Note: This transcript was auto generated then some poor soul sat and listened to it, and followed through correcting any mistakes they spotted. Please however expect human error and shout if you spot an issue. Email: lee [fancy curly symbol] trailblazer.fm.
Verbatim text
Lee:
Welcome to the WP Innovator Podcast, the podcast for web designers and design agencies, exploring the world of WordPress and online business. And now your host, Lee Jackson.
Lee:
Hi, and welcome to episode number 74 of the WP Innovator Podcast. Can’t believe it, 74. So we’re like 26 episodes. Yes, I can do the maths. 26 episodes from 100. I kind of, I feel excited about this. This is amazing. And you know what? Just to get started, if you’re thinking about podcasting, then my recommendation is start because I was an idiot and I planned this podcast in something like 2014 and actually only ended up starting it in December of 2015. So if you had started when I was thinking about starting, we could have been way into the hundreds. Anyway, that was totally off topic. Now in today’s show, we’ve got Brent Weaver from Ugurus or Ugurus or Ugurus.com. And in this episode, we’re going to be talking about essentially how to run the agency that you want to run. So it’s not necessarily about running what you think an agency should be. It’s actually running the agency that you want to run. So it’s a really, really good episode full of value. And also stay tuned because at some point there is a free gift for WP Innovative listeners to the value of $197. The only good thing about this call is it means, it means that I get this really deep voice and I really like it. All right, guys, sit back, relax, enjoy the ride. Again, if you’re driving, you know the score, focus on the road. Have a great day and enjoy the show.
Lee:
And today you’re with me, Lee and Mr. Brent Weaver. Mate, how are you doing today?
Brent:
I’m good. Today’s a Friday and I’ve had lots of coffee and had a couple of really awesome meetings with some great entrepreneurs. And now I’m on your podcast and I’m going to probably go home happy today.
Lee:
Well, that’s kind of like the sweetener, isn’t it? You know, you’ve had a productive day and then you get to win the WP Innovator podcast. How cool is that?
Brent:
I know. And I’ve, this is, this is my last interview of the week and I’m like, I’m pumped.
Lee:
Sweet. I thought you were going to say you’d had like a whiskey or something just to get started.
Brent:
Maybe I should have. I don’t know. Is that where we’re going today, Lee?
Lee:
Well, people do know that every now and again, I do have a little tipple now and again whilst I’m on a podcast. You’re safe today. Don’t worry. I’ve just done a whole lot of exercise. So it’s like not a good time to drink alcohol. But there might have been the odd time where I do get a little bit giggly. Not on purpose. And I don’t have a problem. There’s not had to be an intervention as yet on the Facebook group, but you know, we’re good. Guys, if you don’t know who Brent is, he is from Ugurus. Ugurus. Ugurus, mate. How do you say it? Ugurus. But you know what, Lee? However you say it is how we’ll say it, right? So that’s the right one. However, yeah, we had to, um, one time we, this is a side story. I know you were giving me like this, this intro, but we had a, a VA and she couldn’t say the name of the business because she was calling people. And my business partner was like, man, you know, we have this issue with people saying the business name and, you know, maybe we should try to change the name because people always screw it up. And I was like, or maybe that’s just like a really good hiring test of if you can’t say the business name, then you’re not a good fit for the company. So, um, we’ve kind of gone more that direction, but I, I’m cool with anything. It’s a good job. You didn’t like flounce off the podcast, isn’t it? Because I pronounced it wrong. I was like, no, I’m not doing this podcast. You got my name wrong. Yeah. We’re, we’re, we’re all comfy there. Um, I, I, speaking of pronunciation, I was watching this thing the other day. I think it’s a new product called design block, uh, which is like a Canva clone, but the lady who was doing the video kept saying design block. It was just driving me insane watching the video to the extent, whereas I never actually went and tried it. So pronunciation is key, man. We actually are, if you want to think about it this way, we focus very much on, on the you. So we know a lot of people out there like to create the, the, the blueprints and the follow my way and you’ll reach all of the success in the world. And our approach is a little bit different in that we start with you and what you want out of your business. And then we make sure that we tailor the experience in our programs to you because some people don’t want the 15 person agency. Some people want to work 20 hours a week and run a business and make more money than they would if they, uh, had a full-time job. Some people, um, you know, want to sell and do WordPress projects. Some people want to build apps on top of WordPress. Some people, um, you know, want to work in this market or that market. And so we find that the one size fits all programs, uh, really aren’t for us. So when we think about our brand and what we do at Ugurus, it’s, we start with the you. That is so refreshing to hear because a lot of the times people will create a coursework and then just think, all right, everyone wants to be a big agency with a great London office and 50 staff and massive contracts. And I think the one that appealed to me was the one where you’re working 20 hours a week. I would love that 20 hours a week. And the rest of the time in Disney world would just be heaven for me. And if I could actually shave five hours off that 20, then, you know, I’m a happy boy.
Brent:
I mean, I, my own, my own background, I, I started and we can get into this, but, uh, I created the business that I thought I was supposed to. And I got into a lot of trouble.
Lee:
Do tell us about that because I watched your video on the about page, by the way, the guys, if you go to ugurus.com at any time, you can go find out more, but anyway, tell us your story about that agency. Cause it’s a brilliant story.
Brent:
So when, I mean, there was definitely a time when we first started out that we were having to kind of scrape by and find those, those first few clients and kind of figure some stuff out. But then, you know, uh, probably not much more than a year in of doing the business full time, we were landing some really nice five figure deals, 20, $30,000 accounts. Um, maybe even $50,000 accounts. We had, um, uh, one of our clients was a billion dollar oil company and they just could not get enough of what we were doing for their company. Cause all of their technology, uh, was built in like the seventies. So they had like, uh, a never ending list of problems. Um, and so they were great. Uh, and then we had another, um, a really awesome nonprofit association that, uh, really just found us and trusted us. And we built a lot of their, uh, event management systems. And I mean, they were paying us lots and lots of money every year. And then we started kind of chasing everything. And I was at the time we were running our business out of our, our house. And again, super low costs, low overhead. And, uh, I remember to this day, this guy came over, um, and I’ll have to remember what there was, it was like something like, uh, David and Goliath or some, some brand around David and Goliath and that whole, it’s called slingshot or something like that. Anyways, investment company, seven or $8,000 opportunity. And we get to the proposal presentation point and he says, Oh, well, I I’d like to come over to your office and, you know, have you present to me the solution there and see if we’re a fit. So he comes over to our, you know, home office or whatever. And, you know, he was kind of like, well, I just thought you guys were bigger. I thought you were. And at the time I was kind of already a little bit insecure about that. And maybe some of your listeners can, um, relate to that of the home office kind of insecurity. So he kind of calls us out on not being this big company. And maybe he thought that cause at the time, again, we were probably creating this, this image out there like, Oh, we’re this big agency or whatever. And kind of compensating for what we thought at the time were weaknesses. So this guy comes over and basically says, you know, you guys, I can’t move forward with you cause you’re not, you know, again, this is a seven or $8,000 website project. And he’s telling us that we’re not some big agency. Of course, if you would have gone to a agency with, you know, it wouldn’t have been seven or eight. Yeah, it wouldn’t have been seven. But that let’s just put that over in a box. I didn’t have a good objection handle to that. And I, and honestly, I, I believe that that was a weakness myself. Like it was a belief in me that working remote, being lean, being bootstrapped was a weakness. And when he called me out on that, it was like validating this belief that I already had. And so what we did was we started to make decisions and make moves to become more of what I’d put in, you can’t see me, but in air quotes, a legitimate agency. So we got the downtown office, the two-tone paint, the frosted glass front door window with our logo on it, the flat panel TV in the conference room with the, I think we spent like $5,000 on this cherry oak table and all of these chairs and these couches. And, you know, I mean, even just getting the ethernet ran for our company was, you know, five or $6,000. And we, you know, just all of these expenses started piling up and then, you know, okay, now we have an office, we better fill it with employees. Right. So, um, you know, so we started making all of these decisions, uh, that led to kind of this, I call it my, my $3 in the bank account moment where we owed way too much money to way too many people. And the business was basically failing.
Lee:
I’ve had the exact same problem.
Brent:
Hopefully not right now, Lee.
Lee:
No, no, I’ve had it. Now we’re fine. We’ve learned the lessons. Um, but I just remember practically nothing in the bank and thousands owed in supplier debt, as well as the government waving saying, Hey, don’t forget about us. And we were just like, Oh my gosh. Cause we just grew, uh, you know, too fast at one point. Thankfully we, we traded out of it and we were fine, but my gosh, was it scary at that time? I mean, the, uh, we actually were, we were, we were juggling between, uh, internet providers because we couldn’t pay for our T1 anymore. So we’re like, all right, well, let’s just let that bill ride and they’ll cut that service off eventually. So let’s just go sign up with another internet provider. I don’t know. I don’t know if this is like making me look good. Um, talking about this.
Lee:
It sounds like bouncing credit cards, bouncing internet providers. What, you know, I look at what we were doing and we stopped believing and maybe we just didn’t understand it, but we didn’t understand or believe in the value that we really provided. We thought that everybody that reached out to us on our contact form was a prospect that we should pursue. And because of that mindset, we went from these really nice 20, 30, 40, $50,000 deals, uh, where in super low overhead to, um, you know, if, if, uh, uh, you know, we were trying to build websites for 1500 to 2000 bucks because we kept getting all of these year two expenses and things like that. And we, we were literally trying to pursue every opportunity as a customer. And what that did to us was just ratcheted down our confidence in our belief in what we did and our understanding of the value we provided in the marketplace. Um, slowly, you know, over a year or two from, you know, five figure deals to basically like small four figure deals. And we were trying to support, uh, a team on that. We were, we had significant overhead of, you know, definitely 30, 40, 50 K a month. And it takes a lot of $2,000 projects to, to, to, to make that work. So we were, you know, extending credit or just as owners, not living a super great lifestyle at the time. And I think it was in that moment where I said, we need, we need help. We, we can’t, um, we’re doing something wrong. Our business acumen, and we were great designers, great developers by trade growing up and super passionate about that stuff. But we did not ever have a business education. I didn’t go to business school. I never worked for anybody else. Um, I was kind of inventing my own style of business, uh, as we went. And that was, that was a huge mistake.
Lee:
I think one of the things I can empathize here as well is when you’ve got that burden of money owed out, your decision-making process gets really, really clouded. So when someone’s waving a grand at you, you’re kind of like, yeah, we’ll take that grand regardless of what it is you actually have to do for that grand as well. And that’s one of the things that we were doing, which is building up and building up all of these really time intensive projects for very low amounts of money. So, I mean, it sounds bleak now, man. How did you get out of that?
Brent:
Well, uh, the first thing that we did was realize that we needed to, just like what you’re saying, we needed to create some breathing room. Uh, and at the time, uh, you know, debts are one thing, but if you can’t pay your team to keep the lights on and, and keep your internet going to the office and you know, your basic rent, right. Then, then you’ve got an issue and you’re kind of done. So we, basically took on some debt at the time. I’m not saying debts for everyone. Uh, I was probably avoiding some hard decisions that I probably should have made at the time, but, uh, without Monday morning quarterbacking, we, we’ve got some breathing room. We got some cash into the business and we were able to kind of get current on, uh, the essentials and then have enough breathing room where we, we could at least say no to those, uh, time bombs, right? The, I think at the time I remember this one account, called mill sir. It was this guy that was in the military and he essentially had us build like a Craigslisty type website for the military. Um, so you could buy and sell like, you know, extra stuff that you have, uh, and he paid us something like $5,000. Right. And this was, this project ended up taking us 250 hours because it was just over promised needed to cat. And that’s the thing. It’s like, we actually ended up with, you know, having to pay money to developers to, to finish the project way more than what he paid us. So that project actually cost us money. Like, and it’s the illusion of cash in the door, any cash will do. So that breathing money, the debt essentially gave us a little bit of a runway to start to say no to that stuff and start to ask better questions of, Hey, we’ve had these like really awesome clients in the past. What, what is it about them that makes them awesome? What market are they in? How much revenue are they doing a year? How many employees do they have? Is there anything, any kind of patterns that we can find that are true about those types of companies and how do we start to, uh, put ourselves into the position of being around those people more often? And what we really found was the people that were draining the life out of our company was the self-employed starters. I have an idea. I have a small business. I’m doing 30 K a year, 50 K a year, whatever. Uh, and I, and I need a website. Uh, and those, those people, we just, we just turned off the spigot. It was like, you know, unless you were venture backed, um, or you were a highly successful entrepreneur in the past and you had a proven track record and you had, you know, money built up from those businesses. I mean, if somebody comes to you and says, Hey, you know, I, I’ve run multi, you know, multimillion dollar businesses and I’m starting my next big thing. I don’t have a business. It’s, it’s not set up yet, but you know, I have plenty of cash reserves to start this company and I have proven track record. Okay. That guy I’m happy to work with. But the person that’s like, I have this idea, how much would it cost to help me build my, yeah, it was like, okay, that stuff was just done. And the solopreneurs we were just done with. And we started to just identify that, that established businesses doing, you know, at least a million dollars in revenue per year or nonprofit organizations that were doing at least a million dollars in grants or donations per year. Um, those were the types of businesses we want to work with. So like a blunt instrument of just revenue and employees was like our first venture into, uh, qualification and market constraints.
Lee:
That’s brilliant. I think when we started to do that as well, we started to actually build back that confidence in ourselves again, like realizing that we actually are really good at what we do and what we do is super high value. Um, therefore it is worth people paying for it. And you do find don’t you that the small companies who don’t have much money want to get the most out of that small amount of money, which usually ends up you being totally drained by them because you have to try and get everything you can possibly give. And if people are wondering, by the way, I’m actually talking about the old agency. We were, so I was in an old agency. I eventually moved out of that agency and started angle crown, which actually supports agencies. Um, but the, uh, yeah, this was back about eight years ago and it was, it was a struggle, but it’s, it’s lived with me ever since as a positive.
Lee:
Um, with regards to the, like you, you went out and got debt. Um, was that like, did you have to go to family for that or, or was there like, uh, was the bank just kind enough to, cause I’m imagining some people thinking, I don’t even know where I could go and borrow some money to give me a bit of a flow.
Brent:
Yeah. So fortunately on paper, um, I, I did not look too bad. I had not, uh, at least at that moment, I had not defaulted on anything or, um, you know, missed payments on my small credit, you know, that I had on just personal credit cards. Uh, so I actually went to, um, a website called prosper and this is not me trying to pitch them, but a peer to peer lending site. I had kind of stumbled upon them when they had first come out and I, um, I applied for a loan there and their, their maximum loan amount was $25,000. And then we went and, uh, we had a family member that said, okay, if you guys get that loan approved, um, you know, I, I will match it and I will match the interest rate that you guys get from that, you know, marketplace, basically assuming that, you know, that was the market rate for the risk level of, you know, us. And so we ended up being able to secure, you know, 50 K in loans through that. Um, and I think the, the lesson for me there, there, there’s two lessons for me there, Lee. One is, uh, and I don’t know, maybe you don’t want to hear my lessons. No, I do. Please. That’s like my, my parents in me, like they just, you know, always having to, you know, figure out the life lessons from something that I was like always just battered into me as a kid. Um, the two lessons there were, um, you know, if you don’t have the resources that you need to figure out how to be resourceful. And at the time, you know, I could not just go out and get a customer within this short, very, very short period of time that I needed to be able to get a client. So debt was just an, we had options in the table and debt was just one of those options. And, you know, you just, you, you know that you need the resources. So you just got to figure out how to be resourceful. And so it was just putting it out there. Hey, we need to, we need to borrow some money to, to fix this problem. So that was one life lesson of just when you really put your mind to it. If you need that for your business, if you believe in yourself enough, then whatever those resources are, just figure it out. Whether that’s equity, whether that’s bootstrapping it, cutting your expenses, um, whether that’s borrowing some money. I mean, if you really believe in yourself and you’re willing to take a risk, then, uh, you can, you can always find the resources. You know, I put a number on the table. I wanted to get $50,000 in debt and I, I went out and I, I took swings at things that got me to that number. Um, the other thing though, that I learned from that for many, it took many, many more years to learn this lesson was that there were probably, there was probably a better way than, than debt. Um, I was probably avoiding some hard decisions around how many people were working for our company for how much overhead that we had accrued. And instead of solving for those hard decisions, like one of our, um, one of my best friends was our lead developer. Uh, and you know, I couldn’t afford to pay him. So maybe the hard decision was, dude, you gotta go find a job. You can’t work here anymore. Uh, you know, the hard decision of maybe going to our landlord and saying, Hey, you know what, we can’t afford this office anymore. And, you know, see you later. Right. Like those were some of the hard decisions that we, we were trying to maybe maintain this image of this is what business looks like. And we were trying to maintain that fantasy. And so instead of making really, really hard decisions, we just went out and, you know, borrowed, um, to continue that. Now it worked out for us. Uh, it did. Um, but I think it, what I’ve learned from that lesson and probably making that mistake another two or three more times was that I always ask myself before doing something like that. Now, is there another harder decision? Is there a harder conversation that I’m just avoiding? And this is an easy way out. And, and, and sometimes it’s not, but if, if there’s just a difficult decision that you need to make and you’re avoiding that by, by, uh, sacrificing yourself through debt or, or whatever, then, um, you know, maybe it’s just time to, to step up and have that hard conversation. And, and, and I’ve been better about that since. They’re really valuable lessons. I like that. Is there a harder decision that I’m avoiding? And again, I can just connect with everything that you’re saying now you’ve, you’ve got this flow and I mean, how, how did you go, how did you switch gears? Cause you’ve just spent X amount of months or years accepting work, you know, the low down work because of whatever limiting beliefs or what other people had said, and also bad decisions because of the overhead, et cetera. How were you able to switch gears and, you know, trade, I guess, trade out of that or change direction? Um, having kind of got into the habit of these bad decisions. Well, it was once, once we had the money in the breathing room, then we thought to ourselves, uh, okay, you know, we probably need to ask somebody for help. And that was, you know, I called that my $3 coffee conversation with my business partner was, you know, my personal account, I only had three bucks and I, you know, use that to buy a coffee as you should, uh, or do something, something fun and celebratory with your last $3, right? Don’t just be like, Oh, it’s so sad. Just spend it. Right. Um, so, you know, we had this conversation and it, you know, Steve, my business partner was like, Hey, you know, this guy, Joe, um, it was one of our, uh, clients, husbands had offered to help us. And he owned a multimillion dollar software company in Boulder. And we had never really asked another successful entrepreneur in that way for help. And we, we talked about business over this or that, but I like actually called him and said, Hey, we have a problem. I had never really shared what I consider to be the back of the house stuff. Uh, and especially because he was the husband of one of our active clients. Uh, there was some fear in that, that if I shared with him my back of the house, that he would be like, uh, you know, we’re going to fire you guys tomorrow. Like we don’t, we’re not going to let you run our website stuff for this business that we have because you guys are, you know, two days away from going out of business. So there was this fear of, you know, opening up my, my, the curtain. And, uh, at that time, at that time, the back of the house was pretty ugly. Like our balance sheet and our P and L was like, it was bad. And so we kind of were like, well, we don’t really have anywhere else to turn. Like he, you know, so we, I go out to lunch with Joe and I have the mindset of, I’m going to, I’m going to talk to him about the real, real stuff, not the stuff that I want people to think of me, not the image that I want people to, you know, think of our agency or, um, I’m just going to let like check that fear of, I mean, if he fires me, they fire me. Uh, but so I just kind of laid it out for him and said, Hey, this is where we’re at as a business. And I’m really struggling as to whether or not we can keep this thing afloat and whether this is the right thing for me. And, um, and, and that was one of many lunches and conversations that, that, you know, after sharing that and kind of being a little bit vulnerable, um, you know, that was really good stuff for Joe to dig into with me. And he was able to give me some insanely actionable advice and some really, really simple stuff that, um, we implemented it, it made, it started to make some really huge changes for us. I think what I like right with this story is, is the idea of asking for help. And you have now created a business to be a guy for people to go and ask for help. That is pretty cool. I always tell people with our, with our bootcamp program, it’s 10 weeks. I’m always like, I want to give you in 10 weeks, what took me 12 years. Wow. And, and if, if we can do that for you, if we can shave, you know, 10 years, that’s a, that’s a, that’s a BHAG right there off of the, you know, the, the unfortunate lessons that you could, you might have to learn. And again, we can’t every entrepreneur, even the friends, I have friends that have, um, I’ve been fortunate enough at this point to, you know, go to, uh, I spent a little time out at Necker Island, uh, with, with Richard Branson. Uh, I’m by no means friends with Richard Branson. So I don’t want to make that, but we were on the same, like, uh, we, we did this like obstacle course. And so Richard and me and like five other people were on the same team. And, um, Richard actually doesn’t really have any problems, but other people that were at that level, you know, that billion dollar level, I mean, he does, but he has really great ways of viewing problems. But even people that are, have billion dollar companies have insane problems that they’re working on as a business. They’re just much more fun problems to work on. So what I, what I like to tell people is, look, there’s a lot of really not fun to work on in those early years of your business. And if we can help you sidestep or avoid to save you six months of pain that you didn’t have to experience for those types of, uh, you know, fundamental problem areas of like, I can’t pay myself enough money to keep food on the table. Like those are problems that if we can help you avoid that or speed up the learning process, then we’ve succeeded as a company.
Lee:
That’s brilliant guys. If you’re interested in finding a little bit more about the bootcamp, just head on over to ugurus.com forward slash bootcamp. That’s you, the letter you for uniform or sounds like you, because this is about you guys. And remember, if you want to ask for help, Brent sounds like your guy.
Brent:
Lee, you’re a good, you’re a good promoter for your guests. I have to, I’m feeling like I’m feeling the love being on your show. I like, I like this. Not everybody gives us this type of, of, of good direct support. So that’s fine. Well, I mean, this is to the benefit of everyone who is listening. I’m learning from you. The reason I do this podcast is because selfishly, I’ll like, I’ll confess, I get to learn from all of the guests as well as everyone else who listens. And so really I’m kind of a listener. Um, and obviously I just get to also be in the driving seat and, uh, I’m always grateful to have people like yourself on. So totally happy to promote as much as possible. And that’s, that’s the main reason that anybody should really podcast exactly what you just said. It’s, it’s the, the networking and the learning for yourself. So it’s, I’m, I’m, right there with you. So it’s cool to hear that. Sweet. Now, something else that struck me in your story was when you said you sold your agency and I kid you not, my, my draw actually dropped to the floor because I cannot work out how the hell you would sell an agency. Um, simply because my experience of agency life has always meant that the core business has always relied on me and, or my business partners. So, you know, you, you, you’ve, you’ve told us the, the story of, uh, the, the struggling agency, eventually you asked for help and boom, you got the help you needed and you’re able to, to, to fly. Um, I mean, that was, that was it. We drank a bottle of champagne at that meeting and it was just done. But I mean, how do you, how do you, how do you create an agency that can be sold? Because like I said, you know, there is the business, a lot of agencies and probably a few agencies listening now, you know, they’re thinking, um, essentially, you know, almost created ourselves a job because we are integral to it. You know, you, you would have to sell yourselves as part of the business. So did you come to a point where you thought, right, I want an out at some point. So you created a plan for the business to become self-sufficient. I mean, how did you get to the point of being able to sell it?
Brent: I’m not sure we were, um, it was most of that plan was for more in the moment, selfish reasons. Uh, I think at some point in time, and we had been doing some, some what I’d consider like recurring revenue, um, as part of our model, uh, since our very early beginnings, like because we were building websites, the obvious thing was like, oh, Hey, we could, you know, sell hosting and we would make a little bit of extra money on the side. Uh, and you know, hosting is really a commodity product. It’s not like a great, um, revenue source for a high value service based consultancy. Uh, there’s better ways to get recurring revenue from, uh, your clients or earn it, I should say, uh, and maintain it than $25 a month installments. Uh, it takes a lot of those to, to buy a boat or whatever your BHAG, uh, desire is. Um, you know, for me is, is, uh, is much more around financial independence for myself and my family. So, you know, $25 a month, uh, it takes a lot of those accounts and honestly hosting. So, so what we, we did early on was we were selling all this hosting stuff and it was, um, at one point it almost crushed our business because we had like, and this is before a lot of the cloud stuff really hit. Um, but we had some servers, we had like a server at a co-location place. Like literally it was like a box in a basement in a cage and that was like a panic attack. And it was one, and this was, we had, we had bought this server in, um, I think 2000 and it was, um, it was around 2008. And I remember I have this folder on my, on my computer called the great server crash of 2008. And it was, this is just like so irresponsible to do this. We had a server in a basement at some co-location plays and it had like a hard drive, like no raid, no backup, no nothing. Right. And we had 50 or so websites and, and it doesn’t stop there. So we had IAS installed, I’m going to nerd out here a bit, but, uh, and we were running an exchange server off that. So anybody that just knows anything about, yeah, one server, it was just like, it was like this thing that like you just, you because we weren’t a hosting company, we were a web company, we were a customer, you know, a services based business where we’re, you know, selling hours for a hundred bucks an hour. And then there’s this, this server is just totally detached from what’s going on in our business. And, and, and I think we had all just kind of forgotten or abstracted what that thing was for us because we never had any problems with it. And then one day it just goes kaput. It’s just done. And, uh, so it was that, that that’s like its own story of, of what went down there, but we lost an incredible amount of money on that. And simultaneously, um, we had actually looked at our overall recurring revenue of our business and it was something like 3% of our total monthly revenue was from recurring. So here’s this, you know, on the surface, it’s like, Oh yeah, we have recurring smart, passive income, blah, blah, blah. But it was such a small percentage because at 25 or $50 a month, it takes a lot of these accounts. I mean, WP engine who’s, who’s, who’s doing this type of business or whatever, and they’re bringing on $25 accounts. Um, but they’re bringing on a thousand customers a week and we were bringing on, you know, it takes a long time to, to sell a web design project. Maybe you’re bringing on three, four customers a month and you, you have this illusion in your head of, we’re going to build this really cool passive income stream of hosting at 25 bucks a month. And you, it really is, this is kind of what we help with people in bootcamp. It was a flawed business model because we were spending so much money and time acquiring a customer. And then once we’d actually built up all that trust and that credibility, we’re like downselling them on a $25 a month plan. So we, we, uh, my business partner gives me this presentation that says obtaining peace of mind in our business. And the basic principle was we have only 3% of our revenue in recurring. We need to get that up to about 50%. And so he outlined a plan. He’s super planning guy, right? So, and, and, and so we outlined this plan. Um, and we’re like, Hey, we’re going to start to, to sell more higher end packages, plans and services and get out of the commodity hosting business and be more in the peace of mind business for our customers. So at a baseline level, our clients, um, I think our, our cheapest plan at that point was somewhere in the 150 to $200 a month range. Uh, and it did include like hosting as a feature, but there was more, um, uh, support and consultative services. And then we had $500, $1,000 a month plans kind of going up from there. And, um, so we started to build this kind of recurring base of revenue. So that was one thing, uh, that we did was just start to really pay attention to the recurring revenue in our business. So over a period of time, we like, I think over three or four years, we, we more than tripled our gross revenue. And in that same time, we went from 3% of that revenue being recurring to, um, just about, uh, 50% of our revenue was recurring. Um, and, and that, that, that was like one thing, right? So we had the recurring revenue. And then the other piece, uh, that helped that a lot was, um, really creating some, some systems and processes, um, that created their own revenue streams. So, uh, support or what we called eventually called small projects and support was anything that we would do for a client that was under, you know, a thousand bucks. And what we did was created some very specific systems, um, for requests from customers, either through phone or an email ticketing system. And then we made somebody on our team accountable for that and created some scorecard metrics and gave him some frameworks of the type of work that he could self quote and deliver and schedule and communicate all on his own. Um, and what happened was, is that basically became a seat that was a revenue generating seat. You could very easily look at that and say, you know, Hey, this person costs 40, 50 K and they’re billing a hundred, 150 K, um, per year in support with just one seat. So we can start to think about how we could scale that as our client base grows. But I did not touch that revenue. He was delivering end to end, uh, work for clients without ever having a salesperson, a project manager, a client coordinator, or any of that other stuff come into the picture. So we started to be able to paint this picture of how much the business was worth without Brent doing sales or, you know, in your case, like, how do you do that once you leave the business, we were able to start telling a story about if I wasn’t a part of the business, what is this really worth? And that was the foundation for us being able to put a value on it and to actually transfer those assets and those processes and those systems over to somebody else.
Lee:
Amazing. There’s, um, are you, is the recurring revenue, uh, package or program, uh, something that you’re doing soon? Uh, cause I was checking that out on your website the other day. You’ve got a package there, the five week online program. Is that something that’s out now or is that something that’s out soon?
Brent:
Um, in, in it, it’s not out soon. Um, so in our, uh, that’s only been available really to our graduates of our bootcamp program. Um, so if, if, uh, it’s in the only reason we do that is cause there’s just some fundamentals, um, that we want to make sure people have gotten, uh, but the intent there is that you then have some opportunities to, um, dive deeper into those areas. Um, so one of the things we teach in bootcamp is what we call high value work for high value pay. Uh, and this is a concept that takes, um, people some time to understand because they come into program thinking like, well, I don’t want to do $10,000 projects because those are so big and they’re going to take me so much time. And I’m like, well, $10,000 is like a number. And you could do that for, uh, you know, your discovery engagement could be 10 grand. You’re, you could do a VIP consulting day for 10 grand. You could do a big giant website project for 10 grand. Um, but it’s really that, that mindset of the more strategic consulting you insert into your business and the more value that you insightful value that you bring to your customer through your brain, not pushing pixels, um, is going to help you push towards those higher numbers with smaller and smaller amounts of hours actually invested into that. And so what we want is for people to have that basic understanding and have them some, some track record of implementing that in their business. And because when we get into recurring revenue and this always happens, people will share with me their recurring revenue packages and it’ll be like, uh, you know, the bronze level $49 and the silver level $89 and the gold level $110. And I’m like, what the heck? Like anybody that has, you know, $80 has $110 a month, right? We’re not learning anything about our customers by having three plans and you’re on honestly not making any more money unless again, you’re WP engine acquiring a thousand customers per week. Uh, but even them, they’re probably getting most of their revenue or good chunk of it from their, you know, their top 20% of clientele. Yeah. So like, so we want to make sure people understand how to do high value work before they start creating their plans. Cause my ideal plan for somebody would be a $200 level, a thousand or $2,000 level, and then a five to $10,000 a month level because you know that you’re going to just have to acquire a lot fewer customers to, to make that work for yourself.
Lee:
Guys, if you are enjoying what you’re hearing, then you can actually listen to Brent quite regularly because you have your own podcast, I believe the digital agency show.
Brent:
Yep. You can, uh, get me into your earbuds every week on Tuesdays when we release a new episode. So that’s a, I, it took me a while to join the podcaster space, but, uh, I love the medium. It’s been so much fun.
Lee:
Welcome to the dark side.
Brent:
You have some good guests as well. Mr. Jason Swink, who is very good at Facebook marketing. Cause I think he appears on my Facebook feed every day. Jason’s a good guy and we’re in, you know, we have a little bit of overlap, so that’s fun. And he, he definitely, um, uh, I never got my agency to an eight figure agency. And if that’s your thing, um, if you want to grow to an eight figure type level, I think he’s, um, a great, uh, great inspiration for that. Um, we, we’ve found more success for ourselves in really helping those earlier stage, small kind of, uh, people that are either considering a starting agency or they’re in that kind of one to nine person range. Um, and, and they’re interested very much so in designing, um, their agency, what it means to have their agency be successful versus, you know, here’s our, here’s the model and just follow the model. Um, I find that, you know, we, we just prefer a little bit different approach and Jason’s a great guy and I love hanging out and talking to him.
Lee:
I do love what you’re talking about though, creating the agency that you want, not the model that you think you need to have. And you describing that big expensive table and everything, I was just chuckling cause you know, we were doing the same, but I’ve also gone to my friends, uh, in the past who’ve had agencies themselves, you know, and they’ve had the, um, the, the retro gaming, uh, the arcade machine in the corner of the room and the pool table, et cetera, and had all of these expenses. And yet, you know, trying to, you know, because we think that’s what we need to do to create an agency rather than actually creating something that can, sorry, um, I had a cold for like three weeks. Uh, you know, instead of creating something that’s going to be a benefit to us and also to the clients that, you know, that’s something that is that we can enjoy doing. It’s, it’s, it’s really different. And now it’s been bugging me the entire time, but all I can picture every time you’re talking is a Christmas tree shaped pile of Red Bull cans. And I’m just wondering, if people don’t know what I’m talking about, go to the about page of ugurus.com and go and watch that video. But, uh, you know, a serious question right now is does Red Bull continue to contribute to your success?
Brent:
We have, um, I was going to say we’ve never gotten anything, uh, from them, but I’m not actually sure if that’s true. I think at some point I might have emailed that picture to Red Bull and they maybe sent us a free case. Um, but that was, that was pretty much it. Um, and I actually really don’t, I drink it sometimes now, but I’m, I, I kind of now like it, like just do the coffee, which is, um, you know, I do a lot of coffee. So that’s my, my caffeine vehicle. Uh, so I don’t, uh, Red Bull’s an expensive habit. We, we actually had, um, that summer that we built that Red Bull tower, we were doing a rev share deal with a marketing company and they had not yet made any money, which means that we had not made any money, uh, on the work that we were doing for them. And so that summer, I think we were made something in the ballpark of a dollar per hour that we were working. And, uh, I’m pretty sure we, we drank, um, more, uh, Red Bull than that. So that’s, uh, you know, having your, uh, you’re doing some weekly budgeting and financial meetings for your business can go a long way because, uh, you don’t want to be just literally drinking the only money, uh, that you’re making. I’m also, but it makes for a good picture. It does. But I’m also imagining the serious detriment to your health, unless they were the zero calorie ones. Although saying that still all the other stuff going inside you, I mean, you must’ve been wired.
Brent:
No, that, that picture was probably 2000, 2001 ish. Um, and so they did not have the sugar free, but even still right that much Red Bull, I think it was like three or four a day. Um, you know, that’s just, yeah, just not good for you. It is a great picture though. You gurus.com forward slash about, I think it is. And, uh, just, just go watch the video just for the CRT monitors alone.
Lee:
Oh, it’s like embarrassing. Just, it’s like, it’s like showing somebody a picture of your closet or something. It’s like, uh, it’s kind of cool. I don’t know. It is really cool. It’s retro. It takes me back. So, um, I mean, I’m, I’m kind of interested in finding a little bit more about you now. So, I mean, you’ve gone from kind of agency, um, feast and famine, successful agency and agency life is a busy agency life. What sort of life do you get to enjoy nowadays?
Brent:
I’m not sure if I’m any less busy. Um, you know, I think I, I loved running, um, our agency. It was a lot of fun. We had a really cool culture as a team. Um, and the culture that we’ve created now with you gurus is, is, is different. And the business structure is different and the customer and the value proposition that we offer the market is just different. Uh, and so I think that’s been an evolution for me of changing from an agency business into one that’s, uh, I mean, we’re much more of a global operation, both in our team and also in our customer base. And we’ve got customers that are all over the world. We’ve got customers that I’ve never yet had the pleasure of even, uh, meeting. Um, and, and I get to hear about their stories through our, our mentor team. And, um, and so it’s definitely a very different business from, from that structural standpoint. I do from a personal level, I definitely have tried to, um, do my best with boundaries and constraints. And, you know, I’ve got two kids at home. I’ve got a two month old and a two and a half year old. And if anybody has toddlers, uh, he’s in like full on dictator, you know, mode of this morning, it was, you know, I want cereal, cheesy eggs, waffles, and you’re not giving me enough syrup for my waffles. And I want my, you know, water in a, this cup, not that cup. And, you know, it’s just, that’s like my morning. And so then I, um, you know, usually come into the office around eight 39, you know, jam for till five ish and then, you know, head home, uh, ride my bike to and from work. So that gives me a little exercise in between there. Um, and, um, you know, work from home a little bit and, you know, I travel a little bit, but right now with the family, I’m, I’m really not interested in doing much travel. So we’re doing a lot of our you gurus like, uh, events and retreats and things like that just in Denver, because Denver is a really cool place. And so I can leverage that a little bit without having to get on a plane all the time. So spending a lot of time with, with family, with my wife. And, um, and that’s really what’s important to me. It’s, I’m not trying to create a business right now where I’m working 10 hours a week or 20 hours a week. Um, I do really love the work that we’re doing. I love getting emails from people telling us that because of what we’ve put together for them, they achieved something in their life that they thought was impossible. Even as few as a month ago, uh, we had this really awesome, um, um, I don’t even know if she’s a customer yet, but she was talking with our lead strategist, um, talking about if bootcamp was right for her. And we were giving her some pointers cause she couldn’t afford it. Couldn’t make it right then. So we’re like, well, here’s some things that you could do. And here’s some stuff that we just have for free and like, go do this for a period of time and then call us back. And so like a month later, she calls us and leaves us this, this voicemail. And, uh, you know, she’s crying on, on, on the voicemail and we’re all like, Oh my God, like, you know, what’s, what’s, what have, what have we done now? And, and, and she was, it was, it was, it was tears of joy that she landed a $12,000 project and, um, she never thought that was possible. And that’s life changing for her. And I mean, you know, it’s not going to be all uh, rosy and sunshine. I mean, there’s going to be problems and challenges that she’ll experience in her business, but just seeing that spark, that moment for somebody where they, they, um, took a chance with something and now have experienced a different outcome. And that outcome now allows them to believe in themselves and bet on themselves. And, and you change somebody’s mindset like that. And I mean, that, that person’s story will stay with me for the rest of my life. And that’s, that’s really what gets me excited about our business and about our customers and what we do.
Lee:
I like it. Cause what I’m hearing is two wise, wise, uh, the two of your wise, our family obviously is getting a good balanced family life. And the other wise, the, the, the, the effect, the impact that you’re able to have on other people’s lives, uh, which really gets you going. I’m loving this man. Guys, um, we are drawing to a close, but don’t forget, head on over to ugurus.com. Uh, the bootcamp is a forward slash bootcamp. If you want to go check out the podcast, uh, these on episode 15 as of time of recording. So you can very quickly get up to speed and, uh, uh, over on a digital agency show.com or just tap in the digital agency show into a podcast player of your choice. Cause I’m pretty sure it’s going to appear. I just tried it just to make sure. And it did, it worked in a pod press or something on my, uh, pocket casts. It came up straight away in pocket casts. Uh, so that’s a great place to go. So mate, uh, what, uh, we were chatting just before the show and you said that you might have something that you would offer our wonderful listeners if they were to get in touch with you. Could you just let us know what that might be?
Brent:
Yeah, for sure. So if you guys have, uh, uh, listened to me, uh, rant and rave about my story for this long, then, uh, we have this cool course. Um, you know, I, I didn’t talk too much about sales today, but called the web design sales kit. It’s basically a five hour, uh, video course on me walking through how, um, I learned to sell high value websites and just some fundamental, uh, mechanics that you can, you can put into play in your business. And that that’s usually about $197 program. And, uh, but if you guys are listening to this right now, then we’re happy to give that to you guys as a, as a gift. Um, just, uh, shoot me an email, brent at you gurus.com, or, uh, I believe Lee, you’ll include a link in the show notes to a page where you can just, uh, pop in your info and get that instantaneously. Or, or if you’re just listening to your car or something like that, you can just, uh, you know, shoot me an email, brent at u g u r us.com and just say, Hey, I listened to you on the WP innovator podcast. Um, and you know, Lee said you had a course for me and we’ll even throw in a 60 minute strategy call, uh, on top of that. So, um, both of those no charge and happy to provide that to you guys.
Lee:
Does that count if I do it as well? Cause I have to go and re-listen to the whole thing first and then email you, you can, uh, we’ll, we’ll, we’ll get you on there. Uh, uh, first thing, Lee, you can, you can, uh, definitely have that as well. Guys, remember that’s brent at you gurus.com. And I’m also going to make sure that we put a link into the show notes as well. Um, so you can follow up on that, uh, mate, you are a complete legend. I’ve loved listening to your story. I do hope you, you know, it felt like I was being nosy, but it’s really interesting to find out people’s story and to just really connect with people in that way. So it’s, it’s been, it’s been an eye opener. I’ve really enjoyed it. And, uh, I’m looking forward to seeing, uh, where you go with the podcast and also, uh, what continues to happen over at your gurus. Do you have any social media accounts that people can connect with you on?
Brent:
Yeah, sure. Um, I’m not super active on Twitter, but Brent Weaver, um, you know, uh, at Brent Weaver, um, mostly active on Facebook, um, just facebook.com slash Brent Weaver. So, um, you know, mostly you could probably get my attention on, on Facebook, uh, send me a message or just follow me over there and, um, you know, happy to chat with you on messenger or, or email, whatever’s easiest for you.
Lee:
Dude. Thanks so much for your time. So that’s twitter.com forward slash Brent Weaver. And was that facebook.com forward slash Brent Weaver as well?
Brent:
Yep. Yep. That’s really cool. Um, everyone’s called Lee Jackson. If I, like, I can’t even Google my own name and then you get it. Yeah. The URL thing, whenever that came out, whenever they released that, I remember actually sitting there and waiting until it was like, you know, opened up and I just, just got it like right when it, that was back when you, you know, I mean, that was a while when Facebook didn’t used to let you do that. And then one day they were like, we’re going to let you have a custom URL. So like, and I just, I just sat there and waited until they said, you know, this feature is available and I hit refresh and grabbed it. And I don’t know. That was back when the internet was, was powered by hamsters though. So it’s been a while. Smart move boy. I’m still actually hyperventilating just a little bit about that story about the server. I came out in a cold sweat when you started telling me about it. I was like, Oh man. Anybody that wants to talk about that over coffee or something, I’m happy to, if you’ve had a similar story, you know, feel free to reach out. We can have a cry session or something, but if you need it, you know, I’m a hugger. So yeah, we can hug, we can hug it out. Like who, you know, somebody, I told that story to somebody years ago, like right after it happened and they were like, yeah, I got that t-shirt. I was like, that’s a good way to say that. I think a lot of us have worn that t-shirt to be honest. Yeah. I, when I first started, I was a teenager and I had the great idea of, um, setting up a PC in my bedroom and I didn’t have a broadband and I was thinking, Oh yeah, I could just leave it connected to this free, uh, 56 K modem. And then I worked out very quickly that I couldn’t do that. So then when we got broadband, I was like, yes, I’m going to revisit this amazing idea about having a server in my bedroom. And yeah, it didn’t go too well. Yeah. We’ll leave it. Nowadays, nowadays you, you, you don’t even want to like touch that. Otherwise you’ll be like hosting some, I don’t know, you’ll get hacked or I don’t know. It’s a scary place out there. We’ll let Amazon figure that out. I actually remember though, all the research I did to actually do it. I wasted so much time, you know, dynamic DNS cause it’s not a fixed broadcast IP. So I was doing, I did everything. Hashtag I’ve learned mate. You’re a legend. Thank you so much for your time.
Brent:
Yeah. Lee, it’s been a pleasure. Uh, thank you so much for what you’re doing here. And, uh, it’s, I’ve really enjoyed this, this chat.
Lee:
No worries. Peace out, man. Take care.
Brent:
You too.
Lee:
So this is the recorded outro and I kind of think I always say, and there you have it. So I decided to just say what I just said just then so that I didn’t say, and there you have it first. So here we are with a unique spoken outro. I’m sure you’re very proud of me. I’m quite proud of me too. That was brilliant. I really enjoyed speaking with Brent and I’ve actually filled in my application form to go and find out a bit more information about that bootcamp as well. That sounds pretty cool. And don’t forget, get your hands on that free gift. That’s [email protected]. All right. Next week, we’re talking to my mate, Dave. Everyone’s got a mate, Dave, haven’t they? Anyway, my mate, Dave is Dave Foy and he does actually frequent the Facebook group as well. If you head on over to wpinnovator.com forward slash group, you’ll find him in there. And he’s going to be talking about helping designers get their designs online using Elementor. So he does courses and he’s got great videos online. So essentially, if you’re a designer who is rocking and rolling with Sketch or Photoshop or whatever your graphic design application is, how can you translate that to WordPress? How can you translate that to the web? And that’s exactly what Dave is talking about, talking about his journey into what he’s doing now and also just talking about things like the benefits of Elementor and also about his free online videos. He also has some paid courses as well, but he’s got so much available on there for free as well. Phenomenal guy. I am really looking forward to releasing that episode and that’ll be next Friday. Okay. Have a wonderful morning, midday, afternoon or evening. Take care, guys. Bye. Bye. I don’t know what that was. Okay. Bye then, guys. You hang up first. All right. I’m going to press stop. Bye.
