Note: This transcript was auto generated then some poor soul sat and listened to it, and followed through correcting any mistakes they spotted. Please however expect human error and shout if you spot an issue. Email: lee [fancy curly symbol] trailblazer.fm.
Verbatim text
Lee:
Welcome to the WP Innovator Podcast, the podcast for web designers and design agencies, exploring the world of WordPress and online business. And now your host, Lee Jackson.
Lee:
Hello and welcome to episode number 84 of the WP Innovator Podcast. That does actually mean we’re 16 episodes from 100. That’s quite cool. All right. On today’s show, we have Mike Doyle. He is an animation specialist. He’s also super cool and super funny and making videos and makes me and Larissa laugh quite a lot. He’s from Drive80. Head on over to drive80.com if you want to go check that out. And he’s also doing this cool new subscription called Animation Monthly, which you can find on animationmonthly.com. This episode kind of gets weird.
Lee:
I think you’re really going to enjoy it. It’s a little bit different. There’s a few swears in there, so if you’ve got kids and you’re in a car, you probably don’t want to be listening to this well, and a few other things, a few other reasons why you probably don’t want kids in the car. You’re gonna know when it happens. But it’s a really good episode. Don’t forget if you enjoyed this episode, make sure you leave an iTunes review and then head on over to wpinnovator.com forward slash group, which will take you into the Facebook group where you can also talk about how creeped out you were when you heard the bit that I’m trying to refer to in code. All right guys, sit back, relax, enjoy the ride, and please keep your arms and legs and your head inside of the vehicle at all times.
Lee:
And in today’s conversation you are joining me and Mr. Mike Doyle from Drive 80. How you doing Mike?
Mike:
I’m good. I am very good. How are you?
Lee:
I am awesome. I would encourage anyone right now, just head on over to drive80.com and if you want to get a song stuck in your head or a significant others, just play the video. It’s such a cool video. Drive80.com mate. How you doing anyway? Sorry, I… that was just a quick digression. That song, I watched that video what, two years ago? I don’t know, whenever you launched that. And I’ll be driving in my car and I’ll be like driving and the girls are like what the hell is that song? And then my daughter’s like, drive80.com.
Mike:
Yeah, just don’t let her watch it because it has like the guy peeing in his pants. That must be weird.
Lee:
Yeah, no, I know that. I like it though. Drive80.com. Also he’s from animationmonthly.com as well, your new exciting subscription which we’ll talk about in a minute. But first of all, for people who have not heard of you, although they should have done because they should have heard you years ago when you were on the show, can you just give us a little introduction as to who you are, what you do, your favorite color, and why you exist and the meaning of life? Go.
Mike:
My name is Mike Doyle. I own drive80.com. We are animation storytelling specialists, and the pitchy part of it is we help businesses who are frustrated that people don’t get what they do or they’re worried that their website isn’t generating qualified leads or they’re struggling to stand apart from their competition. So we saw that in about 60 seconds, sometimes 90 seconds, of animation so people quickly get how you help them. As for my favorite color, it’s probably blue. And the meaning of life is that life is completely meaningless and it’s a big open white box that everyone can just paint their own canvas and no one realizes that, and that’s why people are upset.
Lee:
There you go. That’s beautiful. I feel like we just kind of went from kind of cool and exciting to deep and meaningful and mind-blowing. People are just gonna like pull over in their cars and just sit there sighing. There’s like, crap, wait, I can’t… I can or cannot swear in this? I don’t want to…
Mike:
People can swear in my podcast but I don’t want to cross the line here.
Lee:
You may swear. I will put an E on the podcast so iTunes will not block.
Mike:
Okay, I won’t swear that… Oh no, you can. I don’t mind. I think it slipped out of my own mouth now and again, every now and again.
Lee:
I love your tagline, mate. I explain what your company does in less than a minute, and I actually used to struggle to even explain what I did in less than a minute, just verbally anyway. You do it through the medium of cool animation. How did you get into animation mate?
Mike:
When I was little I used to draw on the little… what are those? The little flip, the sticky notes?
Lee:
Oh yeah.
Mike:
Because they make flip books. And I think… did you do the penis one? Come on.
Lee:
I don’t think I did that. I would usually do just like stick figures beating other stick figures overhead or like…
Mike:
You were violent.
Lee:
Yeah, I was definitely violent. I used to draw comics when I was in CCD class, which is like the church class when I was a kid. And I was… I was such a… I was such a bad kid and I just sit in the back just drawing these comics, just awful shit. I was getting in trouble but it was always hilarious. There was always some sarcastic, hilarious tone of it. But that, you know, the drawing led to animation and then I took some time off of it for a while because my creative side then turned to playing in music for a while and I did that and then I did that into my 20s. Then I found school and a passion for graphic design and in the time of going to school we had a really quick review of Flash, which is now CC Animate for Adobe, anyone out there who’s using that. And Flash used to be really big in the web space and you can animate with it. It’s like one of those things I… they showed me one tutorial and my mind just exploded of all the things I can do with it. And I used… I got really, really good with that for a long time. And then iPad came around and basically destroyed Flash websites because it wouldn’t load. Steve Jobs decided that Flash sucked and he hated Adobe apparently, so he was like nope, we’re not going to have this on iPads. So I had to quickly decide how I was going to still animate. And then I realized that After Effects had been around forever and After Effects isn’t going anywhere, or it’s going to morph into something else, but it was the newer medium I was going to use to animate and I just kept it going. And that’s when I started my company.
Lee:
I remember back in the day watching all the old… do you remember Weebl and stuff and Cyanide and Happiness? They all looked like Flash animations back in the day.
Mike: Oh dude, actually, you know what’s funny is that I think Cyanide and Happiness, I think they still animate in Flash. So you can animate in Flash, but you just can’t publish an… you can publish like an SWF, which was the file that would be the web native file, and that’s what iPads weren’t playing. But what a lot of animators started doing is they’re using Flash and they’re exporting it as a QuickTime file or M… and they’re able to upload that to YouTube. So that’s what Cyanide and Happiness, I think they’re still utilizing that, and a lot of animators are utilizing that.
Lee:
So what was Macromedia Flash back in the day if you remember that far back, still powers online animation today?
Mike:
Yeah, Macromedia got bought out by Adobe. I mean, they saw the power of it and then they turned it to just Flash and now it’s Animate. Like I still… there’s a buddy here who utilizes it too. But yeah, you know, so I guess I’m kind of going back on when I was utilizing Flash back in the day, it was really for websites and it was doing a lot of ActionScript and stuff and they were like, yeah, it sucks, can’t do that anymore. So yeah.
Lee:
I remember, I mean I couldn’t afford Flash at the time so I ended up buying something called Cool Moves. Don’t remember that? It was like a Windows application that allowed you to do animation. Plus I just couldn’t get the timeline in Flash, it would always throw me. So I ended up using Cool Moves because it was dead easy to understand how to animate.
Mike:
What didn’t you understand about it?
Lee:
Everything back then. I would just look at everything and try moving things around and I just didn’t get it. I get it now because, you know, since… just compared it with, because I’ve messed around with, uh, we do HTML5 animation now with a system called Hype, which kind of looks pretty much exactly like Flash used to back in the day.
Mike:
Oh wow.
Lee:
And kind of had to get my head around it. But also because I do MIDI, I just kind of put my head in that sort of realm of, oh that starts then, oh I get it. But initially it just threw me. So I ended up going for this like simple point and click Flash animator called Cool Moves with a K. How cool was that?
Mike:
Yeah, you can’t do… Yeah, good old Cool… like the menthol cigarettes.
Lee:
Like the menthol cigarettes. Kids, go buy a pack. Do they have them over in… yes, over in your… your town? Your country? They do, they have menthol cigarette.
Mike:
In fact, I haven’t smoked for years to be honest. I was like a teenage smoker, gave up years ago. But now and again someone will tempt me with a menthol cigarette and I’ll have to do it just for the hell, especially if we drink it.
Lee:
Actually it’s funny, my little sister, she just turned 21 and she said that smoking, like no one really smokes anymore unless they’re drinking. But she said that the guys now, they get turned off by girls who smoke, really. So girls in her… so she’s in like, she’s gonna be a senior in college. She’s like, girls typically now… she’s like they’ll stay away from smoking around guys because it grosses them out.
Mike:
Really?
Lee:
Uh-huh. I was like, that’s interesting.
Mike:
Yeah, it is. I guess it’s a good thing. I mean, we’ve kind of gone off on a tangent here, but I guess that’s kind of a good thing because that is promoting people to make healthier choices I guess. I don’t know.
Lee:
That’s right. So girls, that’s terribly judgmental though. Guys, why can’t guys smoke? What, guys can but girls can’t? Oh, that’s not fair.
Mike:
Yeah, it’s like the… tales all this time guys get to get away with everything apparently.
Lee:
Oh no, now I’ve got Beauty and the Beast in my… I watched that the other day. It was freaking amazing. The new version, the non-animated version, Beauty and the Beast.
Mike:
Taylor’s…
Lee:
Oh really? It was with… with Hermione.
Mike:
Yep.
Lee:
I can’t not see her as Hermione. Oh my gosh, she’s so hot. I had such a crush on her when I was like… oh my gosh, amazing. Actually with little, I started reading Harry Potter was like my 20s. But yeah, we are going off on a tangent.
Mike:
Yeah, no, that’s fine. You’re allowed to have a crush on her. She’s… she’s of legal age to have a crush on, so that is perfectly fine.
Lee:
Yes. And on that note, let’s talk about animation. I can see how I kind of segued into the live action version of Beauty and the Beast and now we’re kind of talking about animation because preceding that was animation. Animation is a fine art to me. I can’t do it. You can. You’re bloody brilliant and you’re also funny. So, you know, you said you’re sitting at the back of class doing funny cartoons with attitude. That comes out in your animations and that also comes out in the video that you do. I love it. It makes me laugh so much. Like every single time, like Larissa loves your videos as well, who works with me, and I’ll often drag her over and say look, watch this and she’s in stitches at what you do.
Mike:
Oh really?
Lee:
Yeah, seriously, you are a funny… you’re naturally a funny guy, especially the jump cuts and you’re kind of staring at the screen for a second and the facial expressions when you’re doing the videos but also the animations themselves I think are really funny and on it, you know, they’re always on point. So there’s a bit of buttering you up. But the problem is I guess for me is is that like I’m being offered animation for stupidly cheap everywhere all over the place. So how do you stand apart as an animator in what feels like a crowded market and it’s the same for me, I’m in a crowded market of web developers. How do I stand out? And people can probably listen back to other episodes where I’ve talked about that, but for you as an animator, with the amount of kind of free or cheap animation out there on Fiverr, sorry to swear, how do you stand out?
Mike:
I think it just depends on who your audience is, who’s looking to buy. People are always… there’s always an audience that wants cheap. There’s always an audience that wants to pay a little more and there’s always an audience that’s willing to pay the most. And there’s a lot of them out there, and it’s how do you decide from the beginning who you want to target, who you want to work with, and who do you want to say no to and who do you want to say yes to? It’s really that simple. And I mean it, you know, it is that simple. And I definitely get in my own way a lot of times with that message, but I try to just… when I go outside of being who I am, I find that I have a difficult day, I have stress. But then if I let go and I’m like, you know what, I’m just gonna stand back for a minute and what do I really like to do? I’m not… I don’t like to do prospecting. I don’t like to do all these cold emails and all this stuff I’m told I have to do at least, you know, to write all this stuff. And I’m like, I like to create really cool stuff. I like to just have a really… I’m like, what comes natural to me is adding sarcasm, making people laugh. Yeah, and because it’s… that makes me enjoy my day and I find that my day turns to be a lot more exciting and more airy I guess you could say when I’m doing things I don’t want to do. It feels like I have a hundred pound backpack on that’s weighing me down and the moment I start doing the things I want, that comes off and I get more attention from people because they gravitate towards it. So to answer your question, what makes me stand apart is when I decide to be myself in my work, more people come out of the woodwork and they start saying yo, I love that or hey, how much do you charge for this? And that’s what helps me find that crowd. But then the problem with that crowd is a lot of them are solopreneurs who typically don’t… if you’re starting off in a business, you don’t… you have a budget. I mean everyone has a marketing budget and they’re like, I don’t have a budget. Like you have a budget, you’re going to spend money in this next year. You’re probably going to spend a couple thousand dollars. You’re not going to realize you’re going to do it with getting a domain, getting an LLC, you know, even just having a Mailchimp account with automations. It all starts adding up or just random things here and there that you’re going to spend. At the end of the year, you’re like, wow, I spent a couple thousand dollars. But is that going towards your marketing? Now if you’re going towards your marketing, you’re also spending time. You know, if you don’t want to pay someone else to do something, you’re going to do it yourself. And when you’re doing something yourself that’s outside of the means of what you’re good at doing, you’re also taking way more time and it’s taking away from you doing what you do best. And what you do best is what you’re charging by the hour. So you’re spending time, you’re spending money because your time is money. Does this make sense so far?
Lee:
It totally makes sense. People trying to build their own websites when they don’t have the skill, you know, they’re probably really good at consultancy and that time is more valuable to be selling rather than stuck in front of a computer trying to build their website or trying to animate something for themselves.
Mike:
Yeah, like think about if your car craps out. Everyone can relate to this. Everyone has a car if they’re above whatever the driving age is. Everyone has a car. When it shits the bed, do you… if you’re gonna… you have no idea, you’ve never even opened the hood besides putting windshield wiper fluid in or putting oil and something else happens. There’s a noise. So are you gonna take the time and go on YouTube and watch what this could potentially be? Take apart an engine? It’s gonna take you 20 hours. You’re probably gonna fuck your car up, right?
Lee:
Yeah, and kill everyone.
Mike:
And exactly. Yeah, you’re gonna make some… so it’s like don’t… you know, everyone’s like, oh, you can go, you could do it yourself. It’s like, yeah, you can learn to do it yourself and I’d say the small percentage can do it themselves, but the ones that are gonna try, they’re gonna realize it could take too much time to do it. So what are you good at? It’s like, well, then bring them to the professional. And when you bring them to the professional, when they give you a number and you know they’re creditable, credible, and if you ask the question, if you understand that they give you a price, you say, I understand that yes, it is going to cost me this.
Lee:
Yeah, but the thing with the cheap animators and stuff, going to kind of bring it back, you know, to the animation part, it’s… you can find guys on five guys or girls on Fiverr who are good, but they… what do you want to get out of it? Like why do you want an animation? What do you… you know, everyone’s like, oh, I want an animation. I’m like, why? What’s the problem you’re solving? It’s not just, oh, I want something cool. Like why are you spending money on something cool? You want something that’s effective, it’s going to stay around for years and it’s going to solve a problem that entire time and it’s also going to keep you from spending a lot of money that entire time.
Mike:
So when someone comes to me and our prices go from anywhere from, and we can go as low as like 3500 up to like nine grand. I’ve done projects where, you know, someone spent like 28,000 because they wanted multiple videos. And I talked to someone the other day and I gave him like the lower range says we have 3500 to do this and they were starting off and they’re like okay, we gotta talk to the team. I said, you know, just look, here’s something to think about. And I’m like this isn’t a hard sell. It’s like your problem is that you have a hard time explaining this. You told me that a client brings you… they tell me like their client could potentially bring them ten dollars per student in this idea which they had 150,000 students. It’s like something… something ridiculous, some stupid amount. The stupid number. So if that… if the client comes to you, they understand what you do and they’re going to give you that much money, that’s a win. But in that middle process that they don’t understand what you’re doing, that could lose you that much money. So if you spend… and if the problem is that understanding and the cost to solve that could be 3500 bucks, and that’s also going to solve that problem for the next four years, you’re really not spending that much money. Does that make sense?
Lee:
It makes perfect sense because it’s essentially evergreen. It’s something you can keep using. It’s on the homepage or whatever. It’s a landing page. Oh, you need to know what we do? Go check this out. Four years later, it’s animation. It’s still relevant unless your company has changed slightly, I don’t know. But that makes perfect sense. You can then spread that essentially, I think is it capex? You can spread that cost over several years as well and work out that actually that was super cheap per year. I’ve only spent a few hundred bucks on solving a huge problem which has given me tons and tons of income in return because it’s taken my waffle, which I will give to a client saying, oh yeah, this is what we do blah blah blah blah blah blah, lots and lots of big terms and lingo, and changed it into a very simple, easy to understand 60 second, this is it.
Mike:
Yeah, and if that’s gonna… and you gotta think about what that’s solving for you. So what we’re doing is, I’ve been doing some math. I have a client right now, they’ve had their video on their site for four years. Okay, that’s like 875 bucks a year, right? It’s pretty good that they would have spent.
Lee:
Yeah.
Mike:
And their problem is going to consider… like if your problem is people don’t understand this about the company and that’s losing this money, you’re gonna spend money on trying to solve that as much as possible and you’re gonna try infographics, you’re gonna try blog posts, you’re gonna try sales meetings, you’re gonna try all of this stuff. And if none of that’s working, put a dollar to that. How much does it cost? How much time is it costing you to do a blog post? Are you spending money on blog posts? How much money is it costing you to do an infographic? How much money? Like all these different mediums. So add that all up and then times that by how many years it’s or month is taking you to solve that problem. You’re still not getting it, you know? Then you have to go with the thing that’s going to solve that. And I’m not saying an animation is it, but find that thing that’s going to solve that and then spend the money on that.
Lee:
Well, it’s great to hear what you’re talking about though because, you know, for anyone, even if you’re not an animator, you’re building a website, this is the exact same conversation you can be having with your clients. Everything that Mike’s saying here is totally relevant. You know, by them trying to build their own website, they’re not necessarily going to build a very good website. You know, by having a website that’s going to help drive business, it’s going to help convert leads into… well, generate leads but also convert those leads into sales, etc. Rather than trying to do it yourself or travel around the globe meeting up with potential clients and a nice business card.
Mike:
Yeah, you know, it’s the same sort of conversation. Think about websites like… if you’re your audience, the majority of your audience is developing websites, say to them, you say to your client like, hey, this is great, you’re working Monday to Friday. You know, you do realize that you’re not gonna be in the office Saturday and Sunday, but your website’s gonna be in the office Saturday to Sunday and it’s gonna be talking the whole time for 24 hours seven days a week. So do you want that to look like a piece of crap when you’re not there? Because that thing is still talking to people and people are still gonna go there and if it’s… if it’s not built the wrong way or if it’s not giving the right message or if it’s, if it’s not responsive and all these things, that’s gonna affect someone. I had a friend right now, she had a Facebook header, stupid, it’s stupid stupid as a Facebook header. She couldn’t get it to fit on mobile so I helped her real quick and I was like yeah just do this and this. You use Canva actually, use Canva to do them. That’ll help you out. But she said one of her clients emails her and said, hey, uh, this looks like crap on my phone.
Lee:
Nice.
Mike:
So people are paying attention, you know, and it’s those small little things that people… you think like design or whatever. It’s like, oh, it’s not a big deal. It’s like if someone’s gonna take their time out of their day and say, hey, this looks like… this looks like shit, that’s a big deal.
Lee:
We drove past the other day on design. There is one thing that really like boggles my mind sometimes. It is how some really big businesses have the world’s worst logos and there was a massive industrial estate we were driving past the other day and I kid you not, there’s this company I’m not going to mention who they are, but they’re a furniture company local to here, a massive warehouse, they’re obviously super successful, and this big ugly green logo that looks like it’s got some kind of clip art on there and it looks like, like someone’s child probably designed it. And also the vans are all over town and it’s just totally wrong and I kind of get angry every time I see the van. I’m like, why? Why are you successful with that logo? It’s awful. If I had them as a client and I was a marketer, I’d be like our message should be, yeah our logo looks like shit but our furniture is is is awesome.
Mike:
Well then you could do an animation to explain that, couldn’t you? We invest all of our money into the quality of the furniture.
Lee:
Yeah, we took the budget and put it into the couch, not the marketing.
Mike:
Yeah, that would be the perfect market. That was my company. Like I have no fear with my marketing, I would say that. People be like, dude, that’s brilliant.
Lee:
Yeah, okay, I’ll just consider them now to be geniuses now that you’ve said that.
Mike:
Oh yeah, they just kind of… they tripped over genius without realizing it.
Lee:
Yeah, I don’t know. That was just me just having a rant. You know, I only get to share that with my wife and it drives them out. I thought might as well share it with everyone else.
Mike:
Oh, it’s like the PF Chang’s logo. They’re using Papyrus as their font and I want to punch the owner in the face.
Lee:
That’s it. That’s a common joke. There’s a plugin which you can activate on your WordPress site which will convert all of your fonts into the Papyrus one.
Mike:
Oh my god, that Courier and what’s the other really bad… Comic Sans.
Lee:
Comic Sans, yeah. Oh my god, that makes me just like want to punch babies.
Mike:
That is really extreme.
Lee:
Sorry, I wouldn’t do that, no of course not. So with animation, I mean you said it’s solving a problem. I mean, could you just like pretend right now that I’m a potential client of yours? What sort of journey do you take me on to get me from hi Mike, could you do one of those silly little animations for me please? Which probably you’ll want to punch me in the face if I say that. But you know, because there are concepts isn’t there about that? Oh it’s just a silly animation. I know it’s more than that. Said that on purpose to rile you. So I’ve come to you with that after you’ve punched me in the face. What journey do you need to take me on because I might not even know why I need a freaking animation. I’ve just been told you need animation.
Mike:
I’ll ask them where in the damn is there a crack and money’s leaking out. Okay, so in your company, let’s say, you know where right now is the biggest problem your company’s having.
Lee:
Okay, so with messaging?
Mike:
Yeah.
Lee:
All right. So that would be people hitting the website and not being able to capture at least capture their information too.
Mike:
Okay. Okay, so who are the people? Who’s the target market that’s coming to your website and this is design agency owners?
Lee:
Okay, so what’s their biggest problem?
Mike:
Their biggest problem is going to be that they are struggling to get their designs converted into WordPress websites. They’ve dealt with, you know, freelancers, they’ve got a bit of a bad history essentially. Not all freelancers in the world, but they’ve unfortunately had some bad history in trying to deal with lone freelancers who’ve let them down on design to WordPress projects and they’re trying to look for a little bit of stability, a partner.
Mike:
Okay, so now we’re really digging down. So it’s designers who’ve worked with freelance web designers for WordPress and that the answer we’ve got, we know who we are, we know what they’re looking for and we know the problem they’ve had in the past. It’s been bad free… you know, how’d you state it?
Lee:
Uh, well I just… I literally said bad freelancers. It sounds like a movie doesn’t it? Actually Bad Moms, Bad Freelancers. Let’s mess up their design. Let’s let’s be late with deliverables. So okay, so now we know it’s a bad freelancer. Give me like an example, real world example of what that means. Like what would have been a bad experience?
Lee:
Well, two common bad experiences. Number one is the freelancer actually doesn’t have the skill to be able to do it. So what they return just looks absolutely terrible. It looks nothing like the design that was provided. So the design is over promised. So they gave them… so the designer gave them the PSDs and the web developer came back and were like, here you go and it looked nothing like exactly. It’s like a butchered theme. That’s a very big point. Is that a big point you hear a lot?
Lee:
Yes, a lot.
Mike:
Okay, so that’s huge. Now what’s another one?
Lee:
And then the other one is just frankly people disappearing on the job.
Mike:
So, well okay, there’s actually three. One, the other one is being super super late. So like we win so many jobs, I… we just won a job recently from a free… from a company that was using a freelancer that was clearly cheaper than us and they’d already spent a load of money with them but the freelancer just kept kicking the can down the road for another week, for another week, for another week, and they had go live date within a month that they needed to hit. So that was a huge issue for a lot of agencies is the freelancers being late and then obviously the freelancer disappearing as well. Usually if they get later and later and later, the end result is suddenly the freelancer is no longer contactable. So it’s like the three core issues, you know, it’s lack of skill and disappearing in lateness.
Lee:
You want to paint that picture up front?
Mike:
Yeah, you’re dealing with this right now. Like the person lands on your… lands on your website and you could say, we make great WordPress sites and we’re this blah blah. It’s like, great, everyone’s saying that. You asked me before what makes me stand apart. What makes anyone stand apart is understanding the pain of why someone’s there. So if you can tell… if you can tell them really quickly within a couple seconds just to start and then you got their attention, they’re going to read more or watch more. You can say, you probably have, you know, you probably worked with web developers who have done, you know, have been late, who have not returned, have not turned around a website that looked like your design, and they’ve also just ghosted you. So what you’re doing right there is saying we understand what you’re going through, that’s why you’re here, and you’re calling yourself out and saying since we understand that, it’s very in the forefront of our mind that we’re not going to do that to you. Because they can come back later on and say, yo, you sold me on the fact that you were going to do this shit to me. So they’re starting to build before even knowing you. They’re like, man, this person gets it. So that’s like just the black and white. And if you could take that in in whatever message you’re doing, you can put that in front of somebody, they’re going to… they’re like, okay, this person understands my pain. Yeah, you have to get that pain from someone because that’s what dollars are spent emotionally. And if you can show that to someone from the beginning, they’re going to trust you before meeting you. And then they’re going to kind of dive in more. Okay, let me look at their websites. Let me see if all this other stuff matches. Now I’m going to spend time on your site to see if we are fit before I contact you. Or they’re going to feel so inclined to contact you and be like, yo, whatever what you just said right there is exactly what the problem is. And then from there you can ask them like, let’s say you had an animation or a video or whatever the hell it is, those three bullet points are perfect. Someone calls you and they’re like, hey Lee, I saw your site, I really… um, I saw those pain points, I really resonated with me, you tell me more about what you do. And say, hey, thanks for calling, I’m really appreciate it. By the way, out of those three pain points, what was the biggest? What was the biggest one? They’re like, oh man, yeah, you go down. They’re like, oh man, we had this one, this one idiot we worked now they start saying things like that, it’s one idiot we worked with. He just like, I kept sending in the designs, he just couldn’t get his pixels were always like 40 off to the left and he wasn’t using the right hex value and he, you know, all blah blah blah and it wasn’t responsive and I was just like what the hell is going on. You’re like, what did that mean? How much time did it cost you? What was your relationship with your client from that? You have a talking point from there. Before it’s… you don’t pitch them shit. You find out all of that stuff. Now you’re digging deep. You’re like, oh man. Now they’re like trusting you, which they should. It’s not a game. It sounds like therapy as well. This sounds like they’ve just called up and received some amazing therapy.
Mike:
Oh so they’ve now bonded with you over the problem that they’ve had before you’ve even mentioned yourself and what you do?
Lee:
Oh yeah. You shouldn’t even talk about yours. The 80/20 rule or the 90/20 rule. You shouldn’t talk about yourself to the end. Ask all those questions in the beginning. But that’s the whole sales game. But what gets them there and what I tell clients is to do that and I say look, where’s your biggest problem right now? And they’ll say exactly. Like if you like, we just did the experiment right now. You said this is my biggest problem, so I instead of me jumping in and telling you what to do, I would dig more into you and say like how many of those clients understand that on your website? So in this case, how many people what you just told me you have a complete understanding of who your target market is, you know their pain points, is that expressed on your website?
Lee:
Absolutely not.
Mike:
Why? It was but the video was terrible and no, but not the video, just if… screw the video but like why is that not… why is that not sure there?
Lee:
Because we relaunched the website a few months ago and I’ve been way too busy with clients coming in for me to actually update the site.
Mike:
Isn’t that shocking? That’s actually a good problem.
Lee:
It’s a great problem, to be honest. We actually don’t need to generate lots of more business. So this was an experiment, but I definitely need to get that up there once we’ve scaled and we get more business in and then totally need to change our message. It used to say all that but when we rebranded I just went for a pretty site which was, you know, probably a bad move. But I mean this is something you can tell your clients. I mean you can even ask your clients just be like hey, what are the three points you want to put up there that someone sees? That, you know, this is the billboard. Because on your site you’ve got your agency’s dev team, we’re here to help you add the sparkle. So that’s talking about kind of aesthetic.
Mike:
Yes.
Lee:
We’re coders but we’re seriously… we get design, you’re designing, we code your masterpiece into a WordPress theme. So you’re telling them the things you do. Usually have another section there and being like you’ve probably had these problems, we won’t do that to you. Just right there. You even need an animation that like have say that to people.
Mike:
Yeah. And then you have that conversation. So even with your clients say like what are the three main pain points? Let’s put that on the site. Do a little checklist. Yeah, your sanity check. Any of these problems? So that’s like that. I think that’s the differentiator. If you want to go on Fiverr, you’re going to have to do a lot more work.
Lee:
Well, you’re gonna have to do all that yourself aren’t you? I’m gonna have to dictate to someone on Fiverr what to make for me and I probably don’t know as a non-animator and not maybe not even a marketer what I want, so I’m just probably going to give them a terrible storyboard and they’re gonna just do whatever I’m told for a few…
Mike:
But if they’re good at what they’re doing, they’re gonna ask you exactly what I asked you. If not, they’re gonna speak… they’re gonna focus on design and design is great when it’s the candy coated shell on top of a strong message. When there’s no message, it’s like eating a Dorito or like those puff cheese like crap that you get in a bag. You can eat a ton of it and it looks great, it tastes great, but there’s nothing, there’s no essence right? There’s nothing to fill you up. There’s no nutrition in it. There’s nothing, there’s no solid foundation and it’s not gonna sustain.
Lee:
Yeah.
Mike:
And so when you work with those guys, unless you understand your message and can just say to them, hey, like I got a script, it’s badass, I just need the design. That’s where Fiverr is great. But if you want them to tell your story, I mean maybe there’s some really great people on there, but you’re also… you know, you’re just giving someone five bucks or ten bucks or twenty bucks. I don’t know the last time I worked my ass off for twenty bucks.
Lee:
No, it’s true. The struggle is real.
Mike:
Yeah, man.
Lee:
Drive80.com. Go and watch the video. Remember guys, it’s really funny. Although I called you out I think on Facebook once saying hey, that’s not 60 seconds, but that’s because you’ve got like a, a two-minute song. I’ll let you off because the song is so cool. Drive it in. That’s why I just want to keep your attention like… but the message is there before the 60 seconds. After that you’re just kind of keeping them along for the ride just seeing how long you can keep them online.
Mike:
Yeah, yeah. Past that one minute so that you don’t get a bounce rate or something, whatever it is on your analytics. Get them watching the whole movie.
Lee:
Yeah, plus you also have clients who are just going to keep pushing back and you’re going to be like, all right fine man, you paid me a lot of money so I’m going to just… you wanted two minutes and 30 seconds, I’m going to just keep telling you no and then six months later they’re like, yeah, that video is really long. I’m like, oh, what’s it? Oh okay. Hey, here’s… here’s a question then because I mean obviously we focused a lot on animation. I appreciate you doing that because it’s one of your key strengths, but also you like I said earlier you are really good in front of the camera and I remember purchasing Animation Monthly myself as a subscription based on yeah you being on camera talking to me and telling me what the problem was and you know how you were solving it with Animation Monthly. Guys if you want to know what that is animationmonthly.com. You’ll find out more information on that. So what I’m interested in is, you know, a brick and mortar business, I don’t know, a florist or something like that. How can either animation or physically being on camera help? Because you’ve got the podcast, the unnamed podcast, Drive80, which focuses on video. We’ll put a link in the show notes as well to make sure. But you know, how can someone like that use video? Because I, you know, I’m always thinking, oh it’s only kind of online companies that can use video etc. How would a brick and mortar use video and where?
Mike:
Okay, I think of it like this. If you’ve ever just seen someone randomly on camera or like a Facebook Live and you haven’t met them but you kind of meet them because they’re on camera and then when you… and they’re in your town and then you and they’re like a business and you go in to see them, you’re like, hey, you’re that guy or girl on camera. Like, do you ever kind of get that like, oh my god, it’s you?
Lee:
Yep.
Mike:
That I think is what being a local business on camera… I think it’s even more powerful because there’s more chance that people are going to see you. So they’re seeing you in your market. If you’re good with your targeting, you go to Facebook targeting or whatever it is and you’re doing a lot of video and you’re a… you’re good on camera and you’re talking about your business or whatever it is, you’re reaching, you’re getting in front of people. But then all of a sudden they just come across you in like the Home Depot or a grocery store or wherever out in town. There’s that aspect of it. They’re like, holy crap, you’re that person who’s on camera. I see you all the time. That’s crazy. You’re getting implanted in their head, but then you’re physically seeing them. So you have a better chance of bumping like tripping over them being like, holy crap, you know, it’s Gene the tire guy or whatever. I love your videos, they’re great. Yeah, like people are like, oh man, I love your videos. My tire was building just the other day, I thought of you.
Lee:
Exactly. Exactly. It’s like, oh dude, my car… my tires are going flat or going bald and I remembered seeing this video of you and I also remember that you’re only three blocks down from my office or my home. I mean that’s an aspect of it. But I think that Clay Mosley, he does it really well where he goes to his clients and he had a… I talked to him on one of my podcast episodes with him. He has a guy who owns a laundromat and he walked in and said like, hey, you know, what are some cool tips? Like what would you want to know? And the guy was like, well I don’t know, people… I don’t know, they want to know how to keep the blue in their blue jeans and he’s like, we’ll do a video on that. So he sets up a camera and the guy is like, okay cool, here’s a tip. You know, you’re probably the blues running out of your blue jeans, you’re probably spending 90 bucks on a new pair, 200 bucks a new pair, whatever it is, and you know, you’re gonna even if it’s 40 bucks, you’re gonna spend another 40 bucks six months from now because you’re having the same problem. So here’s how you can save your money and save your jeans. And he’s, you know, and they talk about that and then it also talks about hey, here’s the behind the scenes of our business and it makes it more real and personal and it’s also giving you value. So I think that for brick and mortar you should talk about your business, talk about the ins and outs of it. You know, don’t give them like your financial struggle and things like that or like open your books up to them. But say if I’m a florist, this is… hey, it’s springtime or summer’s coming up, it’s your… your flowers are probably going to start drying out. Here’s some couple tips that you can use right now to keep them from your garden fresh and then tell them your secrets about that or show them what are great flowers to have. You should start planning now because they’re going to start blooming in the fall if that’s the thing.
Lee:
This is good. I wish I had a florist. You mentioned Clay Mosley guys, you can check out Clay and his company. Amazing guys over at rockcitydigital.com. Fascinating story really for Clay isn’t it? We’re trying to get him back on because he’s… he’s come on so far from where they started from where he started. Started as a one-man band and now is a full… yeah, something like that. And then amazing, amazing story. rockcitydigital.com. I think maybe if we strong-arm him, maybe like if you say you need to be on WP Innovator and I’ll message him as well. I’ll tag him in the… I’ll tag him in the Entrepreneurs Roundtable.
Mike:
It’s like, come on dude, we’ve got to get you on. We talked about you, get on. Let’s let’s let’s find out where you’ve come from because he was on episode like dead early on. I know, years ago, two years ago I think he was on the show along with you time so yeah, his story is fascinating. And that’s really encouraging as well for a lot of us, you know, because a lot of us, well I think most of us have started off as freelancers in some way. Some people like to stay that, which is which is totally cool. And then there’s other people that really have that dream to become an agency.
Mike:
So I’m kind of weird though. I started off, I freelanced for six years. So I started freelancing in 2006 and then 2012 I started Drive80. And with all that time I had different business partnerships which I totally realized that I am not good in business partnerships with people.
Lee:
I was about to offer you one.
Mike:
Oh okay. I’m awful. I’m like I… I love people but the moment we are, you know, wed to grow something together in business, if our… if… if our vision is off, I mean it’s a disaster. It’s just… it’s always been a disaster. But yeah, I mean I’m kind of weird because I have like my company, I utilize my freelancers who I’ve used for the last six years to do these videos when I don’t get involved. If it’s like a lower cost video like I’m doing the design and the animation and stuff and it’s the higher production, I get like my designer Matt who’s just sick with design. I mean I can’t understand how his brain thinks.
Lee:
For old people that means good.
Mike:
Yeah, it means really good. Like badass, fucking amazing.
Lee:
It means wicked for you 50s guys out there.
Mike:
Wicked for you people from Baston. Mass Baston. Yeah, man. I mean I’ll get them involved. But I just like to… I mean the reason I started Animation Monthly is really because I like to create my own stuff and I’m very envious of, like you said, Cyanide and Happiness guys or The Oatmeal. These companies out there where it’s a one-man show or just a couple guys that just are creating things that they want to create and people just gravitate towards them. And that’s my real vision for what my company is like. I’d rather create things that people buy. And I think that comes back from being in a band before I started all this stuff because I would just want to create music and have people buy it and I really want to have that now. So like Clay’s vision is to grow this big agency that just isn’t like really where I want to go. I just don’t want that much… I don’t know, I just like the freedom of not having other the responsibility of other people.
Lee:
I hear you there. That’s why we’ve been staying small on the staff side. We don’t want too many people, would rather have contractors rather than the stress of salaries because that thought of that just makes my brain implode.
Mike:
Oh yeah, it’s just not the model anymore. I mean, I think the bigger companies can do it and if you get the right people who… if you have a vision and you have a reason to be a business besides, you know, it’s like you make… you know, it’s like what do we do? It’s like well, we make cars, we make websites. But you have like a real vision for it. I think that’s… you know, from listening to a lot of podcasts or reading a lot of successful books and stuff, I mean if you have that people gravitate towards that and really want to follow you and they want to build something. But that’s a whole different conversation deep more deepness.
Lee:
Animation Monthly, like I said, you say you had an iteration of this probably a year ago which I was a part of. You’ve kind of restyled it, added new content, relaunched it. Tell us a little bit about Animation Monthly mate.
Mike:
So the idea of it is it’s still a little organic and I’m building it, but the bare bones is that I’m creating 10 to, you know, anywhere from four to 15 second videos long videos and I’m testing to see what’s engaging. I’m so I’m just thinking of things on the fly that are that I think are funny or engaging that’s going to hold someone’s attention and use my style and take like what’s in my head and put it out there and see if people really can resonate with that and it can help them gain attention from other people. And I’m trying to find or what I’ve started to find is that agencies who have who run the social media for their clients, they’re gravitating towards this because they have so many different industries and if you have a random video, if you put it up there, you can have that show it’s going to make someone stop and be like, what is this? And then in the description you can add something that’s related to that client. And they’re also using it for their own business. And so it’s… I’m trying to find this sweet spot where is there a specific industry that just wants to use this and all of a sudden maybe that’ll take off or is there a style of video. Like right now I took all the sound out of the videos because I feel that when you know if agencies are buying these they can edit them themselves. They’ll download the MP4, they could open it up in Premiere, Final Cut or whatever video editing program. I would put my logo over the top and do some funky music in the background.
Lee:
Yeah.
Mike:
And it gives you complete control where I’m not telling you what to do. It’s like I’m giving you something to start with and letting your brain go, oh man I can use that like this or I could say this with it and oh cool I don’t have to spend, you know, how many ever hours or weeks or whatever it is to make this stuff. It’s already there and I can just, you know, either I can use it as is and then I can, you know, ask a question like one of them I had the other day was what’s your favorite Monopoly piece? And I showed the thimble, the hat and the car and it was comment below. So now I’m testing should I ask the question in the video? Should I leave it out of the video? Like where’s engagement? And then that video alone got more people… I had more engagement with that than I had with anything else I think I’ve done.
Lee:
It’s interesting, isn’t it, that those sorts of questions that seem to be nothing to do with your business and yet they seem to be one of the more commonly responded to. Is there… Mark Asquith does quite a lot of that. He puts out random questions that have got nothing to do and they seem to be the most engaged post. Like what did you want to do when you were young? You know, what was your dream? And then so many comments.
Mike:
Yeah, because people want to talk about themselves. They don’t, you know, the biggest thing they say in social media is don’t talk about yourself, have a conversation. So when you’re asking a conversation, people are like, oh man, you know, at the end of Noah Kagan’s podcast he always asked some random question but he’s like tweet me the answer. And he’ll be like the whole podcast will be on how to grow a six-figure business. At the end he’s like what’s your favorite cereal? And people will start responding. You know, like if I sit there and say hey what’s your favorite animated blah blah blah or hey we did this animated thing, no one comments because they’re like cool man, way to talk about yourself and like I can’t. So I’m trying to find new ways to get people engaged where it’s also not hey, I’m trying to get you engaged. It’s also just hey man, what do you think of this? And people will talk to you because they want to talk to a person, they don’t want to talk to, you know, a machine. And I think that’s… that’s why Wendy’s is killing it right now on Twitter because they’re bantering with people and it’s blowing up.
Lee:
Oh, well, they’re making fun of like McDonald’s and all sorts aren’t they? I mean, we don’t even have a Wendy’s in the UK and we’re hearing about this.
Mike:
Really? Wendy’s does not exist out here?
Lee:
Oh my god, that’s the best one I know. I love their square burgers, whatever it is, and they were like teasing McDonald’s about the fresh burgers and stuff. It’s like all kicking off and it’s in the news and everything and we’re like, dude, something doing something right.
Mike:
Yeah, they hired a comedian. They hired a comedian to do their…
Lee:
Is that what they did? Oh no way. Guys if you want to hire a comedian, I know a great one, Mike Doyle, drive80.com. It’ll be risky sarcasm.
Mike:
Yes. Risky sarcasm. Wants to punch babies sometimes.
Lee:
I can’t believe you said that. So random. Oh man, you should hear the… I say when I’m around my friends. It’s like brutal. I can just imagine people like listening into the conversation like, oh did you hear what he said? My favorite thing to do is just stop people in their tracks. Like, um, and actually I’ll just like this is like way off track of the conversation but just real fast. A couple years ago a friend of mine, I just met this group of friends in my town I was living in, and they came in and one of them was a doctor and she’s like, and I literally, there’s six of us there and I just started getting to know these guys and she comes in and she’s like, yeah it was crazy. This guy came in the ER last night and this might even have to edit out but he’s like, he was 55 and he was, you know, having relations with a 26 year old and the 26 year old girl had a brain aneurysm and died like during no, and she’s like he must have felt so and I go powerful.
Mike:
Oh no.
Lee:
It like leveled the room and then everyone just was like, I think you’re gonna be okay hanging out with us.
Mike:
I was like, oh thank god. You were really testing it there. Oh my gosh, I cringed so much when you said that. It was awful. I could just feel how uncomfortable it would have been if you’d have said that anywhere near half of my friends. That’s how I test the waters on who I’m gonna hang out with. Uh, what awful thing can I say where I don’t mean it but it’s just the hilarity, the comedy is the fact that it was said. Yeah, that’s so… so that’s like that right there is pretty extreme but that’s when I’m making videos. It’s like I like to add those slight little things of comedy to just kind of like a little off the cuff where people were like that was pretty clever. I like it.
Lee:
Yeah, no, that was terrible. I’m not judging you for that. You should be ashamed of yourself. Guys check out drive80.com. Also do go and listen to the podcast. You’ve got your podcast focused on video. You’re interviewing people around the globe on how they’re using video, not just animation but video in all sorts of different ways on multiple different platforms for the benefit of the business. I’ve been listening to it. You’re a great host mate. You are funny and the guests you have on are just full of brilliant advice. So check out that’s drive80.com, is that forward slash podcast?
Mike:
Uh, yeah. Yep, drive80.com forward slash podcast.
Lee:
If you are a design agency or a social media agency, just an agency of some sort, and you think you can make use of animations as well in your social media or for your clients’ social media, check out animationmonthly.com. There are some really cool animations that you can share in social media and it’s really good to disrupt people’s vision. Everyone’s got a nice picture or, you know, some sort of tweet, but video especially on places like Facebook and on Twitter with the autoplay it attracts people’s eyes. It draws people’s attention or attract a video. So there’s a whole ton on there as well. I’ve used some of these videos in the past and they have been my most converting tweet or Facebook post etc. And I believe I gave you a testimonial which I can’t see.
Mike:
I am shocked you’re on… no, it’s on the page where…
Lee:
Oh is it on the home?
Mike:
Yeah, it’s on animationmonthly.com. If you go there it’ll show you the videos when you go to the… yeah, we just… I just started a 30-day trial for free so you have open access to the library and when you go to that page sign up, you’re all the way in the bottom, you’re all the way in the middle.
Lee:
That’s good.
Mike:
Yeah, well you can tell I’m the person of the most words can’t you?
Lee:
Yeah, it’s like, Clay, it’s good. Highly recommended. Mate you’re a legend. How can people find you on social media and then I’m going to kick you off the show.
Mike:
Yeah man, I really don’t hang out on too much social media. I would say go to Instagram, you can find me on the underscore Mike Doyle. You can also find me at Drive 80 Studios under… I don’t know what that… the underline is. I couldn’t just get the school underscore. Yeah, drive studios underscore. That’s in the name on Instagram. Facebook, you could just friend me at Mike Doyle. That’s pretty much it. Twitter, I kind of go on there but it’s really just… it’s just a habit. I don’t… I don’t really care for… it’s a thing. Yeah, Instagram, I’m always doing stuff on Instagram. Yeah, I’m always posting stories about my company or like behind the scenes or like my puppy Boston Terrier in Portland who’s the best.
Lee:
So showing your soft side on one side, right?
Mike:
Totally evil.
Lee:
And then on the other side, you’ll love your little dog, so I’m like, oh that cancels out what you said earlier. I’m gonna leave all of that in. We’re gonna have a big E on this episode though.
Mike:
That’s fine. Children must not listen.
Lee:
I think you should be completely transparent as a business and a person, so I’m totally fine even though it scares the hell out of me every time I do it. Mate, thanks so much.
Mike:
You’re really… you rock dude. I really appreciate Lee is like one of the nicest people I have met online. We’ve never met in person but he is super awesome. He does really great work. He’s very… I’m very driven or I’m very inspired by his push, his motivation, his like he’s got the Facebook group and he’s got his podcast. He’s got his company. He’s like, you know, I see his posts about him and his kids and his life. Super sweet guy. So I cannot recommend him enough and I think people should hire you whenever they get the chance or just even get to know you.
Lee:
That’s the most beautiful sound bite I’ve ever heard in my life. Thank you.
Mike:
You’re welcome. I will accept all of that and treasure that for the rest of this day. Thanks bro.
Lee:
Yeah man. Take care.
Mike:
All right buddy.
Lee:
And that wraps up episode number 84. In next week’s episode, that’s number 85, we’re talking to Phil Singleton. He is the co-author of SEO for Growth and yep, we’ve been talking SEO a lot recently but that is because it is something that I realized I’m not very good at but also something I realized I could either be reselling someone else’s services for or even offering myself. So this journey into SEO on the WP Innovator podcast has been to really start to get under the skin of what SEO is all about. Is it even dead? Is it something that I could be offering as an upsell? And in this episode we are talking with Phil about that particular area. Is this something that you as a agency, you as a web designer, web developer can be offering as part of your service as an upsell, as a way to generate ongoing income beyond just that web build? So he is the author of SEO for Growth. You can check that out now over on seoforgrowth.com. That’s available to you on Amazon and all good booksellers, I believe. Great book. And then next week’s episode we will be talking about his journey into being a web agency and then his progression into offering SEO and obviously how he got started with SEO for Growth book including his partnership with Duct Tape Marketing which is pretty cool. All right guys, enjoy your week. Don’t forget wpinnovator.com/group. That will redirect you to the Facebook group. You’re all awesome. You’re all awesome.
