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Verbatim text
Lee:
Welcome to the Agency Trailblazer Podcast. And in this episode, we’re doing something really quite different. We have two guests on the show. We’ve got Matt and Kyle, and I’m not going to spoil things too much, but these are two agency owners who have a fantastic friendship. So I’m going to say no more. Just sit back, relax and enjoy the beautiful bromance. This podcast is brought to you by the agency Trailblazer Community. Is agency life stressing you out? Then? It is our mission to help you build an agency that you love. We’ve created a community which includes the Agency Reset Roadmap, that will allow you to get your agency back on the right track. We also have lots of noble, straight to the point, easy to consume workshops. We have a thriving community of other agency owners, and we all wrap up every month with a mastermind call with myself and sometimes a special guest where we unpack your questions. For more details, check out agencytrailblazer.com. Welcome to The Conversation.
Lee:
A conversation with a slight difference because you don’t just have one. We don’t just have two, but we have three people. Today on the podcast, there’s me, your beautiful host, Lee Jackson. Thank you for saying that. So very, very, very kind. But we also have an old favourite, Mr. Kyle from Ogal Web and we have a new kid on the block, Matt from Matt Seburt Design. Guys, how are you doing today?
Matt:
Excellent. Good to be with you, Lee.
Lee:
We’re going to have fun. Aren’t we all talking over each other trying to do a podcast with three people? We can’t even see each other, can we? To, like, have a visual cue that someone’s about to say something. So this should be a lot of fun.
Matt:
I’m sure it’ll work out.
Lee:
I’m sure it will too. Right. Well, how about I’ll try and address the question to you first, Kyle, and then we’ll go to you, Matt. But first, for the people who don’t know you, Kyle, can you just give us a little bit of background about who you are, favourite colour and all of that sort of stuff? And then when it sounds like you’re finished, Matt, if you could do the same, that would be epic.
Kyle:
Absolutely. So yeah, my name is Kyle Van Dusen. I own Ogle Web Design in Granbury, Texas. I started this company a couple years ago while I was working full time as a graphic designer in the print industry. I did that for about 15 years. I started this business on the side for about a year and a half or so, and then was able to go full time just about a year ago now. So things are going well and rocking and rolling.
Matt:
Cool. And I’m Matthew Siebert or Matt Siebert and I run Matthew Siebert Design. I’ve been doing it for about 8 or 9 years now, and I think it’s about five years that have been just myself. And favourite colour is blue.
Lee:
That’s a that’s a good favourite colour. Now folks, if you want to know Kyle’s story, you need to listen to episode 118. But also Matt, unbeknown to him, has literally just agreed to also come on the show in the near future to share his full story. Matt, very quick question then what is your specialism with your business?
Kyle:
Well, I started as a print design like primarily shifted to branding and then more recently pivoted towards web design.
Lee:
So that’s a bit of a similar background as well to you, Kyle, with your print design background, doing the banners and all of those sorts of things, and then going into the web as well. The difference with you, Matt, though, being you have more of a brand lead, whereas I don’t think you were designing brands, were you? Kyle.
Matt:
No not necessarily. Done a little bit of that work, but it’s certainly not my forte.
Lee:
No worries. Well, the reason we have these two wonderful, rich accented chaps, you’ll detect both a Boston and a southern accent. Gotta love that. Gotta love. That is because you guys have a very special relationship. And no, we’re not just about to announce something that your other partners are not aware of. It’s in fact an accountability relationship of all things. Would one of you like to tell us what an accountability relationship means to you?
Matt:
Yeah, I mean, I can start off with that. I’ll let Matt kind of tell the story of of how we found each other on here. But basically over time we’ve just become, you know, it started out as a relationship where we were kind of working on some projects together, and we just come to find out over time that we had a lot in common and became friends in the process. So, you know, we we speak daily about things going on with our business. I have a question that runs across my head. I don’t have to go post 500 times in a Facebook group. Instead, I just text Matt or call Matt 500 times a day until he quits answering my phone calls. So, you know, a lot of times it’s just, you know, sometimes working by yourself is tough and you don’t have all the answers. So it’s always nice to run things by another person who might have a different frame of reference and be able to help you get through some things you’re going through with clients, or problems you’re having with projects or ideas, or does this look stupid?
Matt:
Or do I look fat in this? All those things.
Lee:
Do you really send him that?
Matt:
No, but I will know.
Lee:
Okay. Just to make it so that that wasn’t a lie. Because that would be terrible. Yeah.
Kyle:
No problem to expand on that a little bit. I mean, when you’re when you’re working in an office, you’ve got either, you know, a desk next to you with somebody or you’ve got a cubicle and you can, you know, you can lean out and you can you can rely on the conversation. You know, it doesn’t necessarily have to be about work, but you’ve got that inner personality type thing that you’ve got in an office situation. Whereas when you’re working alone solo, it’s difficult to be personable or not like personable, but it’s it’s kind of lonely sometimes. So it’s it’s really nice to have somebody that’s not necessarily right next to you, but almost like an office mate. And that’s that’s really important.
Lee:
That’s awesome. So how did you guys meet?
Kyle:
Uh, I guess I’ll tackle that one.
Matt:
Yeah, we gotta let Matt tell that story.
Kyle:
About a year ago, my business started to grow, and I needed to to reach out to other developers, other designers to try to take a bit of workload off of myself. I knew that if I didn’t do that, I would plateau and there wouldn’t be any any further growth. So I come from a small town, and I know that there are countless talented developers and designers in major cities. However, their prices are a little bit more robust than a small town can offer. So I had the idea to go on Google Maps and find large cities New York, Philadelphia, Houston, Austin, etc. and go a couple of hours outside of those cities and type in graphic designer or web designer and find those smaller businesses that are equally as talented but might have a smaller overhead. That way we could team up and I could give them projects and we could work as a team. So Kyle was the one of the first ones that I reached out to, and my intent was purely to to utilise him as a, as a developer.
Kyle:
But as time went on and it was a very short amount of time, we found out that both he and I had almost the same style, like both aesthetically as well as how we spoke to clients, how we structured our business. So it was a pretty natural way to fall in together as far as more of a partnership or an accountability buddy.
Matt:
But I think what he left out there is the way he approached me, which was not completely forthcoming, which I think he should expand on a little bit more.
Lee:
Oh, dear.
Kyle:
So one of the one of the things that I’ve always said is that you don’t necessarily sell your work by your work. I mean, that’s that’s a huge part of it. But you sell yourself first. You know, if you’re a personality is is great. A client’s going to want to work with you. So to to try to decipher, you know, who I was talking to and how they talked to clients. Rather than approaching Kyle as myself, I actually approached him with an alias and a fake job. I believe it was for branding, and I reached out to him as this guy. Rob and Rob had a like a karate dojo that was just starting up, and he needed branding and he needed a whole bunch of things. We started with the branding and I asked for a quote, and he had gotten back to me and he was very professional. He actually used the word certainly, which I use all of the time. So like.
Matt:
There’s a there’s a.
Lee:
Bromance happening.
Matt:
Here. Yeah. Kind of.
Kyle:
But it’s just the way that he responded to a potential client was pretty much identical to how I would also respond to a client. So that’s that’s really good. You know, like that’s a good first impression. That’s a good like idea of how he speaks. And like, if I ever needed to send a client to him directly, I know that they’re going to be taken care of in a very similar way that I would.
Lee:
I feel like you completely mystery shopped him.
Matt:
I did.
Lee:
Yeah, I can’t work out if it’s creepy or not. I’m still out with the jury on this one.
Matt:
Yeah, I was very hungry for work and still, still working full time at my job. And there might have been times I was doing my own stuff on the clock every now and then. So when he sent me this, this project, I was fairly excited. I got a customer that I didn’t know. You know, maybe my SEO was working. Somebody found me. So I went straight to work and said, hey, you know, I can definitely help you out with this. Let me send you over some samples. So I sent them over some samples of some ideas for logos I had from them and never heard back from them, and reached out to him a couple times and it went by the wayside. And then, I don’t know, maybe, maybe a month or so later, I got a call from Matt Siebert, who told me, you know, his real intentions, but didn’t tell me he had already contacted me as Rob Fisher. That came out probably about 3 or 4 months later when he spilled the beans on that one.
Lee:
So, Matt, was that like burning up inside of you, the guilt and that you just had to had to confess?
Speaker 4
I wouldn’t say guilt.
Kyle:
Necessarily, but no, I did have to tell him. I mean, it’s such a bizarre way of trying to source talent.
Speaker 4
Yeah.
Kyle:
That by that time we were we were definitely friends. So it was it needed to be said.
Matt:
Let’s say I sent a nasty response to Rob Fisher shortly after I found out.
Lee:
That is. So you just can’t write that. That is a really random story. I get why you did it though, Matt, especially to find out, you know, how does this person react to clients? What is the language that they use? How friendly are they, how professional are they, how fast are their responses, etc.? Because that is, you know, usually a reflection on their general working ethics, their general working style. You’re going to know if this is going to be someone you can partner with, etc.. So as weird as it sounds, it’s actually very standard. I think in the industry there’s we’ve had quite a lot of inquiries come in where we’re pretty sure that the person doesn’t exist, because we usually Google everyone who ever contacts us and check social profiles, etc.. So we’ve had the odd fakery, and we’re pretty sure it’s been from other agencies finding stuff out or trying to see how we respond, but we always treat every single one as if it’s a real inquiry regardless.
Lee:
So I’m interested from from either of you is obviously this started off as a development relationship. So it was that Matt or Rob, whoever you decide, um, approached Kyle for a development, but at what point did you guys realise, hey, actually, this is more of a friendship. We’ve got so much in common. Why don’t we become accountable to each other in some way? Or why don’t we help each other out? I mean, how did that happen? Was it even a conscious choice? Or have you just realised today your accountability buddies?
Speaker 4
Well, I think it.
Kyle:
Happened really quickly. Within a couple of months, we were, uh, kind of foregoing the work type thing and moving on to more of an accountability buddy structure. And as far as how that happened, I’m not sure. Kyle, do you do you have any insight on that? I, I feel like it just happened.
Matt:
Yeah. I mean, we did a few projects together where he sent me some work that he was needing done. So some of it was print design stuff that I knocked out for him. I think we did one website together. And, you know, Matt has a nice little head start on his business over me. And I was I was trying to grow as quickly as possible. And my when I was able to quit my job, my growth accelerated quite a bit to where I got as busy as I, you know, for the most part, can handle and started increasing my prices and that and when I got to that point where I was busy with my own stuff and my prices were, you know, comparable to Matt’s prices, it didn’t work as well for us to to send those projects, you know, back and forth. We still, you know, work on some stuff together occasionally when the budget allows. But, you know, eventually it just got to where, you know, we were helping each other with advice on things more than actually working on projects together.
Lee:
That’s awesome. Now, interesting story then, because you guys are you work with presumably with similar clients on similar projects. Do you guys have you ever come to a point where you feel like you need to hold something back because you could potentially be competing with each other, or has your relationship come to the point where you are absolutely brothers in arms and you got each other?
Kyle:
I think it’s the latter, for sure. I trust Kyle wholeheartedly and I would hope the same. The the other way around?
Matt:
Somewhat. No. Just kidding.
Lee:
I can I can sense the banter in this relationship. Which which is pretty cool. And I’m guessing as well that there’s no reason why you guys wouldn’t partner up on certain projects as well in the future. So rather than it being a supplier relationship, this would be more of a partnership on some bigger project which might require some more resource. Have you guys done that yet?
Matt:
We have some, you know, some plans for things like that. I don’t think we’ve come across any projects yet where we really needed to divvy up work and project demanded that, but I’d I mean, we’d certainly be open to that, I’m sure.
Speaker 4
Oh, yeah.
Matt:
Most of the things we do are, you know, helping each other out on things, giving each other advice. Hey, look at this. Does this look stupid? Things like that.
Speaker 4
Yeah, we.
Kyle:
Actually just did that this morning.
Lee:
Give us a snapshot. What was that conversation?
Matt:
Well, I am working on a a little page for a high profile client that I have to get. Right. So I’ve been putting this together. So I wrote Matt this morning I don’t know. Let’s see. Seven 730 in the a m. That’s probably when our first text usually goes out and asked him if he had a few minutes to to critique something for me. So I sent him over kind of the project brief and explained to him what I’m trying to accomplish here. And he went through it section by section with me and gave me a whole list full of pointers to to change out. So that’s what I was working on before I got on this call, actually.
Lee:
Oh, wow. So and you actually, was that an actual call together then where you did that as opposed to just a few comments on an email?
Matt:
Oh yeah. It was a phone call.
Lee:
Yeah. That’s awesome. And you mentioned earlier as well that these conversations are pretty much every day until Matt, like, hangs up on you.
Matt:
Yeah, I would say, uh, five days a week, you know, Monday through Friday, we usually have some sort of interaction, usually not so much on the weekends. But yeah, for the most part, if it’s a work day, we’re usually usually speaking to each other about something.
Kyle:
If not on the phone, like a couple of times, you know, at least texts.
Lee:
Through text message as well. Yeah. So what I’m trying to work out as well because I know that like Leanne and Imogen, they are in the WP and theta Facebook group. They have become accountability buddies. So I think they talk regularly. And I know there’s a few people right now who are looking for someone else, like an accountability buddy dating system, I don’t know, but trying to find someone else that they can start to develop a relationship with, you know, to share exactly what you guys are doing, you know, ask questions. Does my butt look big in this? What do you think of this design? What do you think of the copy that I’m going to send to the client? What do you think of this proposal? All of those sorts of things. So I don’t know if either of you could help us on a couple of things. First of all, it might be how to locate or find someone that could be a good fit for you. And then the I guess the other question within that is, do you have any sort of framework for your accountability?
Lee:
So for example, if I was to say to a friend, hey, will you make sure that I call that really difficult client if I don’t have a good enough relationship with that. That friend. That friend is probably not going to ask me. And I’ve just told them to do that, and I know they’re not going to ask me, so it means I’m going to totally forget anyway. So do you. I mean, what do you guys do in that? Are you really are you harsh with each other as well? Is the is this kind of the second part of that question? So how would you find an accountability buddy? I guess the first question and then the second question is, you know, what sort of relationship are you looking for with an accountability buddy? Is it just to put something under a paper, or are you really going much further than that?
Matt:
I think as far as finding one, you know, I don’t have anything but this frame of reference. I don’t recommend becoming Rob Fisher. He’s already taken. But I mean, certainly finding somebody that does something you know, does work similar to you has been super helpful. You know, we’re not from two different worlds. We’re both into using Illustrator and Photoshop. We both build websites with WordPress, you know, so we we work with the same kind of size clients. So all that is nice to just go back and forth with. I think we both have a good frame of reference for what’s going on in each other’s businesses, because it’s the same types of things that are going on with our own. So that’s that’s super helpful as far as, you know, staying accountable with each other. We like to have friendly competitions on our sales numbers for the month. Usually at the end of the month, we’ll be comparing notes on that and seeing who’s who’s ahead of who, which is, you know, kind of a fun way to gamify your business.
Matt:
You know, you got you want to make money, obviously, but also you want to beat the other person. So that makes it a little fun, too, you know, and making sure, you know, we’re getting things done. We said we were going to work on, you know, if he mentions he’s working on something, I’ll bug him about, hey, have you got that done yet? There’s no, like, hard and fast rule on any of it. I think it’s just the way we’ve kind of meshed together.
Lee:
Yeah.
Kyle:
We all we also both kind of know each other’s clients to an extent, just because we do talk so often. So when one of us has a any kind of a struggle or something like we can, we can call each other just for that, you know, and have that outlet of, oh, man, this is what’s happening. And the other one can talk us off the ledge and kind of help us create an email that gets the the point across without our frustration as well. That’s that’s incredibly helpful. And to expand on the point gamifying the business and all of that, like since partnering or creating this, this friendship really with Kyle, my business has has more than doubled. Wow. And I don’t know Kyle. Like how how is it done for you?
Matt:
Yeah. I mean, I’m certainly I’ve grown a tonne and I think a lot of that is because, you know, when you start out especially, it’s very hard to price creative services, you know, so you’re hungry for the work. So any money sounds good. But you also have to value value yourself. And that can be hard to do. But when you have somebody you know me and Matt, we’re on similar calibres of of our skill set I would say. So when I see what he’s charging or he sees what I’m charging or, you know, we kind of have an idea of of what each other are making a month. It gives you some more confidence. I know it did for me starting out. You know, I was I know we talked on on the last podcast. The first few websites I did were, you know, several weeks worth of work that I made $500 on. And I was, you know, glad to do it.
Lee:
Yeah.
Matt:
But at this point, those prices have changed. And a lot of that is just because, you know, people online might not necessarily tell you exactly what they’re charging, even though I think a lot of these online communities are awesome and I get a tonne of value out of those, you know, you have one. The people that don’t really want to share too much. And then you have the the kind of troll person who’s going to tell you everything you’re doing is wrong anyways. So when you have somebody that’s that’s more of a friend you can bounce ideas off of, I think it gives you some confidence to to value yourself a little bit better.
Lee:
I think that’s important. And you guys have hit something that I didn’t even realise you would even talk about, which is the financial part of things. You know, I just assumed an accountability relationship might just be based on, hey, I’ve got to finish a proposal to hold me accountable to that. Or hey, can you check this proposal? But you guys are going much further than I imagined, which is, I think, very wise and very brave as well, I think, which is looking at the numbers, hey, how much would you charge or how much do you charge? What are your sales targets for this month, or will I beat that because you know Gamifying as well. I think that’s a very clever, clever idea. But when you’re on your own, you’ve got no idea of how to benchmark something or no idea of your own value. And I imagine that Matt appreciates you, Kyle, and vice versa. You both know how talented each other is, and you are therefore more likely to talk talk the other up.
Lee:
So when Kyle is quoting on something, correct me if I’m wrong, but I can imagine Matt saying, dude, this is a big project. You are a really good designer. You absolutely need to be charging ten K for this project and nothing less. I don’t know why you put five K on that proposal. That enables you then Kyle, to to provide a price that more reflects your value to the client and also keeps you profitable. Have I, by any chance, described any sort of conversations that you guys may have.
Kyle:
Had all the time? Yeah, and I think it’s more of that really than the, the helpful reminders like we do do that for each other, but mostly it’s positioning our businesses and positioning ourselves and like that’s that. That’s where I get the most benefit, I think, from this, this kind of relationship.
Matt:
And it goes a little bit beyond just work too. In fact the other the other let’s see, last week I called Matt in a panic because I knocked the power cord out of my computer, and when I restarted it, I was getting a like a reboot screen that I was not familiar with.
Lee:
Oh no,
Matt:
I’m not a super techie computer guy. So I called Matt and I’m like, oh my God, what’s happening? I’m trying to explain it to him, you know? So he’s googling things on the other end, you know, restart again and press, you know, F10 and try this and try that. So after about 20 minutes of me freaking out thinking my computer was destroyed, I noticed my F2 button was stuck down. So when I when I unstuck that, Matt was quickly googling what happens when you hold down the F2 button when you restart. And that was my entire problem. So had it not been for me being able to call Matt and get that situated, not only would I have stayed in a panic the rest of the day, I probably would have spent quite a bit of money getting somebody out here to unstick my F2 button and tell me I’m an idiot.
Lee:
That’s an incredible story that you are also it support Matt, you’ve been promoted.
Kyle:
Awesome.
Lee:
You could put a whole extra page on your website about that. Now, going back to the original things you shared with regards to the friendship and everything, and this is potentially more of a personal question, but if if you’ve listened to the podcast, you’ll know that I will often suffer from anxiety or stress, you know, or a bit of depression, etc. how do you feel either of you having this friendship? This relationship has helped you, especially during those darker times, and perhaps you both don’t have anxiety or stress or that sort of thing, but I’m sure there have been dark times with clients, etc. that potentially really, really hurt, you know, emotionally. How has this relationship helped you through those times?
Matt:
Well, I can say, you know, I work from home, my wife owns her own business, and she’s home most of the time, too. I have an eight year old and a five year old who are home most of the time, and I have another kid on the way, so I’m. Yeah, exactly. So I’m I’m at the house, you know, 90% of every day with the same people. Not that I don’t love them dearly. I do, obviously, but I don’t have the same things in common with them. If I start telling them about vector artwork, they’re not going to be listening to me. So having somebody, you know, that you can connect with, just those like those relationships you have at work, they might not be people you necessarily hang out with all the time, but you do get some kind of social satisfaction from just being around other people. So that kind of fills that void as far as, you know, working from home and being, you know, a solo entrepreneur.
Matt:
That definitely helps a tonne. I don’t know exactly what it would be like without it, because I’ve pretty much had it since I’ve been on my own.
Lee:
How about you, Matt?
Kyle:
Yeah. I mean, um, for the first long time, I was, uh, I was working from home, and I was like. I was living with roommates at the time, and now I live on my own. But if I didn’t have that, that friend to reach out to that understood what I was going through and all of that, like, I’ll go to the bar with, uh, with some of my other friends and I’ll be like, oh, man, you don’t believe what, uh, what happened with this website? And they’re like, I don’t care. Like, I mean, it’s interesting, but I don’t I don’t really understand what I can, I can give you, you know, as far as advice or anything. So, you know, reaching out to Kyle like, yeah, he understands what, what, what I’m going through. And, uh, we have conversations about it like it’s it’s great.
Lee:
This is just so beautiful, Guys, I absolutely love it. You sound like BFFs. Best friends forever who get to talk geek. Have you ever physically met up?
Lee:
No I haven’t.
Kyle:
No, but we will be at the end of this year. We’re actually going to WordCamp in Texas. I’m going to fly out there, and I’m going to finally see how tall Kyle is.
Matt:
Six, two and a half.
Lee:
He’s four foot.
Lee:
Three.
Lee:
He stands on a box.
Lee:
In all the pictures.
Lee:
You may have been robbed, but Kyle’s been lying about his height. Are you really six foot two and a half, Kyle?
Matt:
Uh, yeah. My my wife likes to tell me I’m six one, but she’s wrong.
Lee:
Oh, no worries then I was, I was, I was hoping she was, like, four foot or something. That would have been the best wedding pictures ever.
Matt:
No, she’s she’s of average height. Okay.
Lee:
Fair enough. No worries. Well, guys, it’s been really awesome listening to you both speak and to hear the relationship is kind of weird to say that, but you can hear a relationship because you can hear the other, letting the other speak or know when the other one should take over. And that’s really cool to listen to. You guys have got a really solid friendship. I think it’s awesome. You’re talking things as detailed as financial information and being each other’s cheerleader on these sort of things because it’s really, really important that we value ourselves. And I love the the fact that, you know, your two guys that work in your own homes on your own, yet you’ve been able to create that office atmosphere, that camaraderie to keep you both energised and to keep you both sane. Yes, sane. That’s exactly the right word to keep you both sane. So I think it’s awesome. I would love to see the selfies when you guys get to meet together, and then we can put it to some sort of really emotional music and animate it and put it inside of the community.
Lee:
I think that’d be amazing. So I look forward to those pictures and you guys meeting in Texas. So thank you for your time. How can we connect with both of you? And then we will boot you off the show.
Matt:
You can find me in the WP innovator Group on Facebook. All sorts of Facebook groups or my website is Ogle Web.com. Ogle. Web.com. And that’s about it.
Lee:
And Mister Matt.
Matt:
And I’m in all the same groups as Kyle. But you can find my website at Matthew Siebert. Com that’s m a t h e w s e b e r t.com.
Lee:
And I will make sure folks that the links are in the show notes. If you want to find the Facebook group that we talked about that’s over on agency trailblazer.com/group. We should probably rename it from WP Innovator to Agency Trailblazer. But I’m kind of still clinging on to that old name from three years ago because it kind of still do love it as well. So I don’t know, maybe I need an accountability buddy to talk that one through. But anyway, guys, you are wonderful. Thank you so much for your time. Have an awesome day.
Matt:
Thank you Lee. Yeah.
Kyle:
Thank you.
Lee:
And that wraps up today’s show. If this episode inspired you to find a friend, somebody that you can share the ups and downs of agency life with, then I really recommend that you go ahead and check out our Facebook group. You can find it on agency trailblazer.com/group. That’s agency trailblazer.com/group. Come and make friends in our community. We’ve got over 1600 members in there. That’s agency owners freelancers, designers developers marketers social media experts. We have a wonderful community and you are bound to make some great friends in there and more than likely find a great accountability partner. So we will see you inside of the community. Have a great day and we’ll see you in the next episode.
