Speaker 0 00:00:00 We have a limited amount of tickets available. So really the right person for that is someone who is looking to grow and scale their agency and just be around like-minded people. Like you mentioned before, a huge part of the event is that community aspect in the networking and making connections. And I know I've already heard multiple stories about people who attended Mcon now doing some work together.
Speaker 1 00:00:24 Welcome to the Agency Hour podcast. This week we are joined by none other than the c e o of Agency Mavericks, Emily Bryant. That's right. She's the c e o of my company. In this episode, we discuss why Emily became my boss as CEO of Agency Mavericks Mav Con, which is our live in-person mastermind event that recently happened on the Gold Coast and how our team was able to pivot the schedule and still run a successful event for our clients at the last minute when I fell sick with the flu and spent two days in bed. We also talk about what you can expect from our next Mav Con event, which is happening in October in Virginia on the east coast of the United States. And also we touch on the upcoming high level summit, uh, which will be happening the week after Mav Con in Dallas, Texas, which I'm speaking at. I'm very excited about that. I'm Troy Dean. Stay with us. All right, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to the agency hour, our CEO here at Agency Mavericks, Emily Bryant. Hey Emily, how you doing?
Speaker 0 00:01:25 I'm fantastic. How are you?
Speaker 1 00:01:26 I'm great. Thanks for joining us on the show.
Speaker 0 00:01:28 Oh, it's my pleasure. It's about time I hopped on one of these <laugh>
Speaker 1 00:01:32 For those that don't know, uh, some people may not be aware of this, but you are actually the boss here at Agency Mavericks these days.
Speaker 0 00:01:40 I am. I am. So it's, it's fun. I still try and sometimes refer to you as my boss, but <laugh> really, it's probably the other way around. Uh, but it's
Speaker 1 00:01:52 Yeah, that's right. It's
Speaker 0 00:01:52 Great. Just, yeah, really excited. We've got an amazing team here and love our team and, and love our community.
Speaker 1 00:02:00 So just to clarify this for everyone, cuz I know some people might be scratching their head while they're listening to this, um, is that I own the company, I'm the hundred percent shareholder and I'm the director of the company, but I'm no longer the ceo. Emily is the CEO and makes all the decisions and does the hiring and the firing and works out what we're gonna do next. And maybe you can just share your experience as to why we made this decision back in. So you were appointed CEO 1st of July, so you're almost at the end of your first 12 months. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. But we, you and I had been talking about it since kind of February or March that year. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, why did, why did we make this decision from your perspective?
Speaker 0 00:02:43 Well, I think a huge part of that of course was you wanting to step back in terms of doing more that, of the work that you love doing more content and not being so much in the dayto day. Cause it's a busy space being in the, the day-to-day running of a business. And I'm very operational <laugh>. And so I was stepping into that space a lot, having done a bit of work in the marketing side of the business as well. And I think it just was a bit of an natural progression really. I was wanting to take more on, really enjoyed it, was starting to lead the team a lot more and it just made a lot of sense.
Speaker 1 00:03:24 Yeah, I mean you were, you were essentially doing the, the, the job from January, 2022 mm-hmm. <affirmative> through to, you know, by the end of March, April, I was like, okay, well you know, I just don't need to be here. Um, I was pretty burnt out by the end of 2021 and I remember calling you in on, on the Sunday mm-hmm. <affirmative> saying, I'm, I'm not coming back to work tomorrow. I was supposed to come back to work on the 10th of January, 2022. And I'm like, I'm not coming back to work tomorrow. I'm taking another couple of weeks cuz I'm cooked. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And then when I did come back I was like, I'm just gonna come back on light duties. I'm just gonna, you know, hover around the peripheral and um, kind of see what happens and make special comments from the sidelines. But I don't really wanna be involved too much.
Speaker 1 00:04:02 And then, yeah, so by the end of March, early April, it became pretty apparent to me that you were capable of doing the job. And also I just really didn't the best thing for the company. I just didn't want to do the job anymore. I'd been doing it for over 10 years and I just didn't wanna do it anymore. And also I just, I just realized that I wasn't the best person for the job. I'm not detail orientated these days. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I'm more kind of high level big picture stuff. And my sweet spot is really content creation, creating frameworks, coaching mm-hmm <affirmative> presenting live events, which we'll talk about in a sec. And, you know, kind of managing people and building the team and all that kind of stuff. I was just kind of done with it. And so I I, for me it was like the best thing for the company and the best thing for our customers is to hand the reins over to someone who's got the energy and the hunger and the desire to really do this because mm-hmm.
Speaker 1 00:04:50 <affirmative>, I, yeah, I was just sort of burnt out and wanted to get back into my sweet spot, which has been great for me cuz you know, I'm now just doing the stuff that I love doing. I'm working less and we are growing. Yes. We've, we've had our, we're having our best year ever. So I, you know, it's very exciting. Our team's changed dramatically. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, it's been a massive year of restructuring for us. And um, and it's funny, we're all kind of reading the 10 x is easier than two x book at the moment by Dan Sullivan and, and the other gentleman, Dr. Whatever his name is, um, can't remember that. I'll stop, can't his name Jay? Um, prop Harvey or something. Ben. Yeah. Anyway, um, uh, and and they talk about kind of letting go of the 80% that you are currently doing that's not, that's holding you back.
Speaker 1 00:05:39 Right. And that is, you know, there's a lot of stuff that we continue to do in life and in business just because it's comfortable and it's routine. But if we're honest with ourselves, it's kind of holding us back and just focusing on the 20% that is going to allow you to, you know, make that next 10 x jump or, and you know, the whole 10 x thing, no, no one's actually saying you have to 10 x your results. Right. But if you think about doubling your results, you'll just continue to do more of the same of what you're doing. Whereas if you start to think about how you can 10 x your results, you realize there's a whole bunch of stuff that you just need to stop doing and let go of mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And, uh, and that's been, I think for me anyway, um, we are continuing to do that. We're continuing to kind of go through that, that cycle and big restructures to the team. We have less team members now. Um, our numbers have changed dramatically. We have more coaches now. We're not selling courses on the website anymore. There's been big changes over the last 12 months. And so, uh, thank you for navigating all those changes and helping us get through those, you know, times and giving us our best year ever. Well done.
Speaker 0 00:06:51 Thank you. Appreciate it. Couldn't do it without you and the team though. It's, it has been a team effort.
Speaker 1 00:06:58 Cool. So we, we also wanted to spend a little bit of time today talking about Mav Con, which is our live event that we run three times a year for our mastermind members. And, uh, you you, we were doing these in-person pre covid and then Covid happened of course, and we were doing them virtually, uh, using a platform called Air Meet, which was great, but it's, you can't beat in-person. So last September we went back out to San Diego and ran our first in-person event post Covid. And then we ran a virtual event in February and then we just went up to the Gold Coast here in Australia and ran a live event a couple of weeks ago for our Mavericks Club members, which was awesome. However, however, on the, I I flew in on the Saturday, we had this whole schedule lined up and I flew in on the Saturday and um, by about 11 o'clock Sunday morning I was in bed with the flu.
Speaker 1 00:08:03 And there I stayed for Monday. I did not attend the event at all on Monday, which threw a massive spanner in the works, what was go. And it was the first time I met Anna. Anna had flown over from New Zealand. First time, um, Anna had met Max. So it was a great team building exercise. I was really looking forward to meeting everyone at the cocktail drinks on the Sunday. I was upstairs in bed, I couldn't move. I was so sick. What was going on for you guys knowing that I was out of action and not available?
Speaker 0 00:08:31 Oh, well first of all, probably a little bit of denial. <laugh> like, we're like, it'll be fine. It will be, it'll be back. It won't be a problem. And then really it was hoping for the best of course. And by that stage we'd been, well Anna had kind of been like your mum and helping you Yeah, totally. And getting, getting your medicine and coffee and whatever you needed. And then it was when we were at the cocktail party, you know, it was a shame cuz people were so excited to meet you cuz there were quite a few of our clients that had to meet you in person either. Yeah. Because of not having been back at live events. So during the cocktail party I could, there was a bit of noise going on and it's like, oh, what's wrong? And then we were wondering, you know, did you have covid?
Speaker 0 00:09:15 We had to go and get you some, some tests. And then it was starting to realize, oh, he might not be around tomorrow for the opening event and, and the full schedule. So there was a lot of, what's our plan B going to be. Mm. And we're very, very fortunate to have the amazing Simon Kelly at the event as well. He'd flown in on the Sunday night, so got up very early on Monday morning. Luckily I was still on New Zealand time, which helped, gave me a little bit of extra time in the morning and we reject the whole schedule and Simon helped me to open the event and we also had some amazing clients step up and help host some of the sessions as well.
Speaker 1 00:09:59 Mm-hmm. Yeah, Matt Jones did a great job stepping up on stage, interviewing some people and uh, and filling in. And I, I mean I was just, I just had to radically surrender. I was just like, I just cannot get outta bed. I had the sweats, I had the chills. I was aching, I had a fever. I could barely get outta bed to go to the bathroom. I was just like curled up in bed, just going, this is horrible. I cannot believe this has happened, but there's absolutely nothing I can do about it. Exactly. Um, and I was getting messages up from people in Slack and a couple of, um, uh, clients had my, my mobile number and I was getting some text messages going, you okay? What's going on? And, and uh, I was like, yeah, I'm not, I'm not nervous. I'm not having an anxiety attack. I'm actually really sick. This is not the man flu. This is the actual flu <laugh>, I'm really sick.
Speaker 0 00:10:49 Oh. We were saying to people, cuz you, we were delivering things to your door. And we're like, no, he is sick. He looks terrible. <laugh> the room is completely black. It's hot in there. It's,
Speaker 1 00:10:59 It was awful. It was awful. And then, and the Tuesday I managed to drag my ass outta bed on the Tuesday and come down to the event for a couple of hours. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> and, uh, Anna had the hotel come into my room and basically nuke my room. Like spray it down with like radioactive spray and get rid of all the germs and remake the bed, which was really great. Oh, Anna
Speaker 0 00:11:19 Was amazing.
Speaker 1 00:11:19 She was amazing. She, but she nursed me through that really. She turned up at my door with bananas and coffee and medicine and rat tests and everything I needed. Um, and uh, so huge shout out to the team for just pivoting on the spot and getting through that and delivering an amazing event. And then I came down on the Tuesday morning and made an appearance. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, it was, you know, that really helped me. I got, I got worse after that by the way, but, uh, but it did, it helped. It kind of helped. I don't know how I, I don't know how I got, I don't know how to this, I'm reflecting on it now. I dunno how I went down there on the Tuesday and got up on stage and did that presentation. But anyway,
Speaker 0 00:11:52 You were re-energized. We could literally see your energy coming back cuz you loved doing that so much.
Speaker 1 00:11:58 Yeah, it was, it did really, it did really reenergize me and seeing all my cu seeing all our customers in person, like seeing Matt Jones and Angie Neil and Peter Wright, who in, who said hello to me in the hallway and I didn't recognize him. Um, you know, um, uh, Sam from actual marketing, meeting all of our customers in real life, uh, Braden, Davy mm-hmm. <affirmative> was just, you know, uh, Beth and peril was just a huge, because you see, we see these people on Zoom all the time and we interact them, interact with them in Slack on a daily basis, but to actually meet them in real life and get to know them was, you just can't, can't beat them. You can't compete, you can't compete with, uh, with in-person events. So what were some of the takeaways? Just kinda set the scene a little bit For those that have never been to one of our live events, what, um, what's the kind of format, what's the room look like? What's, uh, what, what are sort of some of the key takeaways?
Speaker 0 00:12:49 Sure. So we do always start with the welcome event. So it was really lovely on the Sunday night to start to meet some of the clients in a, a social setting. And we ended up going out for dinner, a few of us. So that was amazing just to get them to know them on a more personal level. And then on the Monday morning, of course it's the registration and getting your lanyard and your, your agency Mavericks Cap and all that fun stuff. Uh, and then opening the doors and, you know, we've got a, a wonderful set up. So huge shout out to Max and the audio team for getting everything set up and all the cameras and everything. Uh, and lots of, you know, tables in there for people to come and hang out. You know, we think a lot of, I'm very detail oriented, <laugh> orientated, so we think about a lot. So all the tables had plenty of plugs cuz obviously in our space, you always have your laptop with you. So it's, it's important. And it's, we also had our amazing sponsors from E two M in person. So they had a, a booth at the back of the room and yeah, it's a great setup in there.
Speaker 1 00:13:56 They'd flown in from India too. The E two M, our sponsors who will talk a little bit more about, in a moment, they'd flown, three of them had flown in from India. It was their first two of them, it was their first time in Australia, including Manishh, the founder. He was just, he was like a kid in a candy store, wasn't he? He was so excited to be there, so excited. He was just so happy to be there. Um, the other thing, one of the other details I wanna mention about our live events is we, I've been to plenty of live events where they just cram you in like sardines and mm-hmm. <affirmative>, especially if it's a pitch fest, right? Our events, there's, there's no pitching at our events because people who come to our events are typically already paying clients or they're about to become paying clients.
Speaker 1 00:14:33 So there's no selling from the stage. We don't have guest speakers pitching their programs. There's no run to the back of the room and sign up. There's none of that bullshit at our events. Uh, some of those live events that I've been to, they cram you in like sardines. They, they're just like, um, there's theater style set up, which is just seats in rows so that you don't even have a table to put your notebooks or your notebook or your laptop on. Then there's classroom style, which is just chairs and tables in rows. So you're just looking at the back of someone's head in front of you. And then there's banquet style, which is what we do, which is round tables. So you're sitting at a table with six or seven other people, but you're looking at each other and you're connecting with each other and networking and talking to each other throughout the day.
Speaker 1 00:15:11 Now, I will just tell you that cost us more money to do it that way because we need a bigger room because we don't want to cram people in like sardines. We wanna have plenty of space in the room. In fact, we moved the room a week before the event. We were in a different room in the hotel. And when I saw the photos, I flagged it and said, this room's a bit small for the number of people we've got. And so the hotel moved us into a different room at the last minute. Thankfully they had availability because I wanted more space. Um, and that's really important because I think it's you, you know, one of the most, uh, one of the most powerful things that happens at these events. As much as I would like to say that it's all about the content and the presenters and the speakers, it's actually about the connections.
Speaker 1 00:15:50 Mm-hmm. <affirmative> and the community. You know, we were talking to Peter Wright the other day on the phone, uh, after the event, just getting a bit of a download from him. And he said one of the things that he didn't expect was the networking with the other agencies. He said that was amazing. Just to be able to talk to other agencies who are in a similar place to him who have solved similar problems and are going through a similar journey. And you don't get to have those conversations unless you're sitting in a round table environment and networking and workshopping with each other. So, um, that's one of the details that we are really particular about. We'll never cram people in like sardines. And the other thing that we're really particular about is the food <laugh> is making sure that wherever we go, because I've been to so many events where you go out and you quickly grab a sandwich and you come back in and, and you pass out because you're in a carb coma.
Speaker 1 00:16:37 Uh, and so we always try and make sure that, uh, the food that's available, sometimes we feed some of our customers, sometimes we don't. Sometimes our sponsors take them out for dinner. Like E two M surprised us on the day and decided to take everyone out for dinner on the Monday night, which was great. But we always try and make sure that the food is, you know, healthy and lean and conducive to, uh, you know, being awake and thinking mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So there's a lot of thought and a lot of detail that goes into planning these events. Not to mention the coffee. That's <laugh> quality important. Yes, that's right. Coffee is also very important. And of course these events. So I do wanna talk about E two M a little bit. These events are not, would not be possible without our sponsors, right? Because these events are expensive to hire hotel rooms to fly our team in to set up all the AV stuff.
Speaker 1 00:17:24 Uh, I mean, we have two televisions in the room, two big 75 inch televisions in the room so that people can see the slides. I think those things cost us a couple of grand each just for the event, right? So there's headsets, there's microphones, there's um, lighting, there's ca multiple cameras set up. We record the event so that we put the recording up in the members portal for our members, for those that live overseas and can't make the event, for example. Or those that just wanna go and rewatch the recordings like Mike Sprat, who like watches everything we do multiple times, <laugh>. Um, so all that shit costs a lot of money. And, uh, we decided a few years ago, we'd been doing MAV Con for a few years and we didn't have any sponsors. And then we decided a few years ago to open it up to sponsorship because it's such a targeted, intimate community that there's not, there aren't hundreds or thousands of people at these events, right?
Speaker 1 00:18:15 There are dozens of people at these events, but if for the right sponsor to get in front of these people, they are the perfect targeted audience. And it's a very intimate setting. So you get lots of time talking with attendees. You're not on stage pitching, you get lots of time just hanging out, talking to people and helping them solve their problems. And it's great for relationship building. So E two M, who are a white label dev agency based in India, they have about 180 staff. They've been going for about 10 years. They are founded and run by a guy called Manish, who's just an absolute legend. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I went out and had dinner with him while I was up there, even though I was quite sick. We managed to go out and have dinner and he and I, I mean, you know, this, we're just in such alignment with our values and, um, how, you know, what we feel about the agency community and how we believe in agencies and, and we are all here to serve them, but we do different things.
Speaker 1 00:19:06 We educate and we coach, these guys do white label dev services. So E two M came along and sponsored the event. They flew, as I said, three of them flew out from India to be there at the event. They closed a bunch of business at the event, which was amazing. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, bunch of our customers alike. Well, I've been afraid to grow because I don't have the capacity to take on any more clients. And now I've got a relationship with E two M, not only a relationship with E two M, but a relationship with Manish, the founder that I know I can get on a call with these guys and I'm gonna get the best of the best and I've now got the extra capacity to take on extra projects. So it was very lucrative for the sponsor. It was very, uh, beneficial and lucrative for our clients and it helped us put on a great event.
Speaker 1 00:19:43 So, you know, it's a win-win win, which was awesome. Um, in other news, we can announce now that yesterday we signed an exclusive sponsorship deal with E two M for the podcast. So moving forward, not this episode, but moving forward, you will get to know more about E two M and Manish. He will be on the podcast throughout the year. They are sponsoring every episode of the podcast for the next year exclusively. They're the only sponsor that we are having on the podcast. So we are so excited about this. Very excited, very excited because it, you know, once we help agencies grow their recurring revenue and get their sales dialed in, the next problem they have is delivery and fulfillment. And so having a partner like E two M who can help them with white label development, design, seo, really, you know, care plan management, all that stuff really helps us get our clients plugged into that ecosystem so that they can continue to grow and not worry about the capacity issues. So we are very, very excited to have E two M on as a sponsor and very grateful to Manish and the team there for believing in what we're doing here and, and buying into it long term. It's, it's super exciting.
Speaker 0 00:20:53 And just to add to that too, Manish spoke on stage and was interviewed by Matt Jones, one of our mavericks, and it was only meant to be a half hour session and they keep going for, I think it was an hour and a half in the end because Manish just has a wonderful story and has grown an amazing team there, and people learnt a huge amount from what he's been doing. So that is part of what we'll share on this podcast going forward as well is, you know, Manish has a, an amazing team culture and a really epic building that they work out of as well. So there's a lot that this audience can, can learn from a niche about growing a large, large
Speaker 1 00:21:34 Team. Yeah, a hundred percent, 180, 180 staff and, uh, been doing it for over 10 years. White label development and SEO and design for agencies. That's their entire business model. They focus on WordPress. Um, they do, are looking at other platforms. Um, but their, their core focus at the moment is building WordPress websites, doing SEO care plan management, doing some design work. Um, and I mean, 180 staff just, I'm exhausted just thinking about it, like how do you manage that? But they've done an amazing job. Oh, okay. And the other team members, I can't remember their names, the other team members he had with them were just super awesome as well. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, they just, they were just so excited to be there and so energetic and enthusiastic. So I looking forward to having Manish on the show more over the coming, uh, year or so. Um, I think we should probably talk about, uh, Mav Con in October, right? Mm-hmm.
Speaker 0 00:22:28 Yes. We're flying out to the US
Speaker 1 00:22:31 Right? So we're coming to the states, we're coming to the United States of America in October mm-hmm. For our next live event, Mav Con, which will be Mav Con number 15 or 16 I think.
Speaker 0 00:22:46 I think so,
Speaker 1 00:22:47 Yeah. So we started at the start of 2018 and I think we did two that year. We did one in San Diego and one in Thailand, and then I think we've done three every year since. So 2019, 2020 2021, 2022, 2023. So I think 16 actually was, was Gold Coast. So I think this will be 17 mm in, um, in, where are we doing it? In Virginia?
Speaker 0 00:23:15 Yes. Yeah. Just out of Washington, so Right. Can't wait. The hometown of one of our coaches, Johnny Flash and Johnny Flash. Yeah. We've so excited. We've got some amazing surprises. I think there's even some surprises that we're keeping back from you, Troy. Oh
Speaker 1 00:23:29 Really? Wow. Is there, is there a, are the Foo Fighters coming to play at the Mav Con? Oh my God, that would be amazing. That would, I mean, I'd just have Dave Grohl in his guitar, frankly. I mean, I'd just have Dave Grohl on stage asking him questions. I love that man so much. <laugh>. He's amazing. Um, um, so this is, this is also our, interestingly, this is our first Mav Con on the East coast mm-hmm. <affirmative> of the states, which is very exciting. So anyone in that whole kind of Philadelphia, New York, Boston, Washington, Virginia area, mayor, Maryland, no excuses. Now we are coming to the East coast, uh, Atlanta, anyone around that whole area come up to Virginia in October. What are the dates?
Speaker 0 00:24:10 Uh, they are the 16th to the 18th of October. Hopefully I've got that right. But middle of the month, it's the week before the high level summit. So yes, we've timed that nicely.
Speaker 1 00:24:20 <laugh>. Yeah. So, so the go high level, uh, which is a software that we use and recommend, um, sales and marketing automation, CRM for agencies to resell to their clients. Uh, if by the way, if you wanna check that out, go high level.com/troy Dean, I think is the link. You can go and check that out. You get a 30 day trial instead of a 14 day trial. Uh, and you also get our snapshot loaded into your high level account with all our fancy automation set up for you. They're having their live event at the end of October, the 21st through the 25th or something around about those dates in, uh, Texas, which I've never been to in Dallas, Texas. Right.
Speaker 0 00:24:55 So excited, man.
Speaker 1 00:24:56 I like, I'm gonna go to the grassy knoll. Oh,
Speaker 0 00:24:59 Me too. It's only 20 minutes walk from the hotel. I've already looked it up, dude,
Speaker 1 00:25:03 That's incredible. So I spent, I did like a whole study in, uh, high school on the assassination too, jk me, I was completely obsessed with, uh, with that whole thing. So that's gonna be exciting. I'm speaking at the high level summit too, which is awesome. Um, it's gonna,
Speaker 0 00:25:18 We have them at our event as well the week before. We'll have a couple of their team members Great. At our event as well.
Speaker 1 00:25:23 So we are running Mav Con the week before 16, 17, 18 mm-hmm. In Virginia. Then we've got a couple of days off. I think we might sneak up to Manhattan and have a bit of fun for a couple of days. And then down to Dallas, Texas for the high level summit, which is very exciting. Um, who is the right attendee for Mav Con because we do sell tickets to Mav Con for people who are not in Maverick's Club, right?
Speaker 0 00:25:48 Correct. We have a limited amount of tickets available. So really the right person for that is someone who is looking to grow and scale their agency and just be around like-minded people. Like you mentioned before, a huge part of the event is that community aspect in the networking and making connections. And I know I've already heard multiple stories about people who attended Mcon now doing some work together or referring, and we also, one thing we did forget to mention before is the third day of mcon is what we call implementation day. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And that's, we do a few Pomodoro sprints and people get a lot of work done and put into action what they've learned over the prior two days because there's nothing worse than going home from a conference with all these ideas and then they just go on the shelf and you don't actually get around to implementing
Speaker 1 00:26:36 A hundred percent. You just got this massive to-do list of stuff that's never gonna get done. The other thing I just wanna say on that is, you know, not kind of, uh, talking ourselves up too much, but that third day implementation day, again is just a sunk cost for us. Right. This is why the sponsorship's so important because that third day, the reason we did that is because I, I was sick of going to these live events and then going home with a workbook full of ideas and not actually getting anything done because you just get caught up in the busyness. So I wanted that third day of just getting stuff implemented and getting the needle moving in the right direction. So one mav com, we just said, look, let's just book the room for a third day. Take all the PA system away and the stage and all the fancy stuff and we'll just hang out in the room and get work done.
Speaker 1 00:27:18 And so now it's become a thing. Day three's implementation, day sunk cost for us. There's, we don't recoup anything on that day three, uh, you know, it's just thousands of dollars that we spend to make sure that we've got a space for that third day that we can get stuff done. So mm-hmm. <affirmative>, um, uh, and it's, yeah. And that's really where the network and the communities starts to happen because people start to collaborate on that, on that day and go, cool, well I need to do this, you need to do that. Let's work together. And mm-hmm. <affirmative>, a lot of cool things happen on, on day three.
Speaker 0 00:27:44 Yeah. It's a great day.
Speaker 1 00:27:46 So if you are potentially, uh, if you're in this space and you are potentially looking to sponsor an event like Mav Con, we are open to talking about sponsorship for our event in Virginia in October. If you know of anyone who you think might be a good sponsor, please send them to us. Um, probably
[email protected] is the best way to get hold of us. Um, or you can just, you know, find me on Messenger and ping me. Um, if you are in the software hosting, uh, space, uh, and web agencies are your web design, digital agencies are your target and this is a perfect event for you. Feel free to reach out and have a conversation with us. Cause we do have some sponsorship slots available and we've also just published, um, a video with Manish speaking at our event in the Gold Coast a couple of weeks ago talking about, uh, the benefits of being a sponsor and, and why he's so committed to continuing to sponsor our events. They, again, are sponsoring Mav Con in October, so they will be there, but we do have some slots available. Previous sponsors include Go wp my web audit. Well,
Speaker 0 00:28:52 They're, they'll be a sponsor for Oh, great. October as well. So my, we've there, you got our board sponsoring sponsor. So they, they really help enable us to record and publish these amazing events for our members who come. Perfect.
Speaker 1 00:29:05 Awesome. Uh, to McDon. They've also been a sponsor in the past. Um, so yeah, if you are in this space and you're looking to target web agencies, feel free to reach out and have a conversation with us about sponsorship. Uh, any other takeaways from Mav Con? What did we learn from Mcon on the Gold Coast?
Speaker 0 00:29:22 Always have a Plan B <laugh> <laugh>. It's a huge one. I mean, obviously with organizing events there's things that always come up and I've been around event management for a long time and there's always curve balls. We didn't really expect the massive curve ball of you being completely out and sick, so we were very adaptable and it was just amazing to still be able to put on such a wonderful, wonderful event thanks to the people that were in the room and able to step up and help.
Speaker 1 00:29:50 Mm-hmm. Uh, yeah, and a huge shout out to Simon Kelly, uh, and Anna and yourself, Emily and Max, and the whole team for just pivoting on the spot and, and just, you know, like not getting stuck, just going, well, the show must go on regardless, so we just need to get up on stage and talk. And a huge shout out to Matt Jones too. He's one of our clients in Maverick's Club. He also runs a podcast called, uh, the Site Shed, uh, where he, he runs a podcast to help tradies with their marketing and he runs a web agency in a digital agency called Tradie Web Guys. And so he's pretty co he's pretty comfortable in front of the camera and Oh yeah. Behind the microphone, you know, so he just jumped up on stage and interviewed Manish, uh, and uh,
Speaker 0 00:30:29 And Edison as well. Uh, and
Speaker 1 00:30:31 Edison team. Yeah, there. Yeah. And the other thing I learned from AV Con is that Matt Jones is nowhere near as grumpy in real life as he's on Zoom, <laugh> on the coaching calls. So that was,
Speaker 0 00:30:42 It was so great to connect with in person.
Speaker 1 00:30:44 I mean, I find so many clients, I totally get him now. He's like, he's not grumpy at all. He's just very driven and very motivated and, uh, exactly very direct with his communication, which is great. Cause at least you know where you stand. Hey, the other thing that I think we need to mention is that we have just, we are growing our team here. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, and we have just hired another, what we call Agency Navigator, which is essentially a client success coach to dial in more of our one-on-one accountability coaching. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Uh, so tell us how we found Jane Jones. Is there?
Speaker 0 00:31:19 Yes. So it's funny how you find people when they end up being in Melbourne not too far from the studio. Yeah, so it was an international search <laugh>. So we worked with Alexis, who is our, essentially our fractional ops manager. Um, absolutely amazing. And her and her team ran the recruitment process for us after we had of course put together the job scorecard and outlined the type of person that we were looking for and her team Veed, everyone. Uh, then Anna and I reviewed the applicants and there's a few processes within that, including a Loom video from the candidate, which is very important. It does make a huge difference in any sort of recruitment process. Uh, we had an ama we honestly, we were so lucky. We had amazing people. It was a tough choice. Uh, but we are really excited to bring Jane onto the team.
Speaker 1 00:32:13 Uh, Jane has actually been doing this role in another coaching company in a different vertical. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> different industry. And so she's very experienced at this and she's just joined us this week. She's been hanging out in some coaching calls and kind of getting to know what we do and getting to know our customers. And I'm really excited about this because, you know, one of the things that we've learned over the last few years, particularly through Covid, I think is that one-on-one accountability and coaching is the most valuable thing we can do for our clients. It's also really hard to scale, uh, because, you know, we just need, you need to find really good talent to put in front of your clients. You can't just have any old Joe turn up and run a one-on-one coaching call with your clients. And so good talent's hard to find, and then you need to train them up and get them to understand the way that we think.
Speaker 1 00:32:59 Um, so Anna's been doing a bit of that as agency navigator here, and she's been doing a great job and it was great for her to meet a lot of our customers at Mav Con Jane's now come on board, which is awesome. Um, and I'm really excited about this so that we can continue to, to, you know, a lot of coaching companies are actually removing one-on-one support and they're trying to scale to the moon by, you know, just putting curriculum in a member's website and running group calls and not actually helping clients with specific application of the information. And we are doing the opposite. We're dialing up the one-on-one accountability and support because we know that's what helps clients get, uh, the best results, which is kind of why we killed all the courses on our website as well as like, you know, the courses as, as, as much as the courses are good and we still reference the courses in our programs, what we've realized is that if you buy the wrong course at the wrong time, it can just slow you down.
Speaker 1 00:33:48 Mm. Um, you know, the coach's job really is to, and, and the client success coach's job really is to make sure that you are, you've got access to the right training at the right time based on your flight plan and what you are working on right now, and that you are focused and that you're not distracted by a shiny widget. So, um, yeah, I just wanted to kind of make that point and kind of put, you know, underline that point that there is lots of one-on-one coaching here for our members and it's not, you know, hey here, go and do the course in the members' website and jump on a call once a week with, you know, 40 other people and try and get your questions answered. That, um, there's lots of handholding because that's what we know helps get our clients the best results. So very excited that we're growing that part of our team.
Speaker 0 00:34:27 Me too.
Speaker 1 00:34:29 Awesome. Um, what are you looking forward to over the next 12 months? Didn't prep you for this question.
Speaker 0 00:34:34 Oh no, that's okay. I've been thinking about this a lot though, obviously. Very good. May gone in October, it'll be my first time in the US so that's gonna exciting. Oh, I, God, I can't believe
Speaker 1 00:34:43 That.
Speaker 0 00:34:44 I know. Wow. It might be a little bit of a struggle being away from the
Speaker 1 00:34:48 Kids. I'm gonna get you so wasted in my hat and you won't recognize yourself. That's gonna be fantastic.
Speaker 0 00:34:53 Oh, max will be there to look after me. Max tequilas,
Speaker 1 00:34:56 No, tequila was like
Speaker 0 00:34:58 One thing that I cannot do.
Speaker 1 00:34:59 <laugh>, same dude. I can't do tequila either. I can't, I did too much tequila on Great Kepp Island once and I cannot go down there.
Speaker 0 00:35:05 Oh my. Um, yes, that was my drink of choice at my 21st and
Speaker 1 00:35:09 Nevers them. Oh yeah. Don't trust Max to look after you, by the way. No, that that's true. He'll, he'll lead you astray. My god.
Speaker 0 00:35:14 Know Anna. Yeah. I'll trust Anna. Yeah. <laugh>, those are definitely looking forward to that. Also, looking forward to, you know, we haven't actually done this for a while because our team is in all sorts of different time zones, but we're planning in July to finally we'll get together. It will be on a Zoom call, hopefully at some stage we'll get back to having our team retreats in person as well. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, but really looking forward to doing that in July as we come up to the end of the financial year in Australia. It's, you know, like you mentioned before, it's been our biggest year, so looking forward to celebrating with the team. There's a lot of new faces around the team and not everyone's connected due to being in different time zones. So yeah. Really looking forward to that.
Speaker 1 00:35:57 Yeah, we've got, so Alexis is kind of fractional ops manager. We've Bogden, who's fractional sales manager. We've got Seb, who's just come on as fractional cmo. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, um, yeah. Like it feels like the team is, has changed so much in the last three months even Huge. Um, but it's very, it's very exciting. Brett's now in sales. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, uh, Andres is in sales and
Speaker 0 00:36:18 Cade.
Speaker 1 00:36:18 And Cade. That's right. Yeah. So it's very exciting. Uh, very exciting time and I'm very much, I'm glad that I'm not fucking sick anymore. Oh my God, that too was so boring. Oh, I hate being sick. Anyway. Um, thank God for penicillin. It's a miracle drug and it works. Um, so I'm looking forward to getting back into it and, and, uh, getting re-energized and spending the next another 12 months helping agencies grow and achieve what they wanna achieve. And I still think, you know, as, as, as problematic as the agency business model is, which it is, it has its problems. Any kind of client services business model definitely has its problems. But I still think that the agency is the unsung hero of the economy. Behind every great small business is a great agency running great campaigns. And I still think, and I know in my heart of hearts that there is a way to scale an agency model without burning out.
Speaker 1 00:37:09 I have a little bit of spare time on my hands now because you are running the show here. So it's dangerous. I've started growing my own little kind of side hustle. I'm just taking on a handful of clients. It's, it's kind of more consulting, less agency kinda work. Um, but I'm very, you know, I wish, if I was starting an agency right now, you know, I wish that I, I, when I started my agency, I wish I had access to this community is what I'm trying to say, because I just made so many fricking mistakes as we all did. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, um, you know, you end up trying to scale chaos and just being around the people that we've got on our team now and the coaches and the methodology that we've, that we've adopted and what we are teaching. I wish I had this back in 2008 when I started out. It just would've me too fast, tracked my results and would've caused, you know, would've solved a lot of headaches. So, super exciting to be here. Thank you so much for joining us on the agency hour. Emily Bryant, our c e o, uh, we'll have you back on the show at some point For sure.
Speaker 0 00:38:04 Sounds great.
Speaker 1 00:38:07 Hey, thanks for tuning into the Agency Hour podcast and a massive thanks to Emily Bryant for joining us. It's been incredible to witness you take control of the company, and I can honestly say that our team is stronger, more confident, and most importantly, more profitable than ever, which is not only great for us, but we've been able to reach and help more clients as well. All right, folks, don't forget to subscribe and please share this with anyone who you think may need to hear it. Now, are you getting paid to close clients or are you still wasting time, giving away your intellectual property for free and then writing proposals and hoping for the best? That model is outdated and broken. You should be getting paid to close new clients. If you'd like to chat with our team about how you can get paid to close, click the link beneath this episode and let's get to work.
