Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: I think what people fail to realize is you're not putting that all up at once and if things don't work out, you can pivot, you can change, and I've definitely had to make some tough decisions in that regard. We found our squad. When you fight squad though, that is really the unlock moment in an agency. When you've got people who can run your team and keep your team motivated and treat your clients really well and get great results without you being involved. Man, that's what it's all about.
[00:00:26] Speaker B: Welcome to the Agency out 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 Jamie Kratharis, founder of Defiant Digital. Jamie's entrepreneurial journey is nothing short of fascinating. He started out as a successful dj launching his own record label and now leads an agency that's helped over 300 businesses soar, generating hundreds of millions in revenue and managing tens of millions in ad spend. Jamie is a wealth of knowledge on entrepreneurship, business growth and performance marketing. In this episode we explore the origins of defiant digital from 2019 where Jamie saw a gap in the market and wanted to blend creativity with performance based marketing. Why you need the right mindset in order to stay focused on long term success in your agency, how to step away from client work, build a capable team of a players and create the freedom to scale and showering your team with tacos as a form of appreciation and a whole lot more if you're ready to get off the tools and focus on scaling your agency. This episode is power packed with insights and even some tough love that you might just need to hear. Now, before we dive in, I want to take 30 seconds to talk to you about today's sponsor, WIX Studio. Digital Marketers. Here are just a few things you can do when you manage projects in WIX Studio. Work in sync with your team on one Canvas. Reuse templates, widgets and sections across sites. Create a client kit for seamless handovers and leverage. Best in class SEO defaults across all of your WIX sites. Time's up but the list keeps going. Step into WIX Studio to see more. I'm Troy Dean. Stay with us.
All right, ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, please welcome to the Agency Hour Podcast. Jamie Kratharis from Defiant Digital. Hey Jamie, how you doing?
[00:02:19] Speaker A: Not too bad, Troy. How are you?
[00:02:20] Speaker B: I'm very well. Thank you for joining us here. Now listen, I get cold pitched a lot from people wanting to be on the podcast, right? But there was something about I don't know if you working with an agency doing, helping you do this, but there's something about your email that really got my attention. And also, one, it got my attention. But two, whoever it was was persistent, I think emailed me like three or four times and I'm like. And it wasn't because I'm, you know, rude or ignoring people. It's just because we're all freaking busy, right?
[00:02:43] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:02:44] Speaker B: But so I got to take hats off to whoever did that because you got my attention. And then I started digging around and I'm like, holy shit, man. You've actually built like a significant agency. And I don't know you from a bar of soap. This is the first time we've met, literally like, you know, two minutes ago. So for those that don't know, just tell us a little bit about defined digital, when you started it and what you guys do and for who.
[00:03:10] Speaker A: Yeah, awesome. So first of all, I'm glad of that feedback because obviously our team, our team hustles, so it's good to hear that. But yeah, basically define digital. I founded it in 2019, so.
And basically it was just with a vision to do something that wasn't happening at the time, which was blending creativity and performance marketing together. Five, six years ago, there was barely any, I don't think any agencies really were doing that. It was, you go to an agency, they'll run your ads, but you got to take your own creative to them. Or you go to a creative shop, they do your branding, they do your content, but they don't know how to run ads from a buyer. Soap. So, yeah, I think basically I just saw that gap in the market and I attacked it. And yeah, here we are today. Worked with some of Australia's biggest brands, massive brands around the world. 7, 8, 9 figure companies.
It's unreal really. And it feels like, yeah, it just feels like in a blink of an eye you're there, you know, so it's cool. But I definitely remember the first moments and the first couple years, you know, it's a massive grind and I think that's really why wanted to hop on today with you, talk to your audience and I know there's a lot of people out there who are probably in that phase trying to work through different problems and hopefully we get a bit of that value out today.
[00:04:24] Speaker B: Yeah, dude. Like some of your client logos that you have on your website that you've worked with, you know, F45. I'm just scrolling here, you know, high pages. Career one, Optimonk. F45, Milky Lane. Code camp. Like LJ Hooker, Muscle Fuel.
Okay, so you started out. Did you come from a digital marketing background? Were you working in another agency when you started? Define how did you get in front of these people and how did you build this network?
[00:04:56] Speaker A: Yeah, so I wasn't in the agency game at all. Wasn't in marketing at all. I was actually a DJ for 10 years before I started Defiant. So, yeah, I was a DJ producer, traveling the world, got signed by Tiesto, Hardwell, Calvin Harris's Calvin Harris supported my music, Aphrodite. Like, all these. All these kind of names that are the biggest in the world. So it's actually pretty insane, man. Like, had a. Had a lot of fun with that career, but then I sort of started. I always had the entrepreneur in me, you know, like, pretty much from day one. Started my own record label from day one of making music because I couldn't get my music signed by anyone because my music was shit at the time. Let's just. Let's just be real with that. So I said, I'm just going to start my own record label, release my own music, and just sure enough, I was. Just kept chipping away at it every single day and trying to grow myself. And I think through that experience, I learned marketing without even trying, without thinking about it. It was. It was happening in the background. So I was running ads on Facebook when they were first kind of released as ads.
And then I think just naturally through that process, I started becoming more and more entrepreneurial, started managing artists. And then I kind of started reaching out to agencies to get some help with selling merch, selling tickets to events, selling, like, doing those kind of activities. And that's where I really realized that there was that gap in the market. And whenever results were crap, they were just saying, hey, sorry, your creative is not good. And I was like, hang on a second. You're the agency. I'm paying you to run the app. Like, why are you blaming the creative? It just didn't make sense to me. So, yeah, basically the way it started and the way we started getting in front of brands was thankfully, through that DJ experience, I made a lot of connections, had a lot of good times with a lot of people.
And when I said I was doing this now, I basically said, let me do it for free. Give me 5k this month. I'm going to spend it on ads. Let me do it for free. But if I do a good job, you need to let me use your logo. You need to give me a testimonial and they're like, sure, go for it. And basically just kept stacking those over time. None of those logos that are on our website now, but it was much smaller businesses. But basically stacking those testimonials and wins allowed me to just keep going up the ladder in terms of clients that we're working with. So yeah, that was, that was the journey. That was really the first, the first year was really hustling like that smart.
[00:07:23] Speaker B: And was it just you, were you, were you doing everything at that point?
[00:07:26] Speaker A: So I had a, so I founded the agency in 2019 and then around the six month mark I brought in a partner who had a lot of connections with, you know, again, more brands. He was, he was quite good at networking. He was really good networker. He came in at around the six month mark and really helped us kind of go to that next, that next level again. He really added some fuel to the fire there. But probably around the sort of two, three year mark, I ended up acquiring his share of the agency. And yeah, now it's actually me and my old man who own the agency outright. So yeah, really cool experience. And yeah, just, it was awesome having a partner on board at that time. And I think just over time, you know, you start to realize where your strengths are and yeah, just backed ourselves to buy his share and take it to the next level again, which has been, you know, crazy ever since.
[00:08:23] Speaker B: That's awesome. Partnerships are hard work. So when you were doing the free work for clients just to, you know, which is a great, great way to do it, you know, it's like the ultimate hustle. It's like one, let me prove that I know what I'm doing to when I get your results, let me use your logo as a testimonial because that's social proof. When you were in that stage, were you running the ad yourself and doing the creative yourself or did you have like a team or you outsourcing, how did that work?
[00:08:47] Speaker A: So at the very start, obviously I had no money so I had to do everything myself.
Right at the start. The results weren't the best, I'll be honest, because I still learning, still learning the ropes. But at the same time I think, yeah, I wasn't charging a cent for it and I was doing absolutely everything I could to help brands out and get exposure. Right. But then what happened was when I started getting brands that were giving me a little bit of money, like a thousand bucks a month, 2,000 bucks a month, whatever it was, what I did was instead of just Pocketing that, I went and paid experts, contractors. I paid them the full amount, in some cases a little bit more, just out of my own savings, which I had barely any at the time. But I didn't care about spending the entire amount on a contractor. The only thing was I was watching their every single step. I was asking a hundred questions a day. Why'd you do this? Why'd you do that? What are we doing next? I was really leveraging their experience to learn how to do it myself. And that was awesome. So that was probably about a good six months of that. Don't get me wrong. I still had clients that were making profit on, but, you know, I was spending a lot of the money just on contractors to learn the ropes and learn exactly how to do things. And that's when the results started to get really good. And that's where, you know, that's where we started building up those case studies really, really quickly when I was doing that. And then sure enough, I had enough money to start bringing on our first hires. And we actually started with interns first. They were just really hungry, and I was. Whatever I was learning, I was passing to them, and they were learning their own stuff. And we're all kind of learning together. No one really knew what they were doing. But the energy, we were just like, we're going to figure this out, you know, and that was. That was a really special time.
[00:10:32] Speaker B: I love it. I want to come back to that mindset in a second. But first of all, like, the. One of the biggest mistakes I see agency owner or any business owner make is they hire too slow. Because I don't have my processes ready. My processes aren't ready to hire someone.
[00:10:47] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:10:47] Speaker B: And I think it's a fur fee. It's a false economy because you've done it perfectly. The reality is, like, as the founder, you're the worst person to document the process because you don't know what you're doing. Right. You're a visionary. Right. You're a biz dev guy, you're a networking person. Your job is to bring it all together. So hire an expert who knows what they're doing and then watch what they're doing and document their process and then eventually bring them on as a team member or teach that process to your interns and your team. So well done. That's. And that's the way you grow faster, right?
[00:11:16] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:11:17] Speaker B: And I think a lot of people use the, oh, my processes aren't ready. That's why I can't hire people. I think they use that as an excuse for not hiring people because. Hiring people, scary as shit. Because. And we're going to talk about this because if they don't work out, you got to fire them. I want to just unpack the mindset a bit. Like, we. None of us knew what we were doing, but we were all going to figure this out together. And we were just, like, the energy was amazing. Like, a lot of people. I think most people.
And this is why, like, you know, something like 97% of the population in Western worlds are employees and 3% are employers. Because most people just hit a brick wall and go, oh, fuck, it's too hard. I'm just gonna. Like, I just. It's too hard, right?
Like, why do you think it is? What is it about your brain that you think that just goes, it's too hard. But I'm not gonna quit. I'm gonna figure this out.
[00:12:08] Speaker A: That's a great question.
I think for me personally, and I don't know if this would be for everyone, but for me, like, I had a really amazing career in music. Like, kind of went from, you know, being. Being a nobody in music to not. Not being the biggest by any means. I definitely don't want to give the wrong impression, but I had a great career. It was very. I made. I made a lot of money doing it. I. I bought houses. I did all the. All the things that you'd want to do in a successful career, and I did it all by the age of, like, 25.
So I sort of hit this peak. And then my music career started dying off because I was losing focus. I started wanting more of the business side, and I started losing the art and the creativity. And naturally, what happened was my music career just kind of stopped getting booked, stopped making money. Like, it started going downhill pretty quickly. And I think for me, that feeling of reaching a high and then sort of almost hitting rock bottom, definitely, emotionally, it was. It was a tough time. I just never wanted to feel like that ever again, you know? And I think that was the motivation that was, like, no matter how hard this is, I don't care, because there's no other option. It's. I'm. I'm committed to this, and this is going to work. And if it's not working right now, that's perfectly fine. But if I just show up every day and do that one extra little thing, I'm going to stack those over the next couple of years, and then I'm going to look back and say, wow, look at what I've Built.
[00:13:31] Speaker B: That's amazing. I love that mindset, dude. It's like there is no plan B, right? This has to work. It's also interesting about your music career is interesting because I had a very successful career as a voiceover artist at one point.
Nothing in comparison to what you experienced, you lucky son of a bitch. But anyway, that's a whole other story. I'm a failed rock star in my early 20s, and then I pivoted and became a voiceover artist and did really well as a voiceover artist. But then I got bored and I wanted to build a business. And it's funny that money flows where the focus goes, right? And I started focusing on building websites and starting this agency and all of a sudden my voiceover work just dried up. And like three years later I'm sitting there and go, what happened to my voiceover, Chris? Like, will you stop putting any energy into it, dude? So that's why it's disappeared. Anyway, I digress. So. But this whole, like, I mean, plan B, I mean, you could have just got. You could have just gone and worked for a label, right? You could have just, I mean, like, you could have just got a job. Like what? I mean, that could have been plan B. Yeah, 100%.
[00:14:27] Speaker A: I mean, I could have done so many things, you know, I could have. I actually went to uni for three years. I. I was a property valuer by trade. I lasted the day before my probation was over, my three month probation. I quit that job. And I've never worked for anyone ever since. I don't know, man, I, I just, I. I'm too creative to, to be trapped in a box, you know? So, yeah, really, it was, it was no plan. It was no plan B. I think the other thing was I had about 20 grand in savings when I decided to start this agency. Spent 12 of it on a course to learn how to build the agency. So my wife, or my. She was my fiance at the time, I'd only just proposed to her. She. She lost her marbles saying, like, what are you doing? You know, we're about to get married, blah, blah, blah. But for me, like, that was another motivator because it's like, this has to work now. This doesn't work. I'm.
[00:15:22] Speaker B: I've bet the farm on it.
[00:15:23] Speaker A: Yeah, 12.
[00:15:24] Speaker B: That must have been a good course for 12 grand, man.
[00:15:27] Speaker A: Look, it was good. It was definitely. It's like every course, you know, you can find the information out there for free, but it was just packaged up quite well and nothing, nothing groundbreaking. But I think the investment, something about the investment. I liked the fact that I was going all in because if it was a hundred dollar course, I might have looked at it one or two times, been like, ah, fuck it, a hundred bucks doesn't matter. But the 12k was like, I'm invested into this now that this thing has no. Gone back.
[00:15:54] Speaker B: Yeah, 100, dude. I've done very similar things in my life as well. It's like every. And it's like, you know that saying, like, fortune favors the brave, right? It's like every time, like one of my favorite sayings is opportunity dances with those. Already on the dance floor.
Yeah, man. Like, get on the dance floor and get moving and the universe opens doors for you. Every time I've made a mental decision and a mental commitment to level up and invest in myself and the business and my team, it pays off. And I think it's just fear that keeps us from making those mental commitments. Right? So, okay, so you've come off the kind of music circuit, you've invested some money, you've started the agency, you've done a bunch of pro bono work, you've got some case studies. What, what happened? Like, what happens then? How do you, how do you go to the next level? And by the way, what does the team look like at the moment and what's your role like? Let's Fast forward to 2024. What is Jamie doing in Defiant Digital today and what does the team look like? Just to give people an idea of where you are now, and then we'll kind of unpack how you got there.
[00:17:03] Speaker A: Oh, definitely. Well, the team's about 30 strong at the moment. I'm actually on parental leave because I just had twin girls three weeks ago, and the agency is still growing and thriving without me in there. So that's great. That's a, that's a massive milestone. I was saying to Max before this that I love taking little breaks away from my agency because it really shows me what I've built. And yeah, it's just amazing. Like, there is no way, even two years ago, three years ago, let's say two years ago, there's no way I'd be able to take a break from the agency and it not burn to the ground, let alone grow. So look, there's definitely seasons and phases and it's. And it took me, what it's been almost six years now, it took me six years to kind of get to this point. And I know that's the biggest thing that businesses, business owners want. I think A lot of people that start an agency, they want that lifestyle business where, you know, you're not working in the business, you're working on the business. That really is my role at the moment. I've got a leadership team in place. I only have about three or four direct reports.
They have their teams underneath them.
Those direct reports are incentivized, almost as if they're partners in my business that own an equity share. Not yet, but they definitely win. When we win and when we're making more profit than we accounted for, they're also winning and sharing in that profit. And that's just an amazing system because they're incentivized every day to take care of the team, basically and to, and to get great results. So yeah, it's looking really good today. And I think.
[00:18:42] Speaker B: And how did you, so how did you figure this stuff out? Like, did you like. I know a lot of agencies subscribe. I mean, we have kind of an operating system that we help agencies with and there's also EOs and there's scalable and there's a bunch of kind of operating systems that are meant for service based business. Did you have a business coach walk you through that or did you just kind of figure this out yourself with your dad?
[00:19:03] Speaker A: Yeah, no, I just figured it out. Trial and error. My dad's on the back end, so he just does all the legals and accounting and those kind of things. Which by the way, is, you know, incredible because that just allows me to charge forward with the business, do deals, grow the business while I've got someone on the back end doing the legals and accounting. But yeah, again, he was not from the agency space. So we've worked everything out by trial and error, by making a lot of mistakes, a lot of mistakes, but not really looking at it as a mistake. I would say looking at it as a, as a lesson. You know, every, every bad hire that we've made, we've sat down and reassessed. Okay, why, what was the, what was the issue there? A lot of times it comes down to, you know, we were too desperate, we hide too quickly, we didn't go through our due diligence, we didn't match their skills to the jd. There's so many different things, but yeah, just, just learning and everything. Every time something like that happens or a client leaves or whatever the case may be, we just really use it as an opportunity to learn and move forward. And that's really it. There's no magic wand, I don't think, to just solve all These problems, you've got to go through it and feel the pain.
[00:20:13] Speaker B: And so how do you know? Like, what you said before is, like, the $12,000 course you went through, like, you could have found all the information for free on YouTube, but the reality is it's packaged up and structured in a way. It helps you figure out what to do next and in what order. And the fact that you made the investment means that you're going to take it seriously and you're going to not just sit there and eat your lunch and watch a YouTube video and go, oh, well, who cares? I'm not doing anything about it. So you took massive action to get an roi, which obviously worked out pretty well. But how do you know?
You say you've got a leadership team in place. How did you know? At what point were you like, all right, I need to start building a leadership team, like, without a mentor or some kind of structure. Well, what do you do? You go to Google or YouTube and figure out how to hire a leadership team for my agency. What's your process for figuring stuff out?
[00:21:00] Speaker A: That's a great question, that. It definitely took me a long time to sort of. For me to realize that I've got, let's say, 15 direct reports or whatever it was. I don't know the exact number, but there was a point in the agency where everyone was reporting into me, even the designers, the contractors, like, literally everyone. And I was still trying to be involved with clients, and I was still trying to do everything and wear all the hats, which I'm sure would resonate with pretty much any person who's ever started an agency, or any business for that matter. You're wearing a lot of the hats for a while, but then I think as well, yeah, you just realize, like, hey, I.
For me to keep growing this agency, I need to be focused on the things that only I can do. Only I can be on camera with conviction, speaking about the agency with confidence. Only I can do that. No one else is going to be able to do that for me. Only I can grow the brand and actually create an identity in the marketplace for what we want to be. You know, there's. There's certain things that only I can do. So I needed to free up my time to be able to do that. And naturally, what that required was me just taking a punt on the biggest wages we've ever. We've ever paid. But I think as well, sometimes people, I mean. I mean, look, I won't speak for other people. Me, for sure, I'd look At a, at a big leadership type of wage, you know, not going to throw around numbers, but it's, it's, it's, it's a lot, right? And you look at it and you say, wow, that's a massive investment. But I think what people fail to realize is you're not putting that all up at once. It's not like you're spending a massive amount on a wage all up, up front, right? It's a monthly wage. And if things don't work out, you can pivot, you can change. And I've definitely had to make some, some tough decisions in that regard to. We found our squad. When you find squad, though, that is really the unlock moment in an agency. When you've got people who can run your team and keep your team motivated and treat your clients really well and get great results without you being involved.
Man, that's, that's what it's all about, 100%.
[00:23:04] Speaker B: And also I'm gonna. Oh, man, fuck. There's so much I want to unpack it. I'm already, I'm already figuring out we're gonna have like Jamie Kratharis Episode two, Episode three, Episode four Let's do it, man. There's, there's.
Because, you know, it's also like that aha moment where you realize I'm actually the dumbest person in the room here, right? There are people in my business who are way fricking smarter than me at what they do. And again, like, I'm really good at what I do, but there's probably two or three things I do that are pretty good, I reckon. And the rest, I'm shit at the rest of it. And I. So I want other people to do the rest of it. And it's that it is an aha moment where you realize actually the less I do, the faster we grow and the more valuable this thing becomes because it's not reliant on me. And every time I jump in and try and do stuff, I end up fucking it up anyway because I'm not very good at it. I should just stick to my knitting, as they say. How do you.
You know, I hear a lot of people and I'm hearing people listen to this now going, yeah, that's great. But I've never hired someone, you know, I've only ever had like some VAs in the Philippines or outsource some stuff to, you know, Eastern Europe or whatever. And I don't want the responsibility of taking on a full time employee. What do you, what do you, how do you Help someone overcome that psychological barrier and make that commitment. And I guess the question is, what's on the other side of that? What's on the other side of that commitment that makes it worthwhile growth?
[00:24:27] Speaker A: It's as simple as that. Like, you can't grow. There's only so much you can do on your own.
It's just as simple as that. Like, if you want to go far, you have to have a team. And the other thing too is just back to your previous point when you say like, you know, you're shit at this, like get someone that's better than you. I think that's, that could be tricky for a few agency founders because I know a lot of agency founders that are really good at ads and even myself, like I started to get really, really good. A lot of the case studies on our website were my strategy, my direct hands on work. So I found it really challenging to hire someone because I was actually good at that, right? The creative side, the performance marketing side.
But one thing that I realized about hiring someone else that is just as good or has even more experience. But one thing that I realized was that me as a founder, I sometimes got a little bit too invested into the client and put my business growth to the side, right, Because I wanted to get the best results, I wanted to be the best at what we do, blah, blah, blah. So I would be spending way too much time on client work and not enough time growing the agency. And I think that's a huge unlock for hiring really good people. Even if they're not as good as you.
You can, you can just, it frees you up to grow and use your skills even if you're good at ads. Okay, great, use it on your own business, grow that business. And you know, that's where you actually start to, to get freedom. You start to dictate your day. Like my day has gone from having 12 meetings a day to having two, three plan my days, schedule one, take a month off to be my girls. I'm sure it's going to be even, even more now that they're, now that they're here. So that's what you want, man. You want to, you want to be able to create something that runs without you. And I actually think a business is more valuable if it's able to run without the founder, 100%.
[00:26:25] Speaker B: Ryan Dice talks about this. Ryan Dice from digital marketer fame and has now got the scalable company. He talks about this thing called the founder's curse, which is the more valuable you are to your Business as a founder, the less valuable your business is.
[00:26:38] Speaker A: Definitely.
[00:26:39] Speaker B: And I think that, you know, look, I think you just gotta have a hard conversation with yourself and say, you know what, there are a lot of people listening to this podcast and in our world and it's totally fine. I'm giving you all permission right now to say, you know what, I don't want to grow a business. I'm just really happy with this kind of job that I've created for myself. I'm a web designer, I run ads, I do a bit of this, a bit of that, I work from home, it's flexible. I make enough money to pay myself every year, but I don't want to grow a business. Totally fine. There's nothing wrong with that, but just call it for what it is. You're self employed, you've got a job, that's fine. The biggest risk with that I see is that you just need to make sure that you are taking a certain amount of money every year and putting it into some kind of wealth building strategy. Because once you get tired and you don't want to do the thing anymore, you don't want to build the websites or run the ads or whatever, and you want to retire, you got to have some kind of nest egg to retire on. I think small business is a fantastic way to build wealth. But if you don't want to build a team, you don't want to run a business, that's totally fine. Just make sure you're putting your excess money into some kind of wealth building strategy and it's all good. Don't feel like you're an imposter or a loser because you haven't scaled a business. It's totally fine, like manage your fomo, but just call it for what it is, you know, just if you want to stay small, that's totally fine. There's nothing wrong with that. But if you do want to grow a business, you, I think very early on and I made this realization, I mean, I tried to be a fucking superhero in this business for years. I would hire people and then do their job for them and they would leave. I've had staff members leave and the exit interview, I'd be like, you know what happened? And they'd be like, dude, you just won't let me do my job because you don't trust me. And yeah, so like, what's the point me being here, right?
So, yeah, figure out what your sweet spot is and then, and then surround yourself with smart people to do everything else.
[00:28:31] Speaker A: I mean, as an Agency. You're just on that point, like as an agency, people are your product.
[00:28:37] Speaker B: Yeah, that's right.
[00:28:38] Speaker A: People are the product. Like obviously systems and things like that. But if you, if you don't want to have people, then you're just going to be a freelancer. And that's like you said, you know, call it for what it is. But an agency is like a team of people, so you have to be, you have to be good at that. And yeah, getting out of their way, hiring smart people and just getting out there, getting out of their way is honestly one of the best moves.
[00:28:59] Speaker B: Yeah, I had a buddy of mine who's a photographer and he took his girlfriend to the States for a month for a holiday and they, you know, hired a Mustang and drove around Route 66 and he came home and he's like, well, I'm now 25 grand in the hole. I'm like, what do you mean? He's like, well, it cost me 15 grand for the holiday and 10 grand I didn't make in revenue because I wasn't clicking the shutter on the camera because I, you know, I'm like, well, that's the problem with being a freelancer, dude.
You know.
Okay, so, so you. How. What, what was the talk to me about the, your, your acquisition strategy for clients? You have, you know, you get to a point where you've got this team, you want to start going after these bigger clients. How do you get in front of these clients? And don't tell me you just live off referrals and word of mouth or I'll hang up now. What's your, what's your client acquisition strategy?
[00:29:45] Speaker A: You know what's so funny? Because I've never come from the agency game myself. When I've hired people that have come from other agencies, they freak out that we never do outbound. We don't have a outbound strategy. We don't have a massive sales team. We've got one person on our sales team. They're like, how do you, how are you getting customers? But we do it all through ads. Literally. We just, we run ads and we practice what we preach and we do really creative stuff. And for some reason a lot of agencies don't do that, which I found very, very strange. Um, yeah, that's been our, that's been our acquisition strategy. Just run ads, get ourselves out there and basically get people through, obviously qualify them, hop on calls, do a discovery, and it's really a two way discovery. It's like, hey, are you a good fit for us? And Are we a good fit for you? We run a live P and L, A live audit of their ad accounts. We make sure that they're a good fit. We don't just ask them a few questions and take on anyone who breathes. But we definitely, definitely did that at the start. Like anyone who wanted to give us money, we worked with, but we quickly learned the hard way that that's definitely not a good way to go long term. It's great at the start, get some cash flow through, learn some lessons, see what services you're really good at and what you do well. But then as you start to grow, you really start to refine that. And especially when you have a team, like bringing on a grenade of a client and just handing them off to your team, that's detrimental. Like I've lost team members, I've lost other great clients because of that grenade client.
So yeah, you gotta be selective with that over time.
[00:31:20] Speaker B: The grenade client, I love it. Oh fucking hell. Yeah, we've had a couple of those.
And so what's the sales process look like? So you run ads, what happens? Like people respond to an ad, what do they like schedule a call with the team? How do you. So first of all, before we do that, who's the ideal client for you? Talk to us about the ideal client profile. Who fits the ideal client these days for Defiant?
[00:31:44] Speaker A: Yeah, so an ideal client for us is a brand that's doing a million plus a year in revenue or a startup that has significant funding.
Either of those two. Now basically we're not a cheap agency. We're actually probably, probably pretty up there in terms of what we charge for retainers because we're doing the creative, we're doing the ugc, we're doing the email marketing, we're doing the paid ads. It's, it's really, you know, it's quite a substantial outlay in terms of staff. So basically brands that are in that bracket, they can afford to work with us. And really we want to, we want to work with brands who have already proven themselves in the market. They've got something that people want to found that product market fit. They've probably worked with three or four agencies, maybe had an in house team, hasn't really worked out and they just want to work with the experts and throw the fuel on the fire for us. That's our, that's our bread and butter. That's our sweet spot. Even brands like High Pages for example, you know, very well established brand, but they were trying to do it in house, didn't have a creative bone in their body, were very search heavy with their, with their advertising. You know, they brought us on board and it was just amazing to see what we can do with a brand like that who's very well established. But even brands that are still trying to find their feet but doing okay, revenue, that's our bread and butter. So yeah, to your other point, how do we, what's the process look like? We run ads, they go to the website, they fill out a form based on what they answer to certain questions. It's conditional. So people who fit the criteria, they get to see a calendar, they get to book on a call with us. People who don't, they just get some more information. Blogs, we have a course as well that we help brands with and that kind of thing. So we really segment them out based on if they're a fit or not.
And then yeah, once we hop on the call, like I said before, it's, it's really just an assessment like are we going to work, is this going to work for both of us? Are you a, are you someone that we even want to work with or are you a prick? You know, if you're just, if you're just not really a fit or a vibe on that call, we just won't, won't work with people like that as well. So very protective of our energy. Our team morale has gone up ever since we did that. When we've got a shitty client that's just a toxic client, I don't care how much money they're paying us, we fire them and the team. You notice your team respect you so much more when you have that type of attitude and when you deal with problems fast, you don't let it linger just because they're paying you a retainer. So love it, love it.
[00:34:20] Speaker B: Now most of your just looking through your.
I just love everything you're saying, dude. You just, I mean we're just singing from the same in book. Most of the clients, most of your clients are E commerce or are they lead gen or professional services?
[00:34:34] Speaker A: I'd say about 80% is Econ and then the other 20% is really a mixed bag of you know, SaaS companies, service based businesses, info products. But yeah, 80% is Ecom. That's, that's really our bread and butter because it's, it's very scalable. Look, so is so is the other. So is so are service based businesses like probably actually two of our biggest clients at the moment are actually service based businesses, funnily enough so. But yeah we work with everyone who's, who's got a great product that needs to be seen by more people and they need, they're already doing ads, they're already marketing, they just need it to be more effective.
[00:35:11] Speaker B: And you're a full stack agency, right? You're like branding Facebook ads, you know, design landing pages. CRO, was it always that way or have you kind of added services over time?
[00:35:23] Speaker A: We've added services over time. We've dropped services over time. Web dev and SEO are two things that we've dropped just because, you know, right at the start we were just saying yes to everything. I hadn't even done SEO before and people asked me, can you do SEO? Like, yep, I can do it because I felt comfortable with it because I knew I was going to pay an expert to do the work. But what I realized is over time, web dev and SEO, they're the two things that really require like a proper, a proper team for that to really execute it. And we were seeing more results with the creative and the performance marketing and the email and CRO.
That's what our team were really loving and we're really good at. So I just decided to drop the other services and work find partners who are the top of their game in those areas that we weren't partnered with them. And now we send each other work back and forth. Whenever we've got a website that we design, we have partners that we send that to, they develop it, build it to a T. And yeah, that's, that's also a great strategy for growth as well is partnering with other agencies that complement what you do. And it's, it's, that's been an amazing growth vehicle.
[00:36:31] Speaker B: Yeah, totally. And so, okay, so we kind of understand who the ideal client is. Now.
What's the typical engagement when like, so what that first call that you get on with a new prospect and you kind of figure out they're a good fit, how do you then get them on board and what are they onboarding for? Is it like everything or do you start off with one service at a time?
[00:36:53] Speaker A: Look, it depends. There's certain brands that have different needs. Right. But pretty much in all cases, brands are coming to us to run the ads and make the creative for the ads as a bare minimum. Because that's really the thing that they're trying to, they're trying to bridge that gap between performance and creative. Like what are we making and what are we. And what's working in the ad account?
So, yeah, just reducing that feedback loop because a lot of brands that we find when we're working with them.
It's a couple different scenarios, but there's always one team, whether that be in house or an agency that's running the ads. And usually it's the client that's making their own creative as well. And it's just, yeah, it's just messy. Whereas we've got visibility over 30 plus brands that we're working with and we can see exactly the different types of formats and trends that are working across different industries.
We've just got that visibility that an in house team just will not, will never have. Right. And I think that's what makes us so effective. And obviously also the other thing is having a diverse range of creators and creative people under our roof. So if a client needs a 3D design, we've got a 3D designer. If they need motion graphics, if they need UGC, we have all the different things under our roof. And to hire that same team in house would be, you know, in excess of 50 to 60k a month.
[00:38:16] Speaker B: Oh, absolutely, yeah, yeah. And it's kind of like the fractional model, isn't it? It's like, you know, you get access to our full team plus the strategy and you know, this is why I love the fractional model so much, is because when you hire us, you just said it. We see inside all these other brands and all these other industries and we know what's working and what's not. You've got someone in house, within three months, they're operating in a silo and they've lost touch with what's happening outside your business. I love it. I want to talk a little bit about team. How do you, what do you do structurally in terms of keeping your team on track and making sure they're working on the right thing at the right time and that everyone's moving in the right direction and to maintain that really positive, hungry culture.
[00:38:58] Speaker A: Yeah, that's a great question. So we've, we use ClickUp for our project management tool and basically whenever a new client comes on board, there's a whole set of things that we have to do, we must complete in the first few weeks in order to be able to say that was a successful onboarding and we're setting ourselves up for success with this client. So ClickUp is how we sort of manage the tasks and how everyone knows what's next, what needs to be done next in regards to motivating the team. We're 100% remote as a company. So that was a massive challenge. That's Something that we've only really worked out properly over the last, I'd say 12 months. But there's so many cool tools that you can use. Like, for example, there's one called hey Taco in Slack. I don't know if you've heard about it. Have you used it before?
It's amazing. Like, you know, everyone's giving each other's tacos every day, like taco emojis. And basically the more tacos you earn, it unlocks like a half a day off work or defiant merch or donating to a charity. We've got all these different things that we have.
So, you know, it's just this mad culture of whenever someone does something good for something. Like, let's say I'm a media buyer and I receive an awesome creative from the creative team. We'll shout it out in the. We've got like a winning chat where we post all of our wins. We shout it out, people drop tacos. If we get a great result, you know, we'll post it in the chat. New client comes on board, post in the chat. Whoever closed that deal, they're getting tacos. And it's just this vibe of we just all want to see each other win and we all want to celebrate each other's wins. We want to earn tacos as well. So we want to do good.
It's pretty cool, man. And then of course, we've got like Donut as well, which is another Slack integration. These are both really good tools. If you're a remote team, I highly suggest using both of them. Donut just helps us get to know each other more. You know, it asks questions every other day. You know, what's your favorite movie? What's something that you're proud of? Send us the last photo that made you happy, like, those kind of things. And it just gets that like that water cooler type moment in a typical office. It replicates that in a remote setting. So, yeah, a few of these little things, of course, calls as well. Just really being on calls all day, every day. With the team, we just love. We love waking up every day and solving problems together. And I think that's because everyone on squad is senior. They're really good at what they do and when there's a problem, we all just attack it with our different experience and it's actually fun. I love just sitting back like a coach and just watching the team play, you know, it's awesome.
[00:41:27] Speaker B: That's great. That's awesome, dude. Well done. Congratulations.
So good. We'll put links to that stuff in the show notes to Donut, I wasn't aware of. But hey Taco, I'm aware of. I think we might still use Taco, but we have in the past. So hey Taco and Donut, we'll put links in the show notes.
Talk to me about the brand defined. Where does that. I mean we called Agency Mavericks, right? So I mean like I'm all about going against the grain. Where did the name come from? Why is it important? What does it mean?
[00:41:55] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean Defiant to me just means having your back against the wall and just doing anything that you need to do to move forward and grow and you know, just defy the odds. And I think for me it's been a powerful word because even with my music career it was the same thing. Starting from zero, going up against the big dogs, dreaming about Afro Jack at the time was, was like the person that I heard his music and I was like, wow, one day I'm going to get signed by this guy, he's going to, he's going to know my name, he's going to play my music. And this was a guy making like little bullshit tunes on Fruity Loops at the time. So I was like, you know, Fruity.
[00:42:35] Speaker B: Loops, dude, I. I haven't used that thing for years. Fruity Loops. I remember that.
[00:42:41] Speaker A: It was insane for me to even be thinking that, right? But it ended up happening three, four years later, which is just freaking insane, man. Like, it was, it was. I remember, I remember it happening was actually on the, on the way to my. I was on the train to work in that three month window that I was working for that property valuation firm.
And when it happened I'm like, nah, fuck this job, I'm done with this, you know.
And I went to Uni for three years for it as well. So again, just. I feel like pretty much everything I do in my life there's some kind of defiance or defiant nature involved with it. And yeah, I just chose the name and I ran with it enough and I love it, man. It's, it's how, it's. It's part of how, how we are as a company too, you know, just always trying to do something different and, and yeah, it's gone against the grain.
[00:43:32] Speaker B: And Defy the odds. It's a unifying name too. It's a, it's a, it's a unifying brand. Have you seen the Defiant Ones? The documentary?
[00:43:38] Speaker A: Yeah, I saw that actually. That was probably, that was probably ar that, that probably solidified the name for me even More.
[00:43:45] Speaker B: How good is it? Man, that scene, that scene where Dr. Dre meets Eminem for the first time, it's just mind blowing. He just puts on that loop and Marsha just sits down in Dre's studio and he's just like, my name is. My name is. And they instantly look at each other and they're like, holy, man. We've just. We've like 30 seconds in and we've got a hit. This is incredible. We've got to record this right now. Such a great doc. The Defiant Ones.
[00:44:10] Speaker A: Check it out.
[00:44:11] Speaker B: If you haven't already, dude. What are you most excited about over the coming months, apart from the fact that you've just had twin baby girls? Congratulations. What are you most excited about? With Defiant.
[00:44:22] Speaker A: With Defiant. So, yeah, really obviously being in a position now where I'm focused a lot on growing the business and I'm not really too involved in the weeds day to day. Don't get me wrong, I still know everything that's going on in the agency, top to bottom. I get reports, I see everything and I can spot certain things in the agency. But really, I'm in a place now where it's all growth. It's all about growth. So we have our.
We're building our sales team at the moment. We have two people on the sales team right now as it stands, and in January, we're bringing on our third. So really we're just going for growth this year, sorry, next year, in 2025. And that's what I'm really pumped about is being able to spend a lot of time with that team and just take the agency to new heights that we haven't seen before. And I don't know what the future holds. I don't really like to set long term goals, to be honest with you.
I don't know. I just like to play it a bit more shorter term and just be flexible to where we're heading. I know for sure, definitely next year. As I said, we are a remote company, but next year we're going to be basically having a content studio or like a warehouse of some sort. I don't know exactly what it looks like yet, but that's on the cards for next year and just a really creative space for us to not. No one's going to really work there. It's just going to be more about going in, creating, doing our own podcast. So I'll have to have you on, mate. For sure.
[00:45:50] Speaker B: Yeah, for sure, man.
[00:45:51] Speaker A: When we get to that stage.
[00:45:52] Speaker B: But anytime.
[00:45:53] Speaker A: Yeah. Some cool things in the pipeline, man. But look, I'm just enjoying the day by day at the moment. I've worked so hard to. To get it to this point, and I'm just. Yeah, I'm just comfortable and enjoying it day by day. And seeing the team grow, watching them get great results, to me, it's. It's a. It's a good moment.
[00:46:09] Speaker B: Unreal, dude. Such an inspiration. Congratulations on everything you've achieved so far, and I'm definitely looking forward to following the journey and seeing what you do next. Jamie Kratharis, thank you so much for being on the Agency Hour.
[00:46:20] Speaker A: Appreciate it, mate. Thanks so much for having me.
[00:46:24] Speaker B: Thanks for listening to the Agency Hour podcast and a massive thanks to Jamie for joining us. I'm definitely getting him back for version two and three and more of that episode. He's a wealth of knowledge and there's so much to unpack. Okay, folks, please subscribe and please share this with anyone you think may need to hear it. I'm Troy Dean, and remember Steve Aoki was once one of the top 250 chess players in the world.
