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 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. Hi and welcome to episode number 68 of the WP Innovator Podcast. Now today we have my buddy Mark Asquith on the line, and we’re gonna be chatting about things that we are super passionate about. And when I say super passionate, I am afraid that there are a couple of expletives here or there, and on both sides. And I know that’s pretty shocking, I’m not usually the guy to utter that sort of thing, but if you do have any kids in the car, you might want to not listen to the episode right now and maybe listen to it later. Because, well, it would have been too long, I’m afraid, to beep out every single one and the kids would probably be asking what the beep’s all about and that sort of stuff so let’s just say safer to listen when you can sit back relax and enjoy without anyone or any tender ears around. Also guys I want to let you know we’re now on YouTube as well!
Lee Matthew Jackson
So I was recently told that I don’t have just a face for podcasts but might as well go show my mug on YouTube as well. If you head over to angledcrown.com/vlog— vlog with a Vlog? Vlog, vlog, vlog. I can’t say it without spitting everywhere. Vlog. Anyway, anglecrown.com/vlog, you can see the latest 2 episodes. Or if you go to YouTube and tap in WP Innovator, you’ll see the first 2 episodes of the WP Innovator vlog, I guess it’s going to be called, unless we can think of anything cooler like Computer Hyperglobal Mega net or something that was on The Simpsons. Anyway, I’m going to shut up. Have a bleeding brilliant day and enjoy the show. Hello and welcome to the WP Innovator Podcast. This is Lee and Mr. Mark Asquith. How you doing?
Mark Asquith
Not bad, my love.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Not bad.
Mark Asquith
How are you?
Lee Matthew Jackson
I’m all right, my darling. My voice went a little bit high-pitched there, didn’t it? I think my voice is still breaking.
Mark Asquith
Like a circus entertainer.
Lee Matthew Jackson
I liked it. I think it’s still breaking, my voice. I’m only 34. I’m a spring chicken.
Mark Asquith
Oh, that’s all right. I was going to say you’ve got balls, and then I thought there’s a joke in there and didn’t know where it was going to be funny, so I didn’t say it.
Lee Matthew Jackson
I mean, this is already getting G-rated, mate, and we’ve just 38 seconds in. This is shocking. Guys, if you don’t know Mark, he is a good friend of mine. We’ve, uh, well, we met at— what was it— NMEU, wasn’t it? That’s where we physically met, although we knew of each other in the WordPress circles. Mark is an agency owner. He’s also a podcaster from Excellence Expected, which is a podcast I’ve listened to in the past, and it’s actually quite good. I was quite surprised. I’m messing with you, mate. And you also are launching Agency Accelerator as well. Essentially, you do many things. So how’s about, for people who didn’t listen to the last show I had you on, you just give us a bit of a catch-up as to who you are and where you’re at right now?
Mark Asquith
Yeah, definitely. Yeah, we did meet at New Media Europe, actually. That was a while ago now. Mainly what I do is I help people just become better at what they do in business. So the first, generally speaking, I focus on the first few years of business for people. So the way that I do that is through a couple of different mediums targeting different niches. So Hacksaw is my agency that I run with 4 other guys, and it’s great, we love it, you know, we’ve got a team there now, we’ve got a good setup, we do a lot of good work. And we’ve got another project, Agency Accelerator, which is coming out of HackSaw, which I’m going to be talking about in a second. And then in the podcasting niche, I help people get their own site up and running and basically provide a completely managed WordPress solution, a bit of a SaaS version of WordPress for podcasters called Podcast Websites, which we spoke about in the last session that we did. And Excellence Expected actually is developed on from a podcast now, so I do coaching, I do— I’ve got the movement, which is the accountability and coaching community on there.
Mark Asquith
I do free coaching on Fridays on Facebook, and that really helps the wider entrepreneur. So I help agencies, help the wider entrepreneur sort of set their own business up, and I help podcasters. And I generally do, even though I’ve got these 3 brands that I work under, the sole purpose is to help people be better in business, certainly in the first 2, 3, 4, maybe even 5 years. So that’s the focus, and all the different brands target different niches. And that’s probably as easily as I can sum it up because it is quite tough sometimes.
Lee Matthew Jackson
I’m just thinking to myself, you’re really busy.
Mark Asquith
Yeah, it’s all the same kind of principle. This is kind of the cool thing. It’s taken me a few years to figure this out. I’ll be totally honest with you, when I started doing Excellence Unexpected, it really annoyed a lot of the Hacksaw crew, especially the directors. There was a lot of resentment about why you’re spending your time doing this. And it was a bit of a bone of contention. And it’s a funny thing because, yeah, I’m busy, but actually, the reason for setting up Excellence was to be able to help people start the business, which in turn has led us to doing Agency Accelerator, which helps people become a better agency. And it’s a funny one, so yeah, I’m busy, but it’s all kind of doing the same stuff. Like the principles that I apply for Excellence Expected, we use in Agency Accelerator. And the things that we test there, we roll out to podcast websites and so on. So it’s this kind of— it’s almost each one of the brands pull themselves around, so I can sort of do a— I can do sort of one task and it applies to 3 or 4 different variations of what we’re doing.
Mark Asquith
So yeah, it sounds like I’m busy on paper, but I’m probably no busier than anyone else.
Lee Matthew Jackson
[Speaker:OLIVER] I think I can connect with that. For example, I might create a really good email campaign process with something like ConvertKit, etc. That works really well for Angled Crown, and then I’ll just apply that straight across to the other business. I’ve got Event Engine over there, and we’ll just do the same thing in about 3 seconds flat. So I’ve already done all the work in the other business, and then I’m applying it somewhere else in one of the other businesses within a few seconds. So I guess, yeah, you’re right. But on paper, everything you were just saying then, I was like, oh my gosh, when do you sleep?
Mark Asquith
Yeah, it gets— it does, it does get a bit like that. But you know what it’s like, you know, you and me the same. We, we, um, we’re ideas people, and we’ve got to choose which ones to execute. That’s the big challenge, I think. For a lot of people in business, you know, we weren’t born to follow, we don’t just want to follow someone else, you know, that’s why we set up on our own. If you want to follow someone else, that’s fine, but you’re probably not going to dive into your own business. So, you know, it’s a difficult one because you get so many ideas, but to execute the right ones is where the challenge lies. You know, it’s about what you say no to as much as it is what you say yes to.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Now I’m interested with things like Agency Accelerator, with Excellence Expected, etc., how did you get beyond that imposter syndrome? Because I imagine you have it and had it, sorry, and maybe even still have it. I think we all may do have it in a little bit, but if you be honest, I assume that there was something stopping you potentially initially, whatever, blabbing now, but, uh, you know, from actually going ahead and doing stuff. The reason why I ask is I know that listeners have tonnes of amazing ideas and I too have had ideas in the past and not really gone for it? How did you get from the initial idea to just pushing yourself to go ahead and doing something?
Mark Asquith
[Speaker:THOMAS] Yeah, it’s a good question, to be honest. And the thing is, imposter syndrome occurs at every rung of the ladder, every step on the stairway. If you want to start a podcast or start a business, the second that you press record or try and make your first sale, you’ll feel like you’re not allowed. You’ll feel like, why, what gives me the right to do this? Why am I doing this? And then you’ll become accustomed to it. You’ll become familiar with it. And the next time you step up, so say you start offering coaching, or you offer a product instead of a service, or you develop something that’s a bit more high ticket, you’ll feel imposter syndrome again. Because wait a second, I’m at this level, what gives me the right to move to this level? And it’s all a perception thing, you know, the people, the people that see you as an expert, to them you are the expert. You don’t, to be an expert, I think has slightly changed. You know, there are true genuine experts, the 10,000-hour people, the Tiger Woods of the world. Well, maybe not Tiger Woods anymore, but any other golfer in the world.
Mark Asquith
But like, they are the true experts. But there’s also expertise. You know, you know more than someone else about something else, so you become that first port of call. And You don’t have to have all the answers, that’s the key thing. It’s all right to just say, let me connect you to someone else, let me figure out the answer for you. The idea of imposter syndrome is, it’s just a way of us validating to ourselves that it’s all right to be doing what we’re doing, and until we look back, is that we’ve become comfortable doing something. we won’t get over that imposter syndrome. So what I mean by that is, if you think back to the last permanent job that you had, if it’s anything like I went through, I hated it for the first 6 months because I didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t know what the heck I was doing. The processes were new, the systems were new, the people were new, the methodologies were new, and I didn’t realise, but 6 months in, I was able to look back and think, well, wait a second, actually, for the last 3 weeks I’ve been enjoying this.
Mark Asquith
and I didn’t realise that I was enjoying it. And suddenly the imposter syndrome’s gone because you’ve become familiar with these things. You know, and a lot of people look at entrepreneurs, and I kind of hate the word entrepreneur as well. It annoys me a little bit the way it’s used these days.
Lee Matthew Jackson
That’s the chip on your shoulder, isn’t it?
Mark Asquith
Really annoys me, man. It really is. Honestly, it really is. And it’s, it’s It’s weird because we look at all the people that are sort of selling via Facebook ads, 6-figure this, 7-figure that, and, and, you know, selling this beach lifestyle and, and selling all these things that actually—
Lee Matthew Jackson
and the body to go with it.
Mark Asquith
That’s the depression and the body to go. Well, I mean, we’ve all got the body to go with that, don’t get me wrong, we’re all ripped.
Lee Matthew Jackson
But yeah, I’ve got a big— I’ve got a body for Benidorm.
Mark Asquith
Yeah, me too. Benidorm the TV show. Um, but it’s, it, you know, people look at those guys that are selling these things, selling, selling the tickets to happiness and feel as if they’re doing something wrong because they’re not doing that. They’re just being genuine. Another thing as well that I think adds to imposter syndrome is this notion that you’ve got to be global. Podcast websites were pretty global, I mean massive US base. At Excellence Expected, I’ve got a pretty even split, maybe 50/50 UK/US. At Hacksaw, we’ve probably got an 80/20 split UK and US. There’s nothing wrong with being a local business, even if you’re a podcaster, like go and spread the word locally. You can get 5,000 listeners within your region, like you can do that just by word of mouth.
Lee Matthew Jackson
It’s funny you should say that as well. Last week’s episode was a guy who literally just did that in Canada, in Hamilton, Ontario, and he ran a local podcast.
Mark Asquith
And why not? Everyone says that you need to be global, be everywhere, and you know, you feel as if you’re not If you’re not putting your income reports online, if you’re not telling people how you’re making your money, then you feel as if you are cheating people, like why am I allowed to make this money, why am I allowed to sell things? And that’s the funny thing with imposter syndrome is the fact that look, all you’ve got to do is just be genuine with people and you’re not an imposter, you’re just selling the knowledge that you’ve acquired or the services or built a product that genuinely help people. and you know, there’s no shame in that, there’s no need to fear that, and no need to feel as if you’re not allowed to do that. So I think imposter syndrome’s a funny thing, and funnily enough, imposter syndrome a lot of the time only happens, or is certainly compounded, when money is involved, when you’re asking someone to give you money for something. You know, before you get to that point, you’re just playing at it, you know, in your mind you’re like, well, there’s no harm, I’m not harming anyone.
Mark Asquith
The minute you ask for money, that’s when you think, oh no, Am I allowed to do this? So yeah, you know, of course you are, as long as you, as long as you’re being genuine.
Lee Matthew Jackson
So Mark says be genuine and he gives you permission to go ahead and do it. Give yourself permission. It’s, it’s, it’s a good thing. A couple of things I would, I think I want to add as well in my own experience is first of all, like, comparison is a killer. So if you can remember that phrase, comparison is definitely a killer, because you mentioned those people with the hot bods on the beach selling this lifestyle, etc., putting up these massive income reports, and you’re just like, I can’t do that. But that’s bullshit. Oh, I’m going to have to put something on this now, aren’t I?
Mark Asquith
You’re going to have to explicit that, but that’s opened the door for me, can I swear?
Lee Matthew Jackson
Yeah, but it is, it’s complete and utter bullshit. You know, you have an amazing expertise as you, in whatever niche you’re in, if you know a little bit more than the person who is learning from you, then you are already an expert in their eyes. And that was essentially my other point. You know, you don’t need to have had 20 years of experience and know absolutely everything. Because, you know, I mean, if you look at, uh, I mean, looking at where I go to church, for example, there’s guys who, uh, you know, they’re still learning the Bible, uh, after 20, 30, 40 years because there’s still always something to learn. So no one’s ever an expert. There is always something to learn as long as you’re teaching people and also being genuine, uh, you know, who are either catching you up or kind of following your lead, etc. So yeah, I just want to throw that in there as well.
Mark Asquith
But no, you’re right.
Lee Matthew Jackson
I don’t know why— have I opened the swear floodgates for you now, have I?
Mark Asquith
No, not too bad, maybe. Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep. The funny thing is with the comparison is that we all compare ourselves on social media. That’s the hilarious thing is that we— you’re going to post your highlight reel to social media, right? That’s what you do. We all do it, so don’t look at someone else, over someone else’s fence. I’ll share this experience with you actually because I fell into that trap when I was younger. First business I ever had.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Not long ago.
Mark Asquith
Yeah, longer than I’d like. My first business was called The Design Loft, and we were just a small web agency in Barnsley, north of the UK, complete dive. We just sold simple websites at that time. I’m talking this was mid-2000s maybe, and we were selling them at maybe a grand a pop. It was about the right price at the right time. I was looking over the fence at a couple of guys that I knew, and I tried to structure my business like they structured theirs, and it didn’t work. I got it wrong and failed. I basically ran it into the ground because I was trying to compare myself to those guys who had been doing it 6 or 7 years at this point. I’m like 2 months in. And ran it into the ground, did a hard stop on it, decided to start again with Hacksaw. This is 10, 11 years ago now. And when I, when I did that and didn’t care what they were doing, I just excelled. I just got a lot further, a lot quicker. And then likewise, as we became Hacksaw, we, and as we grew, we used to compare ourselves with other local agencies who we held in high regard.
Mark Asquith
And in our minds, eventually we surpassed them in terms of the work that we were doing and the approach. We’ve not looked at anyone else since. Like, and literally, we don’t look at other agencies because it just doesn’t matter. It’s not going to change what we do. It’s really not going to change how we approach things. We just— we are who we are and we deliver it how we deliver it. And people that like it, like it. People that don’t, well, crack on.
Lee Matthew Jackson
So it’s—
Mark Asquith
yeah, you’ve got to stay away from that, I think.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Yeah, amen, brother. Amen, brother. Yeah, so it’s like we’re preaching. I like this though. This is good. I mean, this is all stuff that I really need to have learned a long time time ago. And that whole thing about, you know, looking at other agencies thinking, oh, I’m not doing it there, I don’t have their sexy gorgeous office or their real high-quality photography all over my website, and I don’t have this and I don’t have that. And very often, even now, you know, years and years into running my own businesses, and I still have to just kind of take that step back and, and say, I am not them, and I am something completely different to my audience. And I hope I’m a friendly goofy guy, and that’s all I really want to be. And you’re the same, you’re very similar. In that regard. You know, you on your free training, everything, you’re not Mr. Professional. I mean, you’re professional, if you know what I mean. That sounded like an insult, but you know what I mean. You’re not like, this is a corporate gathering of us and you all bow to me. You’re like, hey, I screw up sometimes, and here’s this and here’s that, and let’s all talk about that.
Lee Matthew Jackson
You know, that’s the sort of genuineness that people like and people gravitate towards.
Mark Asquith
Yeah, definitely. And you’re right, you know, I talk a lot about professionalism. Some of the speeches that I give, some of the talks that I give— I did one at the Business Networking Show, which was We’re taught to live in two boxes by the professionals in our life, and I use that term in the most loose sense possible.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Were you doing quote marks in the air?
Mark Asquith
Well, doing massive quote marks, which is great obviously for an audio session. But you know, all these professionals, quote unquote professionals, they’re just teaching us things that we were told to be in the early ’90s. And Complete rubbish. And, you know, I get that, I understand why they’re preaching that and they’re teaching that, but ultimately we’re taught to live in these two boxes. Between 9 and 5 we’ve got to be professional, and, you know, outside of those hours we can talk about whatever we want to talk about, and we can do whatever we want to do, and we can, you know, we can be ourselves, and— down version that we have to be between 9 and 5, and it’s complete bollocks because if you— If you think about the way that we’re told to market, if you think about even how marketing has evolved, we’ve all become marketers, whether you’re the founder, the CEO, the cleaner, you’re a marketer for that business, because marketing has become about stories, it’s about opinion, it’s about peer-to-peer, and the storeys that we tell influence the purchase decision, the decision to even look into someone. So we’re all marketers now, it doesn’t matter where we are.
Mark Asquith
If you’re a corporate and you’ve got an admin assistant, working for $15,000 a year, better believe it, she’s a marketer. Because everyone talks, and more importantly, everyone listens. And when we talk to be professional, we talk in a different way. We talk in a way that actually forces us either into pitch mode, kind of into pitch mode, if we’re a founder, or if we’re an employee, it forces us into almost into either a defensive mode or a, frankly, a slagging off mode, you know, if you work for a corporate and you hate it. ‘Oh, tell me about that company you work for.’ ‘Oh, pile of cash.’ ‘Shit, honestly.’ Or if you love it, you’re like, ‘Oh my word, the best company ever to work for.’ Like, who are you going to put your money into? It’s the company that are great to work for. And if you’re building a small business, if you’re building an agency, you’ve got to build this culture that everyone’s a marketer, because your developers are going to talk to people over the weekend that require some work doing at some point in the future. It’s just a fact of life.
Mark Asquith
And to be quote-unquote professional and to drop into pitch mode, it just doesn’t work. You have to be able to tell relatable storeys and you have to be able to let your team tell relatable stories. So, you know, if you are constantly telling people what they can and can’t do, like you get in a corporate environment, what are they going to tell them? Oh, it’s a great place, you know, people are alright, but I wouldn’t recommend the company because they’re a bit restrictive. Or they’re a bit dictatorial, you’re not going to want to work with these people. And you know, especially if you’re an agency, back to this sort of notion of Agency Accelerator, if you’re looking to grow an agency, there’s no better marketing than your developers being in a pub on a Friday night getting pissed and telling everyone how great a company you are to work for. Because people believe that, you know, if if the next day someone thinks, you know what, I actually, I wouldn’t mind kicking the process off of a new website or a new brand identity, who could I use? Oh, it’s the guys that have a bit of fun but actually get the job done.
Mark Asquith
You know, they’re going to want to just be around the same kind of people. So it’s a funny thing, we are taught to be professional, we’re taught to be something that we’re not, we’re taught to dampen our personalities, and ultimately we’re taught to just dumb down. Everything that we believe. And then just back to that point of imposter syndrome, when we form our own businesses, when we start our own businesses, and when we try and market ourselves, the imposter syndrome actually starts to play in because you think to yourself, well, wait a minute, I can’t tell people that I think Kyle Rayner is a better Green Lantern than Hal Jordan. Like, why could I tell people that? Who gives a shit? Which is, he’s a much better Green Lantern. But you can’t— you start to think to yourself, wait a minute, if I talk like that, then I shouldn’t be doing this because look this is not how I’ve been taught to be in business. And you know, it does, it all just mounts up into this imposter syndrome, which means that the knock-on effect is that you market yourself like a different business. You know, you know in your heart that you’re not marketing yourself like you want to market yourself, or you’re not closing sales pitches like you want to close them, or you’re not creating the projects that you want to create because you’re scared of putting that personality in.
Mark Asquith
And you know, what’s the worst that can happen? You piss someone off and they don’t come back. Who cares? They were never going to get along with you anyway. They might have given you 10 grand upfront, but believe me, in 6 months’ time they would have found out what you’re really like and they wouldn’t have got along with you. They’re not going to get along with you now, then just let them walk. You know, it’s a funny thing. It’s a— back to this agency idea, you know, if you do market yourself like that, if you do try and be this fake professional, then you run this risk of bringing the bad money, what I call the bad money, into the business insofar as you align with the wrong people for the wrong values because it’s not truly you. And you then bring bad projects in that you know deep down you don’t want to work on. And all you’re doing is you’re taking the money, you’re taking the money, you’re taking the money, and at some point you’re just being held prisoner by your own business because you’re supported by the money. That has come from being this fake professional version of you, when ultimately all you want to do is work with the people that you have a good time with.
Mark Asquith
And then you, then you can’t get out of it. I think that’s why a lot of agencies bloat. I think that’s why a lot of agencies end up taking on developers that they don’t need, and designers that they don’t need, and middle management, account managers that they don’t need, because they’re churning through the work to increase the revenue. And all the time they’re decreasing the profitability and just frankly turning money over. When they could put just as much effort into getting the jobs that they want to work on, putting the right pricing for those jobs, having a much smaller team, being a lot more focused, and just having a better time and making more money doing it. And it’s, it’s a really sad state that you see so many businesses, not just agencies, but so many businesses getting into, that once you, once you’ve got this bad money running through the veins of your business because you’ve pitched yourself as this fake professional company, you can’t— it’s very difficult to transfuse that out for the right stuff because you’ve got wages to pay. So that’s anyway, that’s what you’re doing.
Lee Matthew Jackson
[Speaker:OLIVER] It’s quite difficult as well.
Mark Asquith
No, it’s good.
Lee Matthew Jackson
I mean, it is quite difficult in that environment. I’ve been in that environment where we had too many employees, there was too many people, we were doing jobs that we didn’t enjoy at all. You’re in these professional meetings, you’re saying to these types of professional people what you believe they want to hear. You end up making promises to keep getting the money in. You end up bleeding yourself and working your ass off for these sorts of projects. And all you can ever do is get more and more of that type of work in because it feels like that’s the only one that you’re gonna get in. You’re not being paid enough to do all the work, etc. And then you’re in this constant battle of being trapped by your own business that you then can’t even sell because you’re in a position where you’ve created a job for yourself by this whole professional malarkey. I mean, the minute we switched on our personality in our old company and downsized significantly and started working with people who just like to have a laugh, things completely changed, you know. And that business is now a completely different business with a new name and a completely different image.
Lee Matthew Jackson
And we’ve also got this company that I started 4 years ago, which again is all about being friendly, being just, just having a laugh. Professional as in we’re not idiots. I don’t play tricks on people, you know, and like trip them, push them down the stairs, but I’ll certainly play pranks on people and have a good laugh with them and send them GIFs and YouTube videos. I just had a YouTube conversation with a client of mine where we were just sending YouTube clips backwards and forwards in response to a question. You know, just being an idiot, but it was great fun. They love it. They want to do more business with us next week. Why the hell not? Because we’re really fun to just mess around with and we get the job done. I like that line you said, we have fun and get the job done. I’m sure that must be like a trademark somewhere.
Mark Asquith
It’s got to be, hasn’t it? And, you know, it’s a difficult thing because so many people want to— like, people don’t know what I’m trying to say. Well, I do know what I’m trying to say, but I don’t know how to articulate it. People want to feel like they’re working with a professional team. Yeah, but actually that’s only what we believe. People want to feel like they’re being looked after. Like they’re going to get what they paid for and they want to feel as if they’re going to get something that they can be proud of. Think about an agency. Why do you come to an agency? Because you want the knowledge and the expertise and the execution that you simply can’t do yourself. I’ve got this big sort of rant as well in my head about agencies where I think 50%, even maybe 70% of website work is commoditized. It’s pointless. For agencies, unless you want to stay in the $150 grand turnover bracket, it’s pointless to do. $2 grand websites, $5 grand websites, a lot of the time are ridiculously pointless because the people that want to buy those websites want $10 grand’s worth of work.
Mark Asquith
And you’re worth $10 grand, you know, you are worth $10 grand. And the people that want these smaller jobs, especially like in the $1, $2, $3 grand bracket, they’re not going to get you what they need. They’re not going to come to you on time with everything that you asked for. They’re going to hold you way too, way too at ransom for payments because they’re used to paying a very little amount for knowledge and knowledge isn’t free. Knowledge is not cheap. It’s taken us 10, 12, 15 years to build this knowledge up. Why should it be worth 6 months of your time and only 3 grand? Like I would challenge any agency that’s listening to this, to not be able to show me one website that has not been completed in 6 months since it started. And I will almost guarantee that there’s at least one project in every agency that is over a year old and still isn’t live. And I’m almost willing to bet that those are the ones that are on the cheaper end of the scale. And it’s, it’s because the minute you put your prices up, the minute that you start to want to work with the right sort of people, The minute that price isn’t an option, it’s not even a factor a lot of the time.
Mark Asquith
It’s like if you walk into the Ferrari garage and ask how much a Ferrari is, you already can’t afford it. It’s one of those things where unless people value your time and the knowledge and the experience, it’s that old classic of, that old storey of the 70-year-old engineer walking onto a naval warship, isn’t it? It’s that classic. I think we spoke about this last time. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] It’s knowing where to tap, it’s not the tap. And that’s why I think web work a lot of the time has become commoditized. You know, why should you, as someone that spent 15 years building your knowledge up, have to justify yourself to a local business or someone that comes into your office and says, right, pitch to me and tell me why I shouldn’t use Squarespace at £10 a month. Like, fuck off, get out my office. It’s just Yeah, it’s ridiculous. It’s like having a plumber come to your house and say, right, I know you’re a plumber and I know that I rang you and I know that you’ve come out and I know that you’ve got all this stuff, but you tell me why I should pay you when all I need to do is spend 5 hours per day for 3 months looking at YouTube and then I’ll be able to fix it myself.
Mark Asquith
Tell me why I should pay you.
Lee Matthew Jackson
I’ll tell you why. Because there’s, plumbers are so freaking hard to get actually physically through the front door. Yeah. I’ve had that problem many times. They’re a rare beast. A plumber? You saw a plumber? What did he look like?
Mark Asquith
Was he human? A real plumber. What?
Lee Matthew Jackson
I don’t think there’s any round here. It’s insane.
Mark Asquith
It’s like Candyman. If you say plumber 3 times, one appears.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Oh, really? I hope so. That’d be amazing.
Mark Asquith
Plumber, plumber, plumber. And then Mario, Super Mario appears. Oh, hello, it’s-a me, Mario.
Lee Matthew Jackson
I just apologise to all the Italian listeners. Carry on, sorry.
Mark Asquith
Oh, come on, Super Mario wasn’t that Italian, let’s be honest. So yeah, it’s a funny thing. So I think, you know, personally, and I know there are agencies that thrive off these kind of projects, but ultimately I genuinely believe if you want to grow your business without bloating your business, then you’ve got to be constantly trimming the bottom end. You’ve got to be constantly trimming the low-level work and your perception of low-level work will change. You know, when you first start, a £300 job’s low-level, but you take it because you’re starting. And then as you grow, a £1,000 job is low-level, so you trim those off and then you only take £2,000 jobs. And you’ve got to be super strict. You’ve got to be super strict. Like you said, you know, you bloated in the last business, you bloated, you got too many people, and then you had to take more of these jobs because you had wages to pay. Whereas, you know, if you were able to be super strict and say, well, do you know what, we’re not taking these, and we don’t need another developer, we’ll outsource or we’ll buy in or we’ll just choose to take on less work.
Mark Asquith
And yeah, cash flow might be a little tighter than we’d like for now, but good God, if we get 10 small jobs— now don’t forget, the people that argue on price and want to spend 2 grand with you are the ones that are going to make you jump through hoops to get that 2 grand. You get a 10, 15, 20, 50 grand, 100 grand website, believe me, that money is easy to get. Because they’re already committed to it. Like, they’ve chosen to spend that money, they’ve committed to the spend. So yeah, I do think like as agencies we struggle to be mindful of being business people. Yeah, we’re not— well, we are coders, we are designers, we are developers and so on. But unless, as you said, if we just want to give ourselves a job, unless we want to just give ourselves a job, you better believe that you’re going to have to cut the shit. You’re going to have to cut the bottom end. You’re going to have to cut the crap, and you’re going to have to start saying no to the people that come in. We’ve all had the meetings where you walk out thinking, what a waste of an hour.
Mark Asquith
There is no way that person is giving me that money, and I’ve done everything I can, everything I can. The old classic, we’ll give you free hosting for a year. Fuck off, pay for the hosting. Why, why do we do these things? And it’s because we are bolstering the wages. We are chasing the turnover. We’re not trying to increase the margin of profitability by making the hard decisions. So yes, sorry, I can rant on this all day long.
Lee Matthew Jackson
[Speaker:DAVID] That’s good. Well, let me add to the rant because this is all stuff I’ve been saying for a long time to anyone who’ll listen to me. And you know, I appreciate all those people who have, as I’ve wept into their shoulder at the same time, because I’ve done all of the above. But the idea as well, something that dawned on me about 3 years ago is that I spend the exact same amount of time getting in one cheap sale than I would with one $10,000, $20,000, $30,000 sale. Literally, it takes me the same 1 hour to write a proposal for a cheap site than it does for that exact same hour to write a proposal, you know, for a $10,000 or $20,000 site, literally. And I have won $20,000 jobs based on an hour’s worth of work and maybe a phone call for 20 minutes just talking through a few points on the proposal that they weren’t 100% sure of. But also the people with that $10K or $20K, like you said, they are more invested. They already know that they’ve got that budget to spend. They already want to spend it. And they’re also respectful, I find, of— they say, here, I want the Earth and I have this $20K budget.
Lee Matthew Jackson
And you then say to them, great, well, unfortunately for $20K, you can’t get the Earth because, you know, even though it’s a lot of money, we’re still realistic here. That’s still a lot of work. So we can give you kind of the Moon and then maybe in a phase 2 when you get another $20K, we can add something to that. And again, those sorts of people seem really receptive to that sort of conversation. Whereas when you have someone coming to you with the foreground, maybe, which still seems like a lot of money, but they’re asking for the earth and you then say to them, well, you probably can’t get the earth for that. That’s not going to cut it with them. They’re going to want the earth. And even if they agree to do the project somehow, I don’t know how they do it because it’s done it to me before, but they somehow get the earth out of you for that foreground. Usually like you then said, you know, holding back payment. Coming back with some excuse. Oh, you should have told me. One of my pet peeves was that line, you’re the experts, you should have told us, you know, and things like that.
Lee Matthew Jackson
And oh my gosh, I think I’m gonna cry. Oh yeah, I’m not, but you know what I mean. It just brings back all those memories of, ah, come on.
Mark Asquith
Yeah, you really like picked up a point there. This is something I say to the guys internally here as well, like a hell of a lot, which is exactly what you’ve just said. The exact amount of time goes into a £20,000 job as a £5,000 job, and a £30,000 job. It’s only when you really start getting to the £40,000, £50,000 jobs that you’ve got to do a little bit more. And it’s only because those projects are genuinely going to take a bit longer. And it often comes down to personality and deliverability. Now, if you’re a—
Lee Matthew Jackson
But even that time, sorry, mate, but even that time, if it’s going to take you 5 hours to get that one £50,000 job in, that’s still a hell of a lot less time than it would have taken the 1 hour per £3,000 job to equate to £50,000. So it’s still significantly less. Sorry.
Mark Asquith
Exactly, yeah. No, no, no, you’re right. And you know, I’m with you totally. You know, you’ve got to look at the— it’s all spec work, you know, it’s all spec work. Doing a proposal, spec work. People don’t see it as that, but it is, it’s spec work. You know, I often ask clients why we should choose them. That knocks them right back on their heels. Like, why should we choose to work with you? Because look, this is our business. We are interviewing you here as much as you’re interviewing us. And you know, I’ve turned so many people down and cancelled projects and done all sorts of things because we don’t get along with people. Because let’s be honest, right, you don’t set your business up to say to your mum when she asks how business is, do you know what, Mum, actually a bit shit, not really enjoying it. Like, that is not why you set your business up. You’ve got to have the willingness to say, do you know what, even though you’re offering me 20 grand, I can see this is going to take 30, 40 grand worth of time. And do you know the worst thing is when people say, yeah, but if you do this, there’s some more work in it.
Mark Asquith
Well, pay for this and I’ll tell you what, I’ll do you a deal. We did this once, it worked a treat, and then we do it a lot now. Anytime anyone says that, we always say, okay, I’ll tell you what then, I’ll double the price of this, right, and you pay that, and then when this other work comes off that you’re promising, that you’re baiting, we’ll knock that extra fee that we’ve charged you off that price. So you’re still paying the same, but let’s call it an investment in your own belief. People run a mile. And the reason that—
Lee Matthew Jackson
that is beautiful, an investment in your own belief.
Mark Asquith
It’s— and it’s— it’s— but you can guarantee the people that say yes let’s be honest, you have a conversation and what you actually say is, let’s roll this budget in a little bit more, let’s get you on a retainer and let’s step you up to that budget. You don’t ever charge them the double, but the people that just go, what, are you an idiot? You just go, well, no, actually it turns out I would have been if I’d have taken that job on that promise. So, you know, it’s a nice way of validating things and proving that someone’s a genuine kind of person. Because the right type of people don’t look at working with you as a spend. You know, it’s the old classic cliché of it’s an investment, but more than that, it’s a partnership. And one of the other big pet peeves, and I think one of the big things that a lot of agencies struggle with, especially in the early days, your 2, 3, 4-man bands, is they struggle with the notion that anytime you work with someone, it’s a collaboration and a partnership. It is not a master-servant relationship. It’s not a one-way street.
Mark Asquith
It’s not, I’m paying you the money so you do what I want. It’s a, wait a minute, actually, I’m investing this time for this amount of work. And I understand that, yes, you are the expert, as you mentioned earlier on, but I’m the expert in what I do. So surely to God, we’re going to get a better, a much better, surefire hit of a project if we collaborate on this, rather than me as the client dictating to you what I think you will be better at. And what little input I’m going to have. And again, that’s another way that you can tell whether a client’s going to work well with you or not. If you say to them, listen to me, okay, here’s the deal. What I want from you prior to kicking this off is I want a sitemap from you. Not saying that it’s going to be final, it can be tweaked. And look, I can actually work on this with you later and collaborate on it. But when, when you send me the email saying, yep, I want to confirm this project, You send me your anticipated sitemap for your website. I know we’re talking just web jobs here, but if the person does that, you can be damn sure that they’re going to commit to getting you everything else that you need.
Mark Asquith
We all know what it’s like, those projects that have been sat on the shelf for a year, the last 50% of payment is still outstanding. You can be damn sure that they’re mostly content problems, people not sending the content through or people not signing certain parts off. people not doing the last 10% of the project with you. And as much as it’s about finding the right people in terms of ethics and values and personalities, it’s also about the commitment from their side. If they just want to employ you, then it’s probably going to go wrong. But if they want to work with you and actually achieve an outcome, they’re going to be a client probably for life.
Lee Matthew Jackson
That’s [Speaker:DAVID] a good way of analysing it. They want you to essentially work for them, then that’s essentially taking you right back to what you hated when you worked for someone else. Because again, it’s that whole kind of employer-employee relationship again, isn’t it? That just so goes against the grain of most of us, I think, in this community. We are— I mean, I don’t mind the word entrepreneur. I get it. It’s people who don’t really want to follow. I mean, we follow people for learning, etc. I follow a lot of the stuff you talk about because I get a lot of value from that. Equally, I’ve got a mind of my own and I’ve got expertise and skills of my own that I want to apply and explore those ideas. So the minute you’re then locked into some sort of contract with a client who perceives you as the person they can just shout at and tell what to do, it’s just such a toxic environment to work in.
Mark Asquith
[Speaker:TYRONE] Oh, it really is and you make a great point there about the boss scenario. One of my first ever pieces that I wrote, I’ll tell you the storey actually. Very briefly, my— the original catalyst for starting Excellent to Expected. Now, I’ve done a blog post on this later this year, which will be coming out, I don’t know, but whenever it comes out later this year, I got approached to write for a big, big, big outlet, like one that you and I being in web would know. And this was before I’d created Excellent to Expected. I was just MDing or kind of running HackSaw at the time. And I was asked to write this piece for it. So I went all out, man. Like I went all out. I wrote a 10,000-word piece. With the intent of breaking it up or giving it to them as a whole or whatever. Got it edited, professionally edited, really went the whole hog on it. Spent a long time thinking, brilliant, I can write for this amazing outlet that anyone in web knows. It’s fantastic. And then it came back after asking for it and then said they weren’t going to use it.
Mark Asquith
No reason, they didn’t say there was anything wrong with it, it was exactly what they’d asked for, but they just weren’t going to use it. So I took this piece and it was the first ever blog post that I published, and I’ve revitalised it on Excellence Expected, and it’s become Hard Truths That No One Tells You, or Hard Truths That You Don’t Want to Hear When You’re Starting Your First Business, and it’s a massive piece. And one of the big, big talking points, like I think I do 15 words alone on this, is the fact that when you create your business, you don’t stop having a boss unless you’re very careful. You actually trade one boss for 50 bosses or 20 bosses. And they aren’t bosses that always respect boundaries either. Your boss is not texting you on a night or emailing you at 9 o’clock.
Lee Matthew Jackson
If he is, he’s horrible.
Mark Asquith
He’s an horrible person. But your clients will, you know, and then the boss, because they have accountability from their boss and they have HR parameters to work in, they can’t swear at you and chuck the dummy out and, you know, throw the toys out of the pram and withhold payment. Like, you’re getting paid in a job every single week, every single month. But by acquiring these other bosses, when you start an agency or a business, they’ve got the same power over you, but they can stop your payments. Yeah, they can, they can withhold your time frames, they can hold you back, they can affect your mortgage, they can stop your life progressing, they can stop you putting food on your family’s table. So you wouldn’t walk into a job, not get along with the boss, and think, well, he’s going to offer me 20 grand a year, so it seems fine, I can, I can cope with them being a bit of a, bit of a plonker. So why would you choose clients that are going to give you 4 grand? Yeah, that you don’t get along with. You know, it’s a weird thing. It’s a weird thing.
Mark Asquith
And we all struggle with it, I think, to start with. But I think once you get over that, it’s, um, it puts you in a much better mindset and a better position.
Lee Matthew Jackson
This is all very cathartic for me, just having these sorts of conversations. Now tell me about Agency Accelerator, because I assume as an agency I can expect more of this good stuff in that What’s the idea behind Agency Accelerator? What’s coming up soon, and when’s it all kicking off?
Mark Asquith
So we’ve kind of soft launched it. So if you go to agencyaccelerator.co.uk, what we’re doing really at the minute is just writing content. We’ve got the blog posts written for the year, and really we want to kind of help agencies with this cathartic kind of content, and just let them see that it’s not just them. And realistically, we’re aiming at agencies that are growing. We are aiming at agencies that are maybe 1, maybe 2, maybe 3 years old, freelancers that want to become agencies, and really taking them through and saying, look, you’re not doing anything wrong by feeling like this, you’re not doing anything wrong by not doing this or by doing this, and eventually over the course of the next few months we’re going to be offering various services, some kind of dev services, we’re going to be offering some kind of, maybe some courses, we’re going to be offering some kind of community work in there. Also things like templates for NDAs and for contracts and privacy policies and terms and conditions for website. Like we’re basically becoming the resource to help your agency grow. And yeah, we know there are other things out there, other people doing that, but we live in an agency every single day, every single day.
Mark Asquith
And we just want to make our lives easier as much as everyone else’s. So instead of keeping everything internal, anything that we do internally that we think can help other people will be put on Agency Accelerator. So that’s the goal, you know, and eventually move to live events. And we’re going to do a cheeky little podcast and all sorts of different things. But that’s, that’s the basis of it.
Lee Matthew Jackson
AgencyAccelerator.co.uk. I’m sure if you’ve never heard Mark speak before, You are attracted to this man and his fantastic accent. And obviously the amazing things that he has to say, the truths that he has to say that I’m sure people have been bashing the dashboard or shouting yes at the same time.
Mark Asquith
Throwing the weights down in the gym.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Throwing the weights down in the gym. Who is this man? I must meet him. He’s amazing. This has all been amazing. Mate, how can people get in touch with you if they want to get stuff off their chest?
Mark Asquith
Yeah, that easy. That easy. So probably the easiest way actually, I mean obviously there’s Hacksaw, there’s podcasts, websites, but everything that I do, sort of the umbrella for everything is Excellence Expected. And I do the free coaching on Fridays, so just jump onto excellence-expected.com/freecoaching and you can just join me for a coaching session every Friday at 4 PM UK, 11 PM Eastern, 8 AM Pacific, and it’s just free coaching. So that is definitely the best place to get a one-to-one.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Brilliant. And you can also cheque out his collection of Marvel comics and figurines and everything else that kind of hides in the background usually on the free coaching. Is that—
Mark Asquith
I think I’m gonna have to come down there and whoop your ass, Lee, because it’s DC.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Huh?
Mark Asquith
Oh my word.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Oh, that was Tim, wasn’t it? Oh crap, sorry about that. That was Tim. That was Tim. He’s a Marvel guy. You’re the DC guy, aren’t you? Really? You’re a DC guy, mate? I thought so much of you.
Mark Asquith
Don’t let me come down.
Lee Matthew Jackson
I’m messing with you, man. I’m a Beano man, mate. We’ve had this conversation. I’ve got no loyalties either side. I like Marvel and DC.
Mark Asquith
We did have that conversation.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Yeah, yeah. I’m mainly a Beano guy. Yeah, on Facebook when you put it out there, you’re like, you caused this huge conversation, sorry, didn’t you, of people talking about their favourite comics. So in the UK, there’s a comic called Beano. I don’t know what the guys in the US had maybe.
Mark Asquith
What did they have for that? Was it like Archie or something?
Lee Matthew Jackson
I don’t know. LeeJacksonDev.com? No, it’s not. It’s AngleCrown.com. AngleCrown.com/group. Go to the Facebook group. Let’s talk about your comic collections, guys. That’d be amazing. Have you seen my new brand yet, mate?
Mark Asquith
Yes, I have. I love it.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Oh, sweet ass brand. There you go. You heard it here first. Mark Ashwith, excellence expected, says Sweet-ass brand. Any other feedback? Anything I could do better?
Mark Asquith
That’s a shareable on Twitter. That’s sweet-ass brand. No, I love it, man. I think you’ve got the message nailed. I think the colour scheme’s lovely. Brilliant.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Well, I do like it.
Mark Asquith
I like it. I think it looks sweet. I’ve been looking at the teasers on Facebook. Honestly, I think it’s a cracking job.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Sweet. Nice one. I’ve not done an About Us page yet, but I’ve made the site live anyway. I’m like, what the hell do I write on an About Us page? I’ve kind of covered it all on the main page. I’m thinking I’m just going to repeat what’s on the main page.
Mark Asquith
Do you know what I did on mine actually, which might help? I did, um, on the Excellence Expected one, it’s much less about me. I mean, there’s a paragraph about me, yeah, but it’s, it’s more about like, here’s the mission, one line, here’s how I’ll deliver that mission, like podcast, videos, free coaching. Like, here’s, here’s the why, here’s the what, here’s the how I’ll do it, and here’s some recommended reading. It like, it’s super simple.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Uh, I’ve got to have a look at that.
Mark Asquith
Yeah, it’s a weird—
Lee Matthew Jackson
rip off your content, shall I? That’d be amazing. Sounds like a mission. Yeah, I’ll just replace the word Mark with Lee. Job done.
Mark Asquith
Oh, you wouldn’t— you wouldn’t— you won’t want to do that, honestly. It wouldn’t describe you. You’re much more charming.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Ah, thanks, mate. It’s funny, isn’t it, when you meet people in real life as well, uh, you know, because like we’re all meeting, talking digitally, aren’t we? And you were saying earlier about the whole social media thing, you see the best of people, etc. I remember when I first met you and I didn’t realise you’re only 3 foot tall. I was just like, what? Hey, what?
Mark Asquith
It’s not, it’s not about how tall you are, buddy. It’s about how high you can jump.
Lee Matthew Jackson
All right, that’s true. Because the record mark is not 3 foot tall. He’s taller than me.
Mark Asquith
3 foot 2. Thank you.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Yeah, 3 foot 2. That’s brilliant. But again, the whole comparison thing you do, don’t you? You see the best of people. It’s like I was joking today that we had a— so I mean, I was joking at a funeral, that sounds terrible. I was at a funeral this morning, but I was with my sister-in-law and we were doing the whole selfie thing and I was like, right, come on, we’ve got to get the right angles, you know. So people only ever see the jawline angle that I like to show off.
Mark Asquith
Mate, honestly, you should see, like, you follow me on like everything and I’m the same with you and like, have a look at all my, any conference pictures or selfies or videos, mate, all from the same angle. All from, it’s the non-fat side.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Yeah, that’s it, the one, not too down so that they can see the double chin that I’ve got going on there.
Mark Asquith
That’s exactly it.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Definitely not below the chest. No way.
Mark Asquith
Below the chest? That’s heresy.
Lee Matthew Jackson
I love the fact that your wedding picture is still up. I’m looking at it right now on Skype. It’s staring right back at me. That one.
Mark Asquith
Yeah, that classic one.
Lee Matthew Jackson
That’s snazzy, that one. It’s like you’re at an event.
Mark Asquith
I like it. I know, everyone says it’s like a professional speaking picture. I’m like, no, the DJ just broke whatever the decks, whatever they do, and I had to go and tell a joke at a wedding to fill the gap, and I got that pitch. I’m like, sweet professional.
Lee Matthew Jackson
How did the joke go? Is it tellable? Can you share it with us?
Mark Asquith
Yeah, I think I can remember it. What was it now? Oh, here we go. Here we go. It’s terrible. It’s explicit, but not too explicit. So it is— what is it now? Oh, that was it. Did you see that they’re now doing breast implants made out of oak?
Lee Matthew Jackson
No.
Mark Asquith
That’d be nice, wouldn’t it?
Lee Matthew Jackson
That is terrible, mate. That’s the sort of thing you get in a cracker, innit? So how did that go down? Lead balloon? Or was everyone a bit drunk?
Mark Asquith
It went down worse than a lead balloon. It was like, yeah, it was in my head. All I had was like, hello darkness, my old friend. I was like, oh shit.
Lee Matthew Jackson
That’s a great soundtrack that they do that on Vines.
Mark Asquith
It’s like, yeah, they do. That’s pretty sad. Affleck. Yeah. Oh yeah.
Lee Matthew Jackson
He doesn’t want to be Batman anymore, does he?
Mark Asquith
Oh yeah. I think he’s trying to get out of it. He’s just come out of rehab as well. They’re making such a— yeah, literally today it was on the internet, Facebook. They were— hang on.
Lee Matthew Jackson
You’ve now— you’re no longer listening to WP Innovator. We’re now listening to E! Entertainment gossip. With Mark. News just in from Mark. Mark, over to you.
Mark Asquith
Ben Affleck has just come out of rehab for alcohol addiction. Yeah. Yeah. No, no, serious. So yeah, but no, I don’t think it’ll be— I don’t know what they’re going to do with that Batman film because it’s a shame. He’s an all right Batman. Do you reckon?
Lee Matthew Jackson
I can’t— I don’t know. I mean, he puffed up enough, didn’t he? That was pretty impressive. But Yeah, I wasn’t sure. I still like George Clooney. I’m messing, mate. I was so messing.
Mark Asquith
I’ll tell you what.
Lee Matthew Jackson
What was that? What happened there?
Mark Asquith
That was me blowing all of the air out of my body in an exasperated sigh. That’s brilliant.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Actually, the only thing that saved that movie, I reckon, was probably Arnold Schwarzenegger. I think he’s probably got to be the best villain ever.
Mark Asquith
There’s a freeze coming. Yeah, there is Arnold.
Lee Matthew Jackson
It was so cheesy. It was just like—
Mark Asquith
What a legend. I love Arnie to bits as well. Like, he’s my man. And him and Stallone and Van Damme. Like, I’m like so 80s. It’s unbelievable.
Lee Matthew Jackson
I know. I bet you love The Expendables then, don’t you?
Mark Asquith
Don’t even get me started. Terrible films, but amazing. Exactly.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Rubbish storylines, but it’s just like every 5 seconds you just hear me going, yes, come on, brilliant. Jason Statham comes in like the hope for all bald men everywhere. I’m like, come on, Jason.
Mark Asquith
And then I love how all bald men think they look like Jason Statham as well.
Lee Matthew Jackson
I look like Jason Statham.
Mark Asquith
Oh, you do. You’ve got that look.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Thank you. Yeah. I was in America once and a lady came up to me and asked me if I was Jason. I didn’t actually clock that she thought I was Jason Statham. It was Kate who told me later. She was like, you do realise who she thought you were? I was like, you serious?
Mark Asquith
Whoa. Well, you need to put your top back on next time, buddy, if people are mistaking you for Jason Statham.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Yeah. I ain’t got the moves like Jason Statham.
Mark Asquith
No, I don’t think many people have.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Anyway, mate, well, this could be like the after hours. I threatened a few times now to do like an after hours of the podcast where we do like the 45-minute podcast and then we kind of change it up a gear and you both open a can of beer and then you sit talking about anything and everything with a can of beer.
Mark Asquith
Hmm, I like that.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Well, actually, maybe a few cans of beer so that it actually starts to get more entertaining. The more beer that’s drunk.
Mark Asquith
I’m up for that. I’ve got some Aberfeldy whiskey as well in studio.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Done. Really? Sweet. Well, I’ll have to do this for a moment. So maybe we’ll do another one after hours, like marketing whilst drunk conversation.
Mark Asquith
Oh, I’m well up for that.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Yeah. Sweet. To be honest, I put it on the group the other day as well. Actually, I’ll let you go in a minute, mate. Just not nattering away here. This is still recording. This is all going on the show.
Mark Asquith
This is gold.
Lee Matthew Jackson
This is— I was in the group just the other day and I confessed that I was on a conference call with a client and I was drinking beer and I’d had a beer and 2 shots of whiskey and I was really feeling quite lightheaded because I hadn’t had any dinner yet. It was like one of those days where it was a long day and I was just like, I really need to just take the edge off for this meeting because it’s going to be one of those boring meetings. Tell you what, a little bit of beer, it makes a meeting quite a lot of fun because I got a little bit brave and started cracking a few jokes with these guys and it worked. It was great. It was gold. Well, I’m not advocating— yeah, yeah, thanks, mate. I’m not advocating drinking alcohol, actually, by the way. Just, guys, you know, seriously, don’t get drunk on a client conference. It’s not good for business.
Mark Asquith
That actually sounded like David Brent, though. I am not advocating the use of drugs.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Gotta keep these disclaimers in.
Mark Asquith
That’s brilliant.
Lee Matthew Jackson
I love it. Nice one. Well, guys, if you’ve loved this, then head on over to agencyaccelerator.co.uk. Go and read that amazing content. If you want to connect with Mark, go on Facebook, look for Excellence Expected, follow his amazing free training that— well, free coaching session that you do every Friday, 4:00 PM UK time, and what time US?
Mark Asquith
11:00 AM Eastern, 8:00 AM Pacific.
Lee Matthew Jackson
That was the one. And it’s specific or Pacific, I always get them muddled up. Also, it’s excellent-expected.com and make Thanks so much for being on. You’re a legend.
Mark Asquith
No, back at you, man. Always a pleasure. Always good to chat.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Nice one. Have a freaking awesome week, buddy.
Mark Asquith
You too, my man.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Ta-ta.
Mark Asquith
Bye-bye.
Lee Matthew Jackson
And as they say in Hollywood, as this ain’t, that’s a wrap. I hope you enjoyed episode number 68. I sure did. And if you do enjoy anything that happens on the WP Innovator Podcast, then I’d love to know about it because ’cause that’s gonna boost my ego. You know, hey, we’ve all got egos, let’s be honest about this. So head on over to the Facebook group on angledcrown.com/group. And if you really love the show, it would be freaking awesome if you could head on over to iTunes and leave us a review on there as well, because that really does help. And remember, if you wanna go and see Lee chatting about design agency fancy stuff, then head on over to anglecrown.com/vlog with a V. That’s the vlog. And you can enjoy some good YouTube-age as well. Hey, isn’t that great? And make sure you leave a YouTube comment and a like and a subscribe and all of this stuff that YouTubers say as well. Oh my gosh, I’m turning into a cliché. Anyway, have a wonderful day, guys. I’ll see you over at the Facebook group, anglecrown.com/group. Check out pictures.
