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:
Hi and welcome to episode number 114 of the Agency Trailblazer podcast. This is your host, Lee, and today you are going to be joining a conversation with me and Martin Huntbatch, where we’re going to be unpacking why it is so important to do what you love and how that drives your business. So guys, sit back, relax and enjoy the ride.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
This podcast is brought to you by the Agency Trailblazer community. Is agency life stressing you out? Then it is our mission to help you build an agency that you love. We’ve created a community which includes the Agency Reset Roadmap that will allow you to get your agency back on the right track. We also have lots of noble, straight-to-the-point, easy-to-consume workshops. We have a thriving community of other agency owners. And we all wrap up every month with a mastermind call with myself and sometimes a special guest where we unpack your questions. For more details, check out agencytrailblazer.com.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Welcome to a conversation with me, Mr. Lee Jackson, and my very good friend, and I’ll underline very good friend, Mr. Martin Huntbatch.
Martin:
Perfect. I got it right.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
You got it right, yeah.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Mate, how are you doing?
Martin:
I’m very well, thanks. Thanks for inviting me onto the show. I’m looking forward to it.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
I am too, and I’m loving the accent. And I am also from Lancashire. I was brought up there. So I think people are probably going to notice throughout the podcast that I might keep bouncing off your accent a little bit and going a little bit broad Lancashire at times.
Martin:
Go for it.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Because you’re reminding me of the motherland.
Martin:
Yes, I was born in Canada, but most of my memories are good old Lancashire.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Hey. And that grand weather.
Martin:
Oh, tell me about it.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Blisteringly cold today, in case you’re interested.
Martin:
No, yeah, I’m interested.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Well, to be honest, it’s actually blisteringly cold down here as well. I think the whole of the UK is in a cold spell. So, you know, we’re all in the same boat at the moment.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Guys, Martin is a great friend of mine. He is from Jammy Digital that he runs with his wife. And we met many moons ago at the NMEU. Try and say that really fast whilst drunk. The NMEU, was it conference, do you class it as?
Martin:
Yeah, I think so.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
In London about two or three years ago. We got on that well, didn’t we? Because I was in your hotel room within an hour.
Martin:
I know. I was a bit surprised when you asked if you could come up. I’m like, yeah, why not? We’re both away from home. You know what it is.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
So, if you ever meet me and Martin, we’re probably going to tell that joke now for at least the next 20 years. So, Martin, basically, I asked if I could use his room to go and get changed in because I had to run out to a cheap suit shop around the corner, buy a suit that didn’t fit me, and spend an entire meal, because I went to the evening meal that night, basically breathing in the whole time with these trousers that I still have that I still can’t fit into. But Martin let me go and use his iron in his room and make my shirt look all nice and pressed.
Martin:
Yeah. It was wonderful. I always appreciate that.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
It was. It really was.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
So, mate, obviously, there’ll be a few people that don’t know who you are, mate. So, do you mind just giving us a little bit of an introduction as to who Martin is, what Martin does, Martin’s favorite color, all that sort of stuff? Just so we get to know you a little bit.
Martin:
Of course. Yeah. So, as you mentioned, I run Jammy Digital, which is a WordPress web design business with my wife, Lindsay. It’s essentially 50/50, although we do have a couple of freelancers here and there. Yeah, we are, first and foremost, designers and SEO specialists. We just take these kind of websites that are out there that people have had built for sort of £400 or £500. People come to us and they say, “My website’s not working. What can I do?” We essentially strip it all down and then rebuild it to make sure that we’re including all of the content marketing elements, a nice blog on there. Make sure that the website’s converting people into customers. You know, the full package, really.
Martin:
And up until recently, we were selling SEO as well and we’ve completely cut that out now. I say completely. We still offer website critiques and things like that and coaching, but predominantly we are a WordPress web design company now and that’s what we do.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
That’s awesome. I definitely want to come back to that because that bit fascinates. We were talking just before we started recording about that, so we’ll definitely circle around.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
What I’d love to know now before we get into the meat and potatoes is really go back in the time machine and discover how you actually got into web development and design. And I guess that’s for the both of you, how you both got into it.
Martin:
Yeah, well, funnily enough, my wife came from a branding background. She’s the one who went to university and did the degree and came out of it and did the marketing jobs. So she knew all of the kind of, you know, the traditional marketing teachings that you get when you go to university. Whereas I came from a graphic design sort of background, but also an element of sales in there. I was actually going to go to university and do graphic design and web development and everything at university. But then I got a job offer at a phone shop at the time. And I actually did that during summer and then ended up loving it and got really into the communication and the customer service really. And to be honest, it went quite well. I mean, I was 18 year old and I was earning quite a lot of money from just speaking to people and having a laugh and being able to provide them with a service. So that kind of got my book going and really in regards to relationships and communication.
Martin:
It was only a few years later when I’d kind of left that job and I’d gone from and we’d moved over from Manchester, which is where I’d always lived over to a town called Thornton, Cleveland’s in Lancashire, which is near Blackpool. And kind of got into the role of just customer service really. And that’s when I thought, you know what, I want to get back into the design. I’d always been tweaking around with techie stuff. I’d always been doing a little bit of code here and there. And so we actually the first business we have launched was an e-commerce business where we were actually selling a sort of gifts and crafts and things like that. And we were going out to markets and selling them there as well. Farmers markets, that kind of thing.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
I thought you meant like you built e-commerce websites, but you mean actually the delivery.
Martin:
Yeah, the actual product that we provided was homeware, gifts and crafts and things like that. It was really when I sort of looked at, because obviously I love the graphic design, so I was able to design Facebook banners and things like that. I always had the Photoshop knowledge from when I was in school and from college. I kind of loved it all along. But the real kind of stumbling block with that first business is kind of what inspired me to learn more about SEO because you know what it’s like trying to rank an e-commerce website whenever it was. Whether it was 10 years ago when SEO was a lot easier or whether it’s today, very difficult to get a brand new e-commerce website competing with the likes of Debenhams and things like that or whoever your competitor is.
Martin:
So we really noticed what a barrier it was that we couldn’t rank that highly on search engines. And we spoke to a few techies and like you guys and we learned a lot more about the industry and we realized, you know, we’ve learned a lot, but we still know it’s probably out of reach with this organization, with this business. So I’m going to get back to the design and then we started more of a graphic design type business. The other business was very kind of intensive in terms of stock. You need to put out a lot of money to get the stock and then hope that you sell it. Very much the last business I would ever recommend that somebody starts with when they think about getting into running their own business. Definitely not what I’d recommend. Start with a service based business and that’s where we really found our stride.
Martin:
And obviously I’d had the sales background and I was happy to talk to anybody on the phone and face to face and things like that. So it was easy really for me to transition into a graphic design slash web design field. And like I say, I used templates when I first started out. I learned WordPress myself. And it was only really a few years in when we really took the business to the next level. We were doing websites at 300 pounds and 400 pounds and things like that.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Things like that. So, in fact, I think the very—
Martin:
Which is twice as much as I used to change. Well done.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Well, the very first website we did actually was, and this is going to sound really cheeky, but this is how I started is that it was actually a customer that walked into where I was working at the time. While I was sort of half doing graphic design, web design and half at my job. I was working at a bank at the time and they came in and they started telling me about their business and it was struggling and things. And I actually said to them, you know what? On the side, I do a bit of graphic design, web design. Why don’t we have a chat? I mean, that was really, really, that was not what I’d recommend people do.
Martin:
No.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
But we just had such a great rapport and I was able to speak to them outside of business. And they was kind of my first client really. And it all went from there. And every time I took on a new client, I was able to increase my prices. And I think that first website, £150 is just ridiculous when you look at it. And I think I actually had to talk them into it. And the value of having a website for a business was ludicrous to them. And I think I actually reduced the price slightly just to get the sale.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Wow.
Martin:
So it’s crazy really. But funnily enough, you still see people like that today, don’t you? What’s the value of a website? And obviously, those aren’t the sort of clients I work with these days. But it’s been an interesting journey. And it’s only recently my wife’s come on board full time as well. And we’re really, really enjoying it. We’re a virtual business. So we work from home most of the time or wherever we want. And most of our meetings are kind of done over Skype calls and Zoom and things like that. So we’re in a great place and we’re really happy.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
That’s wonderful. And for a minute, I thought you meant all your meetings with your wife were done all over Skype. I was like, have you two fallen out?
Martin:
No, most of the time we spend the same room. But yeah, so that would be interesting, wouldn’t it? I mean, you kind of live in the dream to get to run a business with your best friend as well. So that is so cool. And you two are great together. I love the new brand that you’re working on because Lindsay’s in the imagery as well. And, you know, you can see the chemistry and the rapport that you both have. And I definitely think that works. And we’ll talk about that again shortly. There’s loads of things I want to ask you. £150 as well seems to be kind of the average that most of us when we all first launched, because it was £150 for me. And we had someone on the podcast just a few days ago as well who, again, they charged £150 for the very first site.
Martin:
Yeah, crazy.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
One thing that sticks out as well from your journey, and I think it’s happened to a few of us, is you’ve got the initial exposure to the graphic design element. But then you’ve had to go on this journey to learn a whole load of skills that if you’d have just gone straight into graphic design, you may never have been successful had it not been for your experiences at the phone shop where you learnt relational selling and conversations and confidence and worked at the bank, etc.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
And you’ve had not gone on that kind of arc before you then came back full circle to nearly kill yourselves, I think, with a product-based business. Because, yeah, I don’t recommend that to anyone either. I tried. But then, obviously, then eventually kind of pivoting again into the web business. But it’s a really cool journey. And for anyone who’s met you, Martin, you are really easy to talk to, a very, very friendly guy. And I know people gravitate to you. And I’m loving the fact that you’re putting yourself and Lindsay out there front and centre as the core brand of Jammy Digital. So, kudos to you. This is definitely your year 2018, mate. Legend. Fist bump and all that, which we can’t do on a podcast.
Martin:
You could have a sound effect.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yeah, you could do. But then I’d have to come back and edit that in and it’s just a whole load of extra work. I mean, you’re editing your podcast, aren’t you?
Martin:
I know. You know how long it takes. Far too long.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
And we’ll talk about that soon as well. Oh my gosh, there’s so much to talk about. Well, first of all then, one thing I’d be really interested in is a lot of web designers and design agencies tend to want to rely on kind of automation to market their business. So they want Facebook ads to drive business. They want to be able to sit behind their computer and just have leads arrive. But I know that’s not the way you work. You are a relational guy. And I’d just love to unpack with you just some of the ways that you have generated leads over the last few years and what you feel works the most. What is what has been the most effective way for you to drive attention to you, your business and to generate leads?
Martin:
Well, it’s been interesting, actually, because I’ve kind of transitioned somewhat with me struggling with the SEO. It was really at the very sort of outset when I started running my own business. I knew that that was going to be something I really wanted to get my teeth into. So running the graphic design business, running the sort of web design business out where I live was was a tall order, really, because, I mean, we’re dealing with techies trying to outrank techies who have been who’ve been in business for 10, 20 years doing web design and SEO was always going to be a tall order. But to be honest, I mean, when we first launched our website, we were like ranked on the 12th page of Google for when you typed in web design Blackpool. And it was, yeah, it was it was daunting. But when I actually dissected it and I did a lot of the research, looked into what the leaders in the space were teaching, a lot of these organizations weren’t doing the thing that they were supposed to be doing.
Martin:
And they were just relying on the fact that they’ve been around for a while and they was doing a bit of keyword stuffing and things like that. And it didn’t sit right with me. So I basically went down a different approach and I sort of forgot about the competition and focused on doing the thing that I knew was going to work because so many people in the industry was explaining that this is how you’re supposed to do it. And these tactics are out of date. So we did that. And within, I think, I think it was around 12 weeks, we were we were on the first page of Google and we’ve been there ever since.
Martin:
So we had a lot of business from being on the first page of Google. Even now, though, though we have Jammy Digital, we still have a web design business out in Blackpool that we have sort of some retainer clients on. I’ve not got rid of it yet. That might be something for the future, but it’s fine. It doesn’t take any upkeep. I don’t actually do any content production on that website anymore, either. I do everything on Jammy Digital, but we still have that old agency. And it’s interesting because we’ve not updated it in probably 12 months, 18 months that other website. And we are still ranked, I think, number two now for SEO Blackpool. So it’s quite interesting, actually. And I know there’s not an enormous amount of competition locally, but it was interesting to see, well, most of my traffic is from Google. I don’t do any marketing on that. And I’m still ranked on the first page for web design related keywords and SEO related keywords. So I still get phone calls all the time, which is fine.
Martin:
Most of the time, though, these clients aren’t my ideal customers anymore. As my business has transitioned, I’ve now got Jammy Digital as my main agency, which is a more modern contemporary agency, which attracts people like entrepreneurs and not just your standard brick and mortar businesses. And I’m not saying brick and mortar businesses aren’t perfect clients. They are. They just kind of have a different mentality. So more often than not, when we get inquiries from that business, they’re ringing for cost. And what’s the cost for a website? What’s the cheapest way? And that kind of, it’s been interesting for me to see both sides, you know, with one business versus the other and what works and what doesn’t.
Martin:
And I’ve noticed the biggest thing really is that because I’m putting a lot more emphasis on content and being extra helpful with Jammy Digital, then there’s a lot less of a buying cycle. So the journey from getting someone from learning about me on the internet to buying a product is very quick with Jammy Digital because I’ve put an enormous amount of effort into the content. Whereas with the other business, you’re competing with everybody because I’m not putting the effort in with the content. I’m not explaining more about my products and services. People are literally just going through the Google listing and actually just phoning everybody and asking for a quote. So that’s how I used to get my business. Now, as you mentioned, is a lot more based on relationships. I have sort of quite a lot of people now that are happy to refer people over to me and knowing full well that they’ll get a great service and a great product at the end of it. So it’s been nice really to see how the past two years and my shift in direction, my shift in focus in terms of content has led to a lot better sort of caliber of customer really.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
It’s incredible, isn’t it? How being able to create content, putting yourself out there and providing lots and lots of value actually helps attract the right sort of business. And I was alluding to the idea of people relying on Facebook ads to send them to, you know, and SEO and Google AdWords and all that sort of stuff to drive traffic to a mundane page that provides a service in the hope that you will attract someone to purchase that. And you do attract people. However, like you said, it’s not always the best type of client. It could be a client who just literally needs that and there is no scope for upsell or for you to add any value or they’re very price conscious or they want to know what’s the least they have to do to achieve X, Y and Z.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
The relationships you’re building up are brilliant because, like you said, it’s entrepreneurs, it’s people who want to make money from their website, who understand that they need to invest, that they need to do their own content as well, etc. Which you are showcasing and modeling to them as well by putting yourself out there regularly.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
And speaking of that, I hear rumor on the winds, there’s a podcast coming.
Martin:
There is, yeah. So, we decided that we want to grow more of a following in terms of helping the people that know how important it is to have a good website, but they might not necessarily have the resources, as in the money, the budget to hire an agency that is capable of delivering that kind of product. So, we decided, you know, we’re free and open with our content. So, why don’t we do a podcast? Why don’t we release something? It’s going to be website tips for non-techies. Sort of the overall, that’s not necessarily the name of it, but that’s kind of the angle that we’re going for. We just want to take all our wealth of knowledge and all our experiences as people who want to grow their business online, but also as web designers and matching up those two things and allowing the kind of sole business owner to be able to grow their business really.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
That’s so cool. And that’s both of you doing that. What style of show is it going to be? Are you interviewing or is this going to be you guys? How are you going to structure it?
Martin:
Yeah. So, it’s basically me and Lindsay. We’ll have a topic for the discussion and we’ll just basically hammer it out. We’ll disagree sometimes.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
I’ll tune in for that.
Martin:
But it’s interesting because, again, she is a different person and she has a different ideal client to me. And it’s easy for us to sort of have debate just generally. So, we thought, you know, why don’t we just stick a microphone in front of us? We have these debates anyway. Why don’t we just let people see behind the curtain and understand, is your web designer doing it right? I mean, this is how we would do it. If you’re listening to the show and this other, I mean, we just got off the phone with somebody yesterday who was really frustrated because his web designer wasn’t giving him access to the website. And we decided to have a rant about this, about not allowing access to your website is ludicrous in this day and age. And that makes for a great podcast interview and it helps people understand why it’s important and why you do need access. So, that’s kind of one example of an episode that we might do.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
I’m really looking forward to that. And when you do launch, I’ll make sure we get the show notes updated to send people in your direction. For anyone, though, who is interested, will you be putting that on jammydigital.com?
Martin:
We will, yeah. Yeah.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Brilliant. So, keep that in your bookmarks, jammydigital.com. And I’ll make sure that I let everybody know in the WP Innovator Facebook group when it goes live and also in the Trailblazer community. So, if you’re in either or both, we will make sure you know when that podcast goes live because this sounds really cool.
Martin:
Thank you.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
I like as well what you’re doing there. You’re actually creating content from something that you’re already doing. And I think a lot of us agencies don’t realize that creating content is actually ridiculously easy if you were to just put your mind to it. I was explaining to someone just the other day that if you’re in a meeting and somebody asks you a question, you probably reply in the equivalent of what would be a blog post.
Martin:
Yeah, exactly.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
In three minutes of you replying, a detailed answer to somebody in a meeting. If you recorded that, you can actually get that transcribed and you have a blog post. And I love the concept here that you’re taking a conversation that you’re gonna have anyway and hitting record on a microphone and giving people that access in. People want to know what goes on behind the curtains. People want to learn. But also the beauty of what you’re doing there is the people who want to pay you to do stuff who do have the budgets for it can see that you are demonstrating you know what you’re doing.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
So your target audience may not be able to afford you, but the credibility that you will also garner from this from the people who can afford you is priceless. So it’s exciting.
Martin:
The extra thing that comes with that as well as a side effect is that people who think that’s too expensive for me, I didn’t have that big budget in mind. If they read a piece of content or if they see you on a webinar or they hear you on a podcast, for instance, and they’re dead set that the things that you’re talking about are important and they know and they’ve not been able to come across it. You’d be surprised by how many people say, you know what? I know it’s over budget. I know I don’t have the money in the bank right now. There are ways around it. I want to work with you.
Martin:
So I know I’m gonna sort of put myself in a position that I didn’t expect, but I want to work with you. And the amount of times that’s happened is just phenomenal.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
That’s very true. I can say that hand on heart because I am one of those people who has just agreed to hand over an awful lot of money of which I’m not going to tell anyone because it makes my eyes water to work with Chris Ducker because there are things that he is doing that he is teaching that I know I need to tap into. And maybe a year ago, the thought of spending that much money, I would have thought, well, that’s out of budget. But actually, it’s very much a mindset, isn’t it? And a lot of us have that poor mindset until we understand the benefits of what it is we’re doing.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
So if you’re teaching people, this is why it’s important to be able to do this with your website. Suddenly, the people who are listening who thought they didn’t have the budget will find the budget.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
That’s a really good lesson. I love that, mate. Now, you mentioned SEO. And you guys were doing 50-50 SEO and web development. You took a decision to essentially phase SEO out. And is that because SEO is dead? Or is that because you guys… Well, I guess I’ll stop guessing. Why?
Martin:
Yeah, we got to the stage where we love the idea of creating websites. I mean, obviously, we love creating websites. We love everything about it. But we love the idea of you working with somebody, taking them on as a client for two to three months or six months, however long it takes. Working with them to grow their business, put it all together and create a sort of a final piece, as you might say. So that’s a product that you’ve had deliberate guidance with. You’ve helped that person. You’ve taken the hand and you’ve shown them the way, really, to sound a little bit sort of biblical, I suppose.
Martin:
But for me, that’s kind of what I love to do and seeing the result that comes from that. Now, SEO is very different in the fact that it’s forever. You pay an SEO company. They do the day-to-day techie stuff as well as the content advice and building backlinks and things like that, which is all great. You earn a hell of a lot of money from SEO. There’s a lot of people that want to help with it. We’re not interested in making the most money out of people as we possibly can. We enjoy seeing that start to finish and seeing the reaction that people get. Whereas SEO is very much, I mean, we still have SEO clients on retainer now paying a thousand pound plus a month. And that’s all well and good. We’re still able to do the work and that’s all fantastic. But it’s not what I would like my job to be.
Martin:
I think that SEO is definitely not dead. Whenever somebody goes to search engines and as long as people are still using websites like Google, SEO is always going to be relevant. The difference is that I believe the normal brick and mortar type business who’s on the corner of the high street or maybe it’s a social media manager who’s just launching their new business. I believe that there are small tweaks that they can do. There is a basic principle that they can follow to be able to reach as many people as they need without spending thousands of pounds a month with an SEO company. It depends on the business. But for the people I want to be working with, i.e. entrepreneurs and leaders and speakers and consultants in their space, those are the sorts of clients I want to be working with. Would they need SEO? Would they need to be paying an SEO company? I don’t think in most cases that they would, which is why we kind of made that decision to, you know, chop it off really, which is kind of what it was. It was like ripping a plaster off as fast as you can. And, but yeah, like I say, we still have some customers and they still want to continue to pay us, which is great. But we are predominantly a web design company now.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
One of the things I talk about quite often is about doing what you love. And that’s pretty much what you’re talking about here. It’s not that you necessarily hate SEO or anything like that.
Martin:
No, of course not.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
You’re actually very good at it. And I’ve, well, we’ve talked, we talked about it two years ago and you were telling me what you were doing. It was brilliant. But, you know, you love building the websites. You love adding value. You love helping people, especially who are not technical, understand all of the good stuff they can get from their website. And you love implementing it.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
So you guys have doubled down and taken a brave decision to take something that was earning money, i.e. 50% of your revenue and to, you know, phase that out over time to focus on the thing you absolutely loved. How has that affected your message?
Martin:
Well, I think this is the important thing as well, because we still teach a lot about SEO. We still have blog posts coming out all the time where we teach people how to rank higher and how to, what to look for. That’s the other thing that we wanted to do. We wanted to kind of take away that closed door policy as to say, you need to work with us and then we’ll tell you how to do it and then we’ll do it for you. Whereas because we’ve taken away the money as a barrier, we can now be an open book.
Martin:
So I literally just write a blog post that teaches you how to optimize your content, your blog posts. I might write 2,000 or 3,000 words and I don’t care. I want you to have that information. Whereas before I might have held it back and I didn’t want that barrier of entry. So it’s interesting because we talk a lot about SEO, but we do web design. I honestly believe that if somebody cares that much about SEO, they’re going to want to work with a web designer who understands SEO as well. And the amount of times I have people coming to me and saying, I need a website critique. I need you to tell me why I’m not ranking very well. I need you to tell me how to rank higher. Should I hire an SEO company?
Martin:
I recently took on a client for a complete redesign based on having one of these small discussions about SEO. So it’s so closely linked. And for the most part, I would say that SEO companies, they’ll do what they do and that’s fine. But when it comes to user experience and how people use your website, how long they spend on your website itself, those things impact SEO as well. And you can’t do that with a bad website. So SEO is almost never 100% the answer or the sort of problem with the website.
Martin:
It could be user experience. It could be your messaging isn’t clear. It could be people are leaving your website too quickly. And all of those things are not SEO related. They’re design related and user experience really.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
You’re so right. SEO, people might consider it to be the old backlinks and gateway pages back in the day, which Google eventually clamped down on. But they think it’s some sort of external thing that needs to happen and needs to be maintained by a third party company, which yes, there is an element of that. But bounce rate, the algorithms of Google are changing, aren’t they? All the time. Time on page. Is this content credible? Do people share this content? The user experience, are you making it easy for people to share your blog post? Because again, social engagement is actually a measurement for Google to know whether or not. So I think I’m talking like an expert here, but I read this once, so I’m now an expert. But social engagement, sharing is actually a measure that Google will use to know whether this content is credible.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Because if this gets a lot of shares, this is going to have more weight than that other blog article that has never ever been shared. Because the share buttons were hidden, I don’t know, down at the bottom left hand side somewhere and out of sight, out of mind. So yeah, you’re absolutely right. Now, let’s talk about pricing because I’m intrigued here. You’ve gone from £150 and then, well, your very first one, but let’s say the average was around £300.
Martin:
Yeah.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
And you’ve been able to increase your price over time. How have you guys positioned yourself? Because I know that you, I mean, you’ve been able to position yourself very differently, obviously through providing an awful lot of free content, etc. But what else have you done to stand out from other web designers to allow you to charge prices, which I would consider are more than average than you would expect from your local web designer?
Martin:
Well, a couple of things. I think ultimately, the amount of value, and everybody says this, but it does need to be said, the amount of value that you deliver and the return on that investment is worth a lot more. I mean, the clients paying £3,000, £4,000, £5,000 for a website now, the sort of clients I’m taking on, will be able to see, if I sell 10 of those, is that going to pay for the website?
Martin:
So that’s the kind of mindset that I want my clients to have when they come to hire me, not, is this going to cost me £1,000 that I’m going to have to make another way, or is this just a marketing expense?
Martin:
So the sort of clients we’re taking on understand that it is an investment, but more than anything, the reason that we charge more is because we’re extremely confident in our process.
Martin:
So we have a specific process that we’ve tried and tested that gets the best results. So if we have somebody that comes to us and saying, okay, we just want to work with you, we like your blog posts, we like the way that you do your business, we just want to work with you, but we don’t want you to do it the usual way, maybe we want you to start with a small, basic website, and then we want to add stuff to it in a few months’ time, and we want to change it around a little bit. That’s a warning sign to me that they are not the right customer.
Martin:
They won’t fit into our process, which means there’ll be different timescales, there’ll be a different sort of budget in mind. We’re extremely specific about our process. We wrote a blog post about our 31-step process that we, that, what happens, and we send that to every client before they work with us so that they’re extremely clear on the sort of service they’re going to get.
Martin:
When people start picking and choosing and treating you like a pick and mix and Woolworths, that’s when it gets really tricky and you’re not able to deliver the best service. I mean, you’ve probably been in situations in the past where you’ve had a client that says, I want one thing, and then they’ve changed it, and then something else happens, and then it gets really messy. And before you know it, you’ve got so far away from your usual process that you’re not confident in the fact that the website’s going to be the highest quality or as it would be.
Martin:
I mean, you are the expert as a web designer. We’ve just taken that to the next level. So we’re now at the stage where, and bear in mind, I probably wouldn’t go out and say this on my website, but when we take a client on, they hire us for our expertise. So a majority of that first sort of call with that person is about data gathering, and it’s about understanding their business and their goals and their objectives and what they want the website to deliver.
Martin:
But after that point, it’s 80% of the project is down to what we think. So we understand about conversion rate optimization. We understand about how social media should integrate with a new website. We understand about content marketing, and they are hiring us because we’re the expert. So we’ll work with them. We’ll ask them questions if we need clarification.
Martin:
But recently, we’ve been taking clients on where they’re doing 20% of the decision making, and we’re doing 80% of the decision making. It doesn’t seem that clean, clear cut when we’re actually working with people. It’s not like I say, stop talking now. But we have a very good relationship with our clients, and we make everybody aware that we have a process. It does work. You want to work with us because we know what we’re talking about. So let us kind of do what we do best. And that’s allowed us to sort of hone in on the craft and start attracting people who we want to attract as well.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
That’s brilliant. The underlying message, I think, here as well is just have confidence in what you’re able to do. Because the minute you accept that client who does start to treat you as a pick and mix, then you’re already devaluing yourself, therefore giving permission to that client, essentially, to just not tear you apart, but just take advantage.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
I mean, about eight years ago, I remember we had these amazing contracts with clients, etc. that were worth thousands a month. And then they hired a new finance guy, and he started kind of looking at everything that we did and started trying to bring it right down to time and hours and all sorts of stuff, rather than our value and our expertise and everything else we brought. And it ended up being that amount of money that we were making each month ended up being shrinking and shrinking. And it was depressing. And our self-worth went out of the window. And it actually took about two years to get back from that kind of feeling of we are not good at what we do. We are only worth the amount of time that we spend on something. And actually, if it takes us a bit longer, we better not charge for that because we should have probably only been able to do it in two hours.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
So I love the shift. And I feel like we had this conversation about two years ago, actually, when you were talking about this. And you were saying about the 80-20 split. Obviously, you want to take their opinion and their thoughts seriously. But at the same time, you are actually the expert. You know how to build a website. You have your processes. You’ve been doing them for years. And really, you need the freedom to be able to do what you do best and to tell them what they need to be considering.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
So anyone listening, please take inspiration from Martin today. You do know what you’re doing. Do the thing that you love. Do it really well. And be confident in what you do. Because that will attract clients. And Martin, through his energy, through his confidence, does attract really good clients. I won’t name names. I’ll let you name those if you wish. But I know who you’ve worked with. I am really impressed with the caliber of clients that you have attracted through events and everything else that you’ve done.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
So another digital fist bump we really should find and a sound effect for this, shouldn’t we?
Martin:
I think you’re going to have to now. We’ve said it twice. Digital fist bump.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
I’ve said it three times now.
Martin:
All right.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
I think the underlying thought really is to just accept that if you’re in this space, if you’re listening to this podcast now, you’re probably in the same sort of mindset as what we are, which means you’re interested in learning more. Your knowledge level is probably extremely high. You know a lot about this sort of stuff. Sometimes when we’re in this space, we let the customer dictate and it’s taking orders. Should be confident in your own knowledge and your own ability. And just understand that once you position yourself that way, you’re extremely valuable. And people will want to work with you.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
So I just want to emphasize that is that you are the expert. And just have to make sure your confidence is coming across on your website.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
I think as well that confidence comes kind of full circle back to what you talked about earlier about doing what you love. When you’re doing what you love, you’re confident anyway because you know it. You don’t love something that you’re not very good at doing. You avoid doing it. So if you’re doing what you love and if you’re not doing what you love, maybe start doing what you love instead of doing the thing that you think makes money. Because actually the thing you love will end up making you more money in the end because people will be attracted to you because your message will be a confident message and you’ll talk with confidence.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Now you mentioned, and I know we’re kind of going all over the place. And to be honest, I’ve got loads more questions. So what I’ll probably do is invite you back so that this isn’t a three-hour episode.
Martin:
Sounds good.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
So let’s kind of come into land now and we’ve learned loads from you. You’re absolutely awesome. I’d love to talk about Lindsay again. Now you brought her on full time. Can you just talk us through, well, I mean, she’s a partner, obviously. I don’t mean you employed her. But can you just walk us through kind of that decision process, why you decided to do that? And were there any kind of unexpected either positives or negatives from that process?
Martin:
I think it depends on the sort of person you are, really. I mean, I’m not the sort of person when I’ve worked with freelancers in the past. I’ve not been the kind of person that says, this is exactly what you should do. I kind of treat them the way I’d want to be treated and I leave them to their own expertise, really. But to be honest, me and Lindsay have actually been working together for a long time. I mean, she was the one who went out with me for the first few client meetings and things like that. So it was interesting, the fact that we both went into it together. It’s just that I left work, my full-time job a lot sooner than she did. So between the past five or six years and up till now, since we started the business, she’s been helping out with content, creating content for our clients, helping with social media, things like that. It’s just that she’s had a full-time job throughout all of that. So it’s a little bit unfair, really.
Martin:
But, and it’s worth pointing out that I didn’t leave my job until really late. I was able to reduce my hours bit by bit until I could afford to, you know, to pay the mortgage. It’s only recently we got to a position where it’s like, okay, now’s the time where we both come on board. And we love it. We absolutely love it. I mean, she’s got her own office in the house. I’ve got my own office, but to be honest, she spends most of the time in my office anyway, because it just works better. We bounce off each other. She’s actually really, really valuable in some of the areas that you might not think, which is when I’m designing a website and I’m using my experience from a graphic design point of view, and I’m there with a blank canvas and I’m thinking about how a website could look. It’s great to have Lindsay by my side so that she can say, no, you’re spending too long on that. It looks fantastic. Get it done. And then something that I’d create and I’m thinking, that’s good. And she goes, no, I think we can improve it. So just having two people sometimes, it speeds the process up.
Martin:
Just such a lot, a lot of such a huge amount of time is wasted when you second guess yourself all the time. So it’s quite nice that as well. But yeah, first and foremost, she’s a writer. So although she’s got the marketing experience, she loves to write hobbies, writing fiction and things like that. So she’s able to create content for us. She’s able to create content for our clients. Having the marketing and fiction head on is quite nice for her. And most of the jobs that we do, we have our own individual jobs. One might do invoicing, one might do emailing clients. But ultimately, we do a large proportion of the business and we swap and interchange and things like that. So it’s quite flexible.
Martin:
And I think that’s important, especially when there’s two of you. You can’t simply say, this is your job role. This is your job role. You have to be flexible. It’s just that we have such a great relationship anyway. We’re both very laid back in our personal lives. And like I say, we have a great relationship with our clients. We both go on video calls together. And it just works. We bounce off each other quite well. So much now that business is in a position where I don’t actually meet clients face to face anymore. Which is something throughout all of the time I’ve been running my business, we’ve always been the ones that said, we’ll come out and meet you face to face. Now we do everything 100% online. So that means we can still be sat here in my pajama bottoms if I want to and be on a Skype call with somebody and talk about business strategy. And it just works. And that’s another reason I think it works well with me and Lindsay, both working from the same household. And it’s just so laid back. It’s the life that we want to lead in the way that we want to lead it. I don’t mind telling my clients that I’m not wearing a suit and tie and I’m not prepared to come out and meet you. I run the business or we run the business the way that we like. And if that works for you as a client, then great. Get involved. We’ll help grow your business. And we’ll have a great time doing it.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Amen. Run the agency you want to run. Run the business you want to run and create the lifestyle that you want to create for yourselves. You guys are a great partnership. And like I said earlier, I’m so excited that you are both becoming front and center of your brand. That’s phenomenal. I can’t wait to listen to your podcast. Hopefully you guys will do video. I don’t know what you’ve got planned in the future, but if it’s got you two guys in it, then I’ll be there.
Martin:
I’m looking forward to seeing you guys.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Come along for the ride.
Martin:
Come along for the ride. I can’t wait.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
I guess last question then, do you have any particular plans to grow? I mean, are you thinking maybe one day you’ll have premises and staff? Or are you actually looking at creating a business that kind of continues to feed the lifestyle that you now have?
Martin:
Yeah, I don’t think we’d ever have offices or staff to that level. It’s the last thing I think that we would ever want. We are in discussions, me and Lindsay, about whether or not it sounds so formal when you say discussions. We’ve been talking about it, about potentially having an option for people that can’t afford to work with us. So potentially focusing more of our efforts on teaching and guiding people who potentially don’t have a big budget, but still want to get results from their website. And that’s kind of what we’re doing with a podcast. We’re going to see how it goes. Maybe in the future we look at courses and things like that. That kind of approach, really.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
So that would be another kind of string to your bow, but not necessarily meaning you’re going to go and have a physical location and have to staff up.
Martin:
Oh, never. No.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
That’s good. And I’m glad because that’s very similar to me is that, you know, I want my small office and I want my small team, but I don’t want the strength. I’ve had 15 employees before and nearly had a breakdown. So, you know, I don’t want to go there either. And I’m glad that you have the confidence to say, this is what we want to create. And we’re not going to conform to what we think agency life has to be just because everyone else is doing something different. So again, final fist bump of the session. You can find Martin and Lindsay over on jammydigital.com. All of the links will be in the show notes and we will make sure that we let you all know when the podcast is live. That will be the WP Innovator and the Agency Trailblazer communities. Martin, how else can people connect with you on the socials?
Martin:
You can find me on Twitter. It’s @MartinHuntbatch. That’s H-U-N-T-B-A-C-H. Like I say, we produce quite a lot of content and we’re tweeting on there. So feel free to get involved.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Brilliant. Mate, thank you so much for your time.
Martin:
You’re very welcome. Thanks for having me. Cheerio.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
And that’s a wrap. In next week’s show, we will be talking to fellow Agency Trailblazer community member Martin Suttle and learning of his journey starting out from the UK and eventually settling down in Peru where he not only works with agencies around the world, but has built up a fascinating portfolio of a local business. A brilliant story. A brilliant journey. If you are an Agency Trailblazer member, then you can go ahead and log into agencytrailblazer.com and access that episode now. Otherwise, look for it next week, Monday, midday. Have an awesome week. Have an awesome week.
