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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 Dot live. That’s agency transformation Dot 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 agency transformation. Dot live. We’ll see you there. Hi. Welcome to the Agency Trailblazers podcast. This is your host, Lee. And on today’s show we’re talking with Bob Gentle. He shares his story of creating a large agency up in Aberdeen and how he has significantly changed things to create an agency that he loves and where he can add the most value. So sit back, relax and enjoy the ride. Welcome to a conversation with me, Mr. Lee Jackson and Mr. Bob Gentle from a land far, far away at studio NBC. How are you today?
Bob: I’m very well, thanks very much. That’s the best intro I’ve ever had. You’re very dramatic.
Lee: Well, I was going to say it like, kind of go like in a world and do all of that sort of stuff, but I can actually think of anything to say other than maybe like go down the Braveheart line.
Bob: Yeah, you could do that. But I don’t sound actually all that Scottish. You don’t.
Lee: Well, you do to me And I bet you really sound Scottish to the Americans listening.
Bob: And probably that’d be awesome.
Lee: This is where you say I’m from Ireland. I’m like, I’m so. I’m so sorry. Yeah, no, definitely sounds Scottish.
Bob: Well, thank you very much for having me. I’m really excited because you’re only the second podcast I’ve ever done.
Lee: Oh, it’s it’s it’s lovely to have you on and you had me on your podcast as well. Let’s give you a shout out to your podcast, because that episode only went live a couple of days from this recording that we’re doing, what is the best way of people getting access to your podcast, mate?
Bob: Well, if people want to find anything I’m doing, they’ll find it at BobGentle.com. The podcast is available there you’ll find links to my agency sites and all the social media things.
Lee: So you heard it here first, guys. He’s got the name that allows him to have his own.com. It’s Bob Gentle.com. Lee jackson.com however is not available. That’s annoying. I’m having to like throw a word in front of it or something so that I can launch that Mr. jackson.com. I do own that actually.
Bob: Only Jackson and I have.
Lee: Yeah, I have meet Lee Jackson I think uh, which I need to put something on. I think Lee jackson.com is like an Amps company or something.
Bob: Only Lee Jackson could do.
Lee: Yes, if you want amplifiers for your guitar and stuff, then, uh, Lee jackson.com not related to me. Right. Anyway, that was a massive tangent. This is about you. I’m really, really pleased to have you on the show. Um, we’ve had a good chat in the last podcast together where you were sharing some of your story in agency life, and I thought it was brilliant. I really, really want to jump right back in that time machine with you and learn your entire journey. I believe it goes as far back as the 90s. But before we do that, can we just have a little general introduction as to the world of Bob, who you are, your favorite color? Um, maybe a favorite drink or maybe something that you feel people might not know about you?
Bob: Oh no, I wasn’t prepared for that. But yeah, my name is Bob Gentle Aaron at what’s now effectively a digital marketing agency in Aberdeen in the north of Scotland. My clients range across the broad cross-section of business that you would find anywhere. The only difference being in Aberdeen, we have a heavy presence of the oil and gas industry. So my clients, although they’re not all directly related to oil and gas, they are all generally very dependent on that. So oil and gas plays a big part in that. My favorite color. Honestly, I couldn’t tell.
Lee: You.
Bob: In my downtime when I get some. I snowboard a lot with a couple of other people. I help run the British Junior Freeride Ski and Snowboard team. I did not know that.
Lee: That is so cool.
Bob: I know it’s great fun. It means I get to go to some really strange places and do terrifying things. And yeah, you can.
Lee: Never judge a book by its cover. I would never have pegged you when I met you at you preneur and you kilt me. I would have never pegged you as a snowboarder. Oh. It’s amazing. My favorite. Yeah. I’m impressed. Do you? Well, that was a good one. Do I? I’m scared. I’ve never skied or snowboarded in my life. I fell off roller skates a lot, so that was as daring as I ever got.
Bob: Yeah, that hurts a lot more falling on snow. Unless you’re going about 70 miles an hour. It doesn’t hurt that much.
Lee: Okay, well, I haven’t tried it yet, but maybe you’ll talk me into it one day. I will. All right, well, let’s jump in that snowboard time machine. And I’d love to go right back into the 90s and learn how you got into design or development or whatever it was that got you on your journey.
Bob: Right. Well, I will go back to when I was in school, and I think a lot of people will identify this, identify with this. As a kid, I was very, very aimless. I really didn’t know what I wanted to do. A lot of people find their vocation very early on, or they drift into a job because it’s a job for a paycheck. I was quite an idealistic kid in a very aimless kind of way, so I couldn’t quite grasp the concept of just getting a job for the sake of having a job. But at the same time, I was what would now be termed ferocious dyscalculia and a little bit of dyslexia. So I didn’t do very well in school academically at all. And also, yeah, there’s lots of other things going on there. So I didn’t go to university. I was probably a lot of people that would say they were the first kid in their family to go to university. I was probably the first kid in my family not to go to university.
Lee: Yeah.
Bob: So I kind of drifted for a little bit, tried various jobs. I worked in IT support. Interestingly, I worked for Apple when I was 17. Okay. Very weird. And do you remember the. Yes. You probably too young.
Lee: So it’s why does that ring a bell?
Bob: Anyone in their 40s will remember the BTS. It was a youth training scheme. It was what they would give you instead of unemployment benefits. So you would go on a training course. And most of its schemes were were in plumbers or builders merchants or admin type things. But I was lucky enough to find an A placement in an IT training centre that really focused on training people into programming or actual electronic components and things like that. That’s so cool. And then as part of that, we got placements and there were two of us had a placement, first of all with IBM, which was very strange. Yeah. Um, working in their support department. So going into mainframes, which at that point were like big rooms full of computers. And the other placement I had was working with Apple, and Apple kept me on probably for about three years. Now that three years is the longest I’ve ever had a full time job. So from there.
Lee: What did you do there, by the way? Because I’m intrigued. You. You’ve got the dream job here.
Bob: For three years, I was what would now be termed sort of a genius. So my job was to go into companies and help them look after, maintain the computers and also help them learn how to use them. Yeah, particularly.
Lee: Like the moving Genius Bar. Yeah.
Bob: So at that time was when newspapers, for example, were moving away from printing where they would actually line up all the letters with bits of metal, and then stamp them to using what would now be called desktop publishing. So that was a big culture change. So I had to support them with that kind of thing.
Lee: So can we go into this a little bit further, because I’m an absolute Apple geek when it comes to the older machines. So does that mean you’re helping people with the Macintosh computer? So the early Macintosh.
Bob: When I worked at Apple, that was when the literally just came out, the Mac Plus came along. Yeah, probably a couple of years before I started. And then it was the Mac twos and two S’s and the classics, and it was the first sort of archetypal classic Mac computers.
Lee: Since the late 80s, early 90s, isn’t it? That sort of.
Bob: Style that would have been sort of. Yeah, early to mid 90s.
Lee: Yeah, that’s so cool.
Bob: But it wasn’t fulfilling me. I still didn’t really know because I was yeah, I instinctively I was probably quite creative and I wasn’t fulfilled Simply changing components. Yeah. Um, it’s just not. You can do it for a while. But it wasn’t my calling, and I didn’t know what my calling was, but I knew it wasn’t that. Mhm. So I had a couple of other IT support jobs after that maybe thinking at that point maybe it’s the money that’s not working for me. So I had other jobs with more money and they just weren’t fulfilling me either. Yeah. So I decided to jack that all in. And I went to do voluntary work working in children’s homes. Now, the kind of way that worked then is you don’t get paid, but you’re living expenses are covered. And I did that for just over ten years.
Lee: Wow.
Bob: And I met my wife there. I got married, had my kids while we were working there. It was living. So I was really out of the world for about ten years. And over those ten years, the internet came along. And alongside this, the family business for me, my dad’s business, the business I grew up next to, was a software business. My dad’s a programmer and my brother’s a programmer. My sister in law was a programmer. So that kind of stuff, business ownership was quite natural to me, and I came to the point where I had to accept I was a grown up and I had kids and responsibilities, and I needed to do something. And what had been happening over the previous 3 or 4 years was this thing called the internet came along, and this was probably around 1997. And I loved it, absolutely loved it, and I loved it not only from a consumer perspective, but I loved the creative possibility of it, the possibility of reaching people. But more importantly, and I think this is where I really uncovered what I felt was my vocation, my ability to make an impact for other people. Because back in the 90s, not that many people could build a website or even understand what this whole internet thing was about. And so that’s really what I decided to do. I left it was a big gamble going from being commercially financially taken care of. To having to find my own money. But it worked very quickly. Built up a strong freelance business working for agencies, slowly building up my own client base. Looking back on it now. I was making no money, but I was making just enough to live. And gradually it grew out of there.
Lee: So this is 97 that you decided to make the shift or 97 when you started to explore that world?
Bob: It was probably around 97. I decided it was going to happen. It was a few years later that it did happen, right? Yeah.
Lee: So early 2000. You’re making this crazy decision to leave the leave being supported, like you said, with regards to the finance and then going it alone. How was the the first couple of years? I mean, you mentioned that you were not making much money, making enough to survive. Did you, though, feel more fulfilled versus the ten years in, in the children’s homes?
Bob: Yeah, much, much more fulfilled.
Lee: Yeah. Because. Because you’d gone from it not fulfilling 210 years in the children’s, which sounds awesome, by the way. I’m kind of jealous. I’ve always said I’d love to work with kids, but it doesn’t pay enough. Um.
Bob: It was Great fun. The best fun you can have. And I mean, not having to worry about money. There’s a lot going for that.
Lee: Yeah
Bob: But that said. As you continue doing that for many years and discover this isn’t your vocation, but and many people get trapped in that life, in that lifestyle, knowing it’s not their vocation, but they don’t take that step out of it. And I think it’s the same for anybody in a job where they don’t feel that it’s their calling, but they have to do it because the alternatives don’t pay them enough. Yeah. Um, it’s a big step to actually move towards what you feel is a vocation, but take what you feel is a risk. But yeah, it totally paid off for me. The reality is, I guess as we grow and as we as our income grows, So our ability to spend money grows, and the things that we think we need to spend money on, we spend money on. So if you ask me if I could live now and what I was earning, then the answer is no way. But I was quite happy with being frugal and my my wife was the same, and we just made do.
Lee: Well on that. I mean, there is something about that, especially in the early years of any agency life as well is, you know, you do have to be frugal. Anyway, I remember when we first launched and Gold Crown and we agreed that, you know, worst case, we would eat beans for dinner because that would be the cheapest meal. It’s a tin of beans. Us guys just look at the Heinz beans in the English section of the supermarket and then you’ll know what we mean. But they’re a heck of a lot cheaper here in the UK. But we figured, you know, we will we will be frugal. And it was actually really good fun. That’s where we learnt the joy of meal planning, all of that good stuff. We, you know, putting all of our costs in a spreadsheet. It sounds geeky, but it was really satisfying having everything all down in a spreadsheet and just living on not very much to get something exciting started and I think I get the same impression with you. I’ve got satisfaction, you know, that was the the most exciting, you know, times of my life of I’m actually doing something alone. I’d always been in business with other people, and this was the first time it was all my own baby. And it was just so cool.
Bob: Yeah, well, I think what I was going to say is I left that knowing exactly where I wanted to go and what I wanted to do. I think unusually, that was the first time I did have any clear direction or clear goal, which for me was very, very liberating. Um, brilliant was the first time in my life I really felt I had a destination.
Lee: So at what point did things start to change? We’re in agency life now, and you’ve had a maybe a couple of years or so. You said you weren’t making much initially, but you obviously then started to grow. So. So what? How did that all transpire?
Bob: Well, it became clear to me very early on that if I was going to be successful in any way in this business, I had to be known. I had to be in my city, the go to guy for for websites, which was my main focus back then. So that led to me doing a lot in networking. I invested very heavily in that, and that paid off increasing dividends over increasing time. I think the compound effect of consistently networking over many years, and it was many years, meant that I had a consistent stream of work coming in, and my inbound work was almost entirely referral based. So it was really, really warm prospects coming in. So the business grew really, really well to the point where we were possibly 15 people at one point. Cool. And yeah, that was when I decided it wasn’t fulfilling anymore. Which really brings me to the place where you find me now.
Lee: Yeah.
Bob: I think when we were doing really, really well with websites commercially, from a personal level and a sort of life balance perspective, I wasn’t in a happy place. I was very much where I wanted want to be when I set out on this journey. But I look at I’m constantly outselling. I’ve got a lot of pressure to sell. Because when you have 15 people, you have to pay. And to be fair, not all of them were paid. There were student placements and things like that, but I had to find 25, £30,000 a month. And if you’re in the US, that’s what, $40,000 a month? Yeah. And if you’re selling predominantly sort of 3 to £7000 websites, that’s a lot of selling. It is for a small city like Aberdeen. If you’re in London, maybe that’s easy. But in Aberdeen that was pretty tough going. And alongside that you’ve got the staff issues and you sort of train up good people in Aberdeen. There are good people, but they tend to not stay in Aberdeen. When they’re good, they tend to drift off to the big central belt agencies or US agencies or the very creative agencies. And if you’re focusing on websites, people want you want the good progression. Web design companies tend to be quite small up here, so there isn’t really the progression for them. So I came to the point where I was sitting with my accountant a few years ago, and this was coupled with me really looking at, okay, what did I want to achieve when at the beginning of all this, I wanted to make an impact on people. It wasn’t about building a massive business, it was about making an impact. And with the kind of websites I’m building for the kind of companies I’m building, there are lots of other people who they can get that from now. So what do I have that is of I’m not going to be arrogant and say unique value, but what do I have that people want because it’s not websites anymore. And the digital marketing business had really grown as a division of the company. And I decided, okay, well, that’s where we’re going to focus, because if I if I’m having conversations with people, these are the things that they want to talk about. This is what they’re excited about. And these are the things that they’re reflecting back to me that I can explain that they can’t get from anyone else. Yeah. So I decided that was where we were going to focus and the website side of the business, although it was commercially the larger part of the business, I was going to contract that down to the so that my staff would become contractors and I would have a fixed price from them for the client, and I would have a fixed margin and everything would become much simpler. What actually happened was once that happened, I realized I don’t need the websites anymore because if I don’t bring them in, I don’t have to pay for them, and therefore I don’t need that particular bit of revenue. And I can focus my time just applying the 8020 rule on where I can add most value, generate the best revenue, which is consistent because the digital marketing revenue is retainer based, whereas the website stuff is project revenue. And I have to be consistently selling there. Whereas with the digital marketing, I just have to really care for the customers I’ve got. Yeah, that’s where I find myself now.
Lee: That’s brilliant. I want to unpack the digital marketing side of things as well, a little bit with you in a minute. But what I’m intrigued about and I recognise that, you know, 30, 40, £50,000 amount of money you need to get in just to pay people’s salaries and, and the stress of that, it was it’s very stressful. Some months I remember going without pay to make sure that everyone else got paid, if you know what I mean. Yeah, exactly. It’s and you’re living off savings or you’re scrimping etc. is very stressful. I’m interested just quickly before we then move on into what’s going on nowadays is how and why do you think you may have grown up to 15 people? Because I’m interested in what goes on in our minds. Because you’ve come to a point, obviously now where you’re thinking, okay, it’s the digital marketing. I don’t need lots of stuff. I just want to add value and, you know, the 8020 rule. But what do you think might have led up to you, maybe even accidentally growing a team of 15 people. It’s a big question. I know.
Bob: I know, but there’s a really interesting answer as well. I think one of the things that is common in the web design industry is because it’s so fast paced and intense, you don’t really have the time to think about, okay, where is my ideal customer? What should I be doing with this business? One of the things I’ve discovered through the podcast, and sort of speaking to lots of other digital marketing business owners, is that specialization is really important, and you’re a great example of that. You specialize in high end WordPress builds for agencies. I was a general web design business doing general websites for anyone that would pay me. And that’s really difficult to stand out and become the guy to go for, go to if you want a particular thing done, well. Uh, websites are not all the same. If you’re an e-commerce website for a national company. You need a company that specializes in that. If you’re a logistics company, you need a very particular kind of website. It’s not that many people need standard brochure websites. And if that’s where you’re specializing in is the standard brochure website, you’re going to be charging a mediocre amount of money. And in order to grow enough to sustain somebody like me, that’s not on the tools. There needs to be enough margin in that to pay my salary as well. So you need the volume. Yeah. So if I were to do it again, I would probably build in specialization from the outset.
Lee: Yeah.
Bob: I think that’s the only really way to do it. And that could be specialization. On building the most aesthetically gorgeous brochure websites that you can charge a premium for. That’s fine. Or websites that will perform outrageously well in search or technical specialisms like yours. But if you just want to be another web design agency that’s doing mediocre local websites, it’s really, really tough to stand out.
Lee: Yeah, and I think, like you said, you know, because of the volume, you you need to shift the volume. Therefore you actually need the people as well to be able to deliver. And before you realise it, you’ve got a large team. It’s like the IT companies that are shifting a lot of stock. They’ve only got like 2% margins, so they have to sell lots and lots and lots, which means they grow very quickly, don’t they? They’ve got a lot of salespeople trying to shift a lot of stock so that they make enough of that 1 or 2% margin to actually have a viable business. I never actually thought of it that way. It’s actually really helpful. I recognise the exact same problem that we had.
Bob: And you know what?
Bob: I respect that. And there is a company I know in a city not far away from me, and that’s what they do. They they focus on margin, they scale their business. But you know what? They’ve got a sales team. Yeah, and that was where I was. If I really wanted to grow this business, I needed to employ a sales team of sort of fairly predatory or proactive salespeople that were out trying to close deals. And that would mean I would have to manage those people. I don’t want to spend my day doing that. No, I don’t want to be that guy. And that was the really the big decision for me. I know the kind of business I want to run, how I want to spend my time, the people I want to spend the time with, and I want to build a business that will bring that to me. It’s not all about the money.
Lee: No.
Lee: So I think the big lesson here is, is with regards to Niching and where can I add the most value as well, which is the most important thing because we’ve got a legacy, haven’t we? We’re leaving a legacy. We’re not all here necessarily. I mean, some people are, but we’re not all here to make gazillions of pounds. We’re just all here to be happy and to help people along the journey of life where we can. And on that, you have shifted your focus predominantly, like you said, 8020 rule into digital marketing. And I have the dumbest sounding question on the planet, but what is digital marketing to you? Because if I say digital marketing to anyone, I get so many different answers. I have no idea what people consider to be digital marketing, because some people think websites building a website is digital marketing, and it’s arguable that it is so. Could you tell me what suite of digital marketing offerings are you you specialize in.
Bob: Now that specializes the interesting word, and I’ll come to that in a minute. Good digital marketing from my perspective, can be summed up as achieving a level of visibility online, digital and marketing marketing’s visibility. And it’s digital. Alongside that, there should be some conversion goals. So you’re trying to turn that visibility into an outcome. You can’t send someone an invoice for being famous. You need to have that conversion path.
Lee: That’s my best quote of the day, that one.
Bob: So my service, it really is focused on helping people build their platform online. And that can be the whole, the whole cross section of things or points or places where you can be visible. So that might be social search, email or online ads. So the first part for me is helping design that platform constellation for my customer. And it’s always different for one customer. Pinterest might be relevant. For most it’s not. And then alongside that content, because all these platform elements depend on content to achieve any level of visibility. So we’re working on content content strategies, content marketing. That content could be words, pictures, video, lots of different channels that can go out on. The key principle of content and content marketing is leverage that you never use anything once, then looking at conversion paths. So building a funnel process for that business. And I’ll be honest, for a lot of my customers, the visibility is really what they’re looking for. The funnel processes are really secondary for them. But the the final processes will vary again dramatically from customer customer to customer. The final processes will depend largely on automation processes. So it might be email lead nurturing, it might be analytics, it might be all different kinds of things. There’s also conversion and conversion rate optimization coming into that. It’s all about the journey from platform to outcome. And then the final piece of the puzzle is what I call power base. And it’s all the people that have done business with you in the past, the people in your contact sphere, and what are you doing to really activate them. And sometimes that’s working with my customers on CRM systems and sales processes, and sometimes it’s working on traditional one to many email marketing. So that’s really how I would sum it up.
Lee: So it really is as broad as I thought it is.
Bob: But the website comes into that. Yeah. In terms of my specialism, my specialism is the system. If somebody really wants to go deep on SEO, I will bring in an SEO specialist. If they want to go deep on content and blogging will bring in somebody to help them specifically with that. If they want all of these things done to a superficial level, then we just take care of it ourselves. But we are specialism is making things get done. So a little bit like in terms of digital marketing, there are probably a thousand different levers that you could pull. We help our clients understand which levers they should be pulling today. That’s how I would sum it up.
Lee: That’s really cool. You are very good with creating or painting a picture verbally of what it is you do or explaining things. I really, really like the way you talk and I love. I love the fact that you take your time with your talking. I’m one of those people that just kind of shoots a whole lot of words out and throws a load of ums in, and if I read the transcription of what I say, I sometimes go around in little circles because I haven’t quite formed the sentence and I’m really enjoying listening to. I have a question then, so I get it with regards to how you would position marketing digital marketing completely understand that I love how you described it. I love your specialism as well, helping people get things done, etc. so what I’m interested then is you’ve had the team of 15, you’ve then shifted that to contract work. You are still saying we. So it’s not Bob on his own. What does the team look like nowadays and how do you all work together.
Bob: In terms of digital marketing? I start with the website side of the business, because it’s not like I could simply press a button and turn that off. Sure, if you’ve been running a web design business for 15 years, you’re going to have a legacy of clients there that you have to take care of. So I have a team of two who helped me with that. I have one chap who was actually based in Holland. He is actually Slovakian, but he was a student in Aberdeen, in the city here, and he was a staff member for many years. So he looks after the day to day maintenance of our clients with their websites. Then I have another chap who lives not that far away from me, but it’s still about an hour and a half away and he helps me with the super technical stuff, the server maintenance, things like that. Then I have a couple of people who help out with things like search and so some automation things, but the majority of it is actually me now and that’s really how I quite like it. Yeah, I am looking at bringing somebody in to help with content, um, particularly social content, but that’s pretty much it. And my wife looks after the money.
Lee: So it was good to have someone else looking after that.
Bob: Yeah.
Lee: I just spend it if I, if I’m not reined in. Yeah.
Bob: Me too. But it’s a very small business and I actually don’t want to grow it again. I really want to keep it small and build a different kind of business. That’s much better leveraged.
Lee: I think that’s another really important lesson, though, for anyone listening, no matter how big or how small you are, maybe you’re a really big agency and you’re feeling a little bit like Bob did a few years ago, and myself as well, with a big team and a lot of stress. And you’re wondering how that can shift. Or maybe you’re just starting an agency and you think you need to create something that has a team of 15 people, etc. because we all have these stereotypical ideas of what an agency should be. But what I’m loving about your story, Bob, is, is that you? Your scale, your scaled right back, you’ve changed things so that you can create a business that you love, that you enjoy, that works for you, that gives you that satisfaction and allows you to help people using, you know, those skills that you feel will add the most value into their lives. And I absolutely love what you’re doing, and I really hope that other people who are listening are inspired by what you’re doing. You’re creating a business that you can live, and that adds massive value in people’s lives.
Bob: I think the one, the one thing I would encourage any agency owner who has scaled their agency to think about is if you’re the kind of person that’s really starting to think, why did this business is driving me? I’m not driving this business anymore. And you are in the situation where you’re struggling to make payroll every month to really look at your business and think, could I do this differently because I am personally more? I’ll be brutal. I’ll be blunt. Actually, I’m making more money now than I ever did with lots of people. Yeah, and it’s a very easy switch to make, and it’s completely counterintuitive, but it’s perfectly possible for anyone. I did a study, and this was one of the catalysts for me, making the shift of the top 100 digital agencies that focused on website design, in particular in the country. And I divided their revenue by the number of people they employed, and they were making any more money than my business was. So it you really have to look at that and think, well, what’s the point of scaling? It’s really just an ego game. You can build your business completely differently by building in different revenue streams, which are counterintuitive, as you’re kind of doing and make a lot more with a lot less. Lots of business coaches really focus on scale your business, but that’s great if you want to sell. But most businesses will never be sold. Most businesses will go out of bust, go bust eventually in the creative sector. So that’s that’s scaling is one route to success. But there is another one.
Lee: There is a very good book as well by Mike Killen, which is from single to scale, which actually helps people even remain on their own if they wish to and allow them to scale a business that, like you said, actually allows them to earn more money than they ever could have with a huge team. And likewise, same as you, you know, that’s where I discovered that we were actually better off. We were I was more satisfied and also better off being a smaller agency, a team of 4 to 5 people with contractors. And that rather than being the big 15, 15 man agency with all of that stress every, every single month. And I always think back, one of the things that helped me shift my mind was reading some of the biographies of Walt Disney. I mean, he, you know, the most successful guy on the planet as far as I’m concerned, with a huge, huge legacy. I love Disney World, love all the movies, everything. You know, what an amazing legacy. But the one thing that was mainly stressing him out all the time was the worry of money and the worry of supporting all of the hundreds of people that he had working for him. That was the right up until he died. That was his biggest worry. And you would think that a guy that successful with that much money and that much investment splashing around that, that wouldn’t have stressed him out. But that was that was that one thing that was consistently there for him. And I thought to myself, I definitely don’t want that, you know, struggle in that worry. I mean, great, if I’m a super successful business where that isn’t a worry. But if he was worried, even with millions in the bank, then I think I want to stay small and stay kind of family sized because that, you know, that’s where I feel I can be the most happiest. Yeah, Mate. It’s been really, really helpful just hearing your story and getting the wisdom from you. I know people are inspired. Remember folks, you can learn more about Bob over on Bob Gentle.com and you really have the Gentle voice as well. Bob, is that deliberate?
Lee: No. Now, before we wrap up, I do have one last little question. I mentioned it earlier on, which was your podcast, and I would just love to know why you’ve launched the podcast and how that’s going and how that might be affecting your future plans.
Bob: I will answer that. Why I launched the podcast was really a strange series of events. I think I told you the story before, but coming out of website design, which is a ferociously competitive business, especially if you’re a local webdesign business who’s just got local competition, you never speak to your competitors. And I have had one competitor, probably for the majority of my professional career. And he was my nemesis. And if you put he and I together in a room and turned the lights out, only one man was coming out alive.
Lee: Wow.
Bob: I was forced one day to sit down and have a conversation with him, and we discovered that we had a ridiculous amount in common, and it was probably the most enjoyable encounter I had had for many years. And I also alongside this, I started running some events locally for the creative sector, both agencies and people who are working on the client side to sort of meet and encounter each other. And it was the most fun I’ve had for a long time. I enjoyed it way more than I expected, and I also spent some time looking at, okay, well, who can I make an impact on? Who do I want to work with going forwards? Who who needs what I’ve got? And I realized actually in many respects, it’s people who are on the same journey. These are the people I enjoy spending time with, the people I enjoy serving. So what about building a business around helping other digital marketing business owners build better, stronger businesses without killing themselves? Yeah, so I started the podcast really interviewing other people who were working in similar or affiliated businesses. So it might be another digital marketing agency owner, or it might be someone like you who’s working in the same neighborhood or somebody that’s delivering services into that space. Uh, so people like business coaches or sales coaches, but always with an emphasis on value for the digital marketing, small and solo business owner. And I absolutely love it. It’s absolutely aligned with where I want to go. I do want to build a business serving the small and solo digital marketing business owner. But what’s grown out of that is really looking back at my digital marketing business and thinking, where do I want that to go now? Because what I’ve learned out of the podcast is feeding back into my business and really I’m looking at it now going, okay, what did I want to do? I wanted to make an impact. So who do I want to work with? Who would who was my ideal customer? What should my agency specialism be? Because I haven’t had one and it really will be working with people who want to make an impact. And it’s people. I will have commercial clients, but I also start to start working with business personal clients and really helping them with not just digital marketing but also product ization. So a lot of people have inherent value in them, but they don’t know how to productize that and then build a business around it. So that’s where I want to start pivoting my agency into. So long answer to your question.
Lee: No, it’s a good answer.
Lee: And folks, you can find that on Bob Gentle. Com forward slash podcast. It’s the gravity digital agency Power Up podcast. Try saying that three times fast.
Bob: I know I’m going to simplify that at some point.
Lee: It’s okay. That’s fine. And I love the artwork because you’ve got the constellation, the stars in the background. And you also mentioned earlier, like I said, you paint a picture with words. You talked about the constellation of services or marketing services for your client and the fact that every, every one is different. I thought that was a beautiful picture. And I really like the artwork that you’ve got for your podcast, which is epic. But also, folks, you can join the Facebook group as well. At the very top of Bob Dental Comm, there is a nice little waggling blue join button. So go ahead and check out his Facebook group. That’s the again, gravity digital marketing agency Power Up, but Facebook group instead. And there’s already a few of us in there. There’s me. There is Pete Everett that you all know. There is our lovely guest, Alex Curtis. He was on the show just a few weeks ago, so he’s in there as well. So there’s some great people in there and we can all spend time with the lovely Bob.
Bob: Very lonely. Please do come and join me.
Lee: Well, there’s a few people in there. There’s a few very good faces in there. I recognize you’ve also been on our podcast as well, including Phil Van Dusen as well. So another great legend, but it’d be a great place for us to go and learn from Bob’s experiences, but also to share our own experiences as well. So go ahead and check that out. We will put a link in the show notes as well so you can go directly there, but also you can find that as well on Bob Gentle. And also a top recommended episode of his is episode 11, I believe he said it’s the best episode he’s ever made, and that was where he had Lee Jackson as his guest. So, uh.
Bob: How did you know that? Yeah, he was my favorite.
Lee: Yeah, he was his.
Lee: I just put those words in your mouth, didn’t I? If I scroll down, I’d imagine the best one would be like Phil Van Dusen or something. I’m totally fanboy over him at the moment. Well, I have been for the last two years. So when I met him at the Upright Summit, I was like, oh, hello. That’s awesome mate. Yeah. He’s amazing. Well, thank you so much for your time. This has been absolutely wonderful hearing your journey, uh, learning your way and learning lessons from what you’ve been through. If anyone’s beginning on their journey, then there’s tons of stuff that they can learn before they even get started. And also if people are, you know, halfway through and feeling stressed out, then take some lessons here. Make sure you follow Bob. Make sure you follow his podcast as well. I know this isn’t the last time that you’ll have heard from him on this show, because we will be having you back, mate. You are a legend.
Bob: Thank you very much.
Lee: Thank you very much. Take care. Cheerio.
Bob: Bye.
Lee: And that wraps up today’s episode. Don’t forget, if you want to check out Bob’s podcast that is Bob Gentle.com/podcast, be sure to support him. And be sure to consume the amazing content that he has put together for digital marketers and agencies around the world. Now, if you’re not going to the Agency Transformation Live show, then please check out that on Agency Transformation Dot live. It’s going to be a great time full of industry leaders sharing how you can transform your agency. Me and Bob Talked exactly about transforming the agency that he had into something that would provide him the satisfaction that would allow him to add the value. And that’s exactly what we want for you at Agency Transformation. So check that out over on Agency Transformation Dot live. If we don’t see what the show, we will at least see you in next week’s episode.
