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 Matthew Jackson:
Welcome to episode number 115 of the Agency Trailblazer podcast. This is your host, Lee Matthew Jackson, and in today’s episode, we go from the sunny shores of England to the even sunnier shores of Peru with Martin Sutil, who has settled there over the last 15 years. So guys, sit back, put on your sunglasses, relax, and enjoy the ride.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
This podcast is brought to you by the Agency Trailblazer community. Is agency life stressing you out? Then it is our mission to help you build an agency that you love. We’ve created a community which includes the Agency Reset Roadmap that will allow you to get your agency back on the right track. We also have lots of noble, straight-to-the-point, easy-to-consume workshops. We have a thriving community of other agency owners. And we all wrap up every month with a mastermind call with myself and sometimes a special guest where we unpack your questions. For more details, check out agencytrailblazer.com.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Welcome to a conversation with me, your host, Lee Matthew Jackson Jackson, and fellow Agency Trailblazer, Mr. Martin Sutil. How are you today, sir?
Martin:
Hello, Lee Matthew Jackson. Yeah, very well. Very well, indeed. How are you?
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Now, I’m doing good. This, as we were saying just before, this is our third time is a charm. We’ve had a few attempts at being able to get it together. We’ve had some technology issues. Then we’ve had a delivery that arrived quite literally three minutes into our last recording. And that was my fault. I hold my hands up. But we are now here, and I’m really grateful for you taking your time. Guys, if you don’t know who Martin is, he is a fellow Agency Trailblazer. And he was sharing his story in the community of moving from the UK and setting up shop in Peru. And I wanted to get him on the show because instantly this is fascinating. So, Buddy, do you mind just introducing yourselves, letting us know who you are, maybe your favorite color, your favorite tipple, and also what you do with regards to your business?
Martin:
My name’s Martin Sutil, originally from the UK. I run, I’d say, a small boutique agency. We mainly do web development, websites, done a couple of apps, and we’re now looking into new technologies. And we also do a lot on Google Analytics.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
How about things like your favorite color and your favorite movie genre?
Martin:
Oh, let’s see. Favorite color, I think it’s got to be blue and movie genres. You know, I quite like the old gangster movies and things like that, Goodfellas.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Bit of a mean streak inside of you there, Martin.
Martin:
Yeah, maybe. I do like a bit of the sci-fi as well. Yeah, I do like a bit of the sci-fi. But yeah, a bit of everything, really. Bit of everything.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Well, there’s nothing wrong in that. I’m actually one of those people that when I watch a movie, especially a movie that’s got panned by the critics, I’m like, well, what was wrong with that? I really enjoyed it.
Martin:
Well, yeah, that’s true. I’m very easily pleased, I think, when it comes to movies.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yeah. Yeah, I quite enjoyed the last Star Wars one, but there were a lot of issues with it. My wife, who’s more of a Star Wars fanatic than I am, was very, very disappointed.
Martin:
Really?
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yeah. Wow. You see, I thought it was like one of the best Star Wars ever because a lot of things changed. But I know that like the whole community is now polarized between it was the best or it was terrible.
Martin:
I think it was the best out of the new generation of movies. Let’s see. The one I actually really enjoyed, which is sort of the spin-off, was Rogue One. I thought that was really well done.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Now, I know a little bit extra about you. I mean, you do have a British accent. You hail from Surrey. But you did confess that you’re not actually from England originally. Can you just unpack that a little bit? Because you’ve got a fascinating history.
Martin:
I’m a bit sort of mixed up, really. Well, my dad’s, my dad is British or was British. Unfortunately, he passed away quite a few years ago. My mum is Argentine. She still lives in Surrey. But I was born in the Netherlands. That’s Holland, for those who don’t know what the Netherlands are. And, yeah, at an early age, I actually lived in Peru from when I was six months old until I was four, in the middle of the desert. My dad was, he worked in mining. He was chief metallurgist for a mine down here. And from there, we moved around, went back to Holland for a couple of years. I actually learned to speak Dutch. I don’t remember a word of it now.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Oh, okay.
Martin:
Well, I remember a few words. I used to be able to speak fluently. When you’re a kid, you just absorb everything. And then, yeah, moved back to Bolivia, then Argentina for a while. And then they wanted to post my dad, when I was about 10 years old, they wanted to send him to South Africa. This was like in the middle of apartheid. And my dad was like, you know what, no way. He’d started his career there when he was very young. And he was like, no, I’m not bringing up my son in that environment. Because I would have had to go to a white-only school. And he didn’t want me thinking like, this is normal, like whites versus blacks and stuff like that, which is just awful, obviously, what happened in that country. So, he took the decision. And that’s when we moved back to the UK. And I did school, basically. And GCSEs. I was the first GCSE year, I think.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Oh, so before it was like CSE. And then you were the GCSE.
Martin:
Yeah, I think it went O-level, CSE. And then I was GCSE, yeah. And then, well, yeah, uni and work and stuff. And yeah, I was there till I was 28.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
What was your work in the UK? Because you did your uni. What did you do in uni? And what was the UK work? Because I’m intrigued to know what your background is before you made the leap.
Martin:
Okay, so I was very good at maths. Well, I did it for A-levels, maths, physics and chemistry. And I actually wanted to be like a mechanical engineer or a chemical engineer. But unfortunately, in my young youth, I got very distracted. And even though I was predicted very good grades, I didn’t get those very good grades. And so I ended up getting, I did get an unconditional offer to Nottingham Trent University, which is great because I wanted to go to uni in Nottingham anyway. So I ended up there and I ended up doing an HND in mechanical engineering, which is great because you get, you know, I’ve always been a very hands-on person. My dad, his hobby was carpentry and he made loads of furniture for our house. I have a crazy grandfather, or did have in Argentina, who just invents stuff. Like he made me a moped out of a washing machine engine, you know, really crazy stuff. So I’ve always had this thing of like, you know, building stuff with my hands. So with the HND, it was great because you actually did do all that stuff. Like you did the theory and you did the hands-on work. So then when I could upgrade to becoming a mechanical engineer in the course, I actually knew more than the guys who just done all the theory. But I didn’t end up doing that. I ended up switching to industrial management, which is pretty cool because that taught me everything about scrum and agile processes and all those sorts of things. I finished that degree and I started to work for Caterpillar. Yes, the ones that have the clothes, but also the ones that build the big trucks and the diggers and stuff like that. And I started working for them in Leicester, where they have a big factory, planning engineer, which is pretty cool. And about a year into that, I was still living in Nottingham and I bumped into an old uni professor. And he’s like, look, I know you love computers and things like that, because that’s always been a hobby of mine. He’s like, there’s a new master’s degree that we’re offering. It’s called Engineering and Multimedia. Would you be interested in doing the course? And if you are and you still live in the Nottingham area, I can get you a free grant to do this from the EU. I was like, seriously? And he’s like, yeah, yeah, it’s completely new. So I turned around to Caterpillar and I was like, look, I want to do this. And they were like, well, we’ll pay for it, but just do it in two years. And I was like, well, no, because I won’t get the grant. Anyway, I quit Caterpillar and went and did the degree. And that’s when I started. A lot of it was like learn on your own, because it was such a new course that even some of the teachers didn’t know much about it. I mean, we had a bit on design. We had a bit on this and that.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
When was this roughly? Was this like early 2000s?
Martin:
1999, this was. Yeah.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
So anyway, I ended up doing the course. I sort of did my thesis or like macro media and all the technologies that were coming out around it. And then did that, took six months off, went backpacking around Mexico after my degree and a little bit around Latin America. And then came back and I found a job at the time, which was a startup agency as well in London. It was like me, the technical director, then sort of the creatives who they and they focused just on the pharmaceutical industry. So what we would do is build CD-ROMs for sales reps to go to doctors and say, hey, look, this is our drug. You know, if you put it in, put all your catchment area and this is how effective the drug would be for you and how the cost reduces. And we would film the key opinion leaders and edit the video and do everything. When we started off, we were like, there were six of us and I was like the first one in under sort of the tech director. And we built that agency up over four years to about under me. I ended up having like 10 people. I was programming in Lingo for director. We were also doing JavaScript at the time with Flash. We did some HTML. We built a website. The first website I ever built was for irritable bowel syndrome.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
That’s brilliant.
Martin:
My pride and joy was animating a poo around the page in Flash.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Oh my gosh. I wish you still had that.
Martin:
I think I’ve still got it on a hard drive somewhere. Got to find it. But yeah, it was great. And, you know, I learned a lot. I owe a lot to Paul who hired me back then. But after four years, I felt it was time to move on because I sort of reached the ceiling at that place. You know, I was under the director. I didn’t think he was going to really give me anything else. Plus, I wanted a new challenge. And hats off to them. They’ve been bought out a couple of times. And now they’re a huge company. But yeah, they’ve done really well.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
It’s remarkable as well, isn’t it? The niche. You know, like literally there is a niche for anything. You know, it’s incredible.
Martin:
They’re still in that niche. Amazing. I mean, obviously, I think they’ve now moved on and probably maybe build apps. I’m not really too sure. I should reach out to him and see how he’s doing. I did keep in touch with him over the years. And sometimes when I went back to London, I’d go and see him. I mean, we built stuff for PDAs. Do you remember PDAs?
Lee Matthew Jackson:
I remember PDAs, mate.
Martin:
Right. So we used to build apps for PDAs. That’s incredible.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
2004 or 2005?
Martin:
I think it was 2004. I just like, you know, I was like, I’ve had enough. I need another time out. And I wasn’t finding any new jobs that really enthused me either. So I decided to go and visit an old school friend of mine who’s Chilean. We used to, when I would go and visit my family in Argentina, they live in Mendoza, which is right at the base of the Andes. On the other side of the Andes, you have Chile and Santiago. And that is like the highest peaks in the Andes. So if anyone’s a wine buff out there, Mendoza probably has the best wine in South America. Even Chilean wine, which is really good. I’m sorry, there’s nothing on this. The Chileans sometimes even steal grapes. Well, they don’t steal the grapes, but they take the grapes from Mendoza and use them to make their own wine. But yeah, so I reached out to my mate and he’s like, you know, we used to skateboard together. We used to go snowboarding together and stuff. And he’s like, man, like I’m studying journalism and I’m thinking about building up a company based around extreme sports and filming. And he’s like, just come out and hang out with me and we’ll see how it goes. Like you can, because I could do a bit of video editing and stuff. And he’s like, yeah, you know, and we’ll do it. So packed my bags, your open ticket, went down there. At the time, I don’t think his wife was too happy to see me because they just had a newborn. Here’s a young Martin, like just wanting to go out and party and snowboard and whatever. But yeah, we did it. We were like filming the Burton team when they would come down and taking them to like amazing spots in wilderness. And there we were like filming it and editing it and selling it. And my friend’s still doing that and doing really well. But again, it’s like this isn’t exactly what I want to be doing all the time. And I started freelancing and building websites for people there. Two years after that finished, I decided to move to Argentina, to Buenos Aires, which was a really good move. A, because it was so cheap there at the time. And B, because there were so many talented people in the same sort of space that I wanted to be in. And there was like the startup culture was beginning there. And there was like the whole co-working thing was going on. So I saw an opportunity and I’d been in contact with a few people in the UK and made some contacts with some agencies. And I said to them, hey, we can offer you really good design and web services at a cheaper rate than you would get in the UK. Give us a shot. The time difference is only four hours. So let’s give it a go. A couple of agencies bought into it. I set up my company as a limited company in the UK. Built up a small team. That went really well. Well, quite well. And then I met my wife, who’s Peruvian. We got married. We had a kid. We now have two kids. Yeah, Argentina just began to take a nosedive economically. And it wasn’t a great situation there. And she got offered a job. Well, she got offered two jobs by the same company, one in Colombia and one in Peru. And we just decided to come to Peru because we have family here or her family’s here. She hadn’t lived here for a long time either. So we’re both a bit nervous. But yeah, we came here. I had to let a few people go from the other team. Kept on a couple of devs and a designer, like freelance. But basically, they’re still with me as freelancers, but pretty much work full time for the company. And came here and then arrived in Peru doing the same thing, just running it remotely. And then word spread here in Peru. People wanted to start to work with me. So I had to open up a Peruvian company here because they wanted to be billed in Peruvian currency and they wanted the invoice in Peruvian invoice format so they can tax deduct it. So yeah, I set up the company. That’s where I am. Like I have a member of staff here as well now in the middle of interviewing another one. And our new office is like being redesigned as we speak. I’ve actually had to turn the phone off because the architect keeps phoning me. We’ve got to go and see some furniture and stuff in about an hour. But yeah, all good. So that’s where we’re at. The reason I joined the Trailblazers is because I just need to bounce ideas of people. I mean, I know people here and Brits here as well, but sometimes they’re not all in the same space. They’re not understanding and things like that. So yeah, that’s where I’m at, Lee Matthew Jackson, and how I got to where I am.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
I love your journey, mate. I was going to ask, I heard something that kind of sparked my interest where you said you had to let a few people go because of the move. And I presume that was because of the location and that. But if you don’t mind me asking, I know it might be relatively painful because I’ve had to let people go in the past. But how did you make that decision about who would go and who would potentially stay and work with you once you’re in Peru kind of remotely?
Martin:
Yeah, it was hard. Basically, I mean, everyone was very understanding. So I just basically said, like, my time’s up here. I’m moving with my family to a different country. Thanks for your time that we’ve been working together. And I’ll give you a really good recommendation if you need, whatever you need for your CVs, if people want to contact me and stuff like that. But I just basically said I was closing down shop and would maybe be in touch with them if I needed their services as a freelancer. And then I just told the other two people that I wanted to stay on with, like, hey, this is what I’ve told the rest. And I really want you to keep on working with me if that’s something that you’re interested in.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
But how did I choose them?
Martin:
It was basically down to who I knew was more productive and who could get on and do things on their own without having to come and ask me questions every five minutes.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
I think that’s really important, isn’t it? Being able to make that. And that’s actually, I’m glad you said that because it’s something that we all find difficult as agency owners because we’re really nice people. I know you, Martin, and I know you’re a really nice person as well. You even sent me a hat with Peru on in the mail and that absolutely made my day. So I know you’re a nice guy.
Martin:
That was actually really lucky because my mum was visiting. Otherwise, if I’d sent it through Peruvian mail, it would have probably still be on its way.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Still be in transit. No, but it’s making those difficult decisions and understanding that as a business, it’s actually in the business interest to make these sorts of decisions where you do select the people who are going to be the most productive. And those people who aren’t going to be productive are not, you know, they’re not necessarily going to be in the right space should your company shift. You know, your company and the dynamic was going to shift. Therefore, meant that those people were no longer right for that business. And it was in their interests to release them to then go on to do other things where they could thrive in other places. And it’s a conversation we’ve had a lot recently and in the Trailblazer community really about, you know, when should I let someone go? Because we’re all just so nice and we don’t want to let people go because we feel mean, don’t we? So thanks for being honest.
Martin:
No, no. I mean, it’s hard. I mean, luckily for me, it was an easier decision. I’ve been really lucky with the member of staff I took on last year. But what I’ve built into the contracts here is that when, for instance, like I’m looking at new developers at the moment, is that they start on a three-month trial basis. And based on that three-month trial, then we’ll say, okay, yeah, you come on full-time to the team and things like that and be actually on the payroll or not or work as a freelancer. So the first three months is initially working freelance with a full-time job. At the end of the three months, evaluation and then get, you know, get put onto payroll if we see fit and if it fits for them as well.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yeah. Well, it gives them the flexibility, doesn’t it, to say, do I even want to do this? Is this the right company for me? And you likewise. And then at the end of three months, you can both decide, you know what? Yeah, I want to commit or actually I’m going to move on.
Martin:
Exactly.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Now, with regards to where you are now, I remember reading your kind of introduction in the community and I feel like you’ve now been in Peru for something like 14 years, I think. Is my memory serves me right?
Martin:
No, no. 14 years since I left the UK. 2014, June. 14 years since I left the UK. I’ve been in May. It’s actually going to be seven years that I’ve been living in Lima in Peru.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
In Peru. And you mentioned that your original business was the fact that you were in a location which was low cost, which meant you could work with agencies in different countries and they would benefit from the lower costs. But you then talked about in Peru now, things seem to have changed. You actually appear to be working with local businesses. What sort of businesses are you working with?
Martin:
Right. So, yeah, our dynamics has changed a lot in that sense. We still work with a couple of clients in the UK and a couple in the US. It’s sort of on and off work. But, yeah, what happened here was that when I started developing and learning about being a developer and building websites, because in a way I am completely self-taught, I then realised that to be a good developer or to be a good salesman or to be able to provide the best for my clients is that I really needed to understand what was happening with their website. So it’s all very good to give a client a nice new shiny website. But if a client comes to you and says, well, we need a redesign or we need this or we need that, if you don’t really understand the data behind why they want that, then you’re sort of like designing blindly. So this is where tools like Google Analytics come in, Crazy Egg, Optimize, Google Optimize now, Surveyor Optimizely. I started getting and learning a lot about that and how to optimise websites for speed, for conversion and things like that. And that’s what I really enjoy. So I still focus a lot on that part of the business and leave more of the dev stuff to the developers. So I’m certified in Google Analytics and I was very lucky to meet the right people in Peru, specifically the Google team here in Peru, in the Google office. And they offered me, they were like, hey, we love what you do. We’ve seen what you’re doing. Would you be interested in training our agency partners and getting them certified in Google Analytics? So I did that for them, did a few courses, still doing it every now and then. From that, one of the largest clients of these agencies and also of Google is a very big group here in Peru that own pharmacies, they own universities, they own schools, they own supermarkets. So I ended up training one of the new directors who was this lady who actually used to be the marketing director for Coca-Cola here. But she was very old school, like, you know, print, advertising, stuff like that. So when I trained her in analytics, I was like, well, you know, you can track this and you can track that and you can do this. And you can basically, you can know everything that’s happening with all the money that you’re spending on AdWords or Facebook ads and stuff like that. Because it’s amazing how many companies put money into Facebook ads, put money into AdWords, but they don’t really know what their return on investment is. That opened up her eyes to a whole new thing. And a lot of the agencies here and not just here, everywhere that sell advertising don’t actually come back to the client and say, well, look, this is what’s happening here. This is where you could do better. So she was like, I want you to train my other marketing directors in the different verticals. So I’ve been doing that. Luckily enough, we got some more spinoff work from that. And I’m really trying to push into that and tap into that and see if I can get some more development work from them. Because at the moment, we’re just doing trainings with them. But the problem is that they work with these huge agencies that are global. So they’re like, well, no, this agency does this. And it’s hard for them to understand. Well, yeah, but a small agency, we could do this for you and just be focused on you. And they’re like, well, no, because they’re so much cheaper. And I was like, well, yeah, but they’re not going to give you the value for money. So that’s where I’m trying to pitch in at the moment. And that’s my aim for this year as well. And it’s hard work as well because doing business is very different. It’s very face to face. People arrive late. People don’t understand. So there’s a lot of training that goes involved into training these people. Whereas if I was in the UK market, or especially when I was working in London, it was easy to go into some of these companies and say, well, look, we need to do this and this and this. And they get it. But here, not everyone gets it. I mean, they are getting it.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Is that a culture thing?
Martin:
I don’t think it’s. Well, a little bit. I mean, Argentina and Brazil are super advanced in what they do. And here, they’re getting there, especially the younger sort of managers that are coming in or the younger start. There’s a lot of big startup communities happening now. So the younger generation get it completely. But I’m needing to talk to people that are one, two, sometimes even three generations older than me. And it’s really hard to get it through to them, but they’re getting there, you know. And obviously, coming in as a small agency versus a massive agency, you know. So I’ve got to sort of fight my corner.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
It’s unusual, isn’t it? I mean, people often think that the smaller agency cannot help. But actually, like you said, you can actually really focus. If that’s the one thing you do and you do it really well. And also for the amount of money that they would spend on you as a small agency, that’s really good money. You are going to give it your absolute best.
Martin:
Exactly.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Versus one of these big, massive agencies who are potentially going to push it off to whomever. Because the value to a bigger agency with a lot of employees, they’re going to see that number, whatever that number is. And they’re going to be like, okay, push it off to, you know, Tom, Dick or Harry over there who are low cost, maybe not as well versed, and they’re just simply, you know, doing the bare minimum to get it done, to check a few boxes and then hand it over saying, hey, you paid us the money and we did X, Y and Z.
Martin:
Yeah.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Off you go. Whereas, you know, it’s trying to make that kind of connection, isn’t it? Spent a little bit more money, but get that extra care and attention.
Martin:
Exactly. I mean, when I was just focusing a lot on the outsourcing work, we would get companies like, so a company like, I don’t want to go into names, but a really big branding company would then contact the agency and the marketing agency in the UK who would then contact me. So everyone’s like getting their cut in the pie and we would be building these websites who would then the really big branding company would say, well, yeah, we did that. Yeah, that’s so sucks. And it’s just like, well, no, you didn’t do that. We did that. But, you know, we were eighth in the chain.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And it still works like that because we did one recently, a website actually for big bank in Argentina working with a major credit card company. And they’d been approached by, well, another big branding company or agency. And we were literally, I think, the third or fourth in the chain when it came down to it. And we were the ones that were speccing out the servers, you know, and everything. Everything. We did it all. Except for the design. We have the exact same experience.
Martin:
Yeah.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
We have the exact same experience, mate. In fact, so we worked for a very big bank as well. And we designed, we actually designed a brand. We also built the front end interface for the application that they were developing. They had their own internal developers for the application itself. But we were about fourth or fifth in the chain. And we’re not allowed for the rest of our lives, I think, to tell anybody who the bank was, what the software was, or anything else like that. And yet I know that they’re getting, like, awards for what they’ve done in their industry. And I’m like, oh, my gosh, we did that.
Martin:
Yeah.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
It really, really sucks. But, yeah, but you signed an NDA, so you can’t.
Martin:
Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, in blood as well.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway, but, yeah, that’s where I am. And, you know, trundling along. Hopefully, this year will be a good year.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
So, you mentioned the office and the architect. What’s happening with the office? I mean, like, you moved to Peru seven years ago. Can you describe your kind of your setup then versus your setup now? Or where you’re going? Because, obviously, the word architect means you must be doing something beyond just working at home.
Martin:
Yeah. So, when we first moved, I basically had an office in my house or my apartment, a home office. And that’s where everything happened. And I would basically meet local clients here in coffee shops or in co-working space or something like that and ran out of space. And most people, I think, knew that’s the setup. And then, last year, my wife decided that she wanted to remodel our house. And, basically, there was no space for my office.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Oh, no.
Martin:
So, basically, your wife kicked you out.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yeah. In not too many words. But, yeah, I mean, it was good. It was actually good because it was time to get into the stage where I needed to bring in more members of staff. And, you know, I wanted to bring in a new person. And I actually wanted them to work with me, sort of, side by side. I was working on or helping on a project, which has done really well as well. Some friends of mine set up a coding laboratory, I guess you can call it. It’s called Laboratoria. I was actually going to help them run part of it in Mexico because we were meant to be moving there a couple of years ago. But then, due to health issues of my wife, we didn’t go. And what they do is they take girls from the poorer areas of Lima. They’re in Lima now, Arequipa, which is a city to the south. They’re in Chile and they’re in Mexico. And what they do is they train them to be developers, front-end developers. And now they’re expanding into UX and stuff. And I did a couple of talks there and did a couple of trainings. And honestly, the standard of the girls that come out are very, very good. So I hired one of them. And she’s the one that’s been with me since last year. I’m actually looking at hiring another one. The developer I’m actually looking at now is like, I need an experienced developer now with a few more years behind their back and stuff. But this girl is actually a designer. And she’s very good at front-end. So, you know, she can design and build the front-end. And then we can do all the back-end stuff on the other side. So, yeah, and it was time to get an office. So I rented out an office not far from where I am. Ten minutes walk, which is great. And rented out with a friend who’s a journalist. He writes for The Guardian and stuff like that. So he’s like sort of the man in Peru. But, yeah, it’s like the dynamic’s okay. But now I want to expand again. And what happened was that with my wife, we looked at investing some money into another property. And there was office space for sale in the office where I’m renting. So we decided to buy that and rent it out. And then, well, now rents have gone really low. So we decided it’s not that much of a good investment to rent it out due to like tax laws. If we sell it now, then we’ll have to pay loads of tax on it, whatever. So we decided, well, if I am going to expand the company and make it bigger because the idea is to grow this. And we’re actually thinking of doing some training programs and have people come into our office instead of us going to their offices. So my wife was like, well, why don’t you just turn it into your office and, you know, you pay the rent. So this is my office and I’ll sort of pay the rent that will cover the mortgage, I guess, you know, whatever, and pay it back. So, yeah, that’s what we’re doing.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
That makes sense, though.
Martin:
And, yeah, but the office was basically a complete concrete shell at the moment, or it was.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
All right.
Martin:
So, yeah, like they’re now like putting up some dry walls and separating out the rooms and we’re building up the furniture that we want. So, yeah, that’s what we’re doing.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
I’m a little bit envious, to be honest, mate, because, like, I’m renting a space. It’s like co-working space, but we can all rent rooms. And then we have shared use of the meeting room and we have shared use of the kitchen and everything else like that. But I’ve got the biggest room in the place.
Martin:
Okay.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
And I’m looking now at maybe renting a couple of the other rooms as well for other team members. But still, I don’t have any say in the furniture. Well, I have some say in the furniture, but I don’t necessarily have much say in the decor or the lighting or the fixtures or anything like that, because that’s all dictated by where we’re at and the landlord, et cetera. I can’t really change the carpets without permission. And there’s so many restrictions. And, you know, I keep looking at we’ve got a company here in the UK called Dunster House, which does like offices in your back garden. We’ve got an old Victorian house, which means that back garden is ridiculously huge. Too big for us. And I’m thinking I’m so tempted to just build an office in the back garden. So my commute is like get out of bed. I’ve got no hair, man. So I don’t even have to comb my hair. It’s just like roll out of bed to the office and everyone else just comes here. So I’m so tempted just to have that freedom. I mean, I don’t mind renting. It’s good. It’s actually better. I think maybe. I don’t know. It’s, you know, because I don’t have the stress of all everything else that comes with it.
Martin:
Yeah. I mean, there is a lot of stress. Well, actually, there’s quite a bit of stress in renting as well. I was looking at some co-working space here as well, and we actually built a website for one of the largest co-working spaces here in Peru. Communal co-working.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Ah, you sort of looked at my website.
Martin:
Mate, of course, I did my research before you came on the show.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yeah.
Martin:
So they’re great. But I mean, and their design is really lovely. But the rates that they want, especially if I want to grow my team, for me, is a bit too much. I mean, they obviously say, well, then you don’t have to pay all the taxes and this and the other. And you don’t have to worry about a cleaning lady, which is also a pain in the backside to look for.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yeah.
Martin:
So, yeah, I mean, it’s got its pros and its cons. And like, honestly, for me, it’s also like rent is great because if you don’t want to rent it anymore, you just walk away from it. Whereas here, I’m like just plowing money into this. And I’m like, well, fingers crossed this is going to work, you know.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yeah.
Martin:
So it’s like it’s a gamble. It’s a gamble. If not, I mean, worst comes to the worst, I can rent it out to somebody else. But, you know.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yeah. But it sounds exciting.
Martin:
Oh, it is exciting. I’ll probably end up with like a lot less hair and maybe start looking like you by the end of it.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Mate, that’s all right. Because then you can start to wear a cap. That’ll be fine. And you’ll just be one of us.
Martin:
Yeah, that’d be great.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
So how many people have you got in your agency, Lee Matthew Jackson?
Lee Matthew Jackson:
So we’ve got, well, we’ve got five people, but most people are all virtual. So in the UK, there’s actually three of us. So we work regularly. There’s me, Tim and Larissa who work here in the UK regularly where we’re renting. But also we have Kate and Richard who come in quite regularly who are contractors. And then we also have other people who’ve started coming in. Like I’m about to employ maybe one or two extra people. So we’re not going to be able to fit everyone in the one room. And thankfully, there are like three extra offices that are available for rent where we are, which means we don’t have to up sticks and leave. But I just keep thinking like I would love to have that one big room at the back of my, you know, in the back garden where we’re all kind of in one space. But I also imagine it would be probably pretty stressful at the same time. So especially like the build process and everything else like that. Like the minute you said shell, I’m thinking, oh, my gosh, I can just feel the stress of talking to the architect and trying to get everything sorted and getting the electrics connected. And then everything else that comes afterwards, like you said, you know, you’ve got the tax and all those implications as well, because the government just want their piece, don’t they? They’re like, okay, well, the rateable value of this property is now. Exactly. Some extortionate amount of money and we want you to pay it now. And you’re like, oh, my God.
Martin:
Yeah.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
The main thing. Well, the builders can be an issue. I mean, we did a remodel here and I tell you, like, well, I think experience everywhere. But like if you’re not on top of them, they’ll just knock something up and go, oh, well, that’s what we thought where you wanted it. You know, well, no, it’s not where I wanted it. I wanted it over there. You know, or they say, oh, yeah, they come in and they go, yeah, there’s no problem. We’ll do this. We’ll make it like that. And then comes to the building and they’re like, oh, sorry, we didn’t realize that there was a beam there that we couldn’t move. And I said, what do you mean you couldn’t move or a column or whatever? It’s like, I wouldn’t have done it otherwise. I just imagine, like, you know, Homer Simpson, like where the boils start appearing on the side of his neck because he’s holding in the anger.
Martin:
Oh, yeah. I can just kind of picture you doing that.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yeah. Luckily, like, I’m a very chilled out person, I’ve got to say. But yeah, it takes something to really rattle me to. I think it has to build up over time and then I’ll explode.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
On that then, because I found this, me and my wife were talking about this the other day because we were like, we had some really bad customer service over about the period of 45 minutes in a shop. And I was absolutely cool, calm and collected until one final straw. And then I went from zero to 100 miles an hour in a fraction of a second and was like, I think the security guard was eyeing me up because he wasn’t sure if I was about to start hitting people. Because I went from absolutely calm to, like, outrageously angry and incensed. Are you that sort of guy or are you a little bit slower in the kind of build up?
Martin:
I’m a little bit slow in that kind of build up, I think. It depends. Like, my wife is more that person. She’ll be like, no, no. And then she’ll explode. Like, we were like, we were coming back from a wedding, my cousin’s wedding in Mendoza recently. And, like, our flights got delayed and meant we’re going to miss our connecting flight back to Peru or whatever. And it was, the guy was like, well, no. And we’re like, well, no, but we have to make that flight. And then he was like, whatever, whatever. And then she exploded at him because it was customer service was awful. So then the guy was like, well, I’m going to weigh your carry on now. Oh, no, that doesn’t fit. And, like, you’re going to have to check that. And I was like, chill out, chill out. Because otherwise he’s going to make our life a nightmare. And she’s like, no, I’m taking, we’re going to cancel these flights and buy another ticket. And I was like, this is like Mendoza. There’s no other flights out of here. So we can’t cancel this ticket. So luckily I was like, let’s take five minutes, walk away. And then go back to the check-in and talk to somebody else. And we did that and it actually worked. And we managed to get home and stuff.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
This is the importance of partnership. So if you are a solo entrepreneur and you don’t have someone else just to ground you now and again, it’s really helpful when you kind of move into the agency space.
Martin:
Oh, yeah, for sure. I’ve got Tim to just kind of mellow me out because I’m a really black and white guy. It’s either yes or no. Right. There is no gray area. And when there is a gray area, I get really frustrated and start to get quite rude. And whereas Tim is able to just kind of come in and calm me down, basically shut me up and then starts to talk and get both sides and then kind of then takes me to the side and, you know, explains it in a way that I can comprehend and eventually talk me down off my high horse until I’m eventually in this kind of, okay, I accept there is some sort of gray area here. And here’s our little, like, we will make a step in that direction if they can make a step in that direction and here’s our compromise. So I find compromise very difficult and it’s very important. I’ve got Tim around to kind of hold me and kind of help me out at that point.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
No, I’m pretty good at compromise. My problem is I have too many ideas. I’m actually going to put some in the agency trailblazer, get some people to sound off there.
Martin:
You mean more ideas? Because you’ve already put a whole lot in there.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Well, a couple more, but yeah. But like my wife is the one, she grounds me. I mean, she’s 10 times, 20 times, I don’t know, 100 times more intelligent than I am. She works in online marketing as well. And I’ve said to her, like, you know, come work with me. And she’s like, you can’t afford me and we’d get divorced if we did that. Because she’s very like, this is what needs to be done and this is how it’s going to be done. And this is the time frame. And she does it and she gets it done and she’s amazing. And I’m like, well, what if we try this and do that? And, you know, and I realized that myself, you know. So that’s, you know, the good thing, I think, about the trailblazers as well is like have people come back to you and say, well, you know, maybe not do that. Or have someone that turns around to you and says, well, no, you can’t do that or you shouldn’t do that. You know.
Martin:
Or I tried that and this is what happened. Or I tried that and this is what happened.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Exactly. Now, I got so I mean, we’re coming into land soon, but there is something that I’ve been kind of trying to find an opportunity to ask you. When I looked through your portfolio a couple of days ago, I noticed something really cool, which was you are not just doing the web builds, but you are. I mean, you obviously mentioned Google Analytics, et cetera, and SEO, but you’re also finding other avenues to add value, therefore monetize. And one of the biggest thing, which was why I remembered communal co-working, if my memory serves me right, you also did Salesforce CRM integration. And this is something that I kind of talk about a lot about finding, you know, you found the companies that you can work with and it’s, you know, finding what other problems you can help them solve, which obviously benefits the client, but it also allows you to charge more. It allows you to get more from each project, et cetera. How do you go, how do you guys go about kind of discovering all of the extra problems? I mean, were you lucky enough or are you lucky enough where the people approach you and give you everything? Or do you have some techniques to kind of unpack some extra areas that you can add value?
Martin:
To be honest, it’s stuff that I’ve just learned over the years and to, and from listening to your podcast, podcasts from other people, for instance, or not just podcasts, but I’m not in, I’m not in the group, but the WP elevation. So the go wide technique or I think it’s called that Troy Dean says. So yeah, basically it’s just cause it’s stuff that I know. So for instance, the Salesforce in CRM integration, I asked them like, you know, what CRM do you use? What are you looking at? And they were, they were using one, I can’t remember the name of it, the CRM. And I was like recommending to them, well, you know, why don’t you use agile CRM or Zoho or something like that. And we can integrate it with your forms. That way you can build up your pipeline and see what’s going on. And not only that, it’s because what we can do is like, so Google analytics is really great for telling you what’s happening online, but you can’t see what’s happening offline or what happens once that. So say that lead comes in for someone that wants a coworking space or let’s say you’ve, I don’t know, someone who wants to do a test drive of a car. And that lead comes into that website. No one really knows what happens after that. So how can you know how much your advertising influence on that and if it worked really well or not? So what we can do is through APIs, we can actually connect the Google analytics data with the CRM and then we can cross reference it. And then so you can see that data in there, either in your CRM or you can see it in your Google analytics panel. So you can see, oh, okay, like Lee Matthew Jackson came to Commonau and he was interested and three weeks later he signed up and he’s renting an office in such and such a place. So I could have had a tracking cookie through analytics or through another system that tracked you. And then when you came in, someone on the CRM was like, yeah, sale made, ka-ching. And then we can track that all the way back and see the advertising spend. So that’s sort of the sort of integrations which we do, which is super interesting because that’s where it’s all at. Your cost per acquisition, essentially.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
What I love about that as well, therefore, is, you know, you’ve gone in and there is a need for a website. And I like the go-wide technique because what you’re talking here is, you know, what else can we do to help you? Because the website is just a very small part of it. And a mistake I made as an agency for many years was, you know, I thought, well, I build websites, so I will build websites. And I was missing out. I mean, there’s two things here. I was missing out not only on the opportunity to make more money, which sounds very selfish, but there was this opportunity because I’ve got all these extra skills that I wasn’t utilizing. But also, the client was missing out on the opportunity to get more value from what they were, you know, from what we were doing. We were building websites. We were not integrating with their CRM. You know, we were not using Google Analytics to the best of the ability. We were not talking about using Facebook pixels, you know, even if we’re just going to get absolutely basic here. Just talk about retargeting, you know, because, you know, I find that much easier than Google Analytics. Half of the time, if you start talking Google Analytics at me, it’s like Chinese. But, you know, the, you know, just even those basics. I was simply thinking website, well, you know, wham, bam, thank you, man. There’s your website. And then what else do you do? So.
Martin:
Oh, but I was, I did that as well at the beginning.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yeah. I think everyone does that at the beginning. Like, you know, I was just, I used to build a website, go, there you go. And then later I was like, well, oh yeah, we could do like website maintenance and stuff like that.
Martin:
Yeah. And actually that’s one of my big goals again for this year is to build up that recurring revenue and, and, and increase on that. It’s something I want to do as well with like AMP technology. So that’s accelerated mobile pages. So we want to go back to all our clients that we built websites years ago and say, well, now we can build it with AMP as well, or offer it to the new clients as well and say, well, we can build you your website and build you an AMP website. So yeah, I mean, there’s loads of stuff like that. And I find it’s, it’s getting the, my problem is getting the client to buy into that. So sometimes they go, well, why do I need the maintenance? And you go, well, no, because the software needs to be updated and the security. And I try and say to them, well, and we’ll add in like analysis so we can look at your Facebook statistics or your Google analytics, tell you what’s going on. Cause I say to them like, you know, we can build your website and it’ll look really great. I’m actually doing it, talking to one of my clients about this at the moment. And I’ve said to, and it’s been about three years and we work with them all the time. You know, we’ve actually worked with them for about five years and we’ve just finished their, the third redesign. And I’m like, but can we do some AB testing? And they still won’t buy into it. And I’m like, well, how, cause they go, well, no, let’s move the book now or apply now button a bit higher up the page and let’s do this. And I’m like, but we’re doing it blindly. We’re not, you know, we, we can’t do it blindly. We need to test it. So let’s test it, but let’s compare it to the current page and then see if we’re actually converting.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
I think the good thing here though, Martin, is you are having those conversations. I mean, if they’re saying back to you, no, then fine. But I think the, the, the, the missing ingredient for me, especially, you know, and it’s only been recently over the last two years where I’ve had these wider conversations, maybe three is I was missing out on these conversations at all. I wasn’t saying, let’s say B test. I wasn’t necessarily focused on how can we get you the return on investment of the work that we’re doing for you. I was simply thinking, oh, I’ve been asked to build a website. I shall build a website. We’re now working on 20, 30, 40 K projects because we’re having a much wider conversation and we’re helping people, you know, build out their CRM system, integrate with third party solutions, all of these sorts of things, because we’re having that bigger conversation.
Martin:
Oh, that’s great, man. I need to get to that. The 20, 30 K.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Well, I think you’re already, you’re already having the conversations, which is awesome. So it’s just when you start to find the right people, you start to have these sorts of conversations, which are amazing. And being an Uber geek and being from an IT background, it’s actually things like integration, like you guys are doing and you know, that really kind of gets me going. I apps, I love building websites. Don’t get me wrong, but if I can solve a problem and kind of see the flow of data and create processes that work for businesses, I get so freaking excited. And to many people, I suppose that sounds quite boring, but to businesses, I mean, that is like gold. If they can get process, like if they can get information from one point and have it go into multiple different locations because they’ve all got all these different departments, that’s absolute gold. So I keep going on about this to agencies, you know, let’s, let’s have that bigger conversation. How else can we help them beyond the WordPress website or the Drupal website or whatever platform we’re using?
Martin:
No, I mean, that’s the thing. I think my challenge here is that sometimes the people in Peru just expect that. Okay. Well, I can go down, there’s a, there’s a street down here in the center of Lima called Wilson, where you can get all pirated software and stuff if you want, you know.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Oh, right. Well, I’ll have a chat with you after.
Martin:
Yeah. I’m jerky. No, I mean, I don’t get it, but like, I’m really wary of pirated software and stuff like that.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Same.
Martin:
But they go, they think, well, those places as well will build you a website for next to nothing. And there are a lot of developers here in the world, or not here in Peru and the rest of the world that will build you a website for next to nothing. And I try and tell these people, well, thing is, is that I’m not, we’re not just building you a website. We’re building you a tool and we’re building it in the right way with SEO. And we’re thinking about SEO. We’re thinking about how fast your website loads. We’re thinking about all these things. So yeah, if you want, go and have your pirated website made or for whatever, for $500 or $1,000. So that’s my issue here is that even people go, okay, well, we’re willing to pay you five, 10, 15 K. They’re not willing to go. I’m really struggling to get them to go above that, you know, sometimes.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
I think that’s a common issue. And a lot of that can also be the particular type of business that we’re talking to or the industry that we’re in as well. And that definitely frustrates us where we’re seeing people using pirated themes or clones of other websites as well, which drives me mad because I’ve seen people have their website completely ripped off by another agency. It happens to me. Even with the existing copy still in, just a few names.
Martin:
No, no, it happens to me.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Oh my gosh. We built a website for a clinic and like a year later, two years later, we’re still managing them. And all of a sudden I start seeing traffic from these pages that I didn’t know that existed on the website. And I was like, what? And like someone had literally cloned our website, including the tags. So including the Google Analytics tag, the Facebook tag. That makes a lot of sense. So that’s the only way we found out that they had actually cloned our website.
Martin:
Well, mate, it’s been absolutely awesome having you on the show. I love that you’re a part of the Agency Trailblazer community and that we’re going to be tracking your progress over the next year. So I would love for you to come on in a few months time to see where you are, especially around kind of being able to convince people to take on those extra services and get those bigger paying clients. So it would be great to have you back on the show. Until then, mate, what are the best ways of people for connecting with you?
Martin:
Oh, OK. So, yeah, best way to connect with me is probably through my website, 54solutions.com, 5-4 solutions. The 5-4 comes from Argentina, by the way, the dialing code when we started the agency or my email. Rather than all of those services.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yeah, because we’ve actually had to reduce now because the dialing code here is 51. So we only offer 51 in Peru.
Martin:
Yeah, or my email, martin at 54solutions.com. I’m not really on Twitter, although I should be. We have a Twitter. But, yeah, those are the best ways, really. Just via email. Send me an email.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Mate, thank you so much for your time, for your honesty, and for sharing your journey with us. It’s been amazing.
Martin:
Thank you so much. Thank you for having me on the show. Good luck with the community. I know it’s a big jump for you to do that as well.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Very scary.
Martin:
So, yeah, no, but it’s good. So far, what I’ve seen, I’m enjoying it. I think all the others that are in there are also enjoying the community. I’ll try and be a bit more proactive in there. But, yeah, thanks again. If you do need any help in analytics or conversions or whatever, you know, come reach out to me. Please, guys. It’s 54solutions.com. Conversions, analytics, or just to chat with a really nice guy. 54solutions.com.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Mate, you’re a legend. Take care of yourself.
Martin:
Okay, you too. Thanks, Lee Matthew Jackson. All the best. Bye.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Bye. And that wraps up the show. In next week’s episode, we’re going to be talking to my mate, Jason Resnick. Remember, if you are an Agency Trailblazer community member, you can listen to that episode right now over in the library section. If you’re not part of the Agency Trailblazer community, don’t worry. There is a free and awesome community called WP Innovator, which you can be a part of over at WPInnovator.com forward slash group. That’s a great Facebook community full of agency owners, designers, developers, freelancers, just generally awesome people sharing gifts, sharing cat pictures, but also sharing strategy and WordPress thoughts, ideas, forward thinking, future thinking, past thinking. Just a generally awesome place to be. So if you’re not a part of that, head on over at WPInnovator.com forward slash group. I’ll either see you in the communities or I’ll see you on next week’s show. Thank you.
