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Verbatim text
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Welcome to episode number 137 of the Agency Trailblazer podcast. On today’s show, we are talking with Teresa from Innovate Marketing, and we’re talking all about how to make your clients feel like family. But also, Teresa shares how she works with her family in the business. A fascinating episode, had loads of fun, and I learned tons. Theresa challenged me on multiple occasions. So sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride. 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.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
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 agency trailblazer.com.
Theresa Hill:
Welcome to a conversation with me, Lee Jackson. And today, we have on the show Theresa Hill from Innovate Marketing. Theresa, how are you doing today?
Theresa Hill:
I’m doing wonderful. How about yourself?
Theresa Hill:
I’m doing great. We’ve already had this conversation. We’re kind of just re regurgitating this conversation now, aren’t we? Yeah. Because it’s been recorded, Like, pretending we’ve not had this conversation before. I know you’re well. You know I’m well. I’ve got a cold. We’re both rocking and rolling this well, it’s morning for you, I think, is it? Yeah.
Theresa Hill:
It’s morning or midday?
Theresa Hill:
Nope. It’s morning. It’s about 9 o’clock.
Theresa Hill:
9 o’clock in the morning. Oh, wow. It’s kind of it’s afternoon time. I’m I’m I’m already on my 5th coffee.
Theresa Hill:
Oh, good morning.
Theresa Hill:
Well, guys, if you don’t know who if you don’t know who Theresa is, she is from Innovate Marketing, and she is the head of web development and content creation. But instead of me butchering an introduction as to who you are, what you’re all about, favorite color, I don’t know, favorite drink, or and all of that sort of stuff, we would love to hear from you, Theresa, if you could just tell us all about you. A little intro.
Theresa Hill:
I am surprisingly a business owner. Never had planned on being 1. Mother of 3. Sometimes 4, if you include my husband.
Theresa Hill:
Brilliant.
Theresa Hill:
Basically, we we stay really busy, and we keep the family involved in it. So, you you know, that when I’m not doing things for our customers, I’m teaching my kids on how to build websites, the best way to do writing, things like that. So they are all looking forward to going into the business. We’ve already got my 17 year old son and 14 year old daughter doing website work and, you know, sometimes it’s that busy work that’s time consuming, but they love to do it. They they get paid well, so it works out. It’s been kind of like that instant, hey. I’ll do all that tedious work late slave labor there.
Theresa Hill:
Yeah. Oh, wow. And and they’re happy because they’re getting pocket money and and I remember at that age, even £10 was, like, the best thing ever. Yeah. The things I could do with £10 the things I can’t do with £10 are frustrating as a matter of fact. Yeah. Back then, it was amazing. I think that’s really cool.
Theresa Hill:
And my daughter, she’s 11, and she’s already started to express interest in programming. About a year ago, we gave her access to a program called Scratch, which allows her to visually start to understand programming languages. You know, that kind of if this, then that, and that sort of stuff. So she’s been playing with that, but I’m really encouraged by you guys training your family up. Was that because they expressed an interest in it? Yeah. Or did you just wanna give them something to do?
Theresa Hill:
No. They actually expressed an interest in it because I work primarily from home. We have an office, but which but I’m one of those people. I can work from home or an office because there are some people who just Jamie cannot work from home. It’s too many distractions, but they’d sit there and they’d watch me build these websites. And here are our conversations as we’re discussing, you know, what to do with the websites for the clients and things like that. And so they were, like, really interested. How do you do that? How does that work? And, you know, as they’re doing computer courses in school, so it just kinda they so they’d sit and watch, and then I’d teach them, you know, things about alt tags or, you know, going in and tagging this or doing that, and they go in and do we’ve had quite a few website moves where they went from one platform to another, and we’ve had to move content over, and a lot of it’s just copying pasting.
Theresa Hill:
But, you know, that was something that they were great because we had one. It was a directory site that had oh, I don’t even like almost a 100 pages worth of content to move because they were all, you know, business listings and stuff, and we moved all of that so the kids had fun learning how to do that because there’s, you know, what? Check here, check there. They have their little checklist, and I do all this. Yes. Next post.
Theresa Hill:
So That is so cool.
Theresa Hill:
They’ve had a lot of fun going into it, and they get paid for it. So What
Theresa Hill:
I like about that as well is I was having a conversation with a few people now. There’s this it feels like there’s a generation growing up where you are told you have to go to university and do all of these degrees, etcetera. But then beyond that, people don’t really know what to do with it. And I think it’s so cool that your kids are already learning a talent, a skill that they could then apply and, you know, join your business, kind of grow the business with you in the future. I think that’s phenomenal. I can only wish and hope that my daughter would, because she would officially be the only person in the family who’s actually interested in what I do. Because whenever I talk about programming, my wife just glazes over, which is cool. You know? I know.
Theresa Hill:
We can’t we can’t have everything in common. But, you know, speaking of of being a a part of the family, obviously, Jamie is your husband. You said he’s sometimes the 4th child, which I’m sure can be frustrating. Oh, yeah. But, you know, how do you separate kind of the the business life to the family life? Because I’m just thinking of the times that me and Kate have probably had a falling out, and then, you know, the next day, we’re in the office doing admin together. So how do you guys cope with all that?
Theresa Hill:
I mean, this is pretty well ingrained with our with our home life. You know? It never really there’s never really that that definitive, okay, this is all work time, this is home time because we with with this, we’re constantly jumping on the computer to help a client or looking at something or, you know, because there’s there’s constantly work. But, you know, if we’re doing something special, like if we are sitting down to play board game with the kids, phones get silenced. Everything goes off. So, I mean, we for that hour, we we take time and we make sure that is family time. And we usually do that about once every, you know, every day, depending and then some days we’ll have you know, we’ll let everybody know, hey. You know, unless extreme emergency, we’re not gonna get back to you today because we’re gonna be out doing this, this, and this. Yeah.
Theresa Hill:
So that way our clients know, you know, hey. Don’t contact us unless it’s extreme emergency because we’re doing family time. But we we managed to structure this one this business a little bit easier. We used to do a family friendly entertainment company that we didn’t really have any boundaries set with at all, and we had there was a lot of issues with it, and it caused a lot of marital issues and things like that. We still do that on the side at times that we got into this, and we set up pretty strict boundaries. He deals a lot with the marketing and the business part and the SEO because, you know, he has a business degree and everything. And then my degree is in the computer programming with the web design element, so that’s what I handle. I don’t tell him how to run the business and how to do his marketing, and he doesn’t tell me how to do my web designs because that’s I can’t do his stuff, and he doesn’t know how to do my stuff, and it just works out better that way.
Theresa Hill:
So, you know, we have to step over across that line there. It’s we defer to them because, you know, they’re the Yeah. They’re the expert in what they’re doing. And it seems to work out pretty well that way because then there’s no somebody’s coming in to try and take over and doing it wrong and, you know, looking at you like, well, why isn’t this Because you’re doing it wrong. So that seems to work out a lot better. We have those strict boundaries of what each person does.
Theresa Hill:
That’s a great that’s a great philosophy. I just had the reason why I was chuckling, I had that this vision of kind of Jamie just hovering behind you as you were doing some web development and how frustrating that would be. And he likes the idea. It it it is. It’s very separate. Oh, he does that, does he?
Lee Matthew Jackson:
He does. I just called him out.
Theresa Hill:
He has it. He does it at times. He’s not as bad as he used to be. But especially if it’s something that’s very time sensitive, he does like to hover a little in the background, and I’m like, go away. I got this. I’ll let you know when it’s done. But, you know, he he does come up with some really good ideas or he’ll ask me questions, and I have to, like, explain either yes. That’s easy for me to do or, yes, that sounds easy, but that’s gonna take me about 20 hours outside of our scope because while it sounds easy, it’s really not, which is usually, you know, the thing with web design.
Theresa Hill:
The easier it sounds, the harder it is to do.
Theresa Hill:
I oh my gosh. I’m glad someone else has said that. I’ve been banging on about this for so long now because, I mean, anyone listening, if if you are designing a website and someone asks for changes, etcetera, then, what we’ve started doing well, we’ve done it for a long time now is we actually get it done visually first in a graphic design application Mhmm. So that they can see what it’s gonna look like. Because if they start asking us to make amends later on in code Mhmm. Everything takes so freaking long. Yeah. I’d rather I’d rather get it done right in a picture first, and then we’ll go.
Theresa Hill:
So, we’re kindred spirit there, Theresa. I I think we both agree. Now something that plucked my interest, you actually have it on your profile on your website, but you also said it right at the very beginning, which was that you were, I guess, a reluctant business owner. You weren’t exactly planning on becoming 1. And it sounds like you’ve got you’ve launched 1 as a family and then a second one. You’ve got the other one going on at the side. I guess, what were your perceptions of of business life in general, and then how did you get into it? How were you convinced to give it a go?
Theresa Hill:
Well, I never had that dream of I’m gonna own my own business. You know, I was always content working for somebody else and finding a job interest that, you know, worked within that. I’ve done a lot of different jobs over the years and, you know, worked myself up into management and stuff like that, but I never wanted to be that that final say in anything. I was always happy to be able to pass that buck to somebody else because I’m not the greatest at making a firm decision, when it comes with other people. So I didn’t really ever figure on being a business owner. Jamie, actually, he’s the more of the entrepreneur and it’s always been his thing. I call him a serial entrepreneur because once we start another business, he can get it going well and it’s established. He wants to start looking at another one.
Theresa Hill:
Yeah. But, you know, we had a lot of rocky starts with the family friendly entertainment company. When we took that on, I originally wasn’t supposed to be pretty much the owner, have much to do with it really, but then Jamie got really sick and Yeah. Wasn’t able to do much of anything, and it kinda fell on me to run the business. So I got a crash course in that, and I would be entirely honest, I did very poorly on that one. But it taught me a lot of what not to do. So then when we started this business, I had already had a better grasp on what it is to own it. Jamie still pretty much owns it.
Theresa Hill:
I just help run it and make it work, and that actually works well for me. It it’s something it’s one of those things, like, I never really figured I was much of a salesman either, but I seem to have a knack for it. Being this that I’m usually that behind the scenes person. I never wanna be in the limelight, and yet here I am owning businesses and having to go out and put myself out there. And, in a lot of the advertising and stuff, you know, I was the face of the business because he says I look prettier. So
Theresa Hill:
I think I think Jamie’s beautiful. I don’t know.
Theresa Hill:
Oh, yeah. Yeah. But, you know, it’s You clean
Theresa Hill:
me here as well. So Thank you.
Theresa Hill:
So it’s it’s just kind of come about where it’s become something that’s more normal. It doesn’t feel strange. There are still times I’m like, oh my god. I just wish I could work for somebody else, but then I go do that and I don’t have quite the freedom to do my days the way that I would like and then it doesn’t work as well. So but if it hadn’t been for Jamie, I probably would I don’t know where I’d be at that point.
Theresa Hill:
Picking up on what you said, I think a lot of people feel like they’re not salespeople, and you found out that you have a knack for it. I guess sales really is about building conversations, isn’t it? You’ve you have conversations with people, you have skills, and you have talents, and you’re not going out saying, hi. My name is Troy McClure. You maybe remember me from such movies as, you know, that kind
Theresa Hill:
of
Theresa Hill:
really sleazy salesman. It’s more of that you are there to help the client, and you are having conversations. And, obviously, you’re creating content as well, which is also a way of generating those leads. And it’s clearly something that’s come naturally to you. And I think so many of us don’t realize that we absolutely have that inside of us. We think we’re not salespeople because we think of the sleazy salesman who’s trying to sell you the car or the you know, when you go into the bed shop and they all run at you, and you’re like, oh my gosh. Get me out of here. That happened last week.
Theresa Hill:
That’s why I remember that. All I wanted to do was look at mattresses. There’s not like 3 people trying to sell me a bed, and I was like, no. I thought, oh, and I just walked out. Kate was like, Lee, you were really rude. I was like, I know, but you really get me. But yeah. So be encouraged.
Theresa Hill:
Listeners, you may think you’re not a salesperson, but you absolutely are. Now, Teresa, you’ve talked a lot about family, which is really inspiring me. And, again, you put on your profile that you like to make clients feel a part of the family. So, you know, you’ve put so much emphasis on your own internal family, and I think it’s beautiful that you guys are doing an hour a day of family time as well. And Hands Up, we used to do that. We’ve kind of let that slide a bit, and I feel really bad. So thank you for sharing it. We’re gonna reinstate that kind of this weekend.
Theresa Hill:
Hold me accountable. But it sounds idyllic to be able to have your clients feel like they’re a part of the family. But how on earth would you go about doing that?
Theresa Hill:
A lot of it is we just kinda get to know them. You know, we have we have some clients, you know, they’re content to never hear from us.
Theresa Hill:
You
Theresa Hill:
know, as long as their stuff is working, they’re happy. Mhmm. And, you know, I have some that we we know more about their personal lives and stuff. We have, you know, one group that, you know, they’ve been having some family struggles, and we, you know, we kind of put a pause on some of their billing so that way they can you know, he’s been in and out of the hospital. She’s had some stuff going on. So we’re like, you know what? Just just take that moment and and, you know, kinda get everything back together. We’ve had another who shop was broken into. You know, we just keep tabs on what’s going on with them, and we just kind of, you know, hey.
Theresa Hill:
Is everything okay? Do you need anything from us? Are you guys good? Was anybody hurt? You know, we just kind of keep in touch with them so that way, you know, they’ve come to know, you know, different members of our family from from talking and, some of them are from a state where we used to live, so they kind of sort of already knew us anyway. And then they just kinda get, you know, to where they know us a little bit better. And the one of the main things we do is we we make sure we still keep boundaries up with, you know, hey, we we know we’re really friendly with you guys or if something happens, you know, we still have a 24 or 48 hour pro you know, process. We’re gonna jump and do it if we can, but just keep in mind if we can’t jump and get to it, we will get to it. And that usually, you know, everybody seems pretty good with that, you know, unless it’s an extreme emergency, my sight is down, you know, and then of course we jump right as soon as we can, which is usually as soon as we get, you know, get notified. But Yeah. You know, a lot of us just stay in communication with them, you know, keep we keep the boundaries up, but we learn things about them, you know, what what are some of their likes and things like that, you know. You know, if they’re married, when are their anniversaries? So we will send them, like, a little card or something.
Theresa Hill:
Or, you know, when did you start your business, you know. We send something to kind of commemorate that, all things like that.
Theresa Hill:
That is such a good idea. It’s so freaking obvious, and it’s something I’ve never thought of. I love that. I mean, I’ve sent a thank you for your business card, but I’ve never sent anything beyond that. So just asking the questions, finding out about them, anniversaries, birthdays, all of those sorts of things, I I feel a fool. I feel very I feel very educated today. I’m loving what you guys are doing.
Theresa Hill:
And you knew who gets I’ll be listening
Theresa Hill:
to this back, make the British notes. Carry on. Sorry.
Theresa Hill:
No. I was gonna say there’s just I mean, we have some that are just like, no. That’s just, you know, they just wanna keep it strictly business. You know? They when there’s a problem, that’s when, you know, they’ll get in touch with us. Otherwise, we never hear from them. They don’t hear from us. Everything you know, we’ll occasionally, you know, we’ll send out emails every few months going, hey. Is everything good? You know, for them usually silence means everything is good.
Theresa Hill:
So, but, you know, some like the personal touch with getting to know because then it lets them know they’re not getting scammed by yet another web design company. This is somebody who truly cares about them and their business, and they know we want to make them successful.
Theresa Hill:
Do you find you get a lot of you kind of inherit a lot of projects that are from people that have been burned?
Theresa Hill:
Oh, absolutely.
Theresa Hill:
Yeah. I was gonna say I was literally gonna say if you could come up with a rough percentage, that would be amazing, and I think you’re about to do it.
Theresa Hill:
Oh, yeah. I I would say at least 70% of our business have been people who have had horrible experiences within that field of whatever it is. You know somebody they hire somebody to do a website for them and either doesn’t get done or it’s just done so poorly it’s broken, and then they have to pay more money out to fix it, and then they’re gun shy because it’s like you know I already got you know, hurt once on this, and now I gotta pay out even more money to fix it or even start it over. How do I know you’re not gonna do the same exact thing? So that’s where we take
Theresa Hill:
that great question. And how do you help them feel that that’s not gonna happen to them again?
Theresa Hill:
We take the time to get to know them, and we know that learn the ins and outs of their business so that that way because if somebody’s gonna take advantage of them, they’re not gonna waste their time doing that. Yeah. They’re just gonna, you know, wham bam, get it done, and we take time to get to know them, the ins and outs of the business because we wanna give them the best product that we can and give them the best service. And the only way we can do that is get to know their business to almost as close to as well as they do as we can because nobody knows your business as well as you do. So we talk a lot with the client and we, you know, tell us tell us something, you know, that’s interesting about your business that only you guys do. How can we bring this in? How can we, you know, get that out to people? So things like that.
Theresa Hill:
I think those conversations are already one step ahead of a lot of the wham bam thank you, ma’am style, But bills like you said, whether it’s just, what sites do you like? Give us some document content, and then someone goes ahead and slap something together really quickly. And as they said, they said, there you go. And then you then have this whole conversation. Don’t you have, well, where’s the feature that I asked for? And they’re like, oh, hang on. And then go grab random plug in that doesn’t work and install it on it and say, there it is. And, yeah, we we I would say now we’re running at about 50% of our projects tend to be the same where someone’s been really badly burned, and then they’ve had to start right over. And we’ll tend to, for certain peep I do it all the time, but we do, like, a a discovery session. And a lot of the times, we’ll do a paid discovery session.
Theresa Hill:
But for the people who have been really badly burned, I kind of feel it’s my charitable duty to provide some sort of free initial discovery process where we have just a few conversations to put them at ease, just to restore their faith in in the world of web developers and web designers again. Because, you know, unfortunately, there are a lot of horror stories. And I think as well because it’s becoming quite easy to put something together, I. E, implement something rather than actually being a developer. I think a lot of people start out with all the very best intentions Mhmm. Of being web designers and then just get in over their head and Yeah. And then disappear. And and a lot of people are being burned by that at the moment.
Theresa Hill:
And that’s that’s really frustrating me, and I don’t know what we can all do about it, really.
Theresa Hill:
Right.
Theresa Hill:
Now, one of the other things well, actually, I I would love to jump in the time machine because we’ve we’ve established already that you are the web developer, and that Jamie’s the market the marketing guy, etcetera, the business guy. That’s where his diploma is in that. But I’d love to know how did you get into web development and how far back do we have to go for your first line of HTML?
Theresa Hill:
Not too far back. I think it was around
Theresa Hill:
Was Color TV invented?
Theresa Hill:
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Okay. I’m trying to think. I think it’s around, like, 2,000 it was around 2012 or so. We had gotten the family friendly entertainment company, and we had just purchased that, and we were I had done some website building, full out coding when I was in high school. We had a computer programming class. And
Theresa Hill:
Yeah. I
Theresa Hill:
got so it was so fun for me because I’ve always been that type of person that I like to put things together and see them work. So, you know, building a a game or something from scratch was just awesome to me. So I got into that, and my first bit of website building was done in Dreamweaver, and that is not an easy program to work with. And I was no. It really wasn’t.
Theresa Hill:
I I wanna cry again. I’m just thinking about it. Carry on.
Theresa Hill:
I wanna say I was doing okay, but it did kinda look like a 5 year old who built the website. But, yeah, a lot of that was just my some of my inexperience and with what I was doing. And so we hired somebody to build us a website, and we actually were one of those people that got burned, you know.
Theresa Hill:
Oh, yeah.
Theresa Hill:
Like, 1500, $2,000 later. The site still looked exactly the same. It just was done in a different platform that looked exactly the same as what I did at Dreamweaver, and then the guy ghosted. He would not he wouldn’t get in touch with me, nothing, and I had a half finished website. So the guy that did our taxes ironically, turned us on to Kirk who is now one of our head web development SEO guys, and he was only owned Innovate Marketing at the time, so we got with him. I hired him for the website, and he gave us a heck of a deal on it. And he also threw in because I was so interested in it. While he built it, he would train me on how to do WordPress because that’s what he had built it on.
Theresa Hill:
That’s how I got into WordPress. So not not only did I get a website build, I did about half of it. He did a lot of the more technical stuff, but he showed me how to do it to where, you know, if I ever needed to build another one or make tweaks to the one that we had, I would be able to do it. So that kind of changed my major for for college because I was just doing regular computer programming while I put more of an emphasis on the web design and really got into that, and then he brought us into the business and then we ended up buying the business. So I’ve done, you know, some private courses. He did more training with me on different things. There’s still a lot of things that I’m learning on through going through different courses and stuff. So that’s really how I ended up getting into it because somebody was nice enough to teach me how to do the website while he built it, and it just kind of opened that up, and I was like, oh my god.
Theresa Hill:
I love this. And I kinda went from there.
Theresa Hill:
And the rest is history.
Theresa Hill:
Pretty much.
Theresa Hill:
You’re you’re now you’re now bringing up the kids, in the in the the the family trade. Is it is it classed as a trade? I don’t know. Guess it is, isn’t it?
Theresa Hill:
Yeah. Much. I mean, we started isn’t it? Yeah. Jamie’s biggest thing was to start a business to have something to pass on to them. So it’s exciting that they’re all taking an interest in it.
Theresa Hill:
I love that. And, again, with the economy, with everything going on around us, it just feels so important to empower the family, empower our kids to make their own way in life, you know, because, I mean, I don’t know what it’s like out there, but here in the UK, especially, there is a massive issue for youth unemployment Mhmm. And kids trying to get in I mean, I say kids. I mean, they’re 18. They’re not a kid, but I’m old now, so they’re a kid.
Theresa Hill:
Yeah.
Theresa Hill:
And, yeah, for for them trying to get into an employment, it’s really difficult. My my brother, you know, he’s he’s leaving college now, and it’s like he’s just having to do lots of retail stuff and can’t really get into what he wants to do yet. So I’ve been encouraging him, like you’ve been encouraging your kids, to actually start his own projects, you know, create his own blog about his passion, which is music, and then generate opportunities through that content, to perhaps get leads for either gigs or for, you know, music journalism and all that sort of stuff because he’s really into that sort of stuff. Mhmm. So I said that on purpose because that allows me to segue into content. Like, I would have thought that was pretty cool. I was quite impressed. And you are the the chief content writer as well at Innovate, which is awesome.
Theresa Hill:
And I would love your advice on one of the one of the biggest pet peeves, I think, for most web developers is that when you get the content from your client, it’s absolutely abysmal. And it’s really hard to know what to do with it. And it’s hard to go back to your client and not offend them. So do you have any top tips that you can recommend when helping our clients create the content for their website? I mean, some people just sell content writing services, and that’s all cool. But there are a lot of people that aren’t interested in buying it. So any any top tips?
Theresa Hill:
Usually, what I do when they give me content, and this is probably me doing that above and beyond, you know, because we look at everybody’s family, I usually just clean it up and then I, you know, have them take over a look at everything because usually they get me the gist of it and it doesn’t take me any longer to, as I’m putting it in there, to just kind of make it neat because because I do that a lot with for Jamie anyway with a lot of his I proofread
Theresa Hill:
a lot
Theresa Hill:
of his stuff. So it it doesn’t really take me that long. They give me the gist of it, and I fluff it up. Yeah. I’m not having to come up with the ideas on my own. It really doesn’t take me but a few minutes to fluff it, make it sound pretty, make it look either way I want it to be. So they to me, the the client’s already done the hard work for me. They’ve already got the ideas there.
Theresa Hill:
I’m not sitting here trying to come out with content cold, which is when we charge people for the content. But if they can give me you know, they give me the bulk of it, I make it to the right word length and make it sound pretty, and you’re usually pretty happy. We have a few that actually do really well with writing their own content because they’re writers. So, you know, in those yeah. I have one that’s a published author, and she sends me her own content. And I’m like, I don’t I don’t I’ll I’ll just proofread for just in case there’s any kind of, you know, a missed comma or something because it happens. And then I I put it up. That’s all I do.
Theresa Hill:
And then I have some. It’s like they’ll give you know, some of them I’ve worked with a long time and they’re changing something. They give me the bullet points, which gives me all of the majority of what I need, and then I just add in the the words. It takes me maybe 5 minutes, and then I put it up there, and they’ll read it through. Yep. That sounds great. Or, hey, when you tweak it just a little bit because this is more of what I meant. Mhmm.
Theresa Hill:
Now I love that you do that, and I think now I can imagine there are people listening right now saying, you do what? I can picture coffee being spat across laptops and all sorts of stuff like that. But I think the secret ingredient that you guys have got that many of us are, including myself very often are missing, is that family aspect where you’ve made sure with this company that got burned or with these new clients, you are bringing them on. You are making them feel part of the family. And by doing that, you’re getting to know them and their business as well as they know their business if you possibly can, which means the minute they send you either those bullet points or they send you their copy, which isn’t necessarily great, you already know enough about their business to be able to structure it much better. You already know what they wanna achieve because you’ve asked them those questions. You know, you already know how their business operates. You already know their industry from what they’ve told you, etcetera. So that actually makes it very easy for you to do, and it’s that extra value add, isn’t it, that you said, you know, you it’s, again, going above and beyond, and they’re just gonna absolutely freaking love you for it.
Theresa Hill:
Right. Because to them, it seems like a huge deal. And for me, it cost me maybe 5 minutes of my time, which at that point, it’s not even worth billing out for anyway. So and because I know there are a lot of companies out there that would like to nickel and dime everybody, but if it’s only gonna take me 2 or 3 minutes, I’ll do it. You know, I have a lot of there’s a lot of our care plans. There are times, you know, some of the ones that have been really long term clients with us, they go well sometimes some months they don’t hardly use it all, and then some months they go well over their care time plan, but it don’t say anything. It doesn’t it’s not that hard to do usually what they want me to do. It’s just coming in here and there and doing this and doing that.
Theresa Hill:
It’s a lot of little things, but really doesn’t take me that much time. Because it’s not like, here, go take 2 hours out of your day and do this. It might be one day, here’s 5 minutes. One another day, here’s a couple minutes. Here’s just a quick 32nd thing.
Theresa Hill:
You know? And it just
Theresa Hill:
Mhmm. I don’t bother to keep track of it, and my husband hates that, and I’m sorry.
Theresa Hill:
I’m with him, by the way.
Theresa Hill:
It’s just me. I do it. But by doing that, we’ve gotten more clients from them because they’re like, hey. This company is great. They, you know, they they refer us out all the time. Just those couple of minute little things that it didn’t kill me to do, it didn’t hurt my hurt my timing, Fanny, and it really didn’t cost me anything much to do it. And yet we’ll get more business from them because it’s like this company just this they’re amazing. They’re awesome.
Theresa Hill:
I don’t give a whole bunch of stuff for free. But a few minutes here and there, I don’t have a problem with, and it makes such a big deal to them because they have been nickeled and dimed before.
Theresa Hill:
Well, I think what you’re doing there is a Disney principle of plussing. So you’re just adding some free extra memorable things. You’re doing something for free. You’re making their lives easier. You’re going above and beyond. Now and again, it’s something that doesn’t cost much, but it really pluses the experience, And it grows that loyalty, and it grows that love and that like, again, I love this the feeling of family, etcetera, and absolutely will be recommended. And and clearly, I think you’ve pointed out that you’re not gonna go ahead and build another 60 pages of a website for free. Oh, yeah.
Theresa Hill:
But if it’s going to be a small thing and it’s the ability for you to just plus their experience by doing it for 30 seconds, something that was 30 seconds for you that might have taken them 3 hours because they’d have had to try and work it out. Right. They just feel absolutely loved, and you are completely right. And it challenges me every time because I’m like Jamie. I’ve got well, I don’t know if I’m like Jamie. My my head is very much business orientated, and the rest is working on something. And I’m said, are you timing that? And she’s like, no. It’s only gonna take me a couple of minutes, and then I’m fighting this in a urge to, like, want to send a £20 invoice.
Theresa Hill:
Yeah. And she’s like, it seriously doesn’t matter. And I’m like, I know you’re right, but I wanna bill them. And I don’t know what that is. You know? Yeah. He’s done. I have to Yeah.
Theresa Hill:
Go in, do the time clock. It literally took it took me longer to set up this time clock than it did me to actually do the work. And I’ve I don’t and I will be honest. I, 90% of the time, forget to do it because it’s something literally it takes me 30 seconds to do. It will take me longer to get to the time clock, you know, get it all set up as to what I have to do because I put it in Teamwork, hit the button to get it started, then go do the work, and then go oh, I’ve already done the work and moved on to something else by then. And it takes me longer to set it all up because it’s not stuff that’s little things and that you want you know, it’s like add this in Teamwork and then do it. Okay. It takes me longer to add it than me to just do it.
Theresa Hill:
Leave me alone. Which is usually why once they become clients, they more go to me. I handle all of our care plans, and I’m pretty much their point of contact. I just work with people better than he does. He’s very business and logical minded, and I’m more of that emotional and I deal with I’ve years of customer service people and dealing with people that are angry and getting them calmed down, things like that when something happens. And a lot of times I just found, you know, if you do those little tiny things for them, when something big comes up and they have to pay for it, they’re a lot less likely to fight me on it. Because they’re like, okay, well, you know, you you’ve done all this and you did you could have charged me and you didn’t. So if you’re saying this is something that really needs to happen and I’ve got to pay X amount for it, then let’s go ahead and do it.
Theresa Hill:
They’re less likely to tell me, I don’t need to do that. Why do I need it? Because I’ve already done all this other stuff. It really just didn’t add up, you know. It might have added up to 20, you know, $30 out throughout the year, and so to me, that’s not that much. So
Theresa Hill:
No. Again, it’s that plussing, isn’t it? So Mhmm. I wonder what Jamie is gonna say when he listens back. Jamie, let’s get you on the next episode to to end that well.
Theresa Hill:
Like, let’s let’s hit a rebuttal on this side.
Theresa Hill:
Yeah. Could you imagine pitching family members against each other?
Theresa Hill:
Oh, yeah. No. We we do that quite often, actually. So
Theresa Hill:
Now you mentioned during that I’m I’m really loving this conversation. You you you’ve got loads of gold in this. You mentioned that you’re good at calming angry people down, and I just would love to go on a very slight tangent because I’m absolutely terrible. And I end up shouting back and I have literally lost count of the amount of arguments I have and people that I’ve fired because I am so freaking volatile. And I would love any calming, like, tips from yourself on how to just handle it when someone, you know, because I’ve had clients, like, just go straight for the jugular and say some really hurtful things, which are completely not, you know, out of order. And my instant response is sheer, like, blood red rage in my eyes and everything. And I, you know, I’m I’m speaking before I’m thinking as it were. I mean, thankfully, we’ve always sorted those arguments out and have not lost most clients.
Theresa Hill:
Right. But I need to get better at, you know I need to be more like Teresa. I think all the developers need to be more like Teresa. So Teresa, mother Teresa will will call you, could you, give us some advice, please?
Theresa Hill:
Mainly when because of a lot of it comes from experience from doing everything from Walmart to call centers. And a lot of a lot of the what I found overall is they just want somebody to listen to them. They don’t want to be interrupted and be told, no. You’re absolutely incorrect. You I don’t have no idea what you’re you know? They don’t wanna be told that they’re wrong, which, you know, ultimately, you’re gonna end up telling them it’s just a matter of how you’re gonna do it, but they wanna be able to get their frustrations out. Most of the time when people are start they start ranting at me and I tell them, you know, I completely understand. I, you know, I get what you’re saying. It lets them feel validated that somebody is listening to what they are saying.
Theresa Hill:
And that’s ultimately the key to immediately getting people to start calming down is to let them know they’re being listened to. Because, you know, we’re all used to getting calling that customer service line and you get somebody who may or may not speak English very well or understand the concepts very well, and it’s just you’re just being told the same thing over and over again. Nobody’s really actually listening to what you’re saying, and it gets very frustrating. And the one of the key things I found is just to make sure that they get that you’re listening to them. And usually then they’ll calm down and be more rational about it. Not always. I have been cussed out more times and yelled at by clients that I wasn’t even a part of their project more times than I can count. But at which point, then Jamie goes in and fires them.
Theresa Hill:
I think part of it is just because I’m not a confrontational person. I want to I want to make everybody happy, so I’m going to do what I can. So I don’t fight back with anybody. If they start throwing abuse my way, I will take it and still try to fix the problem. If it gets to over the point, Jamie, you know, and I start getting, you know, really upset, that’s when Jamie will step in and then they’ve got to deal with him and he’s not as forgiving and movable as I am. Whereas, you know, I’ll try and do anything and everything I can to fix it. He’s gonna be like, this is what we’re gonna do. And if that’s not good enough for you, there’s the door.
Theresa Hill:
So we kind of you know, it’s just a pin. It’s kinda like that good cop, bad cop thing. You know, they start with me, and if they’re gonna get
Theresa Hill:
same thing.
Theresa Hill:
If they’re gonna get way above and and over the top and just be really nasty, they’re going to Jamie who’s not afraid to tell him exactly how it is very bluntly. And if they don’t like it, you don’t have to have our services. So because he’s he’s huge on respect. I mean, that’s one of the biggest things is there needs to be respect all the way around. And especially, I think it’s that devil fold because I’m his wife. If you really start disrespecting me to the point I start crying, you are pretty much done. Because, you know, I I’m just that easygoing person, and that’s just part of who I am is I when people have a problem, I wanna fix it.
Theresa Hill:
Sounds like you 2 are really, really good balance. Yeah. Because if Jamie was dealing with that situation, I imagine he would be much quicker to have pushed back and to argued. Whereas, sometimes, it sounds like you’re saving a lot of the situations and able to move on and help that client feel understood and then continue to work with them and grow that relationship. And then now and again, where it where it’s going too far, you know. I love that. The bad cop reminds me of, what was the one with Will Ferrell?
Theresa Hill:
Oh, I don’t remember.
Theresa Hill:
Want Jamie to be Will Ferrell. Hey. It doesn’t matter. Yeah. Sorry. You’re gonna you’re gonna say something.
Theresa Hill:
You know, we we have some clients, they end up taking, you know, something that’s small into and they think it’s something huge. And a lot of us just listening, talking down and saying here, this really isn’t as big of a deal as you think it is. And then there are some that, you know, they sign a contract for one thing and then they wanna go a completely opposite direction way out of scope and they don’t wanna listen when it’s like, no. This is what you contracted for. If you want this, it’s gonna cost this. And then they wanna start yelling and screaming. And at that point, it becomes the here it is or there’s the door. Yeah.
Theresa Hill:
And that’s where we’re yeah. We are a good balance because he’s the better he’s better at going, here’s your door. I’ll help you out. And I’m just like, oh, well, I’ll give you I’ll give you the whole the whole castle. Just let me fix this. You know? So he he keeps me from giving too much away, you know, and I give him that little that that softer edge in dealing with everything.
Theresa Hill:
Yeah. That sounds perfect. I love it. I want to use that phrase at some point, though. Like, I’ll here’s the door, and I’ll help you out of it. Does has he has he actually ever said that, or did you just add that was that creative voice?
Theresa Hill:
I honestly would not be surprised if he has said that. He’s usually more you know, having been military, it’s usually a little bit more wordy than that. But, but even so with clients, he does a lot well, at least well with that. But it’s more of, you know, you don’t want our services. Here’s the door. Or it’s or a lot of it’s just like, you know what? We’re not doing business with you anymore. You’ve kind of gone over the top and we’re we’re just this isn’t a good fit for us. It’s not a good fit for you.
Theresa Hill:
We’re gonna part ways. Good luck in your venture. Mhmm. And
Theresa Hill:
I think sometimes that that tough decision does need to be made. But I do like how how you’ve shared how much effort you’ll you’ll put into something before it gets to that stage. And it sounds like all the experience you’ve had in the different businesses has really, really helped your patience. I would call you a saint, versus my patience level.
Theresa Hill:
Kids would.
Theresa Hill:
Well, that’s a whole different thing, isn’t it? Oh, my gosh. I’m glad you said that. Like, literally, I I’ll be yelling at my daughter. I’ll yell her up the stairs, and then I’ll listen to a client for, like, half an hour. Just be rude. Well, not be rude, but just moan. And, like, if Ella just goes out of place, I’ll be like, what’s wrong? And then I’m off.
Theresa Hill:
Yep. That that’s pretty much with me. Yeah.
Theresa Hill:
Okay. And then I feel like a monster and all of that stuff and okay. Good. I’m glad I’m not the only one.
Theresa Hill:
See, I look at it as I’m trying to keep my kids from becoming those clients later.
Theresa Hill:
Oh. Oh, I feel better already. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. You don’t wanna be like these clients. Yeah. I should do that.
Theresa Hill:
Shouldn’t I? I should get print off this naughty emails that I get, and then at night, read them too. Oh, it’s a big time story.
Theresa Hill:
It’s funny. I mean, the the kids, they listen in when my husband and I are discussing some different clients, and my daughter will be the first one to pipe up. You need to fire that client. She’ll be the first one. You know? She’s she’s gonna be that one that’s like, she’s gonna have no patience for nobody. It’s just gonna be fire the client now.
Theresa Hill:
Oh, that’s so cool. Well, this has been a brilliant conversation. I absolutely enjoyed it. I feel like I’ve learned absolutely tons. I’m looking forward to listening back to this episode. So thank you so much for your time. What are the best ways that people can connect with you guys and then we will say adieu?
Theresa Hill:
Best way would probably be just to email us, info at innovate marketing dot com. That all goes straight to a joint inbox that’s on both of our phones, so that’s probably the easiest way.
Theresa Hill:
Mhmm. And then I would probably recommend everybody goes and checks out your blog post, which is the 14 questions to ask yourself when writing website content, because you mentioned, Theresa, that you ask a few quite a few questions of your client, don’t you, when you’re onboarding them? And quite a lot of the questions in those in that block, I think, are absolutely brilliant questions to be asking your client before you’ve even started the web build, let alone the content. Things like what are your goals, what’s your mission, what’s your value proposition, what sets your business apart, things that you’ve already mentioned. So I’ll put a link to that folks in the show notes to go and check that. It’s called 14 Questions to Ask Yourself When Writing Website Content. You can find that over on innovatemarketing.com in the blog. Teresa, thank you so much for your time. You are a legend.
Theresa Hill:
Thank you.
Theresa Hill:
Take care.
Theresa Hill:
You too.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
And that wraps up today’s show. Now if you are not a part of the Facebook group, be sure to check that over on agencytrailblazer.comforward/group. If you’re an agency owner and you want some deeper accountability, you want to be part of some masterminds, etcetera, to help you create the agency that you love, then check out agency trailblazer.com for our paid community. And finally, if you are on Instagram, I would love to be able to connect with you. You can find us on at love your agency. That is all one word and no spaces. I’m not sure if we need to say that anymore, but I’m so used to telling people all one word, no spaces. It’s love your agency.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Love your agency.
Theresa Hill:
Put a link in the show notes.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
I might try and remember that as well. It would be great to connect. We share good stories of what’s going on every single day in the lives of this agency. We do live streams, we share pictures, and we, most importantly, have conversations with everybody around us. So we will see you on Instagram as well, and if not there, if not in the group, if not in the community, then we’ll see you next week.
