poorly. Anytime. I took the time to really kind of thoroughly vet my candidates. I, I always had better candidates. Right. And so I kind of, from all those poor hiring decisions that I've done over the different years, I kind of forced myself to say, okay, I need to have enough hurdles for this person to go through that. Um, I know that, you know, by the time I, they get through the end, almost like a, it's almost like a funnel for your agency. Right. You know, where you have like, Hey, you're gonna get a lot of people in at the top of the funnel. You're gonna kind of narrow 'em down with the questionnaire and you're gonna do a call and whatever. I was like, I need to have my own funnel for my candidates so that I have enough things that they have to go through that by the time they get to the end, I know that this is gonna be great. Right. Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:21:35 Um, it's uh, funny, you mentioned that we actually have a recruitment pipeline that we set up and click up for our clients because it is like, it's like a sales pipeline, like a recruitment pipeline. So the other thing that you said is, well, I, I knew that I just needed to sell five care plans to pay for the first staff member. So I just kept selling care plans. So you say this like, it's, you just get up, you have breakfast, you sell some care plans, but there's more to it than that. Like how what's, what was the key ingredient for you getting in front of those people to sell the care plans and then were they existing clients or were they people that had websites built elsewhere? How did you get your first, you know, 10 clients onto care plans?
Speaker 1 00:22:18 So some of them were past clients that I had done, you know, built their website three years ago and I didn't have any kind of care plan. So they would contact me once or twice a year. And, and we'd say, Hey, we should probably update our software, you know, ma make sure everything's good to go or whatever. Right. And so I would do kind of like just a one off few hundred dollars thing for them. And so I went back to those clients first and I said, Hey, um, doing, I'm doing my business full time. Now I, I can take better care of you than I've been taking care of you. Cause I haven't really been doing anything. Um, and so we've got these care plans. So I had a few clients sign up kind of right away from those that I had done previous work for never had a care plan before.
Speaker 1 00:22:54 So I kind of introduced that idea. And then I also had someone refer me one of my longest time care plan clients who's been with us for years and years and years now, uh, was just someone that it was a, it was a, it was like a college kid who had been working with someone on a website, realized they were kind of out of their league, knew that I did website stuff and kind of passed them over to me, but they already had a website and they weren't looking for a new website. And so I was like, man, if I have to build every website that I take on as a monthly client, that's gonna obviously be a big bottleneck. I need to have some way to take on someone who already has a website that wants to go onto a plan, make sure I'm not getting into like a big, huge mess or whatever.
Speaker 1 00:23:35 Um, and kind of have some kind of onboarding process to figure out what needs to be done to their site. So I basically made a checklist and a word document at the time cause I, I didn't, there was no, I didn't know of my web audit or anything like that. And I basically had this checklist that I would go through and I would called it like a website evaluation. And I would basically go through and I would put like either a green check or red X next to all these points and basically do like a manual evaluation of the site, uh, and charged them for that and then said, you could come on to a monthly plan. And so we've done now probably, uh, I'd have to go check probably 50 or 60 of our monthly clients, our sites that we didn't build, that we charge for like a website evaluation tune up for up front, make sure we know what we're getting into. See the state of the website, make a few tweaks and then they can come on to a monthly plan.
Speaker 0 00:24:25 Love it. And now of course you use my web order to manage
Speaker 1 00:24:28 Most, a lot quicker. Yeah. A lot better, a lot more thorough too. <laugh>
Speaker 0 00:24:32 So, but here's the other thing I just wanna park here for a second, because there's something about your approach and your mindset that is quite different to a lot of, and I just wonder if it comes from your past experience from before you went out on your own, but you were charging for audits, most freelancers and small agencies. I speak to do free audits as a way of getting in front of the client and establishing a relationship. But you were charging from audits like right from the get go. Yeah,
Speaker 1 00:24:56 Yeah, yeah. I, and I started at a low price. I think I probably charged like 1 99 or something. I was like, oh wow. They didn't even flinch at that. Right. And I kind of kept playing with the price. So we, we kind of settled on 4 97, um, cuz we don't want to be too big of a roadblock to get someone on like $150 a month or higher plan. But, um, it's also enough that I know they're not gonna drop off the plan after a month or two of on the plan because they've invested $500 up front. So they're not gonna just disappear after two months of service. Right. So I kind of weed out those people that are just looking for like a quick fix for some problem they have, and then they're gonna kind of drop the service. Cause we don't have any kind of long-term commitments for our care plans. They can stop at any time they don't, but they could right.
Speaker 0 00:25:40 Had had, I feel like this is a whole other episode of the agency, which we'll probably do at some point, but Amber Rushton has a team doing really well. She's in the Broa valley. We love her. She's a unicorn. She's an absolute rockstar. She's in sales accelerator. She's still doing free audits. She says, I realize I have a mindset issue. You're charging four ninety seven, four hundred and ninety seven, not $4 97 kids, 497 us for a web order that you are using my web board to do most my, by the way, by the way, Amber reach out to us in slack. We'll get you a link for my web order. You get some cool stuff. If you sign up with our link. And I think we get a bit of affiliate commission, which helps me pay for my coffee. So we'll sort that out in slack, but how like you charge 4 97 for an audit and then, you know, how, like how do you sell the value of a web order for $497? Like how do you position it so that the client says, well, this is something that we just have to do now because Johnny said,
Speaker 1 00:26:37 Yeah, so they usually don't know the, the state of their website when they come to us, they're like, Hey, we had this developer, he kind of used to do our thing or we've been doing it on our own. We know there's some issues. We try to update this thing. It breaks this, whatever. So I pitch it as like a, Hey, we'd love to support your website, but I don't wanna take your website on. And then it get hacked next week. And it has nothing to do with anything that I did. It was some issue that was already in the website or whatever, right? So we need to pull your website into the shop, open up the hood, just like a mechanic, looking at the car. It's kinda like saying, Hey, tell me what's wrong with my website, but you can't look under the hood. Right?
Speaker 1 00:27:11 We need to look under the hood. We need to see what the issues are. Um, and so I say, Hey, it's 4 97. We'll do a full evaluation. You'll get this detailed report. We' do a 15 minute call afterwards to go over it. Make sure you understand it, answer any questions you have. And in the report we're gonna have a one page summary of recommendations. That's kind of, here's what we need to do now. And here's what we recommend doing later. And we'll include two hours of tune up work initially to knock out some of those easy items. And then you can come onto a monthly plan and we'll work through some of the other items and help you with whatever. Oh great. So then the two,
Speaker 0 00:27:45 The two hours I do the two.
Speaker 1 00:27:47 Yeah, I do the 15 minute call. I, I get them to agree to the items that I already Prew in there of with time estimates. And then I just, that just gets copied into teamwork, which is what we use for project management. It gets assigned to a developer in the Philippines and it's done within a couple days, right?
Speaker 0 00:28:01 Oh dude, this is like, oh dude, this is worth a price of admission on its own, which is pretty good for a free podcast. <laugh> uh, I've been waiting to use that line. I used to say it all the time and I it's been a couple of years. Uh, the Amber arts, I love this so much. So do I, I could, I could just park here for days and unpack this. Um, the other, so there's a couple of things you've done here. The two hours of tune up time to fix the mission, critical things that we are gonna identify. That's what makes it a godfather offer? That's what makes it too good to refuse? It's like, well, you, I can't say no to this now, right? Yeah. If you just said it's $497 for a report, when you're gonna tell me everything's wrong, I'll be like, well, do I really need, I mean like I know this shit wrong. Can you just fix it? So you've combined what we call a fire starter in, in Maverick's club, which is a product that diagnoses a problem that you actually sell and an accelerator, which fixes a couple of those problems. And then you're putting, putting them onto a recurring accelerator, which is the care plan. So you can continue to maintain it and fix those problems over time.
Speaker 1 00:29:00 I love it. And what happens is they come and they come onto the care plan. Like this was a, we, we got a, we have a gym client that we got, uh, last year they, they, we did an evaluation tune up. They weren't happy with their previous web guy. They weren't able doing a good job, got 'em on a care plan. And then, uh, I think they're on like $500 a month care plan. Then we started doing their SEO. Then we started running their digital ads. Now we're running their YouTube ads. So now it's a, it's turned into a 1500, $2,000 a month client just from ramping up. Fantastic,
Speaker 0 00:29:29 Fantastic. Because, so I go back to February, 2020 we're at San Diego, we ran a Mav con event. It was called the growth engine. How do you embed yourself into your client's business as a growth engine? Because if you help your clients grow, you are going to grow. And that's exactly what you've done with that gym client is you just keep adding more value, identifying more opportunities where you can help them grow, identifying more value. And that brings in more revenue for you.
Speaker 1 00:29:55 And then guess who I have a call with scheduled for tomorrow, the gym owner's friend in another state who runs the same business. Who's so happy with all the work that we're doing now I'm gonna be talking and he needs a new website and all the digital marketing services, right? So it's like, if you do a good job for one, they'll just keep sending him to you, you
Speaker 0 00:30:12 Know, rock and roll. Love it, love it, love it. Okay. So we do need to pivot to the actual conversation that we were supposed to be having today. Cuz this is just gold. This is absolute gold. Hey, by the way, just wanna give a quick shout out the CJ Middleton who joined sales accelerator a couple of days ago. Yeah, baby and, uh, Eli Rosen at a New Jersey who joined sales accelerator this morning. Woohoo. Yes. Well done by the way. Um, uh, your team is working hard. I have been slacked the link. There we go. Amber's already been given the link for my web audit. Uh, there you go, go check it out. Uh, well that's the beauty of having a great team, Amber who do the heavy lifting and do the things that you know, I could never do on my own. So, uh, the team here are really good shape and doing great job.
Speaker 0 00:31:00 Um, by the way sales accelerator is out. For those of you who don't know is our 90 day guided coaching program to help you build a world class sales process and pipeline in your agency so that you can get in front of more people, add more value, close, more deals and make more revenue, which of course, then you can use the profit outta that revenue to invest back in the business and grow the team. Right? I have a couple of mantras, never stop selling because money helps solve problems and never stop recruiting because the only way to actually get yourself out of your business is to build a team, to do the things right. So, um, sales accelerator is what that is about. If you wanna have a conversation with us about that, just drop a link, drop a, a comment in the chat or reach out to a
[email protected] and our team will have a conversation with you.
Speaker 0 00:31:46 It's not a course. You can't buy it. Our website it's application only. You need to have a phone call with us. All right, let's talk about we're at the halfway mark here. Let's talk about project management and how you have relinquished control. I remember talking to you, I don't know, maybe 18 months ago about this. And you were like, well, the only the thing that I'm really doing in the business now is, is managing the project from start to finish. And, and that was kind of consuming a lot of your time. And you had a lot of projects on, and you had a team of designers and developers and you were kind of stuck in the middle. How have you gone from that to, and maybe tell us a little bit about how, what the business looks like now and how you, you are not involved in those projects, right?
Speaker 1 00:32:29 Yeah. So now I pretty much sell it. I have a kickoff call with the account manager just to have a smooth transition, cuz we, we made the mistake of, of, of just me selling it and saying here's your account manager, you know? And then if like the account manager doesn't click with the client, there's a, there's a big loss of trust too early in the process. So I, I kind of get on that first call just to hand it off. And then they're having the weekly call with the client. They're creating the site map, the design brief, they're creating the task for the developer, the designer they're presenting the stuff to the client. They're getting the client's content. They're telling the client, Hey, we're ready to go live. They're scheduling everything. So I pretty much don't need to do anything else once I sell it and do the kickoff call unless they ask, you know, if the account manager says, Hey, can you look this over?
Speaker 1 00:33:16 Or I, I'm not sure about this. Can you weigh in on it then? Of course I will. But like they're, they're kind of handling it from start to finish now. So that's what it looks like now. But back back before I was doing all of that kind of stuff and I was just trying to get either a developer to, to do the build. Or then when I started having a designer do the design, I was creating the site map. I was writing the design brief. I was creating the task for the team member. I was reviewing the team member's feedback and giving it to them. I was getting the content from the client and giving it to the team. I was kind of like the in between for everything. And I realized, I just can only do so many projects. If I have to do all that stuff for the clients, we can only build a few at a time it's too time intensive. Right.
Speaker 0 00:33:59 Mm-hmm <affirmative> so, and, and of course you're a, you know, highly skilled, well trained. You've studied project management at an Ivy league school and you're an award-winning project manager, right? Johnny?
Speaker 1 00:34:10 Nah, not exactly. I am pretty org. I am pretty organized and detailed. So I have that going for me. But um, no, I'm, I've been figuring this out too. Just like everybody
Speaker 0 00:34:20 Else. Right? I'm I'm I'm being facetious. I know the point I'm trying to, the point I'm trying to make is that, is that at some point you realize that you are you're punching above your weight. You're like I'm tapped out. I can't keep doing this because I'm not the best at it. And there's only one of me. So how this is a it's you know, documenting the process of project management is, is tricky because you are generally speaking. The role of a project manager is to manage expectations of key stakeholders and make sure that people are delivering on time and within budget. It's really hard. There's lots of, kind of, there's lots of right brain stuff that goes on and left brain it's a project manager is a, a really difficult role to hire for and a difficult role to document the processes. How, when did you know you, you were like, okay, I need to hire someone to do this, but what did you need to do internally within the business to get ready to hire them? So obviously let's say the revenue and the cash flow was in a good position and you could afford to hire them. What did you need to do from a process point of view or a systems point of view to get ready to hire them? Or did you just hire them and then figure it out?
Speaker 1 00:35:25 Well, I kind of cheated. I kind of cheated. So I figured, okay, if I can handle hand over a support ticket, that's like a tiny little, one little bit of a project, right? It's a, Hey, I need this updated on the website. Can you do it for me? Someone needs to like, do it. Someone needs to check it. Someone needs to give back, manage a client's expectation. Right? So it's like super tiny. Then it was like, Hey, clients would email in with a mini project that didn't fit within their care plan. And they'd say, Hey, we need to get these four pages built out. We need a little help of what they should look like. I know this is more than my support plan. Can you help me with it? I would quote it out. And then I would say, Hey, um, you've been doing such a great job managing the support tickets in this account.
Speaker 1 00:36:05 Can you just make sure that these four things that we've promised to do get done by the developer, whatever. Right. Mm-hmm <affirmative> so then it was kind of like expanding that a little bit to like a mini project, right. Mm-hmm <affirmative> and then we'd done enough of those. I was like, they could probably manage a whole project if I was, if I could get over myself and let go of it. And also, and also show them a little bit about my process of how I do with them. Right. So I'm not just throwing them into the deep end of the pool and saying, hope you can swim. See you later. Right. Um, I'm I'm kind of showing them what I did. So what I did was I started just thinking about it in the highest level terms of possible, right? So if we're gonna build a website, might need a kickoff call, might need to figure out the site map might need to have some kind of design direction might need to do the design might need to build the pages, might need to check everything, whatever.
Speaker 1 00:36:55 Right? So you could just put eight or 10 of the biggest things that have to happen in a website all down. Right. Mm-hmm <affirmative> then I started adding a little bit more detail for those. Okay. For the site map, we are using slick plan. And let me show you, let me record a 10 minute video walking you through the last two site maps I made. And this third one that I'm about to make in real time, right in front of you. This is how I'm thinking about it. This is what I'm looking at. This is what I'm taking into consideration, right? So now I've got like a video I've got like some steps of, this is what you do. This is what you need to be able to do this well. And that's like part of the process mm-hmm <affirmative> and I just kept kind of adding more detail as I kind of got to this point where I was like, I need to, cause I had my own checklist for each project.
Speaker 1 00:37:36 So for managing four projects, I know, okay, I'm on the site map phase for this I'm on the design brief phase for this I'm on this. I was checking 'em off for myself, but I didn't have all the detail there. Cause I kind of knew how to do all the things cause I was doing them all. Yeah. So then I just started saying, okay, the next time I write the design brief, I'm gonna like actually say why, how I came up with this and what I did. And I'm gonna record a video and pick some checks, you know, whatever mm-hmm <affirmative>. And so I started just building out detail for all these steps. Some of 'em became multiple steps. And so then now we've got like a, you know, the website build in 30 steps, you know, at the high level still. And then they have detail within those different things.
Speaker 0 00:38:13 Love it, love it. Um, by the way, slick plan is an amazing product. I, I started using that. I don't know, a long time ago, uh, and recommended it. I think as part of the blueprint, it's a great, uh, a great tool for building site maps. The other one I love for this kind of stuff. And the reason I'm gonna mention this is because I, I think it's important to standardize your approach, right? And I see this happen a lot. I see this conversation all the time. People are like, well, should I be using this or this? Or should I use convert box? Optin Mo it doesn't matter. Find one that does the job and then stick to it. And don't change. Because if you standardize the way that you deliver and the tools that you use to deliver, then it's easier to delegate, right?
Speaker 0 00:38:56 Mm-hmm, <affirmative>, it's easier to teach because, and your team, I always say this to Mavericks who have a team, your team need two things, clarity and stability, and clarity is, Hey, where are we going? Why are we going there? What is important? What, what vision are we trying to create? What impact are we trying to have in the world? You know, how do we know when we get there? What does success look like? And then stability is let's not move the goal post. We said, we were gonna do this over the next three months. These are the tools we are using. Let's stick to the plan and have a stable environment where we can all thrive. Uh, but I do wanna give a shout out to slick plan. And also I wanna give a shout out the flow map.com.
Speaker 1 00:39:30 I thought you were gonna say that.
Speaker 0 00:39:32 Yeah. And I'll tell you why flow map spelled with two PS, F L O WM, a p.com is an unbelievably good product. Mm-hmm <affirmative> and here's what I've learned, um, about this whole thing is, you know, if you standardize the way you do what you do and, and you discover a tool like slick plan or flow map, and you teach your team how to, how to use it effectively, what you end up with is you end up with another product, right? So flow map, for example, is a great tool that allows you. It's basically a user experience software, right? So it allows you to build site maps. It allows you to build user flows, customer personas, customer journey maps. I think they're just about to release wire frames or prototypes. If they haven't already, you can sell that as its own product, without doing any actual design, without doing any development, without doing any SEO without, you know, you're basically just designing user experience, which is a really important part of the web process. And in most small business case scenarios, it gets missed because small business don't have the budget to focus on user experience. Right. We have,
Speaker 1 00:40:42 We have Mavericks charging anywhere from like 2,500 up to probably like eight or 10 K for just the, like that discovery stuff at the beginning of a project, just correct. Before they even give them a quote on the website.
Speaker 0 00:40:55 I mean, right, exactly. So, so, so for when you, when you know, flow map is, uh, you can turn that into a, you know, its own product and delegate that to team delegate that to a team member who understands how to use it and is good with user experience. And then that becomes an accelerator product in your, in your offering. So, yeah, quick little quick, little side by there, but love it. Um, okay, so, so what, what happened? Talk me through the first project that you weren't involved in from like start to finish where you just handed it over to the project management. Okay. This one.
Speaker 1 00:41:31 Well, I mean, I, I didn't, again, I didn't throw him 'em into the end, so I, I, you know, had them join me for, I was like, Hey, you're gonna be doing the next project that comes through. So you better get on the calls with me for this client and, and do the things with me and see how I do the things right. So that you can feel comfortable doing them. So they would kind of be the second person on the call with the client and just be kind of taking notes or whatever, and seeing how I do things. Um, and then when they did start taking it over, I was, I was making sure I was documenting the steps on the project I was managing before they got to those steps. Cause I was further ahead with whatever project and they were just starting one.
Speaker 1 00:42:06 Um, so I would try to add the documentation and then I was just like, Hey, you need to ask questions as much as possible, like during this first project or two, because I don't wanna have to keep answering questions five or 10 projects in, right. So permission to ask as many questions as you have on this first project or two that you're managing so that, uh, we can kind of get the kinks, worked out, get the documentation, beefed up, whatever we need to do so that then you can have confidence. And at the time I wasn't thinking I'm gonna have a whole bunch of account managers doing this. I just thought, Hey, I've got someone now that can do this or that's gonna be doing it. I wasn't thinking about now, I've got three people trying to do a website process, the exact same way, because we have three account managers that are each managing number of projects, you know, at the same time. So the more that you document, the easier and the, the less stressful and less fear you have handing stuff off is because, you know, it's gonna be done whatever way needs to be done. Right.
Speaker 0 00:42:58 You, you took a holiday, uh, not long ago, took a couple of weeks, 13 days, whatever, outta the business, you said to me that the first day that you didn't look at the computer, you had the shakes mm-hmm <affirmative>, which I totally understand. Did you have a similar experience the first time another project manager was managing a client project from, from the get go, were you kind of like hovering around like a helicopter parent with the shakes ready to dive in and save it?
Speaker 1 00:43:22 Yeah. Yeah. It's amazing. They're still on the team and they still, you know, now they're running like most of the company, but, um, yeah, that, that's definitely like just letting go of those things is really, you know, we just, we got a huge monthly client like approaching, uh, 10 K a month just recently. And I have someone else being like the primary point of contact, managing the client expectations. Every she's doing a phenomenal job on my team. Um, but I'm not like doing all the things, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm popping in every once in a while and saying hi, or going, doing a little strategy or whatever, but like I'm not doing all the things and there's a lot of things that we're doing. Um, and so it just, but that's because we've built up this, like, they're, they're all my account managers, they're kind of account slash project managers. They're crushing it. They have their own batch of monthly clients that they're managing on the support desk. So they've got 40 50 clients that they're managing on the support desk. And then they've got a number of projects that they're managing that are like new builds and other stuff that they're managing as well. So they're kind of combo with that in that way.
Speaker 0 00:44:29 You know, this is for those who don't have a team, you know, I'm, we're just kind of future pacing. What is possible here. And for those that do have a team really encouraging you to empower your team and give your team more autonomy. Mm-hmm <affirmative> um, and I don't say this to brag, but I will say what kind of my week looks like at the moment is, and I will preface this by saying I got to the end of 2021, and I was cooked. We had two years, pretty much of lockdown here in Melbourne, and I'd been, you know, just head down BU up working, building the team, building the business, you know, building a sales team, you know, uh, separating from a business partnership, like going through a, going through massive foundational structural changes in the business. And I went camping at the end of last year.
Speaker 0 00:45:17 I came back from camping. I was supposed to start back at work on the 10th of January. And on the Sunday, the day before I was supposed to start back at work, I sent Emily our ops manager of voice message and went, I'm not coming back tomorrow. You're just gonna have to do it without me for a couple of weeks, cuz I'm just not ready and I've come back to work this year. I don't work Mondays. I only work Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. And I work up till about lunchtime. Now when I say I don't work Mondays and I don't work afternoons the rest of the week, what I mean is I'm not in front of the computer. I'm not on the keyboard, I'm out and about doing things. So, you know, Mondays, I drop both kids off to kindie. I go grocery shopping. I spend a lot of time looking at organic meat, right.
Speaker 0 00:45:59 <laugh> and uh, and, and buying really nice food. I come home. I cook, um, I might play a bit of guitar. I spend a lot of time in the studio, Mondays playing music Tuesday, Wednesday Thursday, Friday afternoons, I'm exercising or I'm going for a swim, or I'm picking the kids up and taking to kinder gym. And I said to my wife yesterday, I said, it's weird. Like I rang my mom yesterday while I was driving around. I'm like, mom, I'm like, I'm not really sure what to do with myself. You know, I call it incubating, there's this. I did this whole presentation around incubation, which is when you get away from the problems generally when you solve it by not thinking about it. And so, but it is strange. It's been a transition and I'm still going through this transition where I'm like, I have to remind myself, I've spent 10 years building a culture and a company and a team that can do things like tell Steve Bentley that in episode two of the agency hour is where we talk about who to hire when, and you can check it out on YouTube and there's a link to YouTube.
Speaker 0 00:46:54 Now I have no idea who did that. Probably max, cuz he's a legend. Um, but you didn't
Speaker 3 00:46:58 Even know that information.
Speaker 0 00:46:59 Did you join? I had no idea that there was even an episode, two of the agency. I didn't even know this was a podcast. Uh, the, the I've spent 10 years casting the vision, building the culture, growing this team that I'm okay now I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm getting used to the idea that I don't have to be sitting in front of the computer 40 hours a week or even 30 hours a week, or I'm not even sitting in front of the computer. I'm probably sitting in front of the computer, maybe 20 hours a week at the moment. Like if that, and that's okay because I've, I've spent 10 years building this, right? So it is a transition. And what I, what my question for you, Johnny, is what, what are you spending most of your time doing now in the business? Like, what is your role? What does your daily activity list look like?
Speaker 1 00:47:45 I'm doing a lot of sales, a lot of, uh, sales stuff. Cause I don't have anybody else really doing the sales. So I'm like a chief, uh, marketer. Mm-hmm <affirmative> chief seller, um, building the team, obviously, cuz like we're hiring a bunch of folks. Although for the first time we had a, this, this actually today we had a team member start who I did not interview and I did not select. We, um, I, we, I kind of, I kind of set things up. I let my, the person they're gonna be reporting to kind of, uh, you know, interview the top candidates kind of figure out who the best person was, all of that and offer them the job and everything. Um, and so I haven't even actually had a zoom call with the person yet. I, I told them I was excited to meet, talk with them on zoom cuz I we've never hired anyone that I hadn't talked to.
Speaker 1 00:48:34 Right. Um, and so, uh, that was pretty exciting, but so, um, doing less of that, I'm trying to hand that off more and empower my team, especially cuz not everybody's reporting to me. Some of the team members are reporting to different people on the team. So wanting them to kind of be empowered, one to hire the right person and two, if it doesn't work out, then they're gonna be firing the person that didn't work out. Right. So kind of putting that like squarely on them. Um, and, and also just managing, you know, they're the ones saying, Hey, here's your, here's your stuff for onboarding. Here's what you're working on first this week, Hey, I'll get on a zoom call with you. Make sure you're all squared away to go. I'm not like doing that. Um, so, and then, you know, still kind of like the forecasting and stuff for the business in terms of like where we're headed, what our targets are, all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1 00:49:21 Mm-hmm <affirmative> and kind of still refining some of the processes, you know, saying, Hey, we need to, we need to smooth this out or we need to get someone to do this or whatever. And I'm still the one thing that I haven't handed off, which is my next hire is I'm still doing some of the digital ad, uh, management stuff. Um, and but now we're getting, we're getting too many clients then I'm like, oh, I need someone to do this. So there'll be a job. There'll be a job posting going up shortly. I'm already working on the, I've been, I've been pinging our fellow Mavericks saying who's hired this before. And what samples do you have? Uh, so I will be hiring that next. Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:49:58 Do you, do you have a scorecard for your own role? Have you worked out a scorecard yet for your own role?
Speaker 1 00:50:05 Um, not too much. I mean, I do in the sense that like, I know what our revenue targets are. I know how many projects I need to sell. You know, I know our customer satisfaction in terms of like we've got the most Google reviews of like the whole region of where we are in the us. Um, we literally just have people contacting us now saying like, it's, it's funny when the client has done their research and they're talking to you and they're saying, we know that you're the best company around and you have the most Google reviews out of anybody. Like I didn't have to say it. I didn't have to like broadcast or anything. Like they just know because they've done their homework and I'm like, okay, this is gonna be a good sale because they already know if they wanna work with the best they've got us.
Speaker 0 00:50:45 We're getting fish in a barrel. Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:50:47 Yeah. So, uh, that's really cool. But um, so we've built up, you know, a reputation and stuff, um, which has been on purpose, uh, for sure. So, uh, not like where I could just say here's my scorecard and show you the five bullet points. But I mean, we do have a lot of things that we're measuring that I'm constantly looking at that I know that's ultimately gonna be up to me in terms of those things. So
Speaker 0 00:51:11 How do you measure team engagement and team happiness and satisfaction?
Speaker 1 00:51:19 We have a wins channel in our slack that we encourage team members to shout out about other team. They can shout out about themselves, but it's obviously more fun when, when they shout out to someone else on the team. So especially our us, uh, team members are really encouraged to do shoutouts. Uh, the Filipinos will do it a lot too, but really just kind of have us lead the way in terms of like, Hey, recognizing team members who stayed late to solve a problem or worked extra to get this thing done by a deadline or whatever the thing was. Wow. Them with our great design, you know, they, the account manager, because all the Philippine team members, they're not talking to the clients directly, they're getting the indirect, right. Mm-hmm <affirmative> so we have to be really intentional when we're talking with a client and we present the mockups or we get the email back from them about like how amazing the design is or whatever.
Speaker 1 00:52:07 Like we have to share that with our team mm-hmm <affirmative> and then that kind of feeds itself, right? Where then they're all cheering. They're saying, oh, this person, this other developer helped me out solve this problem. Like thanks so much for that, whatever. And so it's really rewarding when you get on a, a whole team call. And one of someone on the team says, I wish I had recorded the call I had with this candidate because I was interviewing someone to, to work here. And they asked me a question. They said, what do you like about working at Johnny flash productions? And they put me put them on the spot. They were like, I was not expecting that. And then she's like, I just started gushing about the team and how much I love working with you all. And she just then started going on about how great everybody was and all the things she's kind of repeating the conversation she had had.
Speaker 1 00:52:53 And I was like, wow, that was like, she could have said anything cuz I wasn't on the call. Mm-hmm <affirmative> I wasn't involved. Like that was kind of like as transparent as she could be in terms of like, well, it's pretty good, but I don't like this, that or the other like that would've been her opportunity to say it because I wasn't, I would've never known, you know, but um, for her to kind of like relay, you know, that and kind of how she felt about everyone and then to hear everybody else chime in about that mm-hmm <affirmative> and for them to be telling the new team members, you're gonna love working here, cuz we've got a great thing going and stuff. Like we've got something special and I can't take credit for it, but I have definitely tried to, um, put things in place so that we slow down enough to celebrate those wins and cheer people on and respect people and care for people and stuff like a team, you know? So yeah,
Speaker 0 00:53:41 Yeah. A hundred percent, um, cent. Um, I love it. Uh, quick note here for, uh, CJ Middleton also known as Chris wick, uh, it, by the way, it doesn't take 10 years to build a team and end up living the dream. I think I was talking to my wife about it last night. I'm like, wow man, if I had my time again, I reckon it would probably take me three years to like build myself outta the business completely. Yeah. Um, so, uh, always be selling, always be recruiting ladies and gentlemen, right. Sales brings in revenue, revenue means profit profit. You can use to hire team and team are the answer. Um, so, uh, Hey, this has been awesome. What's uh, what are you most excited about over the coming 90 days?
Speaker 1 00:54:23 I'm just excited. Our, our recurring revenue has like gone through the roof. Our team's gone through the roof. Um, you know, I mean, it's crazy to think that two years ago there was just three of us. I mean it was my wife and I plus two, so there's four of us. There was four of us, you know, two years ago and we're 13 right now and we have the recurring revenue and the revenue and everything we've got. We're like, we already think we need to hire two more people for all the work that we have. And so, um, I'm just, I'm just excited about what's to come. I mean, it's, it's up into the right and I feel like we have a good foundation to build on. We don't have business debt. We don't, you know, we're, we're running actually pretty lean because I don't, I don't like expenses.
Speaker 1 00:55:09 So it's like, I, I, um, I, even though we've hired three in the last week, like we, we have a lot of revenue that we've added in the last month that we need to have the team to support. Um, and so I'm just excited about what's to come. I've got, we've got tons of vacations planned. This we're going to, we're doing all kinds of trips, uh, that we've got planned this year more than ever. And so I'm just gonna let the team handle it. And when things don't go quite right, that's just an opportunity to grow and to learn and to do it better next time and to solve the issue. Right. And so if you never let the problems occur, then they're kind of hard to fix. And so I think that's, uh, I'm just, I'm just excited to see the team just really owning everything and, and just kind of, you know, everyone's an owner is one of our core values and I just see our, our leaders leading, leading, uh, living that out, you know, more and more.
Speaker 0 00:56:02 Yeah, that's such a great mindset. Uh, you know, I know a lot of people who just will not grow a team because they don't want the responsibility and they don't want deal with the mess when it happens. Right. And they just wanna stay small, which is fine. There's nothing wrong with that. But I also see the same people kind of lamenting that they can't take a holiday. They can't get away from the business. I know people have been running agencies and haven't had a holiday for 15 years.
Speaker 1 00:56:29 Well, we're, we're our own biggest bottleneck, you know? Yeah. As the, as the owner, we we're the own, you know, so the size of the bottleneck and the problem or the stress kind of depends on you. And you know, if you're not gonna hire a team, don't complain about you can't take a vacation without your computer. That's, you know,
Speaker 0 00:56:45 That's right. That's right. Exactly. Because I mean, and it's just, and I remember I was, you know, when I clearly remember when I started out as a freelancer, I was in Sydney and we had lunch with my wife's godmother, who is just a powerhouse. Right. And we were sitting out on the water at this beautiful restaurant that kind of had this like deck out, uh, out the back of the restaurant, over this little lake. And we were sitting there and she was, she was just like looking at me like, well, you have to, I was explaining the problem. I had too many clients on, I was kind of drowning and work and, and she said, we have to hire someone. And I was just like, oh, I don't wanna, I don't, this is too hard. I don't want a responsibility. I've never done that, blah blah.
Speaker 0 00:57:27 And she looked at me and she's just like, well, you just have to hire someone. It was the way she said, it was like, this isn't even a conversation. Like why, why am I even why? I mean, you're a grown man. Why do I even have to convince you that you need to hire someone? The truth is I was so insecure and I was so terrified. Mm-hmm <affirmative> that, that helped me back a lot. Right. And over the coming weeks and months, she said, you know, just put an add up at the local university and get like an intern to come and help you. Or, and I went through so many iterations of trying to hire on back then it was called Esk or, or before it was up work, it was called a couple of other things. And I went through so many bad experiences trying to hire someone because I had no idea what I was doing.
Speaker 0 00:58:07 And then eventually we found this team in India who were just, oh, amazing at dev work. And I had that moment where I was looking at the different CSS pre-process right. There was less, or SAS had just come out and I was like, oh yeah, man, I'm gonna learn how to do this. And I, I had that outta body experience where I was like, you can learn how to do this. And you can be a developer for the rest of your life. Mm-hmm <affirmative> or you can be a business owner and you can start hiring people. And it was a, it was like one of those sliding doors moments. It was an inflection point where I was like, mm-hmm <affirmative> I'm out. I actually CLO it was an article by Chris Coyier at CSS tricks. And I'm like, I closed the browser tab. I'm like, I'm done. I'm not gonna be a developer anymore. We're gonna hire people. And to this day, my wife's godmother, Chrissy, violet, who is just an absolute powerhouse. And I love it a bit, her voice in my head saying, you just have to hire someone. Just, it was just a matter of fact, there was, you know, and that has been the thing that has encouraged me to take the massive imperfect action that we've taken over the last 10 years to build the team that we've got. So, um, awesome. Hey man. Hey,
Speaker 1 00:59:18 Troy, I just, I wanna say thanks to you real quick. I know we're out of time, but just thanks to you for, uh, you, I mean, you've been like a, a mentor on this six year plus journey that I've been on in terms of, uh, I remember emailing you and you, you were, you had your email sequence about the blueprint, and I didn't even know if I could afford to do the blueprint because I was just going out on my own. I had a mortgage for kids, all this stuff, no recurring revenue, but I was like, it was exactly what I would needed. And it's kind of given me the confidence and the process and the, the thing on my whole journey. And so, uh, just thanks, thanks to you for the community, for the, the processes for being an open book for sharing, kind of the stuff that you've learned. And I've tried to pass that on obviously to the people that the, the Mavericks and different people that I'm working with and stuff, but, um, yeah, just, just thanks to you.
Speaker 0 01:00:09 Ah, thank you, man. I appreciate it. Uh, that means a lot. I mean, this is why we do what we do, right. To get that kind of feedback and to know that you're having the positive impact on people's lives is amazing. And I, I mean, I remember the first time we met, I think it might have been in, was it Philadelphia or maybe new New York, one of last line, one of those New York. Yeah. I mean, it's just, and it's amazing to be able to travel and meet people that you've had an impact on. And, uh, looking forward to doing that again, man, when the world is in a bit of a safer environment for us to do that. So, uh, looking forward to hanging out again and thank you for your contribution to everything you're doing here for the community, man, you you've, you know, very much loved part of the, the family here and it's been great to have you on the agency house. So I really appreciate your time.
Speaker 1 01:00:48 Yeah. Thanks. Thanks for everyone tuning in.
Speaker 0 01:00:50 Awesome. Thanks gang. Hey, uh, make sure you subscribe and follow the podcast on Spotify or, you know, wherever you get your podcast. Uh, and if you're listening to this and you're not in the digital Mavericks Facebook group, please come and join the digital Mavericks Facebook group and be a part of the conversation. And if you want some help growing your agency, then just reach out to us
[email protected] have a conversation with our team. Uh, we've got products and services and programs and ways that we can help you at any part of the journey, whether you're just starting out or whether you've been doing this for 15 years and you're already running a seven figure a year agency, we've got ways of helping you grow your business, reduce the stress, uh, give you more profit and ultimately not have you doing all the things so hope you've enjoyed this. Uh, keep the conversation going and we'll see you next week on the agency hour by an hour.
Speaker 2 01:01:38 Thanks for listening to the agency hour podcast, subscribe at apple podcasts, Spotify pocket, audible, and wherever you like to listen, you can catch all of the agency hour episodes on our YouTube channel, youtube.com/agency Mavericks. Or you can get involved, check out our free digital Mavericks Facebook group, where we broadcast these episodes live for our community every week, along with a ton of free training. We'll see you.
