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Verbatim text
Lee:
Welcome to the Agency Trailblazer Podcast. This is an Agency Life episode coming to you every Wednesday and Friday, where we interview an agency owner from around the world asking them the same questions because we’re all different, but we’re all the same. So let’s listen and learn from each other. Before we kick off the show, here is a word from our sponsor.
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Lee:
Hi and welcome to another episode of Hashtag Agency Life. And on today’s show we have the one and the only, Mr. Jamie Hill. How are you, sir?
Jamie Hill:
I’m doing wonderful. Yeah. I don’t think the world could handle another me. So I think we’re good with just one.
Lee:
I don’t think there’s another. At least you’re not called John Smith. Because that’d be awkward for you, wouldn’t it? Oh, that.
Jamie Hill:
Would be terrible.
Lee:
So many John Smiths. And I’ve actually always wondered, you know, if there is a real Mr. and Mrs. Smith out there who check into a hotel and their names are really Mr. and Mrs. Smith, whether or not they get, like, all these dodgy looks like.
Jamie Hill:
Oh, probably. Oh, Mr. Smith. Yeah.
Lee:
It’ll be so annoying, wouldn’t it?
Jamie Hill:
Everywhere they go.
Lee:
Anyway, before this instantly goes off in the wrong direction. Welcome to agency life. You know the format. We’re going to hit you with a whole load of questions, and you’re going to give awesome answers. So are you ready to rock and roll?
Jamie Hill:
I’m ready. And I appreciate you having me.
Lee:
And I appreciate you being on me. All right. Well, let’s go for it. And your first question is tell us the name of your agency and what it is that you folks do.
Jamie Hill:
Sure. Our agency name is Innovate Marketing with one N. Um, and we are a mainly a marketing company, but we also do provide website design, um, with a focus on internet marketing. So social media marketing, PPC, SEO, things like that.
Lee:
Awesome. And if we were all going to get together and have a fun day out, I don’t know, hire some a bouncy castle and all of that good stuff. When would your birthday be and what day would you be doing your birthday party?
Jamie Hill:
That’s a really good question. So Inovait was actually founded back in 2006. Uh, January 23rd, 2006. I purchased it in August 5th, uh, 2012 2013. Excuse me. So it’s got two birth dates. Actually. It gets it gets two parents giving it prizes and gifts.
Lee:
Yeah, well, happy two birthdays and and just slightly off topic, I think you’ve, you’ve also bought other companies in as well haven’t you. I have as well. So you are a little bit addicted to buying companies which is really cool.
Jamie Hill:
Much to my wife’s dismay. Yes, I love buying companies and selling them or eating them into bringing them into the fold, I hear.
Lee:
Yes, I’m like most guys would be in trouble for, I don’t know, maybe buying a I can’t think of anything that you’d get into trouble for. Maybe, I don’t know, too much beer. or maybe they’ve bought a season ticket for the game or something, and you actually just come home with a company, say, hi, honey, I bought a company today.
Jamie Hill:
I’ve done that in the past, and I. Yeah. Hey, I bought this company today. Have fun.
Lee:
Why the hell not? Well, let’s learn all about your setup. Let’s learn about your team. So the question for this section is going to be how many people do you have in your team?
Jamie Hill:
Sure. So we have we actually have a total of 37 people. Uh, 29 of them are actually employed directly by the company. The rest of them are subcontracted, even though they only work for me. Um, they’re due to their needs. They’re on a subcontracted level. Um, the majority of them are veterans in the US. We very rarely hire overseas. Nothing against overseas providers. It’s just I’m a veteran and I want to put them back to work. So, um, that’s that’s kind of the makeup of our team. And then every one of our marketing teams, social media teams, they’re all broke up into teams, so we don’t have a whole lot of one guy. Does ten different jobs. We want to keep it segmented and nice and easy for everybody.
Lee:
That’s a whole lot of people.
Jamie Hill:
That is a whole lot of people. Payroll is insane. Taxes are insane.
Lee:
I can imagine, and you’ve still kept under that hat, folks, is an amazing head of hair.
Jamie Hill:
Yes, just just a few grey grey hairs. Not too many.
Lee:
I don’t have that many people, and I’ve lost all my hair. But anyway. Well, let’s move on then. So, um, for 37 people, how do you structure the office? Do you have a physical office where all 37 people come along, or are you spread around the world? How does it work?
Jamie Hill:
Yeah. So we we actually the majority of our employees work from their own home. They’re virtual offices. We do have a physical location in Wisconsin. Uh, we’ve got three sales reps come in and work directly out of this location. Yeah, my wife, my me, and then my son, who’s our our VA. Um, well, one of our VA’s. He works from here as well. But but the majority of people are virtual at their house and and with a lot of them being veterans coming back with either injuries or PTSD, it works great for them because they don’t have to get out every day. They can stay where they’re comfortable and and easily accessible. If there’s physical injuries or if they need to go to the VA for whatever it is. They’re not punching a clock. They’re they’re working their own time, whatever they need.
Lee:
I do think that it’s incredible that we’re able to do that. You’re able to be a company with 37 employees and not have to have a massive office location and all of the extra costs that come with that, and also all the extra stress that for them of all commuting in and all trying to get in. And it also, I assume, allows you to pick from a wider pool within the US because you’re not stuck to your localised area, you’re able to find vets from all around the USA. So you’re getting the best talent as well, which I think is freaking awesome.
Jamie Hill:
Yeah, that’s a big part of it. And the other big part of it is a lot of these veterans, they they live in a very rural area. So if I were to open up a physical location and everybody had to work from my office versus telemarketer teller working, um, it would be impossible to get the, the skill set, the pool of skill set I have right now. Because where I live, we don’t I mean, very few of my employees actually live within 60 miles of me. Most of them are Texas, California, Seattle, things like that. Yeah.
Lee:
That’s cool. So if you could try and then describe the culture that you have as a business, kind of how you all work together, what the team culture would be.
Jamie Hill:
Yeah, I mean, we’re super family oriented. I mean, all of my kids work in the business one way or another. Obviously, my wife and I run the business. Um, and we, we really push to keep family involved. Um, I would rather get a phone call from one of my employees saying, hey, I got to take off today. I need somebody to cover x, y, z. Because my son’s got a football game and instead of me cussing him out, it’s like, yeah man, go do your football game. Um, we’re very family friendly. Very. We push towards that family. And if and we have a lot of vets that come in that don’t have a family and then we become that family for them. Um, there’s, I’ve, I’ve sat through sessions with some of our vets that are just having some personal time off the off the clock and just conversating with them. So for us and for me, it was always about creating a company that had a lot of integrity, a lot of honour, and having that family lifestyle that that actually cared about the family, not just said, we care about your family, but we don’t really actually caring about their family and making sure everything lines up with that.
Lee:
I love it and you guys are really consistent with that message. We interviewed Jaime’s wife, um, just a few weeks ago. I’ll make sure we put a link in the show notes so you can go ahead and listen to that episode. It was a brilliant episode. And, Um. I love how your business mate does focus on family. I’m loving what you’ve just described with regards to your employees being family and actually being family. It’s not just something you say and your wife was explaining how you do the same with your your your clients as well, actually making them feel like family, celebrating things with them, those milestones and actually getting to know them. So oh yeah, a really consistent and I find it really inspiring. And I absolutely love that about you guys as well. I was saying, I was saying saying at the beginning before we started recording, one of the things I love about you is you’re really down to earth. There’s no crap. You just do you and you’re honest and we really love that about you.
Lee:
So. But anyway, I’ll stop buttering you up. The camera might not be able to fit your head in after a little while.
Jamie Hill:
That’s right. It’s just grow it a little bit bigger.
Lee:
Let’s talk about your mission then. And I’d be interested. Have you guys kind of evolved a particular niche or a particular industry that you work in nowadays?
Jamie Hill:
Yeah, we actually work with with four major niches. I mean, obviously we will work with, with anybody, but our biggest niches that we work with are wedding companies, lawyers, dentists, home improvement companies. Those are the biggest companies we have. We’re starting to grow our real estate branch out. Um, but I have a lot of experience in the construction fields, um, as well as the home, the wedding industry. My wife and I own another company that’s really does a lot with weddings, photobooths, bounce houses, things like that. Yeah. Um, and then just we kind of fell into the dentist and lawyer niches. That’s just kind of happened. And then they grew. So we were converting some really nice numbers for them, and it just kept growing with new clients on those. Um, and those are our major initiatives. Um, our mission is we never want to see a small business closed down due to lack of having access to a marketing or a web design company.
Jamie Hill:
Yeah. Um, you know, a lot of our clients are clients that have come over from these, you know, lovely emails. Hey, $300 and I’ll get you number one. Um. And I hate a I hate hearing those stories, but B, I never want to see a business closed down because they did not have access to the tools or the programmes they need. So, I mean, obviously I’m going to see them happen regardless, but I want to take it every day. I want to at least help another business, not close.
Lee:
I think I had the very email just yesterday, again, through my contact forms, is the same sorts of emails. You know, just for $300, we will get you to number one or we will build you a new website or whatever it is. So they’re so frustrating and but I love I love your ethos, man. Um, what do you think then? I mean, you’ve already described a problem that you solve with people, which is helping the small businesses. And what do you think is the main problem that you solve for all of your clients generally? So what? What if you could put it down to one thing to represent everyone? What do you think you guys are solving for people?
Jamie Hill:
Time. Time issues. Um, these these small business owners, anybody anybody under 2.5 million is usually our sweet spot. They don’t have time, or they’re spending all their time doing their web design or their marketing, which means they’re spending less time with their family. And then again, tying back into how our culture is. Anytime that somebody has to spend less time with their family, I really dislike. So by us taking that stress off of them, they’re now able to go to their kids football games, soccer games, whatever it is without, oh man, how am I going to pay for this? How am I going to put a roof over my kid’s head? How am I going to keep roofing clients coming in, whatever, whatever their niche is?
Lee:
Yeah, you’ve really got to work hard at making me not like you. Because, like, everything you say, I’m just like, ah.
Jamie Hill:
But you know, what can I say now?
Lee:
Just keep being nice. I don’t deal well, I don’t deal well. When people are mean to me, I cry. Yeah. All right, well, let’s go try.
Jamie Hill:
But I don’t like it.
Lee:
Let’s get into the marketing then of your agency. And how do you folks generate your leads?
Jamie Hill:
Yeah. So we’ve got four, four major areas that we generate our leads. Obviously we run PPC and Facebook ads. We kind of be a terrible marketing company if we didn’t. Um, we have our organic SEO that runs on us. That’s more our local clients find us that way through Google. Um, and then we get a lot of referrals. A good chunk of our business is referrals. Actually. I’m sorry. There’s five. Uh, we have our cold calling team, which generates a lot of leads for us. And then the other major way is I’m part of a lot of masterminds, and I work a lot with other agency owners as they’re struggling with things that we’ve already figured out or kind of have started to figure out. Um, and then that’s where a lot of our, like, white label business comes in from those guys. Uh, you know, like WP elevation, your group, other groups like that I’m all a part of and stay fairly active when I have time.
Lee:
Absolutely. And just recently you became one of the advisers, didn’t you? What’s the official title within the WP?
Jamie Hill:
Flight instructor.
Lee:
The flight instructor that I knew there was a special name for it, but I couldn’t remember. But again, that’s just a testament to the success and also the amount of time that you do put that you put a lot of time and energy in helping all of the communities, so we really appreciate it. You’ll also find me inside of the agency trailblazer community as well. That’s our Facebook group as well as the paid community as well. You’re rocking and rolling in there. So you you practise what you preach. I try. And again, we we’re very similar to you. We’re in a lot of the same masterminds. And yeah, we do tend to generate a lot online as well. I don’t do the PPC, I don’t do cold calling. I look to you to be my advisor in all of those things. Oh, yeah. For sure. And if I remember, I’ll try and put a link to your cold calling course as well, because you’ve got one on Udemy, which I’ve been sending out to quite a few people.
Lee:
So we’ll try and remember to put that in there as well, because that is definitely something that freaks me out like crazy.
Jamie Hill:
I have that, and I’m getting ready to launch an advanced course here in the.
Lee:
Oh, nice.
Jamie Hill:
And a half. So brilliant. Building off of it even more.
Lee:
Well, in that course, Jamie lays it all out, talking about, you know, just having a plan and the kind of the structure of the call as well, which is something I never really thought of. I just kind of call people with my little squeaky voice because I sound like a teenager freaking out, trying to get trying to get something, and that’s never going to work. So I definitely recommend that. All right. So success, how do you measure success? That could be you personally. It could be you as a business, however you want to answer that I have no particular persuasion.
Jamie Hill:
We we measure success. I mean, obviously our CFO measures success on how well our revenue is doing, but I personally and so does my wife. We measure our success on how many veterans we were able to employ for that year, how many small businesses we brought on, and not just because of the revenue, but the longer they’re with us, the longer we know they’re going to be in business. And that’s. And are we able to do like with my son, give him a position at 17 years old where he’s now making more money than a lot of 22 year olds make. That’s how we measure our success on that. I mean, the revenue is always nice. I mean, you know, I’ve got to pay bills, so I have to have that. But that’s not a main driver of our of our figuring out if we were successful for the quarter or the, the year or anything like that. Yeah.
Lee:
So quite a lot of touch points. A lot of them, though, are very much based around people and helping people achieve goals. That’s businesses and also your family members, the people that you employ, etc., helping them achieve what they want in life. Correct. Yeah. Which is again, really cool because obviously money is important because you need it to do those things. But it’s not the driver. The driver. Right. Actually, you know, those those those people I love it. Well, let’s talk about um, well, actually, no, let’s go into confession time because I nearly jumped that you nearly got away with it. Yeah. So just consider this. I know this is getting old. I say it every time, but it’s just you and me and a few thousand people around the world. Your secret is safe with us. Sure. And the question is, what is the biggest problem you have as a business?
Jamie Hill:
Micromanaging all of my.
Lee:
That’s your biggest problem?
Jamie Hill:
Oh, the business problem.
Lee:
Oh, no. Well that’s fine if micromanaging is your biggest problem. Tell me about it. This is brilliant.
Jamie Hill:
Yeah, I don’t I don’t like to give up things. And I have a management team, and I have a C level team, and they all. I try to do their jobs and it’s. I have to realise, you know, I’m paying out those salaries for a reason. Yeah. The only person that I do not micromanage. And that’s just because I’m scared to death of her is my wife. I know, um, she.
Lee:
She.
Jamie Hill:
Slightly terrifies me. So she’s, uh, she’s one of the few people I don’t micromanage, but I’m getting better. Um, two years ago, I was terrible. I had very little trust. And it wasn’t that I didn’t trust my employees, I just I didn’t. It was more of a personal thing. I didn’t I didn’t trust them as much as I should have. And I’ve gotten a lot better with that. Um, I had a stroke last year, in 2017. So I had a major stroke and then seven minor strokes shortly after that, and I was out of work for three and a half months with just just a few touch points with my team, and they rocked it. And that was like really the big turning point of like, okay, these guys know what they’re doing. I’ve trained them properly. I need to let them. I need to let them out of the nest and see if they, you know, can fly or fall. And they flew. So, um, it’s still something that I catch myself doing, especially with my, my sales team, because I’m more involved with them than most of the other part of the business.
Jamie Hill:
But I’m still getting better at it, so.
Lee:
Well, I mean, sorry, very sorry to hear about the strokes, but I do believe good things always come, don’t they? From even things that could be terrible. And that’s awesome that you are able to to find that that out about your team. Yeah.
Jamie Hill:
There’s always a silver lining no matter what what it is.
Lee:
Absolutely. I believe that every single time. Totally agree. Well, let’s talk about your well-being and we’ll will will position these questions as just at you. Okay. This is just you now as the co-owner of your agency. Um, how do you personally switch off?
Jamie Hill:
Um, I don’t I that’s fine.
Lee:
That’s also a valid answer.
Jamie Hill:
Eat, live and breathe. Innovate. Marketing. Um, and I do that just because that’s how I do with my with my businesses. Any business I own. Um, now, that doesn’t mean I don’t spend time with my kids or that, but I’m a very I’m a very analytical kind of guy. So a lot of the ways that I think of things are I’m thinking of two different things at the same time. And I’m just that’s just how it goes. And my kids are all they’re always involved in it. So a lot of times, even over the dinner table, we’re talking about what they’ve done or. Yeah, or what what’s coming up or things like that.
Lee:
But is it safe to say that as this is your passion anyway, it feels like something. It feels like it’s something that you don’t necessarily have to switch off from anyway. Yeah.
Jamie Hill:
Yeah. And a lot of that’s just because I’m in the groups. So. And I don’t sleep that that much. So I sleep for about four hours a night. Um, and so I’m answering questions on in the groups and, and talking about things I love. So it’s not actually work. It’s, it’s just a passion of mine.
Lee:
I definitely want you to get more sleep, though. Unless you have, like, some inhuman ability to survive for hours.
Jamie Hill:
Yeah, it’s darn near. I mean, well, that’s that’s the Navy. That’s from being in the Navy. Um, yeah. I just don’t sleep that much. I, I go to bed about midnight and I’m back up at, you know, three, 4:00 in the morning, and that’s rolling again.
Lee:
So you have my respect. I go to bed at about, uh, 10 or 11. I’m usually up at 430, 5:00, but I kind of need my 6 to 7 hours. Otherwise I’m no use to no one.
Jamie Hill:
That is how my wife is. She gets anything less than those seven hours. She’s like, uh, I ain’t doing it today.
Lee:
Yeah, I hear you. I feel her pain. All right, well, now that we found out that, you know, you are able to survive on so little sleep, you’re obviously you’re in the business a lot. You’re thinking about the business a lot, and obviously you’ve got this family time as well. Um, are you able to find ways of of keeping healthy as well? So be it through food, exercise, that sort of thing.
Jamie Hill:
I’m doing better. Um, I’ll, I have a lot of health issues that don’t directly involve the company. They’re they’re they’re not because of the company. They were because of of things that happened when I was in the Navy. Um, and up until last year, I just kind of ignored a lot of what my doctor said. They said this. I just kind of didn’t do it. Um, I, I took I started taking the doctors very seriously after March of last year, and I’ve dropped, you know, I’ve dropped weight. I’ve never been a heavy guy, but I had a little bit of a beer belly going on, so I started losing weight. Um, working out more. I don’t eat as much. Nearly as much red meat as I used to, things like that. So? So I try to do what the doctors say. Much like micromanaging, it’s not something I do very well. But I’m getting better at it.
Lee:
Well, that is a very valid way of starting to stay healthy, which is follow the doctor’s advice and start to cut certain things out. Because I think we’re very busy, aren’t we? And sometimes it’s near impossible to, or it feels near impossible to actually make time for things like physical exercise. But even if we can start to change our diet, that’s something that doesn’t require us to change our time load, does it? Just eating something different. So that’s, you know, not.
Jamie Hill:
Exactly cutting out red meat. I mean, I used to steak 2 or 3 times a week, things like that, cutting out red meat to once every other week. I just felt so much better after that. And that was just a simple changing of what I’m eating. I it didn’t cost me any more time. It was just a simple matter of my wife making less red meat for dinner. So I agree, you know, if you can pick up something that’s just low impact or I mean low time, high impact, start with that and just just keep moving on from there.
Lee:
Amen.
Lee:
We are literally down to our last question now. And this is always difficult because people can’t necessarily choose one. But I’m trying to get hoops, trying to get people to find or pick one tool that they believe has been essential to their businesses success and why. Can you think of anything?
Jamie Hill:
Teamwork. Teamwork has been the project manager. Yep. Sorry. Teamwork. The project management system. Yeah. That has been one of that. Has been one of the very. That was the very first tool I bought when I purchased the company. Right. And that has saved our bacon. I can’t tell you how many times because our teams can just look at it and everybody can see what’s going on. They see what needs to happen. If anybody’s late, they can. They can step in and back to that family thing. They can step in and help out what’s going on. You know, so for us, teamwork project management system has got to be by far the best tool that we use, and it would be the last tool, like if I started losing money, that would be the last tool I cut off. I would get rid of Infusionsoft and all kind of other programmes. Teamwork would be the last to go.
Lee:
And teamwork is it. You’re using it for the PM? Are you using teamwork for like the desk as well? For the help desk?
Speaker 4
All of it. Yeah.
Jamie Hill:
So we don’t use the chat part of it, but we use the other functions that they have the desk, the project management. Yeah. Um, you know, the tasks, all of that stuff.
Lee:
Awesome. So teamwork, folks. Got to check it out. You’re not the first person to recommend that there. I know a lot of people who really, really love teamwork, and it works really well for their agency.
Jamie Hill:
If you guys have never used teamwork before, they have a programme. It’s called, uh, teamwork for Start-Ups. You don’t have to actually be a Start-Up company, but they will give you a free year if you’ve never used teamwork before and you’re not trying to add in 150 projects. So if you want to play with it, just go in there, email them, email their support desk and say, I want teamwork for Start-Ups and they’ll hook you up if you’ve never had it before.
Lee:
And that is on teamwork.com forward slash Start-Ups because I googled it just then.
Lee:
There you go.
Lee:
Well, mate, you’ve been brilliant. I’ve loved learning about your business. Thank you for the top tip on teamwork, especially the Start-Up tip. So teamwork.com forward slash Start-Ups. How can people connect with you? And then we will say goodbye.
Jamie Hill:
Yeah. I mean they can reach out to me on Facebook. I’m pretty active on there. Um, or they can shoot me an email if there’s any questions that Jamie Jamie at innovate one and. Uh marketing.com.
Lee:
Awesome.
Lee:
Thank you. Jamie with one M. It’s been a pleasure to chat with you and have an awesome day.
Jamie Hill:
Oh. Thank you.
Lee:
Cheerio. All right buddy.
