Speaker 0 00:00:00 So how we convert it to such a high rate is our website is actually one big godfather mess that mixed in with a little bit of that hook story offer from, um, kind of click funnels. Um, when I take people through that meeting, it's a curated experience. Um, I take them through my website, uh, and it's scripted to the word. Um, every step at every step, there's a Mavericks process being played out, whether it's from the blueprint, whether it's customer acquisition, formula sales, accelerator guide for godfather content strategy, high ticket sales funnel. There's not a unique thing that I do in the, um, in the, in the sales, uh, call that I have. Um, and if you wanna see that, so one of the things, it takes too long for me to do it today, but if you want to see it, rather than me have it recorded and go out onto the internet, just for people to copy. If you wanna see it, whoever's watching this. You can actually book on, uh, a call with me and I will show you
Speaker 1 00:00:53 If you have a vision for the agency you want to build, then we want to help you build it. Welcome to the agency. Our podcast brought to you by agency metrics.
Speaker 2 00:01:01 Hey, there we go. Look out. Welcome ladies and gentlemen, to another episode of the agency hour live here in the digital Mavericks Facebook group in the smooth, smooth tunes today being supplied by a band called the delegates. This is a track called eight points later. Now, listen, Facebook and YouTube. You can't take this one off the air because this is what's called royalty free production music. That's right. We paid for this one. So I'm just gonna let the beats roll for a second.
Speaker 3 00:01:40 I wasn't it.
Speaker 2 00:01:41 <laugh>. Yeah, baby. Uh, so for those of you who don't know traditionally, what happens is I would just play some of my favorite jazz music at the start of the show and YouTube and Facebook always just silence that part of the live stream while they take us off the air, because we're infringing copyright. If you wanna have a conversation about that, go and follow my friend, Rick BISO, over on YouTube. He's got a whole theory about, uh, uh, digital copyright management, uh, for the internet. He's well worth following GA check out Rick Barto at the everything music channel on YouTube. And I get around that. But anyway, we decided to pony up and, uh, we use a service called art list, art list.io. I think it is, I should have an affiliate link, but I don't. And, uh, that's where we get our production music for our videos and they're royalty free, which means we are allowed to use them.
Speaker 2 00:02:27 So there you go. Little tip for you all this morning. All right, today on the agency hour, I am, by the way, the set here I think is really coming into a scientist. Look, I feel like, I feel like I'm, uh, either on the set of friends or I'm hosting Sesame street, I can't figure out which one it is. Uh, but it's feeling like it's getting pretty cozy in here. And, uh, the lighting's good. The brick wall's good. If you are listening to this as a podcast, by the way, and you dunno what the hell I'm talking about, come and join the digital Mavericks Facebook group. And, uh, you'll be able to see what we are talking about and you'll be able to, um, enjoy the live stream and come and leave some comments and get involved in the conversation. My guest today is a member of our Mavericks club mastermind for agency owners.
Speaker 2 00:03:18 He's a massive, massive action taker. He is from the land of the long white cloud, just across the ditch as we call it here, he's in New Zealand. Uh, he has, he's got a very different business model. He's been on the podcast before he was on a couple of weeks ago. I said, ID invite him back for part two. He's got a very different business model where he essentially finds companies that have crappy websites and offers to build them one for free. And that is basically his lead generator today. What he's gonna do is he's gonna show us how he would start from scratch. If he had to start again and had no list, no audience, no connections. How would he start an agency from scratch and get his first batch of clients in terms of how, where to find them, the offer to make all that kind of stuff. Ladies and gentlemen, please. Welcome to the show. Mike, the magician SPRAT all the way from New Zealand, G and media. Hey Mike, how you doing?
Speaker 0 00:04:12 Really good. Never better. Thanks. Yeah. Thanks for having me back.
Speaker 2 00:04:16 I've nicknamed you the magician because, uh, you, uh, you, what I love about working with you is that you take an idea and you run with it and you embellish it and you augment it and you turn it into something completely new and knock it outta the park. And then you come back and you show me, Hey, dude, check this out. It's very rewarding, uh, to see, uh, that kind of action being taken. So, um, for those that missed part, one of this podcast, just give us the too long, didn't read version. Who are you, where did you come from? What do you do and why are you back?
Speaker 0 00:04:44 Um, yeah. Okay. So, um, you know, G and media's been my main focus for about four or five years. It was actually started in 2019. Uh, but I always had, you know, kind of other, you know, uh, a balls up in the air. I, I had a, a digital print and signage company to start with. I started that company when I was about 23. I think I sold it when I was about, um, 30. Then I had to help my old, old man, you know, with his business for a little bit. And in the background, GU and media was always there. Um, but yeah, didn't really become my kind of, um, main focus until about four or five years ago. Um, that's when I started to staff it, that's when I started to prioritize it, you know, started to, to really kind of push towards the front end of the curve from, um, you know, my skillset, you know, point of view.
Speaker 0 00:05:28 Um, and then, yeah, I think the big catalysts from my success have being, you know, uh, one of my first, you know, staff members plus, you know, the, the ones that followed and, and obviously joining digital, uh, and agency Mavericks, um, you know, it was, uh, a huge, uh, you know, kind of growth multiplier for me. And, um, yeah, I love care plans and, uh, any type of recurring monthly revenue and, uh, our success so far has allowed us to be in a position where we, we also like to buy other agencies. And so, um, that's what I think I'm gonna talk to you today about is kind of like at both ends of the scale, like how I would start again, you know, should I have to, um, or how I would recommend part of the activity that someone would take when starting an agency and then, uh, secondarily once you got some wins under about, you know, some staff, you know, um, and stuff like that and, and cash flow positive and friendly, and, and you are making money, uh, how you reinvest that into, um, that acquisition of other agencies, um, you know, to create a, a triple win for yourself, the outbound owner and the, the staff that you about the clients that you acquire.
Speaker 0 00:06:38 Yeah. So
Speaker 2 00:06:39 Love it, love it. Couple of questions before we dive in one, when you decided to go all in, on a digital agency, a web design agency, essentially at that point, were you like, hang on a second. There's like 8 million web design agencies, like on every street corner, everyone's competing on price, the whole thing's a commodity. Um, you could have done anything really at that point in your life, you had a decision, you could have chosen a different business model. What gave you the confidence that you would be able to get into this space and differentiate and, and be, and not race to the bottom on price and eventually get enough clients to be sustainable and profitable and make this a real thing. What, how, what was that, what was that inkling of inspiration that you had, that this, that you were gonna make this work
Speaker 0 00:07:21 I'd already operated in competitive markets? Um, I don't ever think about competition. In fact, competition's good sign that, you know, there's a market in, in a business there. So even though we started out our agency with no unique sales, you know, proposition with no, you know, great offers, uh, you know, it just wasn't something that I was scared of. I don't think I, I, I, it was, I I'm, I'm all, like, I'm all about relationships. I, I, transactions are annoying, you know, like they're just, I actually hate the money part of, of, of business. And so I've always been good at extending my hand, uh, you know, in, in, in support and in adding value and, and, and stuff like that. Mm-hmm, <affirmative> in the previous things that I did in my career, uh, both in the signage digital print game. And then when I help my old man, uh, who's in finance.
Speaker 0 00:08:14 Um, you, you, you, you, you are always gonna have competition, you know, you're always gonna have, you know, UN people undercutting you on price. You're always gonna have commoditization. Um, you know, but, you know, if you know, but in all three, you know, scenarios, people like to work with people that's, you know, like a, a fundamental that will never go away. We, human beings won't be replaced by AI, you know, shitty operators might be nothing, beats a relationship. And so the confidence from me being self-employed from such a young age, um, you know, plus I like helping people. I like people. And, um, you know, I like to solve problems and, uh, you know, so, uh, an industry with lots of problems to solve, which is the one that me and you are in mm-hmm <affirmative>, um, is a great place to, to find yourself if you, um, you know, can solve problems for other people. And, um, and so it wasn't, it had nothing to do with the thing that I do. I don't even do the thing that I do. I don't build websites, you know, I, I don't do, you know, create, you know, I don't design anymore or anything like that. I solve problems for smart, medium sized business owners. And, um, uh, you know, you could set me in any industry and I'd be fine, I think,
Speaker 2 00:09:33 Yeah, love it. It's a great mindset. And I think you might have just answered my next question accidentally, which is why the hell are you giving up so much of your time, because this is not the first time you've done this right. To come back and share what you've learned when you first joined Maverick's club and you started knocking it outta the park, you put together a PowerPoint presentation and came to me and said, Hey, dude, check this out. And I think we got on a call and we did a live stream. This is the second time you've come on the agency hour. Why do you feel compelled to give up so much of your time to come back and share what's working for you?
Speaker 0 00:10:11 Um, I've, I, I guess I've had a lot, of course correction in my life. That's come from other people building bridges so that I don't have to, you know, Wade through what they've gone through. I guess people like yourself, you know, like, you know, you know, you come to, uh, you know, a, a big divide and, and, and, you know, you know, part of me says there's a right of passage into business ownership, you know? Um, and, and therefore you should have to get your kind of like, you know, hands, hands dirty. And, and there are things that you need to kind of, you know, uh, you know, battle through, but, but some stuff, doesn't the stuff that I'm gonna, you know, show you today. The business owners are gonna have enough trouble, you know, getting through the viability without also having to, you know, um, do it without the support of, you know, people like yourself and, and myself and stuff like that.
Speaker 0 00:11:03 Weirdly I'm watching the, um, um, Tony Robbins thrive thing at the moment. Mm-hmm, <affirmative>, he's got one going over the next five days. And, um, it's all about, um, packaging up your own IP and stuff like that. And he drew this thing on the whiteboard where he said like, look, you know, like there's lots of divides to cross, and if you can build bridges for other people, you know, to accelerate their success, um, you know, it's, it's not the same as emboldening your competition, right? Because my competition won't want to do what I do. You know, like fundamentally someone who's who's in it for the money, won't do what I do because money comes at the end. Um, and so I guess the, the long, the long answer to, well, the short answer to that kind of like long question is, um, <affirmative>, if I can help other agencies, owner owners accelerate to where I'm at, then more small to medium sized businesses are gonna be dealing with good operators who are there for good in with good intentions with the, you know, and that are gonna go do good work and stuff like that.
Speaker 0 00:12:10 Um, and the more, you know, small to medium sized businesses out there, um, that are doing well, the more staff that they're gonna hire, you know, the, the, the, the higher, the prosperity into those kind of regions and stuff like that. And therefore the, the greater good, I guess,
Speaker 2 00:12:23 Love it. Yeah. It's a great abundant mindset dude. The other thing I find is that when you share something that you've learned, it really forces you to codify it. And to really understand it at a deep level, like someone taught me something a long time ago, ed day, or one of my mentors, and one of his mentors said to him, if you want to, if you wanna learn something, teach it because then you have to learn it really comprehensively in order to be able to teach it because it's one thing to teach something. But then it's another thing to be able to answer the questions that come up along the way from the people that you're teaching. And you can't, you can, you can bluff your way through that to a certain point. I've done a pretty good job of that so far, but at some point you actually need to learn the thing at a deep level in order to be able to pass that knowledge onto someone else. So, uh, I just wanna say, thank you so much for doing this man, because it's, uh, what you're gonna share I know is super valuable. Um, and so, uh, I really appreciate your time and generosity in doing this. And so we should dive in, uh, let's just kick off who is this right for, if someone's watching this, who is what you're about, what you're about to share, who is it aimed at? Who is it right for,
Speaker 0 00:13:27 If you are selling websites and, you know, uh, you have no recurring revenue in your agency, you can bolt this on. Um, if you're at this, you know, like if you, even if you're at the, the same level as me, and you're struggling to implement kind of like care plans, um, and just getting stuck at the lower level, recurring revenue products, like email registration, and, uh, hosting. Um, if you wanna, maybe if you are a, um, someone in this industry and you are employed and you want to go, you know, to self-employment and you wanna, you know, maybe just kind of like chip away and get some recurring revenue under about before you leave your job. Um, you know, or if you have no idea, you know, about, um, you know, this industry, but you know that it's a growth industry, you know, that it's in the stem fields, which means it's gonna be scalable.
Speaker 0 00:14:19 Um, and you are prepared to build a team around yourself, uh, you know, with the competency that that might be a little bit harder, but, but anyone who wants to build, um, monthly recurring revenue, um, and, and the disclaimer that I would put in it is if you want money now, don't do what I do. If you want money later and a big chunk on exit, then, then do what I do. Um, if you need, if you need money now, maybe sell some websites, um, maybe split it 50, 50 traditional model, sell a website for three grand, do one a month. And then do you know, five of what I'm about to show you on the side, you'll do six websites a month. You'll get paid for, you know, one of them, but you'll have five people on a care plan at the end of the month, paying you 200 bucks each. And so pretty quickly after month three, you, you're not gonna sell the website for three grand anymore. That's right. You know, because you'll see the benefit of the recurring revenue. So, um, love
Speaker 2 00:15:23 It,
Speaker 0 00:15:23 Love it. Yeah. Agencies who wanna bolt it on someone who wants to leave their job. Um, when I get into the, you know, the depths of this, maybe someone who like, like, because I had a background from the, um, signage stuff, I knew how to design websites and, and I had one skill set within the hundreds of skill sets. You need to, you know, run a successful full with digital agency. Um, so maybe someone who with no web skillset, maybe. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:15:53 We'll see. Cool. Okay. Love it. So do you, do you wanna share your screen and we'll dive into your slides and, and, uh, get started by the way, while Mark's doing that. Uh, if you are listening to this as a podcast, if someone shared it with you, if you've accidentally discovered us, this is the agency hour by agency Mavericks. My name is Troy Dean. I'm your host. We are live in the digital Mavericks Facebook group. So come and join us there and like, and subscribe wherever you are listening to this. Uh, leave us a comment, send us an
[email protected]. Tell us what you like, what you want more of, uh, if you've got any feedback we all is, we do read all of the feedback and we wanna make this show as, uh, useful and as entertaining and as, uh, as you know, awesome as possible for you guys. So please give us some feedback. Um, I think Mike is just sharing his screen. This is another reason you should come and join the digital Mavericks Facebook group, because occasionally we do this where we screen share, uh, which is a podcast. Here we go.
Speaker 0 00:16:51 Um, so is that working?
Speaker 2 00:16:54 It is, I can see that that's, uh, it's uh, says agency map individual
Speaker 0 00:17:00 <laugh>. Yeah. So first part of this is gonna be mining your way, uh, to a good start with a new digital agency. And the second part will be, um, how, uh, I buy other agencies with confidence to create a, a triple one. Now, can I use my, um, can I, I can describe my mouse. Cool, cool, cool. Um, so a few disclaimers here. So I'm actually a consultant, you know, for web agencies or any other businesses. Uh, I don't actually help anyone in a professional environment improve their web businesses. I'm just showing you, uh, three, three core things that I did when I got started. Secondarily, especially when I show you how I buy businesses, don't take anything that I give you as financial advice, tax advice, or anything like that. You, you you'd need to check with your own accountant and within your own jurisdictions and, and stuff like that.
Speaker 0 00:17:48 Additionally, I'm not sharing saying that you should replace what you're currently doing in your agency, or this is the only way that you should build your business and LA LA lastly, as well is, um, I'm gonna build a big business. So scale this to the size that you want. Um, um, you know, you don't have to kind of like follow me to, to, to where I'm going with it. Uh, also gonna make some assumptions. So I'm gonna make the assumption, um, that you have some ability to put a website together. Um, I'm gonna show you how to create websites fast and without disruption and or delay, uh, but having some knowledge of the web industry. Um, yeah, I'm gonna make that assumption. Um, I'm gonna assume that you have the knowledge of common marketplace tools for web design and web development, CRMs, stuff like that.
Speaker 0 00:18:32 I'm gonna assume that like most businesses, your intention is to start local, you know, close to your home or office. Uh, and obviously I'm gonna, you know, assume that you're prepared to take some action. Some of it might be uncomfortable. You can, you know, um, do the uncomfortable stuff if you want or not. Um, you know, and, um, also gonna assume that you are, you know, gonna put some time into this, so mining your way to a good start with a new digital agency. Uh, number one would be the scalp. So if you take a bird's eye view of your city, of your area, you know, or of, of anything, can you look at it in this view? You can't really kind of like tell too much. If you look at the satellite view, what becomes apparent in any city is where businesses cluster. So with the satellite view, I can obviously see that kind of like north and Southeast of, uh, Auckland is farm area.
Speaker 0 00:19:32 You it's easy to see what residential looks like, and it's jumps out at you of where big clusters of businesses gather, right? They're always kind of like all of the big white roofs and stuff like that. Uh, you can see that I was at obviously at home when I took this screenshot, but my offices are actually in east Taki here. Um, and as you can see, like I could do this in any city. Uh, so this is Melbourne. I've never been to Melbourne before, but I would kind of know where to go and kind of like get started if I wanted to see where, uh, industry and businesses cluster, that's not to say that there isn't businesses that, uh, you know, go through the spines of all of these streets and all of these stuff and the residential areas. But when you're mining, you kind of wanna go to where the biggest kind of like, you know, chunks of, of gold are.
Speaker 0 00:20:24 So as you can see for, for, for this mining, you know, kind of one, like if I live here out in the Eastern suburbs of Auckland and I work on east stomach here, that's probably a pretty good place for me to start. And so what I did was I started with this street that was actually a Cresent called androta. And so, as you can kind of like, see, it looks pretty commercial, pretty kind of like industrial. And if I flick back to here and I, I count up all of the Google, my business listings, I can see that there's, uh, about 23 GMB listings for the street. So at this stage, we need to move from a bird's eye view and change it to a curbside view. So what I do when I mine a street is I give myself a little bit of a, just an Excel.
Speaker 0 00:21:06 I give myself a little bit of a, kind of like a roadmap for the addresses on that street. And then I actually go there and I fill it all out, right. So I actually go there, park my car and I'll just walk along, you know, that street. And I'll take notes of all of the, kind of like a businesses that are on that street. And here you can kind of like, see, uh, you know, all of my scrappy kind of like notes and my terrible handwriting and low and behold, there are actually 103 businesses, not 25 on and Dramat present. And so what it kind of like leads me to believe there is there's, you know, still obviously the 25 opportunities that you could mind without going and getting the curbside view. You know, you, couldn't also kind of like drop into street view, but they're not always kind of like guaranteed to give you accurate information.
Speaker 0 00:21:53 And, but there's what I've noticed whenever I do this is there's a big difference between what you can see and what's actually there. Wow. So phase, phase two would be the mine. So what you've gotta do is you've gotta take all of that information that you gathered on the scalp, and you've gotta clean it up a little bit. What I do is I cross cross reference as much information as I can, um, you know, business to business I'm looking for who owns it, how long it's been running, how many staff it has, I'll look at the website and I'll, and I'll make ratings on the type of website, the complexity, the quality. Um, I'll see if they've got stuff missing. Like, do they have a GMB panel? Uh, are there any reviews on it? I'll take notes on stuff that I might see that's broken or needs improvement.
Speaker 0 00:22:37 Um, I'll also jump around and, and have a look at signs of postlaunch activity on Google and Facebook, LinkedIn, social media. And ultimately what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to get like a, a little bit of a general feel for that, you know, business and whether it's gonna be a good fit, uh, you know, for me. And so what you end up with after those kind of like scribbles in this moaning process is I, I do this in air table because I like air table a little bit better than Excel. Yeah, me too. That has more, um, you know, um, but what I end up is with these lists that show the company that address Google my business. Yes or no, the type of website, whether it's a brochure, whether it's eCommerce, whether it's just like way too complicated, the quality good poor DIY or none.
Speaker 0 00:23:21 I get the URL. And then from the, the, um, the, those are kind of like mining. I'll be able to find out who I think the decision maker is and get their contact name, email, uh, and phone number, mine group. I'll get to a little bit later notes. So I'll get to a little bit later and rating, I'll get to a little bit later. So excuse me for this. What I did was I not only did Andro, uh, but I did only hung a more slightly, slightly kind of skewed. This is more kind of like restaurants, barbers, all of that kind of stuff. Uh, eateries and, uh, you know, small little businesses. I did a street by my house, which is called Vincent street, which has like a whole lot of, um, you know, like a dentist and, um, you know, kind of other bits and pieces, um, uh, carpet store, um, you know, those kind of businesses.
Speaker 0 00:24:09 Um, and for me, you know, this is maybe more kind of like, uh, for a business at my stage. I also went out of Auckland about an hour and a half out of Auckland to a, a town ship called Yee. And this is really the, I guess, kind of like show the flexibility of the, of the mining process. So I have other investments going into ye I own this piece of, uh, land just here. I bought it in November and I'm gonna be building, um, me and my wife's first investment property there. My cousin lives here. When I, uh, um, roll out here in a second, my parents also have placed down on the beach and this mine is getting filled with water. It's gonna become a lake. And a lot of infrastructure is going into to ye he, additionally, as you can see, here's Auckland, here's ye he tower.
Speaker 0 00:24:59 It is new Zealand's second biggest port. And one of the reasons I want to get, say 50, 60 care plans going in ye is it'll allow me to maybe hire like a, a my, you know, the person who might become my first licensee or franchisee, or maybe they'll just be a good operator for me. And they'll be able to, if I give them Kate who does all of our, um, data mining, I'll be able to give her, you know, I'll be able to say to that person, Hey, I want, I want all of the businesses in the carer, Mandel, peninsula, and I want you to get me a foothold and towel wronger as well. So this is, you know, this is me mining out for future steps for the kind of like growth of my business. Um, and one of the ways that I mine, why he is I actually, what, last time I was down there, I just went into Bunnings and I took a, you know, these things you still get in like small townships and stuff like that.
Speaker 0 00:25:47 Yeah, yeah, totally. And then I can actually zoom in and I can actually take all of the details straight off these things and, you know, ended up getting like 120, you know, business contacts into the ye he area. Um, and the, and, and the last one that I did is everything on my phone. So I'm quite prolific at this. Um, if I see a vehicle that doesn't have a, a, a business vehicle that doesn't have a URL, if something pops up on, you know, kind of thing, if I see like a flyer, if one of my friends posts something and I can see that their business has a website, um, if I see something really under, like, if this one I think was like running ads and it was going to this really terrible website, again, this company didn't have a URL on their thing.
Speaker 0 00:26:27 You know, like a little flyer. I had heaps of it. Then this is, this is like the first 10 that I came across. But I was quite, I, I like, if I, if I see something that I see an opportunity, I just take a photo or a screenshot of it. And so I track my time for, so for the scout, so, you know, like going to Anter and walking to it, going to only hung them wall and walking it, going to Vincent street and, and, and, and walking it, um, you know, taking the time to zoom in, on those photos and, and, and, um, you know, stuff and, and ye, and going through all the phone, the scout took me about three and the mine took me about, you know, uh, seven note. I actually was sitting on a Sunday watching the UFC when I did that. So that's probably a little bit slow. And another note is Kate, who I've trained how to do this, does it way faster than me, way faster, but, you know, you could still say that, you know, I'm 10 hours deeper into this process at this time,
Speaker 2 00:27:25 Do the walking around the streets, or does she remote? Does she just do it on a computer?
Speaker 0 00:27:29 No, I've, I've showed a, but, but one of the I'll show, one of the, there's a thing coming up that I'll show that, um, led me to those areas. That's a little bit different, but no, she can gimme, she can gimme real clean records though. Um, but without, without one thing that I'm about to show you, that's quite powerful. Mm-hmm, <affirmative> so on my efforts. So this is without Kate, this is me doing it because I wanted to play devil's advocate for, for you guys, watching was, we've got about 380 full records ones that I'm, you know, like, um, uh, pretty confident that we've got good data and that we know who the decision maker is also got about 95, where the data's a little bit kind of like scrappy, and it'll just need a little bit more cross referencing and, and, and work, uh, you know, to kind of like clean up, uh, yeah.
Speaker 0 00:28:14 As you can see here, mainly that I dunno who the decision maker is. So this, sorry, there should have been one here where it went from the mind to the rating. So, so this is phase three, the rating mm-hmm <affirmative> you would've noticed that on my air table, I broke it down to company name, address, GMB website type website, quality URL, name, email, phone, mining, list notes, and rating mm-hmm <affirmative> out of those 476 businesses, by the way, there was 142 or 30% that I rated as good, uh, 5% or 24 that I write it as DIY, uh, 209 that I rated as poor and 99 that didn't have a website. Okay. But that's actually not how I choose them for the activity phase. That's, um, about to come. What I do is I give them a five star rating. They get one staff for having complete data, one staff, uh, that, that the website sucks.
Speaker 0 00:29:05 Uh, a third start that it's, it's a simple, uh, website and a simple business. Another one that's a common business or in a competitive market. And the last one is that we have a location or anchor. So I have a client on Andro. I have a client on only hung more. I have a client on Vincent street. I also have one client in ye already. And what this allows me to do, given that all of these people are strangers is when I move into the activity, um, um, uh, portion of it that I've, there's a little kind of electric in the wording of, of how I introduce myself. Mm-hmm <affirmative> right. So the good, the, the angle that you want to take in the activity phase is all of the people that had good websites like de depending on what you wanna do as an agency, I kind of like leave these ones alone, but the angle would be to wrap it in a care plan with the emphasis on the last three pain points of our care plan.
Speaker 0 00:30:01 So, number one is we'll get you our website, right? They already have a good website. So you can't really win based off that. Number two is all of the monthly number three is ongoing, um, uh, reactionary support, no additional invoices. And number four is a brand new website every 36 months. So they would still fit into that court category. None, obviously we want to take through our, we free website channel and then put them on a care plan for me. The two, I like the best is the DIY and the poor reason being that there might be a reason why business doesn't have a, a website and these, or people already have a monthly or an annual expense with their website. You know, this person you're getting to spend money for the first time. This person's, you know, maybe already happy these people have a problem, right?
Speaker 0 00:30:46 So DIY, we are doing apples for apples conversion, with core improvements, plus a care plan and poor will do our full rescue proposition plus a care plan. And so what you wanna do with this activity phase is you wanna grab, you know, the top 100 and you want for the hot, um, uh, you know, leads, if you want to call them leads. They're not quite leads that at the stage, they're still strangers, but, um, you wanna choose the top five that you would love to have as a, a climb warm. You wanna choose the, the, the next 40 that you think you have a really good shot at cold, which is the remaining kind of like 55. We need to feel out. And I'm about to show you how to do that. And some as well as you come as you're going through it, you might just wanna throw away.
Speaker 0 00:31:28 But seeing that you've taken the time to, you know, you know, seeing that their representative time already spent, you could just do something like send them a, a, my web audit audit and, and put them into your CRM and, and just see if that hook stays in the water for long enough that, um, you know, to, um, you know, provide any, you know, kind of stuff in the future. Um, and don't ever put any of this stuff into some type of EDM and send it out, cuz that's spam. Right. And that's not what I'm showing you to do at all at all. You know, don't, don't do that. That's what I would do. <laugh> you can, but I mean, you can, I mean, Hey, I don't, you can. Um, okay. So what's important to note as well is on this next phase I didn't used to, but I now have processing pages.
Speaker 0 00:32:14 So these are, uh, uh, hidden pages on my website and they actually have all of the, uh, Mavericks IP, you know, the, the systems around triage calls, strategy calls go wide, go deep, not quite right emails, um, all of that kind of stuff. And I have it open, uh, when I do this next phase. So that by the time I'm, um, getting off the phone or whatever it is gonna be with these person, people that, um, the next, uh, phases happen. And so for the cold stuff, all you wanna do is, you know, break it down across your week. So if you've got 55, you know, maybe you do 11 a day. Um, and what, what I do is I go, I ring them and I go, Hey, Mike, here from G and media, how are you doing? You know what, whatever they say. Okay, that's awesome.
Speaker 0 00:33:01 And so when I, then what I do, I was like, Hey, when I was down on Andre yesterday, visiting my locational anchor. So that's the business that I have on that street. Right? So when I was on your street, visiting an existing customer whose website and digital marketing, we look after I saw your business emphasis on your business, because at that stage, if they're not the decision maker, they'll tell you, and you've obviously got your mining wrong, but, but, but normally, you know, that'll be confirmed. Um, and their company, company name and the, what you wanna, what I do is I say, before I jump off the call, as I know you are busy, what it look like for, for, um, you to consider us for the next time you upgrade your website at that stage, they're gonna tell you all of the reasons why they don't want you to do that.
Speaker 0 00:33:45 Uh, and they don't need you to do that, or they're fine with their existing, you know, kind of like whatever. And then you say, totally understand, Hey, look, in case you ever change your mind, would it be sweet if I sent you just one email directly from my email, I'm not gonna put you on a sales, sales, new E newsletter or anything like that, just so you have my contact details in the future. They want you off the phone. So they'll be like, yeah, you can send me one email. Okay, cool. Just confirming and then make sure that you've got the, um, the rights, you know, email for, if it goes really, really well, you can also say, Hey, um, I would, if you want, I can put you together an audit. So you've got some information on how your websites, you know, perform, you know, that's an additional extra right.
Speaker 0 00:34:27 That, that automation page that I, that I build and that I, um, uh, thing. So I would've, you know, confirmed that and hit go. What it does is it sends that email directly out of my email to them, with my contact information. It also attaches the market. My, uh, my web audit thing, if they say yes, and then what it does is it waits till the 23rd of the following month. Or you can set this as faster or as slow as you want. And then it sends them another direct email from my email that says something along the lines of hi, you know, whatever. We build five websites a month here at five free websites here a month here at GN media. Uh, one is just dropped out for next month. Would you like that next spot? It's worth five grand. All you need to do is cover the monthly hosting fees.
Speaker 0 00:35:10 When can we jump on a call to discuss right? And then follow up the kind of like next day. And so they're like, oh, I, that guy next month, oh, someone's dropped out and I can get a free website, you know, Hey, okay. That might be worth it on this call. Right. Remembering that everything that I wanna do is get someone on a call if I get someone on a call that, that they might, but I've got that process dialed within my business. Yeah. Um, and so if you do that, by the way, if, if you do that every week, you'll, you will get in front of 2,860 businesses alone.
Speaker 2 00:35:43 Right. This is, this is like the free book. You just pay the shipping. Right.
Speaker 0 00:35:47 Kinda. Yeah. Kinda. It's just a little trick. It's they gonna get a free website? They're gonna go, they're gonna get us, help them, you know?
Speaker 0 00:35:58 Okay. So that's, that's the cold ones with the next 40, and I've done this before. It works really, really well. And, um, um, you know, I've even got the, the iPad to do it. And that's what this thing, you know, behind me, um, is my, uh, I'm hoping that that's coming through, you know, or I, yeah, what you wanna do is you wanna run a key competition. So just go to a locksmith or whatever, he'll sell you 40 keys, real cheap. It doesn't cost much give 'em to you like five bucks or whatever. And you get some little tags with like a GRK and media. And then on the back, you put one to 40, you also then create a flyer, a D flyer, and it, you run a, your website on a brand new, your new website on a, um, a brand new iPad competition.
Speaker 0 00:36:40 And you design the flyer that, you know, shows the iPad. It shows where you are, um, you know, kind of like geographically, you can do this online with like a, a, a random number generator, kind of like thing, whatever. And then you walk into those 40 businesses though. Those 40 businesses will think that you are walking into every business on the street. And they'll think that you don't know who they are, but you're not walking into every business on the street and offering them a key. You're walking into your preferred 40, um, you know, clients that you already know who they are, and you already know who, how you can help them. And you already know that they've got a terrible website. And what you'll find is that, you know, to get them to come into the office is, is kind of like fairly low.
Speaker 0 00:37:24 And so what you can do is you can either do two things. What I do is I drop them another little one, and I say, Hey, hurry up. There's only five keys left. And now they think, Hey, I don't have a one in 40 chance of winning the iPad. I've got a, a one in five, or I'll take the iPad with the lock on it. And so I put like a pad lock on it, you know? So when they, when they come into the office or when I take it over there, the key pops and there's this kind of like cool moment. And whenever the whenever for the 39, that don't win it, you've gotta get them to do a second chance draw because they don't know that you already have that information. And so what ends up happening is for 500 bucks or whatever, the cost of the iPad, plus a little bit of print, you'll get, um, you know, like you'll obviously do the website for the person that wins.
Speaker 0 00:38:10 But what you'll do is you'll go through the 39 that didn't win. And you'll say, Hey, I feel bad that you made the effort to come and try the key and it didn't work. Hey, we can still give you the free website, right. So we can still give you the, you know, five out, out of the $5,500 worth of prize. We can still give you the, the five grands worth, um, you know, um, you know, and, and then, then you can, you know, kind of do that. This works really, really well. And you give you, you know, potentially could give you and you can change the number. I do 40. Think it works out to be like 12 bucks a lead or whatever. You could do a hundred and bring it down to five bucks a lead, or, you know, whatever the, you design it, but
Speaker 2 00:38:51 What's really, he's gonna open the, you dunno, which key's gonna, or, or do all keys open it.
Speaker 0 00:38:58 And what I sometimes do is I, if, if I you're not supposed to, but what I'll do is I'll give the key to the person that I want the most, like the one that I think's like the best fit for my business. But
Speaker 2 00:39:09 So, so the dealer I don't
Speaker 0 00:39:10 Don't wanna,
Speaker 2 00:39:11 So the dealer, they get the key, you walk in, you give them a key. You say, Hey, listen, we're running a competition for local businesses where you can win a new free website on a brand new iPad. All you need to do is come over to my office and try this key in the lock and see if it works. And if it works, then you get a free iPad and a free website. Right. But hurry, there are only five keys left and that, so they come over to the office, they O if it doesn't work, what do they do when they're in your office? And they vote and they go, oh, mark, it didn't work. You goose, what do I do? Now?
Speaker 0 00:39:40 They fill in the second chance draw form. And you say, Hey, the key might not come in. So, so, um, do the second chance draw if the key doesn't come in, we'll draw it out of the second chance draw, um, second chance draw applicant. Got it,
Speaker 2 00:39:54 Got it. Got
Speaker 0 00:39:55 It. And so these two, you drop off, right? And about a week later, you drop this one off.
Speaker 2 00:40:00 Got it.
Speaker 0 00:40:01 Right. Because, um, you know, some will come in, some will, some will come in straight away, some won't and then this one kind of like hus the ones that didn't bother coming in yet. Yeah. You know, and so ultimately you want as many of the 40 to come in and try it. And then what you do as well is you can see this thing behind me. Right? Yeah. Um, what I do is I, you know, build a competition on one of these kind of like, you know, you can just get these things from anywhere. Um, and I'd put like branding on it, you know, I'd put the iPad on it and it would have like the lock. This would all be branded. I'd probably cut a little slot in the front here, uh, for the second, um, you know, uh, chance entry forms. I'd probably put a little box so that they can put their keys, you know, back into the site.
Speaker 0 00:40:41 So I can re uh, run the competition next month. Uh, and just have that as like a cool thing. Then what I would also do is either myself or my staff, or whoever's gonna run the competition is I would film everyone trying. And when the person pops the lock, well, that's a really cool social media thing that you can put out onto your LinkedIn and all the rest of it, but Hey, yeah, I won a thing. And then the next competition you can do, doesn't have to be mind. It can be, Hey, we are running another key competition and you could do it with like a random number generator one, and you could do thousands of entries for, um, you know, an iPad and stuff like that. So that's, uh, my warm so cold was the calls, uh, warm is the competition and hot. So if you thought that was cool, this is actually my favorite one.
Speaker 0 00:41:31 Well, that takes a little, little bit of balls. You take the top five, the websites that you chose, that you want to make the worst that you wanna work with most and just build them, right? Mm-hmm <affirmative> and you, at this stage, you want practice building websites. Mm-hmm <affirmative>, or if you've got a team, you want them to always be busy mm-hmm <affirmative> and here's why it doesn't matter. You're gonna build these people, a website you've already chosen them. You already got a feel for them. You know, they need a new website, you know, do whatever you need to do around that once you've built them. But here's why it doesn't matter if they don't take them right. June 3, 20, 20, Hey, everyone. We did a really cool website for a professional services client who doesn't look at doesn't look to have survived the lockdown. That's not true.
Speaker 0 00:42:16 I didn't like the guy he was Dick. Right. So I was like, I don't wanna deal with this guy anymore. And so what we did is we removed all of the branding and all of his IP off the website. And we said it would be super easy to convert this into any type of a website. Um, so long story short, first and first surf serve for a free website. We 5k. And we can even, um, assist with the content, right? We, we, we, we multi, we, we took that website, which we were never gonna sell for five grand E either, by the way, it was just gonna go on care plan, but it's still worth five grand, even though you were never gonna sell for five. Yeah. They five of course it is. Um, and so, um, we, yeah, we turned that into five, five people hit us up for that website and we created five websites off the back of it.
Speaker 0 00:43:00 This one here, the, uh, the one for the, uh, for the school, uh, Haley, we did that website. And then she also said, Hey, I can give you heaps of other schools. And we actually have, since then, we've never had capacity for it. Right. Mm-hmm that's, that's like, like, you know, like that, that, that one, like she could give us, like if I rang her tomorrow and said, Hey, we are ready to go on the rest of those school group, uh, groups mm-hmm, you know, can you put us in front? She she'd probably will give us like a hundred principals to ring tomorrow. Mm-hmm, you know? And so one, one little bit of activity like that, you know, can, can really give you like a, and, and that's my problem. If you are asking why don't I do this all of the time? It's because of everything that came, you know, from when I originally done did this mm-hmm <affirmative> and secondarily here's, um, oh, um, and, and this all falls in because it's one of the, the ratings, the five star ratings remember was because it's a common business or, and it's a competitive market.
Speaker 0 00:43:59 Mm-hmm <affirmative> we took one barber shop website. And I think we now look after seven barbers on those things. And again, we didn't send, we didn't continue on with it because we got too busy. So we did one website for one barber. He, he was like a little bit kind of like flaky. And so I said, Lee, can you just, um, remove his branding off it? And then just like email, you know, 30 different barber shops and say, we'll give him a free website. We ended up getting like seven, you know, so that's $1,400 a month, month worth of care plans that we
Speaker 2 00:44:33 Hang on. Let's just do the math here. Right? Cause I know a lot of people watching this going, dude, you just build seven websites for free you're lunatic. You're gonna go broke. And Troy's been telling us for 150 years, not do shit for free, but if there was $200 a month by seven that's $1,400 a month, right. In 10 months, that's 14 grand of recurring revenue. 12 months is 15 for 16,800 a year in recurring revenue. Right? If you sold each of those websites for three grand, seven, it's 21 grand. So by March or April of the second year, you are in front and it's recurring revenue. You keep building on that. And before you know it, you're doing two or 300 grand a year in recurring revenue, and you're not having to chase and convince people to give you five grand for a website.
Speaker 2 00:45:21 Right. Because what I love about this is this is a godfather offer. You know, that right? What I love about what you've done here is you've you, this is true. I saw Maverick on the weekend, right? The top gun sequel. And the one thing I learned about it did not disappoint by the way. It gave me exactly what I expected and nothing more. It was cheesy as, and it was fantastic. And the one thing I learned about what it means to be a Maverick is that a Maverick is so good at what they do. They are willing to take on more personal responsibility than anyone else in the relationship and in the transaction. And that's why they win. And that's why they lead. And that's why people follow them because they're willing to take on the responsibility, which is exactly what you are doing here. You are taking on all the risk. Your team is building the websites anyway, which makes them an efficient machine at building websites. You go to the client, if the client doesn't want it, that's okay. Just take the branding, offer it to someone else. And in the meantime you're building that recurring revenue and you are taking all the responsibility and removing all the risk from the client. I love it.
Speaker 0 00:46:25 Um, yeah. So I think that's, um, that's the end of that, um, you know, kind of, uh, section, it's not the end of the mining kind of like process, but that's, you know, um, you know, how we get to, uh, you know, that stage, right. Exit outta this. Should I just keep on going and then I'll jump out in between please, please.
Speaker 2 00:46:41 Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:46:42 Okay. So how we build websites so fast? Okay. So there are some core reasons. So, so how we build websites so fast now is obviously because, you know, we, we aim to have clients who don't need complicated websites, but I also have a really kick ask team. We have great systems and procedures. Um, you know, our client's input is like literally 1%. We just talk to them at the end and they, you know, make a few kind of adjustments and we have tools for imagery, content and design head starts mm-hmm <affirmative> okay. So that's cool for me, but if, uh, if, if you are just getting started, here's some things that we've implemented as well that you could do, um, that to, to, to kinda like speed things up if you wanna play this game. So I bought this, um, growth design kit of grow Moto mm-hmm <affirmative>, you know, a popular thing.
Speaker 0 00:47:28 And if you click on all of these buttons, if you click on, on the homepage, it opens up and it's got like a hundred different home pages. If you click on the sales page, it's got like a hundred, you know, different sales pages. Um, they look like this mm-hmm <affirmative> and what's really cool is they're all wire framed and they give you their Figma, um, um, uh, uh, file as well. Mm-hmm <affirmative> so what we did is we just built them. All right. And so what, what happens is when I'm, um, you know, when, when I'm thinking about when we, we are kind of like positioning, you know, when we're onboarding, sorry for a, for a website. So someone's like, yeah, Hey, I want a website, like in Figma, I can go. And I, okay. Well, yeah, that, that was a pretty cool website, but like, if you use like Elementor or, um, divvy or, or anything like that, templates look like this, and therefore it's likely that the website that you build will also look like this.
Speaker 0 00:48:21 So like a wire frame is very different to a template mm-hmm <affirmative> right. And I, and my advice to you is wire frame don't template mm-hmm <affirmative>. And so these things, what I can do is I can kind of like, you know, drag the header across, and then I can go to the next section and I can drag that across. And it will give, uh, a wire frame to be able to hand off to, you know, one of my front ends. So they've got like an idea of the structure of this, the website, the homepage, and, and the site map. And then what we also did was we didn't just, you know, um, label and name all of the individual areas in Figma. So that I, as you know, to, in order to hand off, can quickly kind of like, you know, put a skeleton together.
Speaker 0 00:49:07 We also built all of these, um, areas and put them in our, uh, cloud on our, uh, WordPress mm-hmm <affirmative>. And so we can drag them in and you now have like a functional skeleton. That's also got all of the padding and all of the spacing and all of the CSS and all of the, kind of like everything. And so within like five minutes, we've actually got like a fully functioning website, wire frame skeleton that when we jump into shutter stock, you know, for imagery, or maybe they give us some imagery, or maybe they've got some imagery off their old site, we use just better write the content. Um, and then, you know, our team will kind of like manipulate it to make sure it's fine. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. And if they don't give us a brand guideline, we just get them to choose one off, like type.ai, or we choose one off type.io mm-hmm <affirmative>.
Speaker 0 00:49:57 And so once those three things are kind of like pushed over onto this, uh, you know, fully functioning, uh, you know, um, wire frame, you know, and you've then given it the kind of, you know, like the flesh and the skin and the, and the rest of the things, basically at that stage, you have like, you know, a custom website, it is a custom website, you know, mm-hmm, <affirmative> albeit that we've, you know, used things to kind of like accelerate, you know, I wouldn't say we template websites because, you know, we, we still start from scratch. We've just had things that kind of, um, accelerating and the other cool thing is like, once we get it to, at that stage, our job is actually done. So when we push it across to the client and say, Hey, here's your website, you know that, um, we've put together for you.
Speaker 0 00:50:46 They might say, oh yeah, I need to wait for this. Or I need to wait for that, or I'm gonna do this, or I'm gonna do that. And we go, well, that's cool, but what's that got to do with us? Our job's done on the first of next month, we're sending our, you know, we're getting started on the care plan. And so what happens when we do that? Is they go, oh yeah, actually it's all on me. Right. I'm the one causing the delay at that stage. Normally what they'll do is they'll go, oh, okay. Actually, you know, it's fine how it is or they'll, they'll actually get you what, they're, what you're asking for, or kind of like, whatever, because it's hard for them when they're looking at it to kind of like, see how we are creating a delay. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. So, you know, if you've, you know, if you've got everything ready to kind of like go, so you don't have to start from scratch when you take those five hot leads for the month and you go, oh, okay, cool.
Speaker 0 00:51:38 I want to create five websites for my top five off my li mining list. It's not like, it's not me telling you to do, you know, like six months worth of work to earn $200 a month. Like you should be able to do, you know, like maybe to start with one every two or three days, you know, like my guys, when they do this, like, they're, they're real quick on an apples, on a DIY, like wick or squared space, um, uh, you know, apples for apples conversion. We can do them in, in, in a matter of hours, you know, and stuff like that. So, so those are some kind of like quick wins, love it. Um, staff and tech stack, what you wanna start to think is like, how many, um, care plans do you need to, um, you know, have in place in order to grow your team, right.
Speaker 0 00:52:22 If you wanna get paid five grand a month, right? You need, you know, your first 25, right. Or stay at your job and get your first 25 and get whatever one that you want first, a front end, or a full stack, you know, depending on your kind of like skill set. But what you can start to do is think, okay, well I need 25 care plans in order to, you know, cover my $5,000 a month, you know, for my 60 grand a year based salary. Then if I want, um, you know, people, you know, sitting on seats in the country that I'm in, you know, I need another 25 more for a front end at that stage. Now I don't have to do any design, you know? And so I'm freed up to do more mining or do more, you know, whatever is that you wanna do.
Speaker 0 00:53:01 Uh, you know, another 25 will give you a full stack. You're always gonna need a cover, cover a couple to cover your server. You know, you're gonna need, depending on the size of your tech stack, you know, you need some, some to cover that mm-hmm <affirmative>, but at this stage, I think this is, you know, like if you want, if you want an agency. So if, if you wanna be a, like just an operator then, and, and you are the person that designs and develops websites and stuff like that. And that's the business that you see for yourself. Obviously you just stack as many care plans on top of yourself as you want. Um, this is, this is where my business rarely started to accelerate. When I had myself a front end, a full stack, the full stack looked after the server. The server cost me about four or 500 bucks a month.
Speaker 0 00:53:40 And we were able to have about a thousand dollars a month, uh, you know, in tech stack, you know, um, that's the shut of stock account that I talked about. Mm-hmm, <affirmative> all of the kind of like little things and the, the as well, I think at this stage, you'll qualify for MAs as well, which is additionally really kind of, uh, you know, important you would've met, met the monthly kind of like threshold to, um, to, to, to get into that, which I would obviously kind of like massively recommend. And if you are looking at that and thinking that that looks difficult or unachievable or UN or impossible, every single one of my staff members is covered by care plans. Right. Wow.
Speaker 2 00:54:15 That's,
Speaker 0 00:54:16 You know, it's, it's achievable. You can do it. You know, like when I have a look at my care plans each month, versus what my overheads are, I'm covered. I said this on the last call, you know, it's, it's just one of those things for every, you know, you know, and once you're at this point as well, you could also get a VA to start doing the mining for you. Like I that's.
Speaker 2 00:54:36 Right. You know? Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:54:37 And so at that stage, you know, you, you are really just designing whoever you want to be because you don't doing any of the work anymore. Right. This is so that's why, so that's why it accelerated to the point where, um, you know, I've got this team and it's why I also think that when I'm having a look at our work in progress, I'm not thinking about like how much extra money am I gonna make each, you know, uh, next month for all the care plans we, um, add on it's who can I hire next?
Speaker 2 00:55:06 Yeah, that's
Speaker 0 00:55:07 Right. Who can I hire next? And they're covered, who can I hire next? And
Speaker 2 00:55:11 They're covered. I had a conversation with Emily this morning, uh, obviously has taken over as CEO. She's in New Zealand. Obviously you bought her agency. We'll talk about that in a second. Um, I said to her, you know, like I've stopped spending money on gear. We have enough gear to sync the Titanic. We have enough key to keep me happy for a while. Now I just wanna spend money on people. Like we've moved into the new building. We've spent a shit load of money, fitting it out. We had to do it cuz we needed a new home. We've done that. We've got the gear. Now. I just want more people because more people help us go faster. And having a recurring revenue business model is the holy fricking grail. When it comes to onboarding new team members, because you can look three, four months down the track and go, well, that's where our cash flow's gonna be.
Speaker 2 00:55:51 We can afford to hire someone and I'm not scared about paying them next month, BEC I mean, sure anything can happen in the world. We can, there can be another pandemic interest rates can go up inflation, whatever. Right there can be a war or that shit can happen. But if you are just, if you've just got project revenue and you have got no recurring revenue in your business, it's really scary to hire people because if the projects don't keep coming, you've got a mouth to feed. So recurring revenue is absolutely the holy grail dude. This is epic.
Speaker 0 00:56:17 The other thing as well is if one of your customers goes under, it doesn't matter. That's
Speaker 2 00:56:21 Correct. That's right. That's
Speaker 0 00:56:22 Exactly right. We have really low attrition because we do our job, you know, and our clients love, you know, the, the care plan product and, and stuff like that. But um, you know, like if one person, you know, says, Hey, I don't wanna do this anymore. It's it's okay. You know, like it's, it's fine. It's you know
Speaker 2 00:56:38 Exactly. You know, it's funny, it's funny because every now and then I see you do this. I see what you are doing. And I'm like, fuck, I wanna start an agency. <laugh>
Speaker 0 00:56:48 Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 00:56:49 Yeah. Because when I started in 2007, right? I had no idea what I was doing. This is like shooting fish in a barrel dude, because you are iden. Now it's work. It's hard work. Don't get me wrong. Like this takes work. But your identifying people who have a problem and you are making them an offer. That is, that would be stupid to say no, which is the hormo way. Right? The, I mean, this is, it does create it. There is work involved. There's one other thing I wanna mention before you talk about how you buy agencies. Mike said, at this point in his business, he's got the sales process down. Pat, if you put people in front of him, he'll close them, he'll convert them. Right. We've spent the last few weeks here on the podcast, talking about lead gen. I did a case study on my Facebook lead ad campaign, where I showed you how I got lawyers for $4 and 1 cent at through Facebook lead ads.
Speaker 2 00:57:40 Mike shown you here had to drive your car down the street and get out and walk the pavement and collect the information and put that together. And a complete plan of attack. I do not wanna see anyone in this group ever again, complain that they need leads. Bullshit. You don't need leads. You need to get off your ass and you need to focus on a strategy to attract the right people and make them a great offer. Leads are not hiding. You don't need to go find leads. You need to serve people and offer them something that they actually want and make it really easy for them to say. Yes. Okay. So given what we've talked about over the last 4, 5, 6 weeks on the agency hour, if anyone says, I need leads, I'm gonna tell 'em to come and watch this and tell 'em to go watch my Facebook lead ad case study conversation over. Okay. Get off your eyes and do the work now. Uh, you wanna talk to,
Speaker 0 00:58:34 So I think, I think, yeah, so, so I can quickly finish this one. So how we converted to such a high rate is our website is actually one big godfather. Me that mixed in with a little bit of that hook story offer from, um, kind of ClickFunnels. Um, when I take people through that meeting, it's a curated experience. Um, mm-hmm, <affirmative> like I take them through my website, uh, and it's scripted to the word. Um, every step at every step, there's a Mavericks process being played out, whether it's from the blueprint, whether it's customer acquisition, formula sales, accelerator guide for godfather content strategy, Hightech a sales funnel. There's not a unique thing that I do in the, um, in the, in the sales, uh, call that I have. Um, and if you wanna see that, so one of the things, it takes too long for me to do it today, but if you want to see it, rather than me have it recorded and go out onto the internet, just for people to copy, if you wanna see it, whoever's watching this, you can actually book on, uh, a call with me and I will show you by the way, uh, you know, thank you Michael Donovan for the, um, uh, bottle of whiskey.
Speaker 0 00:59:35 I did this with one of the people from the, um, last time I was on and he sent me a bottle of whiskey just to, to say thanks. So thanks. Thanks for that. Lovely. <laugh> um, fantastic. Uh, and so, oh yeah. Um, on my final notes on this, before I talk about how we buy businesses, um, I've done everything that I showed you with success. Um, when I get someone, if I ever was to hire a sales assistant, I would actually make them do this just as like a, a, you know, a, a, a learning curve. Um, and I'm actually gonna process all of the data that I mind, um, in, in preparation for this in October. So if you wanna do it with me, or if you wanna, I'll do like a vlog and you'll see me make those calls, you'll see me run my competition.
Speaker 0 01:00:14 You'll see me create those websites and the way that I position them to turn them into, just on a side note, Kate who works for me now as a default, when she is waiting for me to tell her what to do next or whatever she minds we have, we have a list now of 5,007. I counted them 5,000, 307 companies that I could apply this method to. Uh, we are shutting the door of our agency when we hit 600. We were currently at three 80. So to get the, the next one 20 out of that 5,307, my success rate of running what I was showing you today to close the doors, I could hit as low as 2.2%. So, you know, it it's one of those things, you know, like it, it's, it's, you know, it, you know, infinitely kind of, um, uh, you know, kind of, uh, you know, scalable and, um, uh, you know, and something that you can attach to your business. You don't have to do that, you know, 100%, but it, it, it, it is definitely something that, um, you know, would work.
Speaker 2 01:01:15 And the thing I love about it is that it's systematic, right? It is it's you, it's predictable. It's process driven. You just follow the bouncing ball. It's systematic. You don't sit there on a Tuesday afternoon and go, how am I gonna get clients? You've actually got a process to follow. Uh, we're gonna go a little bit over time today. I know this is the agency, Albert, we're gonna stay on a role here because Mike is gonna just wrap up by sharing with us.
Speaker 0 01:01:36 I'll burn
Speaker 2 01:01:37 The process of how he buys other agencies. This
Speaker 0 01:01:39 One is this ones, nowhere near as big. So how I buy agencies with confidence and create a triple win. Okay. There's three questions that you need to create that triple win. What do I want? What does the seller want? What do the clients need? Okay, what do I want? I want fast growth, new opportunities, diversification. Obviously I wanna make money. I want brand exposure and technical control. The seller wants maximum amount of money. Fast decision, quick exit, no strings, no stress to have their staff have an opportunity with the new company and for their clients to be looked after. Um, and what do the clients need? They need support no disruption. They prefer the status quo. Not to be tested, no price hikes, you know, better or wider service and value to be added to their business. How do I get what I want? I build in guarantee.
Speaker 0 01:02:23 I'm show you then a minute. How does the seller get what they want? Okay. So I don't buy on a bitta. I don't even look at their financials. I don't hire, I don't fire their staff. I don't give them, I, I, I give them the money that they're asking. I don't make them sign a non-compete. I have my cash ready. And I do my due due diligence and make my decision, um, uh, quickly, how does the clients get what they want? I do my job, right. Me and my, my clients. We do our job. We're there for them. We add value. We, we don't just buy them and park them and never talk them again. So that one, that one should be easy. Okay. What does my due diligence look like? Okay. So I'm, I'm looking for an owner exiting for the right reasons. Uh, someone who's, you know, maybe like paddling hard, but maybe just realized that they're in the wrong boat.
Speaker 0 01:03:03 You know, Emily and Alex were both perfect examples with this. It wasn't that they were complacent. It was just that, you know, for whatever reason, it wasn't the right vehicle for them. And lots of, of clients more, the better, uh, monthly is better than annual. I look for monthly rather than annual, um, invoicing. I look for controls, levers, like control of the domain, email hosting. Uh, and I look at the core running costs, uh, that will need to remain. I look for a book that is a lot wrong with it. Um, I almost want every client to have a problem, you know, mm-hmm, <affirmative>, um, I look for long average client relationships, years, if not decades. Uh, and I look at the lifetime value, um, from a cash point of view. Uh, I need all of the client, um, access details, uh, the notes on each client around how they normally engage.
Speaker 0 01:03:49 And what I look for is signs of signs that their book is similar to my book before I started, um, selling, uh, care plans and growth plans. And so what do I mean by, I build myself into a guarantee. Okay. So what some business owners won't put together, um, if they haven't sold a business before is the function of the clawback. And even if they, uh, know what a clawback is, they'll be expecting it from a strategic Inquirer, a financial Inquirer, a financial acquirer will try to discount the purchase price when they buy the business. Mm-hmm, <affirmative>, uh, you know, normally buying off a bit, there they'll want the financials doing the end of years. And, and, and, and, and they'll do all of that kind of like stuff. I get the advantageous position of bullying them away as it face value I'm offering, you know, like way more than a, a financial acquirer mm-hmm <affirmative>.
Speaker 0 01:04:36 So, uh, what you need to understand about a clawback is it looks like a risk clause, but it's not, it's actually a financial financial instrument that allows me to get a business owner to finance their own company to me. Okay. And here's how it works. If you had a company that had a hundred customers and they were paying 500 bucks a year in MMR products, then they would normally be asking 50 K a year on a one times multiple of turnover. Mm-hmm, <affirmative> a business deck. You know, maybe that business, if had $25,000 worth of overheads and therefore kept 25, a financial acquirer is likely to only offer them 25, you know, but unlikely, they'll unlikely. They'll take a risk on a Mo multiple, especially on a small business. So my offer of one times turnover looks way more attractive, and here are the two reasons that I don't care that I paid more one, it's an active acquisition.
Speaker 0 01:05:27 Okay. If I, uh, within the first year, I'll be disappointed in myself. If I haven't at least five X, the business I'll normally aim to 6, 7, 8, 10, the business are just with systems and products that we already have in place and secondary the clawback. Okay. So I have a, a clause in the letter of offer. That means if a client leaves, before they pay their next annual bill, I get a full refund. Um, and you know, of, of what I bought them for. And if they pay monthly it's pro rider. So if they, if they're paying a hundred bucks a month and I get to, you know, six months only clawback, 600 or half of, you know, so, so, so no matter what, I'm getting my money back, whether it comes from the client or whether it comes from, uh, the, the owner, obviously if we drop the ball or bump the client on our own, you know, we don't get to enforce a clawback mm-hmm <affirmative> and a few tips and OB observations from when I've been doing it.
Speaker 0 01:06:16 Okay. Discharges and clawbacks are actually few, few and far between if you communicate well and you do your job. Yep. Quite often, we don't end up enforcing clawbacks as there's some reciprocal thing that will happen, that the business owner will help us with something. Therefore, you know, we, we, we don't do that. Um, normally what I've noticed is people that are gonna leave will do so quickly, uh, geography doesn't matter. Um, don't get it in your mind that you can't buy a business somewhere else. Uh, when you treat your, um, uh, one exiting business owner, often they will refer you to others. So that's happening right now. I'm looking at another book right now, uh, that came through the, when I bought in the, the gold coast, uh, by not nickling the previous owner, um, they'll stay receptive, receptive to, so they'll answer your questions and, and all the rest of it.
Speaker 0 01:07:04 And this one, this one is where I said at the beginning, don't take this as a financial advice. If you can manage to not buy it as a going concern, it's an expense. It's like a, it's like a collateral collateralized, um, sales commission, right. That means that whatever you pay for the business is an expense on that year. If you buy it as a going concern, that's an asset, right? Mm-hmm <affirmative> so an asset doesn't appear on your P and L. So what happens is, as a business, I get a 30% discount on whatever I buy it for. Right. So, so if I pay 50 grand, you know, I'm getting 15 off my tax bill at the end of the year, because I bought it and amalgamated it or acquired it into my own business. And I paid the owner as a, a bulk sales commission.
Speaker 0 01:07:48 Yeah. But again, uh, check that, um, you know, same, and the process is exactly the same as a mining. I get them on a call. I do my sales father, I godfather sales, accelerator, triage, and intro. I have a process driven web, uh, webpage that does all the triage and strategy that pushes across to one of my team for a care plan, onboarding checklist, uh, we off board them when they go live and they're tagged for a growth plan, onboarding checklist, and we service the hell out of them. And we do do our job as a,
Speaker 2 01:08:16 So these, all the new clients that you've acquired go through that process.
Speaker 0 01:08:19 Yeah.
Speaker 2 01:08:20 Yeah. Wow. Far out,
Speaker 0 01:08:24 Stop sharing my screen.
Speaker 2 01:08:25 Here we go. You've stopped sharing your screen, dude. I have yet sweet. Yes. I feel like I need, um, a whiskey or a cup tea and a lie down. I can't decide I was gonna,
Speaker 0 01:08:36 Um, I don't drink alcohol anymore. And so I was gonna, like, I was gonna, like, I was gonna have one of these, you know, like say thanks Michael Donovan and, and drink some. But, um, I appreciate it. Trust me. I do, but it'll be, you
Speaker 2 01:08:50 Can, to me, I still drink whiskeys. So you feel free to say it. Um, mate, that is just unbe. As I said, like, if I wasn't so happy doing what I'm doing now, I would start an agency. Anyone watching this, you, I mean, I don't even think you realize what you've just experienced. It's gonna take you weeks to understand the value that you just got from this. I hope you've made notes. Please feel free to come back and ask questions under this video. I know Mike is active in the group. He will come back and answer those questions. Book a call on his website, jump on and he'll show you exactly how it works. Uh, dude, this is just has been an absolute masterclass. Thank you so much for sharing this. And if you are listening to this as a podcast, please come and join the digital Mavericks Facebook group because you're missing out on all the gold come and have a look at the slides and everything that Mike shared. It is absolutely epic. Emily has just said very happy. I sold to you. The process was so easy and my past clients are happy, win, win, win, and I have a lead for you too. <laugh>
Speaker 0 01:09:51 There you go.
Speaker 2 01:09:52 Love it. There we go. That is amazing. Hey, um, this is a rhetorical question, but what are you most excited about over the next 90 days?
Speaker 0 01:10:01 Well, again, I'm gonna try and take November. I don't remember. I said that last time, but I'm gonna try and take November off. Um, you know, and, and see if I can, you know, leave it alone, uh, for a month. Um, when you, when I was showing you my kind of, um, staff way, um, and a team, um, before you might have noticed that they're all like a, a competency based doers. And, um, so I'm gonna start to replace myself in the business, you know, coming up next. So, um, you know, looking forward to, you know, getting a account manager, getting a, um, uh, you know, maybe a sales assistant, an account person, you know, just to replace those kind of like final roles with, within the business. Um, you know, uh, last time I talked about the three channels that, uh, we have in our business, in, in the plans that we make.
Speaker 0 01:10:50 So get to 600 care plans, then 66 growth plans, then 13 signature systems, we're actually gonna push high level in, in between the, um, care plan and the, um, um, uh, growth plan, um, as well, which will probably add another, you know, kind of like, you know, massive, um, opportunity there. That's a, a, a, um, something for another, um, question, but, you know, as, as you can probably tell, um, I like, I like to work and, and, you know, I like this business and, and it's enabled me to, to kind of like do a lot. So, um, you know, as always, it's just looking forward to more learning, you know, more, you know, participating in Mavericks, um, you know, getting good results for our clients, um, you know, reading good books, you know, and, and, um, and not, not to, not to outweigh the kind of like personal stuff, you know, time with the family trip trip booked for, um, come over to Sydney.
Speaker 0 01:11:45 I've never been to Sydney before. So going over there and, and December with my wife and take first trip away from our, uh, little rug rats that we've had in, in a little while. And, and, and yeah, just, um, when you asked me how I was doing earlier, I said, never better. It's, it's a weird affirmation that you can do a little life kind of like, you know, tip because it makes you make it true. If someone asks you how you're doing, and you say good or fine, you know, what does that mean? Mm-hmm change it to, I've never been better and see what happens because you start to kind of like, make it true. And, and that's where I find myself right now. And, and that's good. There's some catalysts there, obviously. Yeah. Life's going well. Um, uh, under a hundred kgs right now for the first time in a decade.
Speaker 0 01:12:33 So that's going well. Wow. And my business is going, congratulations. So, um, lots, lots to, lots to look forward to. And, um, right. You know, it's all, it's all, you know, the, the business stuff, most definitely one of the kind of catalyst has been from joining Mavericks. So yeah. You know, you guys watching are probably expecting that, but get to the point where you can join Mavericks and, and, and come join the kind of, um, you know, the, the work that's going on there, because it's, it's, it's like the, the, not only is it worth every kind of like penny from a financial, um, you know, kind of like investment. Um, but it just makes it that more kind of like fun when you don't have to do all the heavy lifting yourself. And, um, and you can have access to, to other people that are doing it alongside you and stuff like that.
Speaker 2 01:13:14 Well, dude, it's been incredibly rewarding on this side of the, the screen as well, to be a part of your journey and to see you take massive action and it wasn't always perfect. It wasn't always rainbows and unicorns, you just kept going. And it's been, it's the most rewarding thing as someone who, you know, coaches, mentors and inspires leads, whatever you wanna call it is to see the work being done in the real world, and then see the results coming back and see the impact that we're having. Um, so thank you for being a part of it. And, uh, thanks for taking so much massive action. And I can't wait to hang out in real life, dude. I'm really looking forward to, to meeting at a live event one day.
Speaker 0 01:13:49 Yeah, me and, um, my wife still haven't been on, we've been married since 2015 or something. We still haven't been on our honeymoon. And so I, I couldn't, I couldn't have gone home and gone. I, um, you know, sorry, my love I'm, uh, I'm, I'm heading up to San Diego, like one of the places that we are gonna go, we go and finally have our honeymoon. She would've, uh, she would've killed me. So, um, can you get that one outta the way first? And, and then I'll, I'll come to the next totally.
Speaker 2 01:14:14 Well, we're, we're planning an event in Australia. Well, we're planning an event in a Australasia somewhere in February. It could be New Zealand. It could be Australia. We're not sure yet. So we'll definitely be hanging out a quick question before we go, engineer wants to know which CRM are you using to manage all of your clients.
Speaker 0 01:14:29 You're gonna laugh at me. I actually got them all on an air table, but we're about to move, to go high level a to high level I've been told not to call it go high level.
Speaker 2 01:14:36 Well, it's called high product is called high level. Their, their domain is go high level. So everyone just calls it go high level. Um, and Angie is a high level user. So there we go. Answers that question.
Speaker 0 01:14:46 That's not at 100. We, we do, we have active campaign, um, client for, for my, for my staff. They use active campaign. Um, for me, um, I have a big ear table. Um, and the reason I have an ear table is it lets me, it's a, it's a, a, it's a bit of view for me on, uh, you know, on, on things that need to be done. Whereas CRM, I find is a little bit like, like just one client at a time. I like to look at all of our clients at a time. So I use air table. So, so two air table and, um, active campaign, however, um, that probably will be reworked with high level. When we take that dive.
Speaker 2 01:15:31 One of the things I love about high level is that you can filter your contact by anything tag custom field, whatever. So you can get that they're called smart lists, right? So similar to what you do in air table is when you go, Hey, show me all the, uh, all the business owners in this suburb with a poor or DIY website in a filtered view, you can do that very easily in a high level. It gets weird doing stuff like that in active campaign, traditional CRMs, you're right. It's like one record at a time. Whereas high level uses the HubSpot methodology of a smart list so that you can filter people via a particular tag or a custom field, and then save that view as a smart list. And it gives you really easy access to the contacts that you need, uh, at that high, at that, you know, high level overview. Awesome. Hey dude, thank you so much. I need to bounce outta here and go and help. Joel Warren run some Facebook ads. I believe who's in Maverick's life. Oh yeah. Facebook ad account and help him do. That's gonna be fun. Look forward to hanging out in real life. Thank you so much for being a part of the agency. I really appreciate you keep up the good work and uh, I'll see you on the next squadron call.
Speaker 0 01:16:32 No. NA thank you so much for having me. Awesome
Speaker 2 01:16:34 Guys. Thanks Mike. All right, ladies and gentlemen, that is another episode of the agency. Our live here in the digital Mavericks Facebook group. Thanks for being a part of it. As I said, if you're listening to this podcast, please come and join the Facebook group, facebook.com uh, then search digital Mavericks, join the group. We'll ask you a few questions. Uh, as long as you promise to be respectful and not be a Dick, then we'll let you in. Uh, we kind of have a bit of a Dick for his own in the group. And, uh, we, there are some tickets left for Mav con in San Diego in September. It is September 12, 13, 14 at the spring hill suites by Marriot, downtown Bayside, uh, San Diego. It's a beautiful venue. There's gonna be some guest speakers there. Uh, it's, it's an amazing event. It it's a life changing event.
Speaker 2 01:17:16 I will say that because I have been doing this since 2014, our first master mom is in Chicago. We have been to Thailand, we've done them in Australia. We've done them in the states. They are life changing events. So if you are serious about taking your agency to the next level and you are available to get to San Diego for September 12, 13, and 14, reach out to
[email protected], the team will do whatever they can to make sure that it makes sense financially, to get you into the event. We are very flexible. There are some tickets left, uh, come along, hang out, and, uh, it will completely change everything about your agency. And in 12 months, time, you look back on it and say, wow, that was one of those inflection points. That event changed so much. We got a video yesterday from Jenny Laken and saying that exact thing is that it's, it's not until afterwards that you realize how powerful these events are. So that's enough of me pitching that, uh,
[email protected] or just leave a, a comment with the hashtag Mav con and our team will get in touch. All right, look forward to seeing you again next week on the agency hour, uh, like subscribe, do that kind of thing until then have a great week. My name's Troy Dean, we'll see you next week by for now.
Speaker 1 01:18:25 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 at 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 there.
