From Manual to Magical - Automating Human Touch with Matt Deseno

Episode 117 June 14, 2024 00:32:22
From Manual to Magical - Automating Human Touch with Matt Deseno
The Agency Hour
From Manual to Magical - Automating Human Touch with Matt Deseno

Jun 14 2024 | 00:32:22

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Hosted By

Troy Dean Johnny Flash

Show Notes

In this episode of The Agency Hour Podcast, join Johnny Flash as he chats with Matt Deseno, founder of High Level Pro Tools and a seasoned SaaS entrepreneur. Matt is an expert in automating agency operations and leveraging AI to enhance client management and acquisition.

Matt’s company, High Level Pro Tools, specializes in providing comprehensive support and automation solutions for agencies, enabling them to operate more efficiently and scale effectively. Today, we dive into the nuances of integrating AI into agency workflows and the importance of automation in client onboarding and support.

Matt shares his journey from an early adopter of High Level to leading a successful SaaS business that supports thousands of agencies and end businesses. He discusses the challenges and advantages of using AI in agency operations, the significance of setting and beating client expectations, and strategies for automating tasks without losing the human touch.

Discover how High Level Pro Tools automates client onboarding processes, allowing agencies to handle surges in clients without overwhelming their teams. Matt also talks about his approach to hiring based on personal weaknesses and the role of AI in persistent and effective follow-up communications.

Learn about the critical importance of having a shared mission and values within your team, and how using automation and AI can streamline operations, improve client satisfaction, and drive sustainable growth for your agency.

If you’re looking to optimize your workflow, enhance your client management strategy, or scale your agency operations, this episode is packed with actionable insights and practical advice. Learn how to harness the potential of AI and automation to transform your agency and achieve new levels of efficiency and success.

 

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Episode Transcript

[00:00:00] Speaker A: When you're good at marketing, you can break your team. And I could be like, congrats, everyone. I got 30 new clients and they're like, how are we ever supposed to do this? And so what I found is if I could buy the first two weeks, there was no human needed. If we had a surge and a week would boom. It was just like, start hiring. [00:00:19] Speaker B: Welcome to the agency hour podcast where we help web design and digital agency owners create abundance for themselves, their teams, and their communities. This week we're joined by Matt Dosino. Matt is a seasoned SaaS entrepreneur and coach and the founder of high level Pro Tools. And today we're talking about all of the challenges that agencies face when leveraging AI. We'll explore high level support, automating to appear human, hiring based on your own weaknesses, using AI to book calls, raising the bar with imperfect action, and how to solve 90% of customer acquisition with three simple steps. If you've been intimidated or overwhelmed by all the features that AI or high level offer, then this episode is for you. I'm Johnny Flash. Stay with us. Hey Matt, how's it going? [00:01:09] Speaker A: Good, awesome. [00:01:10] Speaker B: Great to have you on here. For those that maybe don't know about high level, I guess they've been sitting under a rock. And if they don't know about high level pro tools, just give us a quick overview of some of the stuff that you're doing with agencies and agency support with high level. [00:01:25] Speaker A: Yeah, so we were fortunate to be, I think, one of the first 50 or 100 agencies to use high level. Uh, the first year we were just using it for ourselves. Um, I kind of had the vision actually. Why we stumbled into it was from a SaaS perspective. Um, so our agency model was we get them on as kind of retainer and we'd have them sign up for seven different softwares. Um, I got jaded, uh, to the affiliate play. And so I was like, we need to own one of the softwares we're recommending and fell into high level, launched it for ourselves a year later. We had people asking, what are you doing? And we saw that barrier to entry was the support, because I had built up at the time, as a little team, less than ten folks who were running to support day to day to make sure that brand, that separate SaaS brand, had people helping them get activated. So then HL Pro tools was born. So we do outsourced supports, we end up supporting agencies as well as their customers. And so now we've supported three to 4000 agencies and somewhere 40 to 50,000 end businesses inside of high level. [00:02:25] Speaker B: Wow. That's amazing. And I think you got connected through us. You met Troy Dean at some of the high level events because he's been in that doing that world. And so you guys got connected through there. Is that right? [00:02:37] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. I think we were talking at one of the dinners there. [00:02:39] Speaker B: Cool. That's awesome. Well as you know we have a lot of agency owners who are using high level. Trying to use high level. Trying to figure out how to use high level. Thinking about using high level. All those things. And from the mavericks that I'm coaching and other businesses that I'm coaching. This is one of the big challenges is the space that you're filling where you know, hey I've got these snapshots. I've got these things for my clients but my clients don't know how to use them. So talk about some of the challenges I guess that you guys have been overcoming or problems that you've solved because I think that you, you've got a good handle on this. [00:03:10] Speaker A: Yeah. So we think of it in terms of activation and this is, this is very much so. A software perspective is, is like it doesn't matter if the tool is great. If they don't use it, they're not going to keep paying for it. And so it's like how do you activate a user into, into a platform or into a software? Especially if you're trying to do more of that like done with you or honestly diy. Like truly. They, they kind of run and manage it themselves. And we currently do a ton of stuff. But I want to talk to like the things that I think are the most effective and seem to have the most traction. So in terms of the mode of supports, we do, you know, email, live chats, zoom support, zoom calls, training calls. So I guess there's five different versions of like how could you, you know, be accessible and then also be intentional about that, proactive. You know, push them into learning these things and developing a comfort in the system there for what I think works best. I really. I do love the training call process. So this is. I don't know. We pulled it. But you'll see this kind of success calls is sort of the system there. And so we basically run success calls on behalf of other agencies. But from the software perspective and to be fair it's a spectrum as people know. Some people are more software, some people are more agency. And so we've run it all up and down and in between, but it's form and function. So functionally having a time and slot where it's like you can come in and learn stuff. It's kind of like a lunch and learn for the software, really great. But I think what makes it more effective is a clear path of what you're learning. Well, I'll say what does not work really well is just having, you know, 50 different micro tools wrapped into one and being like, show up and learn about XYZ just because it exists. That doesn't work for most business owners. Uh, it's just not a super effective path. You'd see, like, actually historically, the softwares that gain the most traction of hyper focus and what's, you know, the double edged sort of high level is wildly like it is. This wide application does so many things, so then people can accidentally fall into the trap of trying to teach all of the things or trying to create access for all of the things. And so the ones where I see it work the best is where we know there's a specific success path. And so we're teaching to that. So there actually might only be three or four things that they really need to grasp, and then it works. And so it could be as simple as, you know, one big brand that we help out and those supports up behind the scenes for is, uh, Frank Kern. He's pretty vocal about using us, so it's okay saying that. And so his path is, uh, the AI bots. So he just focuses on essentially a mix of reactivation. With AI bots, you have a list, or you grow your list, reactivate them in the bots, set them into appointments or triage, that sort of thing. And so commonly, what are we getting into? Train it on your websites, go through the, make sure you have a two p phone number process. Make sure you have a phone number that texts. And those are the kind of key things like, are we getting into domains? No. Are we getting into course area? No. Are we getting into all these even reviews? Which would be a good thing. He's not against it, but it's like activation. Sounds like I have a phone number that works. Usually it's then does a number swap on a Google business profile, and I have my bot turned on. And that alone just changes the context where now actually, if somebody calls the number, their business is not going to answer, but it's going to text. And then when they respond to the text, there's a bot that triages and does customer support and books them into appointment. Ideally, uh, yeah, trying to get the least number of actions or things that need to be activated. And then just having a clear, a clear path to keep training the same formula there. [00:06:31] Speaker B: Yeah. And talk a little bit about. Cause I think, you know, it can be a little bit intimidating for those that aren't in the middle of high level already. Like, oh, it's another tool I have to learn. Like you said, it's wide open, so there's so many things you can do with it. I've seen lots of people go down rabbit trails. Like, they start doing it and then it's like they're not even running their business anymore. They're like down some rabbit hole, lost in, in high level. Yeah, but, but, but there's so much potential there. And I'm sure you're seeing with all these agencies and businesses that you're working with, like the amount that they're able to charge when they kind of put something together that people want. Talk a little bit about, like some of that potential. And just obviously, I don't want you to disclose anything, like, you know, directly. [00:07:14] Speaker A: But I'll give you all the proprietary. [00:07:16] Speaker B: But just some of that stuff that you're seeing from your perspective because you're probably able to see like what they're charging and the service you're providing and that kind of stuff. [00:07:25] Speaker A: Yeah, it has been, it's super fun, interesting perspective because I get to see birds eye view and be like, oh, here's the things that are trending. Here's things that are working well across the board. This is just classic business is it's like the amount of value you can capture, that's the money you can make is proportionate or at least somewhat correlated to the amount of value that's created. So create more value, capture more value. This is also gets to like, if you solve rich people problems, they'll make you one of them, right? So it's like if you can solve those higher value problems, sometimes it's a higher value problem just because of the person you're solving it for. Same problem. So sometimes the issue is you're like, oh, I'm literally doing the same thing for a hot dog stand. If I did the same thing for a lawyer, I would charge a lot more. And in some ways it'd be feel a lot easier because the pressure to win is lower because their cost of a client is higher. But the low hanging fruit. This is like timeless business. How I think of is if people know you exist, especially when they need you, if you look, ideally, if you look so good or it's so easy to reach out to you, like, they can't help it. And then if you're quick to respond, that's like 90 plus percent of the battle of like, customer acquisition. So if, if, when people need you, they know you exist. When they see you, you look so good, it feels silly not to respond or to reach out. And then when they reach out, you're quick, quick, kind and thorough. That solves, like I said, 90% of customer acquisition for growth goals in a. [00:08:51] Speaker B: Business, it puts you ahead of everyone. Oh, in any business too. Not just as an agency or as a marketer or whatever, right? If you're the plumber and you, you know, you have your marketing out there and they know you exist, you respond immediate. You know, they look at your stuff like, wow, look at all these reviews, everything is really good. And then you respond immediately and you're showing up, hey, I'll be there. I know it's late, but I'll be there at 06:00 tonight or whatever, right? It's like they're going to get a lot of business, right? [00:09:15] Speaker A: And so understanding that, it's like you can slot in, you could have focus on one of those areas. It's fine you, or you could do comprehensive, full stack marketing and own all of those things. But that's where I see people like fill in the gaps too, right? So sometimes the, the low hanging fruit or if I was going to pick a high value customer who, people know they exist, they look good, so they reach out to them and then they're slow to respond. Like just fix their responsiveness. So those are some of the easy problems. And then there are certain offers. I don't think it's giving away any secrets, I'll tell you right now. So some of the fastest growing people are curious, like, if you're trying to pick a niche, like, what's one of the fastest growing niches right now in the US? I would have never guessed this, but are you familiar with like ozempic? [00:09:54] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. [00:09:54] Speaker A: The way that's like, the way that's. [00:09:56] Speaker B: Like making the waves right now. [00:09:57] Speaker A: I mean, it's making the waves. So if the fastest crazy, like value creation insanity right now that I see booming is, is stuff in that space, in the weight loss drug space. So this kind of, there's many different angles of people doing it. Maybe it's an MD or a med spa or something like that. There is tons of folks that are becoming aware. So then it's like if you put your brand in front of them, they're like done right, and it just goes like, do you look good? Trustworthy you reach out. Are you clicking kind of thorough to respond? And so I see a lot of, I see a lot of value creation there because the opportunity, it's just like, this was just a seasonal, or, I don't know, seasonal, but it's a growing trend of people. Maybe this is the cure to obesity in America. And so that's a big shift of things going on. But it comes down to the classic problem of like, you know, can you, if you solve a high value problem and then if you're sliding into one of those things, like, I'm helping with visibility, helping them show up, I'm helping them look better, like more attractive, that could be reviews, that could be actual design, that could be accessibility, I kind of put in there. So like one binary thing that I teach and we use a lot is just if businesses don't have a chat widget on the website. So I want to nugget, like, we'll reach out via the web chat form and say like, hey, I'm reaching out via your contact form because I noticed you don't have a chat widget. In our experience, this is actually preferred and it's probably what I would have used. But we have something that can help solve this. It could literally take me less than 30 minutes. I'll get installed in there. And if you'd be interested, here's my calendar book. A 15 minutes call. It's so binary. It's like the business doesn't have it. You know, they don't have it because you're there and the business owner becomes instantly problem aware because that's how you started. It's like I'm using your contact form because you don't have a better form of communication. So that's, that's, you know, another like, little subset. And so in that focus, it becomes easier to fulfill and easier to sell it again because you're, yeah, we're setting them up on high level, but it's like, even with that, we don't even use phone now. So we use this because the chat widget is just the chat form. We do the chat where it's literally live chat. And, uh, so I don't even need to worry about a two p or phone numbers or any of that sort of stuff. I'm like, literally live chats there. And the secondary problem is, well, that's why we get them bought into AI. [00:12:11] Speaker B: Yeah, that's what I was going to say. I was waiting for you to go there because that's the thing is like, oh, but I can't respond or I don't have people to respond in real time. It's like we can train the AI to answer most of these problems and get them booked into a calendar or get them a quote scheduled, all those things, right? [00:12:27] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. So that's what we're seeing right now. So those are some of the hopefully making sure you're fitting into one of those problems. If you can go into an industry that has more value. Like, I just, you know, roofers, any high ticket h vac, stuff like that, a missed customer to them. I mean, if you're a roofer, missed customer to you is probably worth over, you know, five figures. [00:12:49] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. [00:12:49] Speaker A: Like definitely in profit. Like it could cost $50,000 for a. [00:12:54] Speaker B: Roof and you're going to make 30, 20, 30,000 on that roof at least. [00:12:57] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, exactly. So it's like, so it's very easy to, it becomes easier to create value because you're like, I'm not, not doing anything more difficult. They might even only have 20 leads a month or 50 leads a month. So it's not even high volume. But those missed opportunities cost them more. Therefore you can charge more because you're. [00:13:15] Speaker B: Creating more value and you're saving them time also. Right. Because by some of the AI follow up and everything, you're going to weed out the people who are just tire kicking or whatever because they're not even going to be giving the bot their email or their phone or whatever. Like, you know, they, they kind of get cut off at the door themselves. They kind of self opt out. And so it saves you time of trying to follow up with the person calling them five times and they haven't called back and they weren't really serious anyways. Right. [00:13:40] Speaker A: Well, and this is interesting, so if we want to dive into. So we have HL Pro tools, as we're known as we license out another really, it just became like, what was one of the first add ons that we created for high level way, way back. This is in 2020, we create a connection to dialogflow. And so this was Google's AI engine at the time. And so we were doing conversational booking in 2020 and so we licensed that out under Zappy chat. And it is surprising how judged we feel as humans, even as business owners, we stop way too early. This is what we found by now, deploying mostly AI for the follow up. And it's just persistent and it keeps there and it's quick, kind and thorough. Quick, kind and thorough. I am surprised how many leads convert longer and it's just we don't have the relational endurance as business owners to kind of court the lead as long as they need. And so for us, it's that. That's why, you know, if you're barely trying, businesses will treat it like buy and buy or die, right? And they're like, hey, you don't want a roof this weekend, okay? You're. You're dead to me. Right? This is why there's whole space there of just reactivating old leads creates value there. But what I love is AI doesn't get caught up in the emotion, like, almost some of the emotional nuance where we project onto the other person. So we think, I wouldn't want them to text me. This is the 30th time they're texting, or whatever it is. AI's like, I just do my job. And we found this compared to, like, years ago, where I have to have, like, more vas or, like, people that were trained up to just respond to leads. Like, the lead. I just went over a case study today where the lead had said the engagement worked, and they're like, hey, I could hop on. Like, hey, I'm free to chat right now, right? The human would be like, let me break all protocol. Let me see if the owner wants to get on right now. They'd be calling, trying to, like, disrupt the flow, even though, like, the game was set appointments. Like, book and set appointments. What does the AI do? It's just like, it's not a brick wall. It just glazes past it. Like, oh, well, these are, you know, typically they're in person consultations. I can help you sets it up. Person shows up, closes the deal, right? But, like, how many times would we, as humans, we'd be like, let me slow my response. Let me. Let me see what I can do. Let me just break the mold of what is the predictable, repeatable formula for success, where AI is like, no, I just keep doing it. I feel no judgment. I don't project negativity on the other side of this conversation because I have none. I have none to project. All I have is the rules by which you set for me, and I keep on living them day in and day out. And so we're seeing that as, like, an extra effect here is we literally stay. We think of it quick, kind, and thorough, and there's an endurance there that I think, as humans, we would cut off way sooner than AI. Just know it doesn't get a chance to cut it off. So it keeps going. And so we see, yeah, persistence wins. Endurance wins, and the AI can tailor. [00:16:30] Speaker B: It as good as a human or even more so, right? If they know, like, hey, we can take them down this path. We can take him down this path so that, yeah, you're right. I mean, I think even I find myself at times, like, I'm just gonna use this email that I sent this other person. Like, you know, I can copy and paste that and, like, it's pretty good, you know, whatever. But like, the AI can remember all the other emails that have been sent without having to look them up, you. [00:16:55] Speaker A: Know, the power of context. And we still have. This is a challenge. We want to talk on the support side now. We do. We're not AI first because we haven't found the issue with support, because people always ask, you got Zappa chat over here. Why don't you just do that for hip hop? Why do you have such a big team? Support is so much more nuanced because people don't know the questions to ask. I feel like every day we learn a new word that someone's going to use to refer to something like you would never think about, right? They'd be like, where do you edit the name of a lander? And some people it might be like, oh, he's talking about funnels. He went from, like, funnels to landing pages to, it's a lander. If I ask AI, where do you change the name on a lander? I don't care if you're trying it on the entire high level knowledge base, it has no idea what you're talking about. Like that nuance. And it's just. Or it's also like, people just don't know. So sometimes they literally use the wrong words. So if you just answered them in the point blank of what they asked you, you'd be giving them the wrong information because they're in a confused state. They are literally, like, they literally don't even know. It's kind of like prompting for AR. It's like they don't even know how to put the right inputs to get the right outputs. And so we kind of hybrid this with agents. But one of the best thing is context because AI can quickly be like, I've read all the messages there, so nothing's left off or dropped because that's a very difficult human thing is like, how many times you'd be like, I see the message here. And there could be months of back and forth. Let's be honest. How many of us are like, let me scroll through all the history to get a quick refresher on what they, what they said. No, most people are not doing it well. [00:18:36] Speaker B: And the worst is when my team tags me in, right? They tag me in like, hey, John, we need you to do this. And you look at the thread and you're just like, oh, my goodness, is going to be the next 30 minutes of my life trying to like just get up to speed to like, say something. And it's like the AI is just like, okay, I've consumed all that. What do you need from me? Right? [00:18:54] Speaker A: Yep. Yeah. [00:18:55] Speaker B: If we could turn the corner a little bit because I'm just, I'm fascinated by this. Like, I know you have a large team to order support all of these agencies and all of their clients. Thousands and thousands, thousands of clients. How big is your team? And then the question that I really want to know is like, how do you, you know? Because I think a lot of the agency owners, like, they're their own biggest bottleneck. And I know we're talking about AI, but like, they get, in their own way, they're perfectionists. They can't hand the thing off. They think if they don't do x, y or z, like, it's not going to get done. Right or it's not going to get done. And so I'm constantly having to coach agency owners. Like, you have to let go because like, you're what's holding this business back. It's not really the designer, it's not the developer, it's not the project manager, not all these things. And so obviously you've, you've done this really well. And so if you could just talk a little bit about that especially, you know, they might not have as many team members as you, but like they have a vision to grow their team and they're having trouble letting go. [00:19:53] Speaker A: Yeah, love it. In terms of the count, I actually don't know the exact count, but it's somewhere between 182 hundred. So we are around that size and we've been bringing on five to eight people per week. So we growing and scaling up, even the growth there. And so I'm thinking early on, and this is like you mentioned, like getting over yourself. I have, I think self awareness is, is actually one of the most critical skills for any business leader or owner there. And so for me it's been helpful. One of the lenses I use is the enneagram. And I intentionally hire, like, I insulate my weaknesses, if that makes sense. So I see a lot of people struggle because they're hire the same as them or they'll partner with the same as them. And you just got like two times. It just doubles down on things that were going to go well and then doubles down on things that were going to go wrong. And so, um, I remember looking back, so if anybody knows Enneagram, im a seven. [00:20:45] Speaker B: Okay. Im a three. [00:20:46] Speaker A: Okay. Love it. And I hire primarily ones and twos. Especially, like our, I looked at like, our director level is like everybody else was ones and twos. And then im the one seven over there. And so for me, im the kind of person, I have a list of ten things to do. I do six of them. And Im, like, I won that day. Killed it, just crushed it. And my business partner, for example, he has a list of ten things to do, and he does nine and loses sleep, or he does all ten and loses sleep because he thinks I should have had a list of eleven things to do if I could do all ten in the day or whatever it is. Just punishes themselves for the pieces that aren't done there. So start with self awareness. Know where you're at, and then you can honestly insulate and hire away those weaknesses. And so you might be someone who struggles with imperfect action. I'll say, in growth, like, in the traction phase, man, imperfect action is such a secret weapon. And you just realize that there is no such thing as kind of like, perfection. It's just the game is iteration. Like, make it better fast. [00:21:47] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:21:48] Speaker A: Is really what happens. And most folks fail to even make it, like, deploy it, publish it. [00:21:54] Speaker B: This is a huge. Just to interject. This is a huge thing that we teach in that troy is big on, that we teach in mavericks. Is like, take massive, imperfect action because, like, you're just so far ahead and, like, you. You don't want. It doesn't need to be perfect. Right. You just need to get it the next version out, the next thing done. Like, when we're talking to someone, they haven't launched their website. Like, yeah, the team didn't quite finish our new website we're still working on. I'm like, just publish it. It's ten x better than what you currently have. And it's going to. It can evolve. It's not like, stamped in concrete, right? [00:22:24] Speaker A: Yeah. I think people would be surprised with how much we were able to do with imperfect action. I do think we've, like, now had to turn a corner and, like, raise the bar, which is not a bad thing to do, but I'd say it's like, inappropriate timing. And so for. You're still talking like, team, here's the two gifts for me was technology can be super valuable. So I will automate as much as I possibly can. I think people underestimate how much this was. Years ago there wasn't even as much cool things going on now that you can do. But so I became like a power, we still are kind of like power zapier users and there's lots of things out there. But it's like because I don't settle at one. I think through the psychology of what it feels like when it feels like a person is doing it versus being automated. So I think about imagine two chairs, they're wooden chairs. One of them, it's hand whittled here in the United States, put a price on that. The other one, it's, I don't know, stamped out in China in a huge factory, put a price on that. But recognize they're identical chairs to the t. They're actually identical chairs. The process, the inefficiency of the process, we for whatever reason will ascribe value to that because it was hand whittled. So you dont just automate for the sake of automating. Because sometimes then peoples automations come off like that China stamped chair. I will automate it in a way that it feels hand whittled in the United States. Automate it to look like Theres inefficiency is a great example for any agency owner. You can do this. This was an early on created capacity for us. So we'll take on a client. And I backed into how could I automate the first two weeks of client work that requires no people. And so usually in the client process there it's, well I mean everything, it's setting and meeting expectations. And so just imagine if you're coming out with a client, you know, there's 50 things you're going to do for them or whatever it might be. I would take out 20 of those things, I would create an inefficient but thorough process around them and then I would automate all the communication and all of the work and intentionally delay it delivery out over two weeks. So let's imagine like if I'm a designer and you know, they're going to have a website, so what I'm going to do, I'm going to ask them for some bits of copy. I might come up with copy even sections or layouts or like, you know, types of pages there, I might come up with wireframes and I might come up with, you know, early kind of color schemes based on their logo. I don't know whatever it might be, lookbook or these things, we start off and be like. And I use Zapier because Zapier will actually send Gmail from your gmail. It's not like other sender. So it feels like it's transactional. It's like actually sending from the Gmail. And so we create this process. Like, welcome on. This is so awesome. Step one is Olivia. She's going to work on, like, here's what's happening behind the scenes. John, our head of copy is kind of getting a guide together for you to get some input over these things that we find work well in terms of types of pages for you. Olivia, she heads up, you know, our design team. She's going to be putting together, like, your initial wireframes. But I'll introduce the other people and then I'll say, you know, this usually takes like four to five days. Expect that this will take like two to 3d. But I told everyone, we're super excited about you coming on here, so I put a rush order on it. We'll see how fast we can do it. Literally with automation, it was all done immediately. Like, they paid and it was all done, but I didn't ship it to them. I intentionally stretched out and created this process of setting expectation. This should take us about four to five days. And then what happened? An automated email from, I forget my fictitious names. Like, Olivia would come two days early. And so for the first two weeks, it looked like we kept on setting and beating expectations. And what did we deliver? We delivered the copy guide. What was that? It was a Google Doc that we had well designed that had literally the same sort of stuff in it for every client. It's always going to be the same way. But we put, like, the title, and I could use Zapier to clone the document, change the title, link that inside of, like, literally the email that was being sent, and then it's sent off all this process where, like, each piece we found, what are the things that we always do? How could we make them inefficient or appear to be inefficient and then use it to our advantage? And so here's why. Because you might be saying, Matt, why I just intentionally go slow? [00:26:32] Speaker B: Because there's a human on the other end. [00:26:36] Speaker A: It's because what we realize, when you're good at marketing, you can break your team. And so that's what I found. You're good at marketing and sales. And I could be like, congrats, everyone. I got 30 new clients and they're like, how are we ever supposed to do this? And so we kept on being in a place where we needed to hire. And so what I found is if I could buy the first two weeks, there was no human needed. If we had a surge and a week would, boom. It was just like, start hiring. Like, we got paid, we got, the next two weeks are covered, start hiring. Because we know we need to queue up folks to actually take over and run and to be able to do this work here. So we baked in a capacity there. But the key things were, the key things were challenging how much you can automate, because you really can automate so much more than, than you believe and do it in a way that feels personable. And sometimes that's by making it inefficient, you know, bonus points if you can predictably set and beat expectations. It's just, it blew my mind. But so, like, other agencies are, like, on times of surge, like, clients that get so unhappy, I was like, man, all of our clients loved us because I had a choreographed dance where I knew I was going to intentionally set and beat expectations for the first two weeks with us. You know, that kind of environment, most of the time people fail to even set expectations. And then even when they do, they push it because they think, I need to make this like it's all going to be done as fast as possible. It's like none of us have any context. Like, if I'm hiring someone to do my floors, they're like, this is, this usually takes four to five weeks. I'm like, I don't do floors. I have no idea. Like, that sounds reasonable to me. Would probably take me four to five months, right? And if they know, it's like, actually, we do this in like five days. I'm like, how smart of them. Because then they're going to be like, hey, if you think I open, well, if they want, they could build in some reciprocity and be like, I move things around. I told the team this is urgent and important. I want to get this done as fast as possible. Mostly because I want to blow your socks off. So you leave us the best review you've ever left any business in the world. So what happens? They're blown away. They leave you an amazing review, but you choreograph the dance, and so that's what we're thinking about. [00:28:35] Speaker B: Yeah. No, and I think if we take what we're talking about, because we've got, like, okay, you got the two two week delay automation, right? And you're. They're getting the personal touch, it's, you're over delivering. One of our, the sponsor of this podcast is e two m. They can help your agency with, have a designer, developer, copywriter, like in your agency, not have to go hire them. So that solves the hiring problem, right? Like, oh, we've got this load coming in. You can scale it up, scale it up, and then we've got, like, you're, you know, we're putting in these high level snapshots and different implementations, widgets, things in there, and your team is providing the support. It's like you could just sell all day. The automations happen, the onboard, you've got the team built up there. I mean, there's just so much possibility when you think about this that it's, I'm just, I'm like, I'm making, if you see me typing, I'm taking notes here, like, okay, we got to go, like, tweak this part of our process or whatever with AI and have someone else, you know, have the bots do it. [00:29:29] Speaker A: Yeah. So that's, you know, you're kind of mentioning, how do you not, how do you focus on the right thing, the right time? I think it's imperfect action, but ideally, you actually don't build this until you need it. So the first time do it because you don't really know what is that ideal scenario until you do it the first time. But as you're thinking about, like, what are the good things to build? It is the stuff that improves the perception of, like, how your client thinks you feel about them. Like, they usually remember more. So not how good of a job you did or even what you did, but it's like the feeling. And so for us, we say, like, we want them to feel like we care more about their business than they do. These are the kind of things that do that. And I just say, give yourself. Like, people need to have more permission to, like, design a game where you're always winning. And that's what we did. We were always winning, and it wasn't. So how did you get a ton of reviews and all these video testimonials? Like, because we designed it that way. We always set worse expectations that I knew we were going to be able to do. We made some things seem more inefficient than they actually were because it increased the value for the customer and it kind of would be disappointing, right? Imagine if you paid whatever, $60,000 for a new roof, and they, and they, like, came out and, like, snapped their fingers and it was done. You'd be like, I think I overpaid, right? Like, to some degree, technology works against us because we assume if it's efficient, if it's, if there's a ton of technology there, it shouldn't cost as much. And so for the kind of service provider agency space there, use that to your benefit to build in margin for scale and don't let it work against you. [00:31:03] Speaker B: Matt, wow. This is incredible. I could just keep going with you for the next hour, which I know we don't have the time and everyone else has got stuff to do, but this is just so great. So glad to be able to connect with you. And just the nuggets that you shared, I think are so helpful for our audience and are going to make them be able to run better agencies, SaaS companies, all the different things that they're doing. So thank you so much, Matt. This has been incredible. [00:31:29] Speaker A: Yeah, it was great. Love being on the show. [00:31:31] Speaker B: Awesome. Thanks for listening to the agency hour podcast and a huge thanks to Matt for joining us. If you're interested in high level, of course, we have an affiliate link in the description where you can get an extended trial and get our awesome list builder snapshot that Troy Dean built himself. Just go to gohighlevel.com troy Dash Dean. Matt has also kindly agreed to give away his SaaS snapshot. Just go to hlprotools.com mavericks. Okay, folks, remember to subscribe and please share this with anyone who you think may need to hear it. I'm Johnny Flash. Let's get to work.

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