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Verbatim text
Lee:
Before we start today’s show, let me share with you something super exciting that we are launching. That’s an event here in the uk, all around helping you transform your agency. So if you look back over the last year, maybe two years, and feel frustrated that maybe you’ve not moved forward, then this is the event for you. Check it out over on Agency Transformation Live. That’s Agency Transformation Live. We have got speakers from all around the world here to help you plan your next 90 days, your next three months, your next year, whatever that needs to be to help you get the level of transformation that you need in your business. That’s AgencyTransformation live.
Lee:
We’ll see you there. Welcome to the Agency Trailblazer podcast. This is your host, Lee, and on today’s show we are talking with Alex Curtis. He has created an agency with not only a productized service, but also within a very specific niche. He’s got a fascinating story and he drops tonnes and tonnes of value bombs. So sit back, relax and enjoy the ride. Welcome to a conversation with me, Mr. Lee Jackson and the almighty bearded one, Mr. Alex Curtis.
Alex:
Thank you. That is the best intro I’ve had yet. That is fantastic.
Lee:
That’s okay. Almighty bearded one, how are you?
Alex:
I’m really good. Can we keep using that, like throughout?
Lee:
We can do, absolutely. And folks, if you want to know what I’m talking about, Please go to theleadedengine.co.uk and you will see some pictures of the mighty bearded one in action, obviously named otherwise as Alex. So whenever I now say Alex for the rest of the show, remember I mean o-bearded one. In fact, I could be wrong, but when we’re at Youpreneur, I kind of have a habit of when someone comes up to me with a beard, I kind of want to stroke the beard. I’ve got my mini beard going on. Did I stroke your beard? And if I did, I apologise.
Alex:
You did not stroke my beard. So apologise for not stroking because now I’m offended that my something some sort of issue.
Lee:
Well, next time we meet. Don’t worry, I will. I actually have stopped. She’s very tempting when I see glorious beards. I’m so glad that the 70s has reappeared because I’m quite. I’ve got like a hairy chest as well. So I’m just waiting for that to come back into fashion as well because all the GQ models and all that or whatever are all like, you know, just perfectly well sculpted. I’m waiting for dad bod. To come back in and then I’m happy.
Alex:
Awesome.
Lee:
Awesome. Well, that’s got nothing to do with the show, has it?
Alex:
Well, well, I guess shout out to.
Lee:
All the dads out there. Anyway, enough of me, folks. This is Alex, he is the bearded one. He’s from the lead engine. He’s very, very highly recommended from quite a lot of people that I should be having a conversation with this guy. And I’m very happy that you’re on the show, mate. What I would really love is if you could obviously say hi, tell people a little bit about yourself, perhaps what your favourite drink or your favourite food is or your favourite colour, something that maybe people don’t know. And then I’m going to grill you with questions and jump in a time machine.
Alex:
Fantastic. Well, delighted that I’ve been recommended. I’ve been on a few podcasts. I’m just great. It wasn’t. No, don’t interview Alex. So there was one person who said that.
Lee:
I want to say who. No, there wasn’t.
Alex:
Oh, yeah, well, one’s not bad, so I’m happy with that. Excellent. Yeah. So I’m introducing myself. So the bearded wonder. Well, it’s funny actually, because when we did the Upiner Summit, there was a Facebook group where we introduced ourselves and people did videos and there was one guy who did like a semi funny one and I thought, because I found it quite weak, I’ve never been to a conference like that before. And then I found it really awkward introducing myself on video, so I had to do a comedy one. I did like this David Brent style. This is our agency, like the office kind of thing, so I’ll have to send you that. And then it made me famous for the event as well because people were coming up to me and say, you’re going on about my beard and glasses. And I offered to buy people a drink. So, yeah, my first value bomb of dropping. If people you’re going to. Well, going to your event. You’ve got community, obviously, for your event. Are people doing that? Are they like introducing themselves on video for the event?
Lee:
Oh, well, we’ve got a community. I’ve not made a community for the event. Maybe I should do. Shouldn’t I just like youpreneur do?
Alex:
Yeah, yeah, no, that was great. And then it was good for picking out people. I felt like I knew everyone before.
Lee:
That was a good value bomb. Be memorable. Okay, keep going.
Alex:
Brilliant. Exactly. Yeah. It’s simple. Yeah. So I’ve got a lead generation agency. So we’re essentially a digital marketing agency. We specialise in generating leads, but for the financial services industry. So like mortgage, brokers, loans, anything to do with finance. Anything to do with money, really. Which is a service. But we do everything a normal agency would do. So we’ve got like a web developer, we do Google Ads, Facebook ads, everything like that. But we would just do it in that market.
Lee:
That’s brilliant. And with regards to a drink or a favourite colour, can you throw a couple of those in?
Alex:
Yeah, no, absolutely. I was thinking about this because I’ve been listening to the podcast and people come up with interesting things, but a lot of people say gin. And gin is like my favourite drink. That is. My most Instagrammed thing is gin. But controversially, I am a pineapple on pizza kind of guy.
Lee:
Really?
Alex:
Yeah. Which in the office that gets nose turned up whenever we order pizza. They’re like, wha.
Lee:
Nothing wrong with a Hawaiian. Come on, guys.
Alex:
No, exactly. Every pizza I have, I edit the toppings to make sure pineapple is on it.
Lee:
That’s a lot of work. You might as well just buy one with pineapple on.
Alex:
Oh, no. But you’ve got. But if you go Domino’s, mate, and you got you the Mighty Meaty or the Meaty or is the best. But just take out the bacon on pizza is a bit worthless. Swap that out for pineapple and then you’re on it.
Lee:
It’s 2:00 in the afternoon. You’re actually making me really hungry.
Alex:
But thank you for that.
Lee:
That image, that visual image of the Mighty Meat.
Alex:
There you go.
Lee:
What I would love to do now that we’ve had some imaginary food. I’d love to jump in a time machine and just go back in time. Because you were not always running this agency with your super hyper focused niche, which I do want to talk about as well. I’d love to find out how you even got started either as a designer developer, as an agency. Could you take us back in time a little bit and give us that story?
Alex:
I can take you back in time, but can I ask, is it a Tardis or the DeLorean?
Lee:
It’s a Tardis.
Alex:
Okay. That was quick. No problem.
Lee:
Are you a fan of absolutely 100%?
Alex:
Yeah. No, I am. And I think Jodie is my second favourite doctor of all time already. After the first episode.
Lee:
I would agree. Although Matt Smith is my doctor.
Alex:
That’s it. Me too.
Lee:
Twinsies.
Alex:
He’s my favourite. He was just like. I didn’t really get into like, David 10. I wasn’t like, watch. I’ve got to watch this every Week. But I had to watch Matt Smith every week.
Lee:
Absolutely. And I cried many times.
Alex:
Yeah. Season one. Best. Best series of anything. Almost ever. Yes.
Lee:
We’re really bad, aren’t we? The worst tangents ever. Anyway. In the tardis.
Alex:
In the Tardis, yeah. So, yeah, so I went to. I did film production at uni. I didn’t know what I wanted to do and I actually took a year out before going to uni as well. So I kind of. I just didn’t understand what I wanted to do. I knew I was like creative, I wanted to make things. So I did film production and then we did some courses on and got introduced to Photoshop. I think it was like Photoshop version 5 at that time. And we also did a bit on web Basic web development as well. And when I was kind of going through uni, I was thinking in terms of career wise, this is probably more sensible, you know, the chances of being the next Christopher Nolan is minimal. But obviously web in. What was it, 2002, 2003, becoming a big thing. And I enjoyed it. So I really enjoyed like the designing of it. So I taught myself essentially how to design websites and then got really frustrated with developers who wouldn’t build it like it should look. And there was always the excuse, oh, you can’t do this or whatever. They don’t all speak like that.
Lee:
They do. No, they absolutely do.
Alex:
Every web developer.
Lee:
Well, I’m a web developer. You see, that’s exactly how I talk. The minute a designer talks to me.
Alex:
You can’t do that. Especially in 2002, 2000. So it was a bit crazy. So I then was like, right, I’m just gonna, I was just so frustrated. I’m just gonna learn code more. And then I just started developing my own sites. And then I was like a web designer web developer, just building websites and selling those. And then I got frustrated again with people wanting something that’s not what they need. It was kind of what they wanted. It was shiny and it was exciting. So I just position myself just to understand like psychology and marketing to then be able to do the website and everything, but give them something that I’m sort of leading in terms of to help them generate business and then kind of niche down into lead generation more. Because I just like, I hate magento and like E commerce. I’m just that in terms of magenta, in terms of a software or I just absolutely hate it. I love WordPress. And then what I like doing is spending. If I’m working on E comms, I can’t spend a lot of time on a product because I’ve got thousands of them, I suppose I can spend time on them as a brand.
Alex:
But when it’s like doing, getting quotes for a more expensive product, you can spend a lot more time on it. That kind of makes sense. So we did a lot of that and then we just did so much work in financial services that it just felt like at one point I was like, I want to be the best lead generation company in the world, but it just makes more sense. We’re so much more focused on like mortgages, life insurance that we talk their language. We’re directly authorised by the FCA ourselves and we’re just like all our marketing now that we haven’t really done much marketing, that’s not ads. So we don’t really do a lot of organic stuff. But this year we are, but it’s like super focused. We know exactly who our customer is and we’re ramping that up a lot this year. So that kind of takes us up to now.
Lee:
That’s really cool. You’ve kind of, you’ve, you’ve productized so your lead gen which is a niche in its own right, it’s like a productized niche and then you’ve done the niche within the niche which is the industry itself as well. So it’s kind of niching until it hurts. But actually I think you’ll find or you found, sorry. And people listening who maybe are still on the fence about niching down is that, you know, if you are just the lead generation company, then you are a lead generation company to hundreds of thousands of businesses around the world. But the minute you are a lead generation company in something as complex as say the financial industry, where you’re instantly talking, talking their language about mortgages, I mean the minute you said mortgages and stuff like that, my brain just farted. But you having those conversations in that industry, you become one of the big players in a much, much smaller pond. And I presume that’s how you found it. You know, being in that scenario, have you had to compete against more generalist lead generation companies or are you finding it a lot easier within the niche?
Alex:
Finding it a lot easier? 100%. We don’t often get in a pitch process or battle it out with other agencies. A lot of the time when we’re advertising it’s not on search. So I don’t like to in front of people that are looking for it. I like to get in front of people that have that problem and we provide the solution it’s rare that they will go out and look at other options. So that’s kind of one thing. So most of our Advertising is on LinkedIn, disruptive advertising. So we get across that. And then there are a few occasions that when we have. And we have one because of the specialism, because we’re directly authorised by fca, a lot of them are worried about, like, things like compliance and things like that. And because we’ve got all that experience, not just me, that the team as well, that, yeah, it’s a lot easier. And then just had a conversation earlier today and he loved that I knew what critical illness cover was, which is, you know, for me it’s a basic thing. But for other agencies, a generalist, they have no idea.
Lee:
And I think I know what it is. But also I understand that there are like two different types of policy that you can get. One is like covering you for monthly costs for so many months and then another is something completely different that pays out and all sorts of stuff. So.
Alex:
Absolutely. There’s a lot of intricacies.
Lee:
Exactly. You’re in a place that I definitely don’t understand now. I feel like there is a little bit missing in the middle somewhere because it sounded like you started on your own, but you are saying no.
Alex:
Yes. So I worked for two, worked for an agency part time when I was at uni, which is quite cool. They were generalists. And then when I moved back to Peterborough, I worked for another agency for two and a half years, three years. We worked with a big financial services company there. So always kind of worked with these financial services companies, but for other agencies as well. So it was 2013 or 2014, I think I went freelance. And then 2017 we set up the limited company and start hiring people.
Lee:
That’s brilliant. Okay, good. So that was just a little bit in between that I felt like was missing. So the hiring process very quickly because there are a few people listening who are going through that. They are in your 2017, they’re looking at their first or their first few hires or partnering in that. Have you got any advice for people in that circumstance?
Alex:
Yeah, I suppose. Depends what you want. I think I’ve hired most of my people in June, when the graduates just finish and you get first pick of and finding those ones that are teachable that are really sort of keen to learn. I haven’t. And then we do have one really experienced guy as well, but I’d worked with him before, but I have. So one of the guys, girl who I hired in 2017 as a copywriter fresh out of university. She’s now. I’ve now taught her Facebook ads, like, the technical side of it, because she’s got this knack of writing really good ads, like just really punchy ads. And I was kind of like, why am I going to get a guy in for like, 30, 35 grand, he’s a Facebook ad specialist, when actually the ad is more important, that has a bigger effect. So actually just teaching her the technical stuff, because technical stuff is easy. I think it’s the. It’s those creative things that. The hard things. So I’ve had really good luck with graduates in June and teaching them. And now they’ve got, like, two of them have got two years experience working with me and I’ve taught them my way as well.
Lee:
That is nice. Moldable, as it were, as opposed to someone coming in with years and years of experience with their way of doing.
Alex:
Yeah. Going back to the developer thing, developers are like, you like to do your own processes because, you know they work and that’s not like a. That’s not a bad thing at all. But if your processes are different and you’ve done it for, like, if I told you that if you had to come and work for me and I said, no, we work different to you, Lee, you’ve got to do it this way, that you’re going to be a very unhappy developer. And I think that happens a lot, you know, just. It’s just a bit of a conflict.
Lee:
Well, I mean, also, if I can work for you as well, I’d have a massive chip on my shoulder, which is why I run my own business, because I think I was just a pain in the backside to be an employee. I feel sorry for all of my past bosses and I, again, apologise. I think I’ve apologised many times on this show to all of my old bosses for being such a jackass.
Alex:
Yeah, no, me too. I just. I don’t like being told what to do. I think that’s why I haven’t got a business partner as well.
Lee:
I do have a business partner, my other company, but we’re both very similar, so that’s actually quite good anyway, which is awesome. Now I’m really intrigued. First of all, massive kudos for your growth and also for being able to connect with people that are moldable. I think that’s a great idea. We do something similar where we get apprentices in and then we build them up. And for example, Larissa, who’s been our apprentice, well, she was our apprentice has been here for four years now and is one of the best developers I know. So it’s definitely a very, very good way of, you know, of building up your business. But I’m really intrigued on something you talked about about disruption. So you are focusing your platform, your main kind of ad platform or your main place for leads is LinkedIn because I presume that’s where you’ve decided your. And found your client base is your target niche. So what do you mean by disruption and getting people to notice you guys in that. In that realm?
Alex:
Yeah, okay. So yeah, so it’s just a great question. And then I, it was one of those things that, until I understood this and cracked it, that’s when the growth came. So it is the kind of. I think it’s a massive different mindset between someone search, oh, I need, I need a web developer or I need, I need ppc. That’s, that’s because that’s what we used to sort of advertise as we do ppc, we do websites and a lot of this is about integrates like personal branding as well. So what I mean by disruption is someone’s like just flicking for their. They’re in LinkedIn, they’re in Facebook, Instagram because they’re bored. They need something to attract them and it’s not necessarily worrying about whether they’ve got that need, whether they don’t know it or not and letting them know that they kind of need it. There is something better out there and attracting them in that way. With financial services, I guess it’s quite easy because they buy leads. They buy leads from like a. Compare the market of mortgages. So they’ll buy the lead generation companies that sell leads and it’s really inefficient because they’re selling it to five other people.
Alex:
So it’s like fastest finger first who can get on the phone first they’ve got to pay 40, 50 quid for a lead. But so as the other five people and they’re in competition and then because it’s not through their brand, it’s. There’s no differentiation at all. There’s just. I need a mortgage broker. So when you do kind of this. So that’s my kind of sales pitch essentially that it’s like leads through your brand, your website. That’s as simple as my ad is. It’s like me holding up a whiteboard and it’s just it twigs though there is another way. And then we speak to people that have not. Weren’t they were. I guess they were Spending the money already in a different way and we’ve offered a more efficient way of doing it. So it’s just like a really easy sell and that can be transferred for kind of what. And I suppose it comes back to why we’ve niched and we can do that because we’ve niche. If you just go try and do that to every industry about a website, your website’s rubbish. You know, get a new website, it just doesn’t work. But I think because we’ve niched and there is a real pain there and it’s like a, it’s a pain that’s going to help them grow and drive profit.
Alex:
So, but yeah, in terms of our all, pretty much all of our advertising for our clients is disruptive as well now. So like Google for things like life insurance and mortgages is quite expensive. It’s like 25 quid a click or something like that for life insurance, quote. So you’re looking at, you know, if you’re converting one in 400 quid a lead. Whereas on things like LinkedIn, when we niche down with this client, we’re getting leads for less than the cost of a click on Google because you’re, it’s a lot cheaper on things like LinkedIn, Facebook, especially when you bid to get in front of a thousand people rather than the sort of cost per click model. And then when coming back to talking about Jessica and how good her ads are, is when you’re bidding to get in front of a thousand that you’re getting those lower cost per clicks because if you get a thousand clicks in your thousand, it’s going to be a lot cheaper than if you get 100. And so we’re constantly working on making our ads better and that drives everything. If that kind of makes sense.
Lee:
Yeah, that makes sense. So essentially what we’re saying here is the disruption is in the fact that you are serving them a solution to their problem in a place that they’re not expecting. So the industry are used to going to these big lead farms and spending thousands of pounds and as quickly as possible all trying to compete for that piece of business. So first on the phone, you know, maybe the second one might get lucky because they’ll be a bit cheaper than the first guy or whatever. But it’s a dog eat dog world. It’s very stressful and it’s a very high cost. So I’m now one of those guys, I’m, you know, I need these leads, I’m spending all this money. It’s a frustration. I’m now on LinkedIn, you know, looking for another job because I’m stressed out or I’m on Facebook, whatever. And one of your ads disrupts my thinking because there you are presenting, hey, here’s you got this problem. But look at this. You know, we can generate you leads for much less than the cost of whatever. Obviously I don’t know what your wording is and Jennifer is probably amazing at all that I haven’t a clue.
Lee:
But you know, you have disrupted them in a place they’re not expecting it and you’ve caught straight into that itch they have, that pain they have and you’ve captured their attention and off they come and have a look at you guys. I think that is just beautiful.
Alex:
Yes. And then I can hear the audience thinking as well. But what the chances of them doing on the first visit. And they don’t. So. And the actual, probably the biggest key is remarketing. So now you’ve been on my site this morning, you will see my remarketing ads in like Facebook, possibly LinkedIn if you go in there as well. And 95% of our retainer clients come from a Facebook remarketing ad. Even though we’re, even though we’re business to business and it’s not on the first visit is because we’re, then we’re getting them in with that we know they’re interested in the leads, you know, as a thing it’s right for them. Well, we knew because our targeting was, was good and we know that. And the targeting is easy by the way. You know, just choosing financial services is an industry on LinkedIn and your industry, what your niche is, is on there. And you can talk about occupation, you know, the owner of manufacturing companies in Wellingborough, you know, I can, I can do that and that’s really easy. And then it’s obviously attracting them, getting the click on the site and then it’s like kind of confirming that with the remarketing.
Alex:
So there’s like you can either somet say the same thing again in a different way or pick out a different reason on each ad. So sometimes we have like 20 different remarketing ads so they’ll see a different one each time. It’s a different idea to kind of push them along slightly. But it’s all when we, we had ads off in October, November, switch them back on in December and it’s like that month lag of then in January, now the phone’s ringing, proposals are going out because it, it is not instant. So if you’re doing ads like that and you’re just doing that cold traffic ads. I just. Honestly, if you do remarketing, we only spend 2, 3 pounds a day on Facebook remarketing and then just give it 30 days and then obviously if your ads are right and your offer is right and things like that, you will start to get that traction.
Lee:
I think that’s really important. People will often spend maybe a little bit of money on a Facebook ad, get disappointed that they got a few click throughs but nothing else, and then give in. And I can’t remember what the number is. I think it’s changed nowadays, but it used to be something like you needed 15 points of contact with the prospect before you made a sale. And I guess it’s the same sort of thing, you know, I’m going to see the brand of someone, the face of someone, different messages from that person in my social media over the period of say 15 different days up to 30 days. And eventually when you know, either the need are right, you know, that catches me on the day that I’m really trying to sort that need out, or I’m out and about and I’m thinking, who was that company that said they could generate me leads? Because this is now my problem. You are going to be front of centre because I’ve seen your ad, I’ve seen your face, I’ve seen you appearing in my feed multiple times over the course of that time. You’ve built up that trust as well.
Lee:
You know, you’re at the back of my mind. I don’t know quite how to explain it, but I’m probably going to come and have a look at you now and have a conversation with you to see how you can help me. And I know this works because I buy because of this. You know, I’ve bought software packages because I went and had a look at a product. It looked great, but I just didn’t have the time to like take it on and move all of my content over to it. So I just carried on and it kept appearing in my feed over the course of, I think it was over like two months. It would appear in LinkedIn, it would appear as an ad on the Sky News website and it just kept reminding me that it existed. And then eventually when I was just so sick of our processes and I was like, we’ve got to do something about this. The first place I went was to go and Check out this product and purchased it and we’ve had it ever.
Alex:
Since and that’s it. And then when you felt that pain Again, it was that when you were in that situation where that pain happened again and then your brain connected the pain with the solution and you. And that is stronger, I think when you do that personal branding, when you obviously mentioned your face as well, and people couldn’t connect that face in their mind. And more so than the brand. I mean, people will say a lot of the time we work with Alex or we work with Tom, Sophie, Jessica rather than the lead engine, because we’re a were about the people. And I think that’s stronger than the brand itself as well.
Lee:
Hence me and you met at youpreneur and hence your pictures are all over your website, which is one of the things I really, really love. The fact that I can see two of the bearded guys already who’ve Both posted content, etc. There’s Jenna. Is it Jennifer.
Alex:
Sorry, Jessica.
Lee:
Jessica. I’ve been calling her Jennifer. Sorry, Jessica. Sorry. Everyone calls Larissa Marissa for some reason. So I’m liking the purple walls.
Alex:
Thank you. So we’ve just. We’ve just moved. We just. We just moved into our new office. That what you see there is the cupboard office and we just had the photo shoot just now, actually in the new office. We just moved over Christmas. So that’s going to get updated. But yeah, there will be a purple wall with the icon on it.
Lee:
I am glad. And folks, remember that new photo shoot will be uploaded to theleadngine.co.uk and if you are in the financial industry, then you know, hey, these are you guys. That’s fantastic. Now that’s been a massive eye opener and really, really helpful. I love it when people describe what they’re doing with, especially with social media ads in such detail that you’ve done. Because it helps people who have dipped their toe in the water or who are consider visualise it because this is a real story. This is what you really do. As opposed to me going to Udemy and trying to work out how to run a Facebook campaign and all of the strategy and watch it for hours. Your story, in a nutshell, helps train me and helps train the listeners. I’m really grateful for that.
Alex:
No, no. And I’ll see. Grateful to be here because I wish there was. I wish I listened to podcasts like this when I know I had real, real struggles, real pain, a number of years, getting nowhere, incredibly frustrated. And that’s why I kind of wanted to do it as well. So, like, happy help people. Because even if you wanted to come into our niche, there’s plenty of room. But I’M sure. And then. Yeah, so I wish I did a lot of these things, you know, I wish I spent a bit of money on ads sooner.
Lee:
Well, I’ve got some questions then about those pains. Because, you know, the great thing about pain or failure or whatever those sorts of stories is, although they’re hard at the time, they are actually really valuable because we can learn from them and be better businesses as a result. And sometimes it’s great to hear of other people’s pains so that we can avoid them.
Alex:
Yeah, yeah, no, definitely.
Lee:
And one of the things you and me were talking about was essentially clients that take the mic, they are draining, they’re horrible or whatever it is. Do you have any stories of a. Or have you had that experience of clients that have taken the mic and then what have you done to. Or what’s made you realise this is toxic and what have you done to mitigate that?
Alex:
Yeah, so I think as well, I think clients don’t realise they’re taking the mic as well. So by saying that, I think we’re doing them maybe a bit of a disservice because. So it was my fault completely, all of it, because I let them. So that was like the one lesson because I was, it was my first ever proper client where I was doing like contracting, where I was doing like full time contracting, where I was freelancing. And they are like clients. There was clients before this, this is the first one where it was like, you’re gonna be the first of many together, if that makes sense. And my day rate was. I was so, so this is a big mistake. I was desperate to get the work and So I quoted £136 a day, which I don’t even know if that’s minimum wage or not, but I feel.
Lee:
Like it’s minimum wage at least.
Alex:
But in my head I was like, I’m go three days in the office, but then I can work at night, I can still do, I’ll do some work in the morning, so I’ll still get two day rates in that day, plus that. So that’s. I’ll offer them less because I’m doing three days. And so it was my fault for going in too low. And then they had that for five years. Wow. And I didn’t have the conversation. So one of the big things for me was getting a mentor, a guy that had been there, done it. He did like Channel 4 Secret Millionaire. He sold his business for like a lot. And he volunteers his time like every Thursday. He part of that process actually like changed his life in terms of just like a third volunteering, third of his family, third business, but having him there for him to tell me, it needed him to tell me to say, look, conflict leads to clarity. You just need to go and speak to them and say, look, you’re taking the biscuit here. I provide so much value. I’ve never increased my prices over five years and I got that day rate from 136 to 500 pounds with one conversation.
Alex:
And it wasn’t even that awkward just because I just went and did it. And I think a lot of the time, well, I mean, that’s what I did. I just didn’t want that conflict. I think we avoid it naturally, and we think, oh, but what if I lose? I’m gonna lose all that money. Even though it’s not right, just going in there and just, you know, having a bit of posture. You obviously don’t want to be reckless and lose all your clients, but having confidence when you. I suppose it comes back to nailing that process of, you know, when the next client is coming. So if you get that and you’ve got that confidence, you can then sort of go and have those meetings and just like I said, they don’t realise they’re taking the mic and you can just have a frank. Even though, you know, five years, they became like friends almost, you know, so you do feel awkward about it. You just got to do it. So, yeah, a couple of things, really. Having a mentor because it’s lonely at the top, there’s no one above you to get that from, so that really helps.
Alex:
I think there’s, like, a lot of business centres have, like, an entrepreneur in residence and you can book time with them. That’s what ours did and that’s where I met him. So there are those. And then. Yeah, just not being afraid of losing a client.
Lee:
I think that’s really good, folks. This is a perfect opportunity for me to mention agencytrailblazer.com that’s our community of agency owners. So if you are feeling lonely or you want some mentors, etcetera, feel free to go ahead and Check out. Agencytrailblazer.com Sorry, mate.
Alex:
No, no, no, it’s perfect.
Lee:
Double Check.
Alex:
No, I mean, that’s great as well. I wish. I wish there were events like that. I wish, Wish. But the thing is, I don’t think I was even. Even if it was around then. I wasn’t looking, I was so blinkered. Yeah. Do you. Do you do discount for podcast guests on the.
Lee:
Yeah, I’ll send you. I’ll send you. I’ll send you.
Alex:
Amazing. You’re only up the road. We’re like. We’re like 30 minutes away, if that.
Lee:
It’s ridiculous. You don’t even need accommodation. So on this, then, I love this. So recognising that it is 100% your fault because you’re allowing yourself to be treated like this. And if they are an absolute horrible piece of work because they’re just nasty people, then you just need to cut them off anyway. But if it’s simply because of, you know, a misunderstanding, etc. Then rather than burying your head in the sand, go for it. Have that conversation. Don’t be scared to lose. And if you do lose the client, what we’ve experienced many times is if we’ve lost a client or had to fire a client, that’s fine, because that’s freed up our time to get someone else in who’s always been much more appreciative, must be been much more higher value, etc. So we don’t realise necessarily how much time is being drained and how much that might be costing us beyond just that. Now, you also told us, or showed us in the time machine, that in around 2017, you obviously scaled up and you started getting staff. I’m definitely. Sorry, I’m very interested as well in how you went from one guy to several people and how you managed things like your billing and your administration and all of that sort of stuff, because, I mean, it’s already hard to manage as one person on your own, and I’m sure you found some ways of doing that, but then suddenly, with three people, what did you do about that?
Lee:
How do you manage all of that? So I’d say billing, your admin, your accounts, it’s just all these boring, annoying things that just distract us all the time.
Alex:
No, absolutely. Could I just make one point about the previous conversation as well, about when we were talking about niching as well. The power of niching as well is when you’re having those conversations that if you’re a generalist, you’re replaceable, so that if you do, the client will see you in a different way as an expert in email marketing for plumbers or whatever it is. So when you do go to sack that client, they will think differently about you because they’re like, oh, how do I replace an expert? Whereas if you’re just an email marketer, there’s millions of them. So just another reason to niche is when you do have those awkward conversations, you’ve got more Power, if that makes sense. But yes. Okay, so admin. So this is a big thing obviously because. So I’ve saved myself whatever the wages of an accounts admin. I don’t have one. And then I saw my accountant today and that was maybe the second time this year. So I think so I use Xero. I use that with GoCardless. All my invoices are automated so with Xero you can just set it as a repeating. And so one thing I’ve done differently for cash flow is I bill, I invoice at the start of the month rather than what I used to do.
Alex:
And I think a lot of people do is wait like your on payroll to the end of the month and then bill it and then they wait seven. I wish they waited seven days and they wait another 30 days to pay it. So you’re like always two months behind. I’ve never had an objection to billing on the first of the month. So if you’re doing that at the minute, just try it with your new. So I phased it. I didn’t say to the existing ones you’ve got to change like just with your new ones. Just say look, we bill at the start of the month, we do it with go cardless. I’ve never had an objection to that and I thought I would. I was like really scared about doing it. I remember the first time I said so cash flow, that’s helped. And then I know the money’s coming in because GoCardless I think keeps it for like 12 days or whatever. So I know that I’ve got people that started on the 1st. By the 12th, the money’s in without fail. I don’t have to have any awkward chasing conversations. It’s. It’s in and I get an email if they cancel it or whatever.
Alex:
So I can plan really well.
Lee:
So that’s helps obviously, presumably if it fails as well. So if they’re go cardless tries to take the money, it fails. You get notifications.
Alex:
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So that’s never happened luckily. And because it’s with their bank account rather than with a card, you don’t have that expiry issue or whatever. Interesting. So yeah, if you’re doing retainers, that is. And then I don’t have to worry. I don’t even like I’ve never had to come over last time I had to chase an invoice so that those stresses that I used to have and you’re thinking, oh, I need this to come in or because I got to pay mortgage or whatever that’s all gone now and that has helped me. Then when you’re talking about hiring people, I’m in a really confident place that I know that, all right, get a couple more retainers in, get another guy in the office. So like, simple as that. And I know without fail that those things are going to happen. We don’t tie people into contracts. Everyone’s like a rolling 30 day. They can give us a month’s notice but I don’t want to keep them if we can’t help them anyway. So yeah, Xero is amazing. And then receipt bank, the app, just taking photos of my receipts and then that imports it into Xero and then you reconcile it.
Alex:
So I spend 0.5% of my time on accounting and I don’t have to pay anyone else to do it.
Lee:
That’s pretty awesome, isn’t it?
Alex:
Yeah.
Lee:
Then payroll, then. Is that all managed inside of in Xero?
Alex:
Yes. Again, that is a five minute job once a month. So yeah, Xero is amazing. I mean I am one of those people that doesn’t. I don’t try everything. I try something and if it works I stay with it so they could be better. But I tried Xero. I thought it was amazing, did everything I needed to do. It just simplified everything and then it’s just, you know, that saved me either outsourcing or a human in the office. A lot of people have accounts people in, you know, get to an agency of our, of our size, you might at least have someone part time and we’ve cut that out.
Lee:
So yeah, that’s fantastic. And then what do you do with regards to like lead management as well then? So do you have a CRM system? Do you. How do you manage all of that? Because there’s four of you.
Alex:
Is there six? Seven.
Lee:
Six of us now? Six, seven, 800. So obviously that’s a lot of messages coming in. That’s people dealing with different people on projects and also on leads. How are you managing all of the comms and making sure that if an inquiry comes in, someone’s responding to that and taking them through the process?
Alex:
Yeah, no, absolutely. So for our stuff, I’m doing like the sales stuff. So we’ve got like Sophie is like normally answers the phone. She’s like an account manager. Tom will answer the phone, Jessica will as well. They’ll all kind of answer the phone. We’ve got a new phone system in the new office where it’s all through our Macs and like apps on phones and things like that. And we’ve got like A hand hold things. We’ve got like four phone lines now, which is amazing. We before we just had like the one line. So.
Lee:
Yeah.
Alex:
Should we use Asana if it’s a. It’s a phone call. Absolutely. Love Asana. I haven’t paid Asana a penny, which is bonkers. They’re such. I mean, this is another sort of tangent, but there’s such a big gap between free and paid and I think they’ve got. They could. They could make more money just changing their packages.
Lee:
We pay for Asana because we like the templates and we can trigger templates and do all sorts of cool things. We just.
Alex:
I don’t know, we’ve just don’t never need it. Yeah, I suppose a lot of our stuff can be like. Well, we use. What do we use? We use Gantt Instagant.
Lee:
Yeah, we got that.
Alex:
Yeah. But then that creates the tasks in Asana. So then you create the template in Instagram and then that will create all the tasks in Asana. So you don’t need Asana Premium, I believe.
Lee:
Maybe I save. Maybe I’ll save £20.
Alex:
Yeah, there you go. I’ve not looked into the pricing. Is that like, per person?
Lee:
Like, I think I’m paying 28 quid or something like that.
Alex:
Okay. I need to look at that because I’m happy to pay for that. Yeah, I’m happy to pay them, but.
Lee:
I thought they’ve got their own timeline. I can do private projects, I can invite clients in to look at stuff, but they can’t do stuff. They’ve got task dependencies, which are really important for me. Although I don’t know if you can do that with Instagram as well. Some of the advanced searching and. Yeah, and we’ll sign on with Google, but I mean, we cannot sign on with Google.
Alex:
We do. We sign on with Google. Sign on with Google. And then I’ve got separate projects that I can bring the client into that if I need to as well. So I’m doing all that for free.
Lee:
Yeah, interesting. And we’re also like, got our Google Drive. Have you got that integrated?
Alex:
Possibly not.
Lee:
So we’ve got. So we’ve got a few things. Maybe. I don’t know.
Alex:
I’m intrigued.
Lee:
I mean, in the grand scheme of things, it’s money that I don’t miss. And I kind of like, yeah, no, sure.
Alex:
No, I feel better. I feel like. I feel like I should, because it is. We cannot live without it. I do feel like. So the first thing I do when we get off, I’m Gonna go and speak to Asana. I want to give you money, but I don’t want to give you like 30 quid per user per month. This is ridiculous.
Lee:
No, no, I think it’s like 7 pounds per user or something for like the basic.
Alex:
Yeah, okay. So, yeah, so, yeah, I love our tantrums. That’s why my brain works. So, yeah, phone call comes in and then we’ve got like a project that is like Alex’s calls or proposals or whatever it’s called. And then Sophie puts the name of the number in, call them back. And then we’ve got. For anything through the site, we use HubSpot CRM, the free version as well. It sounds like we use all the free stuff, but again, HubSpot is so expensive, like the marketing, anything you want.
Lee:
To do on top is ridiculous. Like 200 quid, isn’t it?
Alex:
Or something.
Lee:
Just to start.
Alex:
So a combination of Zaps and HubSpot to fire emails or whatever. Our clients, if they. A lot of our clients don’t have anything. So we push them on the HubSpot CRM integration. We’re like integrating our chatbot stuff in there. So all our leads, pretty much they’ve either got their own CRM or HubSpot CRM and everything sort of is like we use, like I say, zaps or whatever to go through. And then a big thing for us is making sure every lead, we know exactly what ad it’s come from or where it’s come from, how it’s come from. Because we want our target with our clients is the cost per acquisition. So not just we can get you cheap leads, we can get you profitable sales. So for us, it’s really important. The exact ad that triggered that lead, that triggered that sale, we want to report back in that. Just like simple, like UTM tracking, but making sure that goes through on the lead as well.
Lee:
That’s really good. So you got a nice flow of information as well, not necessarily having to re. Key stuff. Absolutely good stuff as well. That’s brilliant. Well, we try and keep these shows to around 30 minutes, but I found you absolutely fascinating. So I’ve already breached that significantly. Okay.
Alex:
I have no idea.
Lee:
And I still have like a million other questions because I’m enjoying talking. So it would be great to get you back on at some point and actually carry on this conversation, mate. But I feel like we should probably naturally come to land at this point. You’ve been absolute inspiration. Thank you very much for your complete transparency and open sea open sea. I made up a word. You know what I mean? I’ll leave that in. And it’s been very, very educational. I’m loving those parallels between what you’ve done and what we’ve done, which is encouraging for me. You’ve also taught me some stuff, especially around the ads, etc. But you’ve also shared some phenomenal tools, all of which I’ve had some experience with in some degree. And for anyone who’s listening, who’s either starting growing, scaling their agency, etc, then be sure to give this episode a couple of listens and see what tidbits you can glean for yourself that you can apply to your agency, be it software, be it stay in the course with your ads, be it finding some other people to join your team, be it streamlining your accounts. There’s tonnes of nuggets of wisdom in here in this episode.
Lee:
So Alex, thank you so much for your time. You are a legend.
Alex:
Thank you very much mate. Cheers.
Lee:
Thanks buddy. Cheerio. If you enjoyed that episode, then be sure to let me know. You can do that with an itunes review or whatever podcast service you are using to listen. If there is a review area, please go in there and leave us a five star review. Now. If you are in agency life, maybe you’re starting your agency, maybe you’re freelancer moving into agency life or maybe you own an agency but you’re feeling lonely or stressed. Don’t forget we have a community just for you. You can find out more information that on agencytrailblazer.com and finally, if you want to rock up to our event and have great fun with guests such as Chris Ducker, Troy Dean, Mike Killen, Paul Lacey and more, then be sure to Check out agency transformation.com that’s agency transformation.com for our amazing event in April, folks, we’ll either see you in the Community community or we will see you at the event or in the next episode.
