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Verbatim text
Lee:
Welcome to the agency Trailblazer podcast. This is your host, Lee, and on today’s show we’re talking with Melissa Rautenberg. She’s a great friend of mine and we’re shooting the breeze all about travelling the world and running your agency. So sit back, relax and enjoy the ride. Before we kick off the show, here is a word from our sponsor. Do you need to collect content from your clients before you start their website? It’s a lot of fun, right? Constantly chasing them up for months and then it finally comes back in a storm of 75 emails with huge attachments that you have to try to organise content. Snare is on a mission to fix this. It helps you get content back in one central place and chases your clients for you. Give it a [email protected] use the code trailblazer when you sign up for 20% off. Welcome to a conversation with me, Mr. Lee Jackson and Melissa Rautenberg. How are you today?
Melissa:
I’m fantastic.
Lee:
Fantastic. That was a bit of a New York. Was it? Was it New York?
Melissa:
I don’t know what that was. I’m all over the place. I don’t know where my accent’s from these days.
Lee:
No, neither do I. It’s just a whole mixture, isn’t it? It’s like a cocktail of accents. And we’ll talk about that in a minute because I think it’s going to be a great conversation. But first of all, it is so freaking good to be talking to you again. And we spent at least 20 minutes before recording this episode having a good old catch up because we haven’t seen each other for like two years now.
Melissa:
Yeah, and it’s been a while since we chatted and it’s just nice to catch up and hear what you have going on and you know how life is.
Lee:
Exactly. It’s always good to catch up with old friends and why not hit record and carry on? I mean, hey, as long as we don’t tell any specific secrets now that we are recording because there could be a few thousand people listening.
Melissa:
We’ll let people listen in our private conversation. No big deal.
Lee:
Why the hell not? Well, guys, Melissa is the co founder of Latin Encode along with her gorgeously handsome husband, Steve. And you also have a whole load of other projects. So I guess I do this every single episode instead of trying to come up with the most amazing introduction for you. The best person to introduce themselves is the person being introduced, I think. So may I hand over to you, Melissa, and allow you to tell the world all about you what you do, your favourite colour, your favourite drink and which part of the world you’re in right now.
Melissa:
What an honour.
Lee:
Oh, great.
Melissa:
Yeah, absolutely. So I am the co founder of Latin and Code, which is a branding and marketing consultancy I own with my husband, Stephen Baconta. As you mentioned, I am also an advisor to the agency guy, which is basically like a matchmaker. I helped for free. I help business owners find the right marketing agency. If I’m not the right fit, if it’s outside of my scope of work or my expertise, it’s not a problem. I can still help you find the right agency. We have a rolodex of about 200 agency partners that we work with and it’s free to the client, it’s free to the entrepreneur or the business owner calling us looking for a client or a marketing agency. We get paid on the back end of the agencies. And then we also have a podcast called the Creative Hustler which is all about branding and marketing. So we talk to business owners, marketing executives, CEOs that run. That are running companies and how they. How their branding and marketing works, what’s not working in today’s world. And that is basically my life. And I also travel a tonne.
Lee:
Travel a tonne. And that’s also an understatement. I mean, there is a lot to unpack just in what you do alone. I would mention that if you are an agency whose ears pricked up at the agency guy element, then I mean, people can become a partner, I believe or something that I had to look at your website a little while back and there is. People can become a. The agency guy partner. So you guys can apply and have a chat to the team behind that at the agency guy. Because I’m sure you’re always welcome to meeting new agencies as well.
Melissa:
Yeah.
Lee:
Now with regards to. With regards to your podcast, you’ve literally got all these things going on, which is awesome. And your podcast, I love it so much. It’s the creative hustler.com guys. And the energy that you and Steve have is always. It oozes out. I love the production value and you always have great guests, but you didn’t originally start off with that subject in mind. Can you just tell people what the Creative Hustler was all the way back in episode one?
Melissa:
Yeah. So we started, honestly, the podcast started from us being super jazzed and pumped up from that event and convention in London that we met you at. New Media Europe, if you remember that, that was probably one of the most epic conventions and conferences that I’ve been to in a while. It was just the room was full of amazing new people, but they talked a lot about podcasting and this and that. And my husband always had this side project or like the side passion called the Creative Hustler. It was just an idea that he had. And when we left New Media Europe, we were like, we need to start a podcast. This is what the Creative Hustler needs to be. It just needs to be a podcast. And we were travelling entrepreneurs and it was tough and it was hard and we said, there’s got to be other people out there like us that are doing what we’re doing and how do they live, how do they stay balanced, how do they run their business, what are their processes for their efficiencies? And that’s really how we started the podcast was talking to travelling entrepreneurs.
Melissa:
But we’ve evolved mostly more now into still talking to entrepreneurs, agency owners, CEOs, marketing execs, but more focused now on just their branding and marketing. So their story and their branding and marketing, what’s working, what’s not working in today’s. In today’s ever changing digital market. Yeah.
Lee:
And with regards to the travelling, you guys have still continued that passion because just a few months ago, well, it’s actually quite a while ago now, I remember you guys sharing that you were essentially packing up your home, putting it in storage and travelling the world. What. What happened there and why that start and how did it go?
Melissa:
And it was a. So we decided to give up our apartment in Downtown San Diego October 1, 2017, and it’s June 2018 now. And it was only. We decided to do this three months before that date and it was only supposed to be for four months. We were going to go over to Europe for three months and then we were going to go over to the east coast of the US for six weeks and then come back to San Diego and be done with it. But while we were over in Sicily, we decided, you know what, there’s just so much opportunity out there to meet people and make. Create bigger relationships in different markets. So In December of 2017, we decided to map out our year for 2018, all depending on where our partners were, where our clients were, where conventions were, and just basically follow opportunities. And that’s what we’ve been doing ever since. Right now we’re in San Diego. So we’re back in San Diego. My husband has family here. We’re staying with his family till mid July. And then we’re going to drive across the country and Go to Florida. I know you have a thing for Florida every year.
Melissa:
So we’ll be in Florida, we’ll be in Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York City and Boston. And then we’re going to go back over to Europe for a couple of months and then after Europe, we’re going to come back to the east coast, hang out there and then drive across the country again, stopping along the way to look at apartments possibly in Colorado and. Yeah. And then stay here in San Diego again for another month in December just to be with family for Christmas. And then for 2019, that’s when we decided is January 1, 2019 is the date that we want to be settled somewhere.
Lee:
I actually feel tired listening to.
Melissa:
I know. Is that too much to digest? Should I.
Lee:
That’s a lot of travelling and for some reason, you know, all I had was country roar. Go through my head when you were saying that you’re going to drive across the States, please get like the worst car ever and kind of do a whole video series on that. That’d be amazing.
Melissa:
John. Ben.
Lee:
John.
Melissa:
Denver Country Roads.
Lee:
Oh, my gosh, that’s so cool. So, I mean, so far, so it sounds like you’re kind of still halfway through this. You know, what was just a few months, you’re halfway through what’s been. What sort of opportunities have you been able to generate? I mean, if you’re out in Sicily, are you generating opportunities out in Sicily? Or is it more that you are in a creative environment which allows you to be more creative and therefore use the Internet to create the relevant opportunities? Because you work with quite a few businesses around the world. I think there was a question in there somewhere.
Melissa:
Yeah, you know what, you hit the nail on the head in that question too. So we do have teams all across around the world that we work with.
Lee:
Right.
Melissa:
So we’re really location independent, but all of our travel is based around opportunities. So if it’s meeting and opportunities don’t necessarily mean new markets, it could be continuing a relationship with a client or a partner. Right. Or a team member. So when we were in Colorado, we spent a good amount of time with a team member that I had been talking to for a year and a half and never met in person. So.
Lee:
Wow.
Melissa:
And that’s kind of what we’re. Stephen and I are more so about the face to face. We’re about the relationship. We like to see people’s faces, we like to break bread and share a glass of wine with people. That’s just how we do business. And so having a business that is literally around the world is pretty tough. I mean, I still need to get to the Philippines to meet this one guy that we’ve been working with for 10 years. So. And you’re right when you say Sicily is for creative spaces. So we go really intense when we’re in certain markets. So when we’re in New York City, we’re like, pounding the pavement. We’re going to a bunch of different meetups, conventions, different kinds of networking events just to meet as many people as possible. And we’ve gotten a lot of work out of those. So whether it’s personally for our consultancy, Latin and Code, or whether it’s helping somebody find the right partner, because, you know, there’s a lot of white noise out there. And then we’re of value to people, we become of value to people. Or even if it’s just to talk to people on our podcast, there’s different ways that we can connect with different people and we utilise all of those different ways.
Melissa:
So we’ll spend a month in the mountains, in Colorado, in a cabin in the woods, in a town that has 127 people in it for a month, just to create as much content and to project what the next few months look like. And then we’ll come back to the San Diego market and we’ll just hit up a bunch of networking events and we’ll also do workshops and we’re also a part of a networking group that we help put on. So there’s. There’s two different sides of the coin, because you need to be able to create and have that space, but you also need to hit the pavement as well. So when we’re in these different markets, that’s what we’re trying to do. So I think that answers the question.
Lee:
That definitely answered the question. And I think there’s a few ways I want to go with this, because there is a lot in this. I guess it sounds to me like you are using the world as your networking platform. You are being very deliberate with regards to what you’re doing in certain times, in certain places, which is really, really inspiring. That is, let’s create content in the mountains for a month and plan the next few weeks, and then let’s go to New York and do some very specific stuff. Have you guys always operated in this sort of way, or is this something that’s evolved as a result of the travelling?
Melissa:
I think that we’ve always operated in this way, but in one market. So we have been in San Diego and we’ve made a pretty big name for ourselves here in San Diego, we know a tonne of the entrepreneurs here. We go to a tonne of the networking events here. Flynn’s networking event, Laura Peterson, she helps people write books, her networking events. So there’s a lot of. And John Bertino, the one who owns the agency guy, also has an event here that we’re connected to with our. We do our podcast live there. So, yeah, SoCal Marketing Club. Yep. So if anybody’s in the SoCal area listening, those events happen four times a year and they’re all about just badass stuff. Like the next one coming up is all about how to utilise mobile. Mobile, yeah, mobile marketing. So, yeah, we have always kind of operated this way, but we’re now just operating this way in a bigger platform. And we’re both from. Originally from the east coast, so we always had a tie to the New York market and the San Diego, I mean, in the Boston network. So there was always a connexion there. We’re in the game of just making those relationships stronger and also just opening ourselves up to new opportunities.
Lee:
And what would you say for anyone who does feel a little bit, I guess, trapped in. Either in their hometown or in their office space and they just want to do something to break free, what would you say to encourage them? And how would you recommend someone even upsticks and travels the world for three to six months? You got any tips? Because, I mean, we talk a lot about creating an agency that you love and falling in love with your agency again. And for some people who’ve spoken to us kind of offline privately, they’ve expressed how frustrated they are and how they would love to be able to travel and they feel like all of their dreams are on hold because they feel. Feel tied to their agency, whereas you guys are going ahead and kind of creating those dreams by doing all of this stuff. So what tips would you give for people who might be considering this and wanting to kind of finally cut loose and go for it?
Melissa:
That’s a great question. I guess it depends on what type of agency that they have. I mean, so I’m going to use you as an example. So you have an agency that has a location and you have a little team going on. Like, I know that you also work with people worldwide as well, but you and Larissa are, you know, is it just you and Larissa in the office?
Lee:
In the UK Office, yeah. And then the rest.
Melissa:
Yeah, it’s global. So, I mean, you took off to Florida for three months. How did you. Oh, was it giving you an Extra month.
Lee:
Sorry.
Melissa:
You made that work too. You know, you were like, you know what? I own this agency and I can take two months and still work global from wherever I am and just go. So why not just do it? If they have that opportunity to do something like that, I say give yourself a couple months to plan that out and just go someplace for a month or two or three and just see how it works. See how you work, see if you can work that way. If that’s not a possibility, give yourself the opportunity to get out of your backyard and drive five hours to a different market and see if there’s like another city that’s close or if there’s another community that’s close when another opportunity is. When we were in Sicily, yeah, we went there for a lot of space and time to just think and be away from it all and eat delicious, ridiculous food and have like amazingly delicious cheap wine. But we also joined a co working group. So we joined Impact Hub Syracuse and there were a bunch of entrepreneurs that were working inside of this Impact Hub, but it was like a family inside of there.
Melissa:
So we got to know the people really well and just network with them and just kind of connect yourself, like latch on to different things. Look, look outside of your normal office and see where there’s other places that you can go to network with people.
Lee:
I would echo the idea of starting something small to see if you can do it, see if you can stay away for two weeks somewhere within, within your country. That’s something that we started doing. We would rent a cottage about 200 miles north and then we would, we would do like a combination of me doing work like in the mornings and calls etc on the wifi. We obviously have to find somewhere with WI fi and then we would chill out in the afternoons and go for walks and drives and sometimes I would just take entire days off as well if I could plan that. And that seemed to work fine. So we were thinking, well, why the hell not now? I guess the difference between me and my family and you guys has been that we only then went to one place. We rented a house with, you know, good fast WI fi and everything and stayed in that one place and kind of lived there for the two months. Whereas I feel like you guys are, you’re, you’re being a lot more flexible so you’re kind of going from place to place.
Melissa:
That’s a good point. That’s a really good point. When we first started travelling, so we’ve been location independent for about four or five years now. When we first started travelling, we didn’t really take wifi into consideration because we are, you know, pretty spoiled with our wifi. And we were thinking, oh, wi fi is the same everywhere. That is not true. It’s not true at all. So now when we travel, that’s the first thing we think about. I know that’s pretty sad, but it’s the first thing that we think about. And I also want to just kind of piggyback off what you were saying. Find one location. I hate being in one place for two days and then picking up and having to go someplace else for two days and then picking up and going someplace else for three days. Pick one place to go to. It could be close. It could be in your same country, it could be in your backyard, wherever. It might be someplace you just want to explore a different city, one city over or one state over or one country over, wherever you might be and just stay in that one place and have that, because you still need to have a routine.
Melissa:
So when we go places, we usually go there for a month at a time or three weeks at a time. So we really try to ingrain ourselves in the area so that we can get comfortable and make sure that we have some kind of normalcy and routine.
Lee:
That’s really good. Now, I do have a question with regards to family. There’s you and Steve. You, you’re a couple. You’re also in business together. And we’ve had a lady on the podcast just recently who, again, they’re a husband and wife team, so I’d be interested in you is. And we’ve got a lot of people who listen as well, who work with their significant other. And how do you guys find that balance between talking about work and working versus social life and enjoying that ridiculously cheap wine and nice meals, et cetera, and all of that other stuff. Because, you know, I would find it very hard to switch off if I knew that I could talk about my business all the time. I freaking well would because it’s my. It’s my love, you know, if that’s what my wife was into as well, I feel like I just want to talk all the time, but I imagine that would also be extremely draining. So how do you guys deal with that and any advice as well, for couples?
Melissa:
Yeah, that’s a huge point. This is a. A huge point. So when we first started working together, it was like all we talked about, and I think it was after, like, a couple years, honestly, it was a couple years when I just did that whole time out, like we need to stop this and we need to go for a hike and find other activities that are outside of our work. Because we would work seven days a week at night, sometimes till midnight, just working on projects. And luckily we’re both driven in that sense. And luckily we both really enjoy talking about our business and what’s next and what we need to do and strategizing and figuring things out. And, you know, if we both have an idea, we want to come up with it and, like, we’ll just start working on it. Like, luckily we both have that, but there are times that we had to be like, but we’re married, so we need to. We need other things, we need to do other things. And we started incorporating other things in our relationship. We always make dinner together. When we make dinner together, it’s over.
Melissa:
You know, the work day is over. If we decide that we want to get back on the computer after dinner, then that’s up to us. But do we still kind of immerse ourselves in a little bit of the work conversation? Sure. But we’ll. When we’re both feeling a little. Or one or the other or both, they’re feeling burnt out from it. We both do this. Like, okay, time out. Like, I do. I can’t do this right now. You know, we have our work hours. Our work hours are, you know, nine to five. But it does trickle over when we go for our morning walk at 8 o’clock or when we go for. When we’re cooking dinner at. At six. But that’s just because we’re excited. But we both know that if somebody’s burnt out, it’s time to just relax and not do that. And we go on hikes a lot, so we do a lot of different mind meditation, basically, to kind of calm ourselves down and get ourselves into a different spot. We both enjoy the finer side of life when it comes to food and wine and enjoying the sunset. So those are our moments of clarity and those are our moments of this is our piece.
Melissa:
So I don’t know if that’s going to work for everybody, but for us, that’s what works.
Lee:
Sounds nice. And I would be interested in some advice, I think, personally, for me, with regards. I’m definitely losing my voice, by the way, with this cold. So I apologise, everyone, if I sound like a teenager today. This is also my third podcast in a row today, so we’re rocking and rolling. But I’d be interested in. I’d be interested in the mindfulness that you were talking about with regards to meditation, etc. And kind of finding your place. Because I think for me, I’ve got so much going on in my head, and that’s potentially part of the problem is that I don’t have too many people that I can keep off loading everything to. My wife is absolutely not interested in web development or web design or the fundamentals of marketing or anything else like that that I’m, you know, I’m excited about. She just wants to talk about Disney, which is totally cool. So do I. That’s another thing that I. I live with a passion, but because I have all of this stuff in my head and sometimes struggle with an outlet other than this, in this podcast, I’ve never been able to get into things like meditation or relaxation.
Lee:
And I feel like you’re pretty good at this. So could you, like, give me a crash course now with some top tips as to. I’m really putting you under pressure here, aren’t I? With all these questions, but some top tips. Top tips. I’m just. A bit of mindfulness, a bit of relaxation, a bit of chilling out. Because seriously, I’m so wound out sometimes it’s ridiculous. And I’ll admit that I think that’s why I love my hair and have to wear a cap.
Melissa:
I totally understand you being wound up, because for the longest time I was wound up. I lived in Boston and it was just go, go, go, go, go. And I was so wound up tight that I had a knot in my stomach and in my chest regularly. And I thought that that was normal. Like, I thought that’s just how people lived. And then it wasn’t until I moved to San Diego that I realised that people don’t actually live like that. It’s not 100% normal. But as an entrepreneur, that feeling comes back because that’s part of entrepreneurship. I mean, making money, business development, making sure clients are happy, making sure that, you know, you’re. You’re hitting your goals and your milestones, that can cause a lot of anxiety. And when something goes wrong, that causes a little bit of anxiety. I think that being wound up tight and anxiety might be a little bit of the same thing, however it manifests in your body. I started just going for walks. So when I get like that, it means I just need to seriously free my mind a little bit from basically being in jail. So I don’t, like, continue to stay in this box that I’ve created for myself.
Melissa:
I take a walk, I go for a walk, and there’s this book that I listen to all the time. On Audible. It’s a self discipline book. And the guy says, you know, meditation doesn’t necessarily have to be you just shutting your mind off and like, sitting in silence. Meditation could be you just going for a walk and forgetting how you got home when you turn around and try to come back, because it’s. It’s like it’s freeing your mind. And if you touch a leaf or a piece of grass or a flower and just enjoy that moment of beauty in the world, that’s a little bit of meditation right there. So I don’t know if that helps.
Lee:
It does help a lot. What’s that book? Because, I mean, that sounds. That actually sounds accessible to me because I’ve tried that whole kind of sitting there and, you know, taking deep breaths and all of that other stuff. And I tried the Headspace app.
Melissa:
Right.
Lee:
Kind of got bored or fell asleep, so. Which is fine. I mean, sleep’s good for you. I mean, that does help you. But I never really felt like I was necessarily. I still felt. Yeah, exactly. I would still feel wound up again the minute I’d wake back up.
Melissa:
So it’s Daily Self Discipline by Martin Meadows. And I have listened to it over on Louis, so. And sometimes when I go for a walk, I listen to my audiobooks just to kind of get my mind off of certain things. Like if I know, all right, you know, I need to. I need to really focus on some stuff, but I’m not really focusing on it. And I’ve procrastinated on some things. If I’m really anxious about that procrastination, because procrastination creates anxiety, I won’t be able to sit down and focus on it. So I’ll go for a walk and try to free my mind a little bit and then come back and sit down and work on it.
Lee:
That’s really good advice as well, isn’t it? You know, instead of staring at the same thing and pushing something around the screen or on table and getting nothing done for the entire day, just going away on that walk. It sounds funny, but just going for a wee is sometimes my point where I suddenly get that eureka moment of something I’ve been trying to solve all day. So there you go. That’s a really good example.
Melissa:
Sometimes it’s like I’m just gonna get up and go to the bathroom right now, get away from the computer.
Lee:
You have to drink a lot of tea and coffee, though, for that to actually be happening. Yeah.
Melissa:
I’m chugging water, waiting for that next moment.
Lee:
So that I can solve this. Problem. I gotta admit, listening to a book saying Daily Self Discipline is one of the most off putting titles in the world because I am, I do produce a lot, but I’m actually really lazy. I think most of. Well, I feel like I’m really lazy.
Melissa:
I’m sorry, you know what? I pressed on because it’s Daily Self Bliss of an Everyday Habits and Exercises is the full title.
Lee:
Well, that sounds better than just Daily Self Discipline. But for. But I feel like I’m lazy. But the thing is I’m not. I produce a lot of content, I do a lot of stuff. But I think you hit the nail on the head. It’s. It’s that whole. The procrastination. I therefore go around in a lot of circles. It creates the anxiety and the stress. Stress in my mind, which then winds me up and then I don’t have a way of sorting that out. So it sounds like a book. I’m going to need to put on audible on loop as well.
Melissa:
You do audible? I love audible.
Lee:
I do, I do. But I’m one of those people though that listens to audible as I walk. And then I find within maybe the first chapter, I’m already.
Melissa:
I do that all the time. I press that 30 second back button on like a regular basis.
Lee:
Oh, okay. Oh, okay. I’m glad I’m not the only one then because I do that so much and it gets ridiculous because I’m not actually sure what the book was about. I tried to listen to the 7 Hats Habits of highly successful, whatever that book’s called and there were so many long words in that I just kind of got, just got lost and kept like staring around and phasing out. So I gave in on that book. I went and did the blink instead, you know? Have you seen the Blink app?
Melissa:
No, I haven’t.
Lee:
Oh my God. Oh, Blinkist, right? So Blinkist, it’s an amazing app. So if there is a book or the premise of a book that you just want to kind of cram, as it were, in 11 tiles, I think it is. They’ve got 11 tiles of a few paragraphs each and it’s like there’s audio and you can read it instead. And it gives you the general kind of the crib sheet notes, I guess of the entire book. So it gives you the whole strategy without all of the extra stories in the illustrations. But if you just want to get an understanding of something or a refresher of a book that you read a long time ago that you can then just have a look at Blinkist. That’s something that I do a lot of, which because I find I can’t commit lots of time to listening to audiobooks, I tend to go for Blinkist to get the basics. If the basics attract me, I’ll then go and read the physical book. But that tends to only be on holiday. So it sounds like me and a few listeners are going to need to create a habit of going for those daily walks.
Lee:
Is that literally daily with you guys?
Melissa:
Yeah, yeah, sometimes twice a day. Depends. So I might go for two miles in the morning or one mile in the morning, one at night. It just depends on where I’m at personally because it really helps me relieve. I need time and space to relieve my stress. I will say this on top of audiobooks, I do like regular books. But right now it’s really hard to bring those books with us and obviously we have different apps for that with the. You can read. The heck are those things? I’m forgetting. But the one book I did bring with me that I reference all the time and I used to listen to it on audioloop in 2018, like 2017 regularly is think and Grow Rich. It’s the only book I brought with me during this journey.
Lee:
Think and Grow. What’s the premise of that then?
Melissa:
So this is one of my. Just because we’re on the topics of books and we don’t have to get too far into it, but it’s by Napoleon Hill. It is a guy who. The book came out in the 1930s, so just take that into consideration. The time period is a little bit different than obviously this, today’s world, but a lot of the information in it is really, really helpful. This guy followed the richest people in the United States and just wanted to know how they lived their life. So a lot of the thoughts, the content inside of here are they’re on desire. It’s on faith, it’s on decision making, persistence, specialised knowledge, auto suggestion, imagination, organised planning, the power of a mastermind. This one’s a good one. The Mystery of Sex. Transmutation.
Lee:
That took a turn.
Melissa:
The subconscious mind. Yeah, right, the subconscious mind, the brain, the sixth sense and the six ghosts of fear. So that’s a really good one that I bring around with me all the time.
Lee:
That’s so cool. And this whole. The idea of the audio loop, as in you listening to these over and over again, is that because you. Is that because you don’t get it all in one go and you need to keep listening to it or is it because you don’t Want to forget it.
Melissa:
Both. So maybe I didn’t get it all the first time around. And second of all, motivation is something that needs to be. It’s like food. It needs to happen every day. And for me, I’ll be like, you know, I might be down about something or I might be hitting a procrastination wall and I’ll be like, you know what? I need to listen to this part of this book because I know that that’s going to motivate me.
Lee:
Oh, that’s really good. I like what you’re saying there. Motivation. It’s something you need to do daily. It’s food, essentially. And hand up again. I’ve certainly not been doing that. I do like to try and create something and I do create a lot, but I tend not to consume as much and I think that’s something that I probably need to do a little bit more. So this really has just become you giving me lots of life advice, which I really, really appreciate. But that’s exactly what we’d have been talking about, I think, if we’d have been hanging out at a conference, wouldn’t it? Me just grilling you for all this.
Melissa:
Yeah, 100%. Me doing the same thing. Back to you.
Lee:
I do have one other question before we wrap up the show. And there is no theme here, guys. I’m sorry, these are two buddies catching up. But I noticed you guys are rocking 8k followers now on Instagram, which is phenomenal. We’ve only just started our Instagram journey because we realised that design agencies are on Instagram. Well, duh. But I don’t know why I didn’t work that one out like donkeys years ago. But what’s been your Instagram strategy for getting to that level? I mean, you’re 2k off being able to put links in your stories.
Melissa:
I know. Could we please just put links in the comments?
Lee:
I’m desperate. So I’m like, how am I going to grow from 600 to 10,000 before I can put a link? But anyway, over to you.
Melissa:
We have plateaued a little bit, though I will say that we’re not. This kind of. Our 8K is kind of like our legacy over the past, like, few months. But it’s a lot of tedious work going out there, reaching out to people, constantly interacting with people, constantly posting the right kind of hashtags, following those hashtags. There are. There’s a lot of people that use bots and there’s good bots and there’s bad bots. I don’t necessarily 100% agree. But they do work for people when you’re really trying to find the right audience. So there’s all that. How do, how do you feel about bots on Instagram? Because. Because I feel like it. So the way that the bots work is you put a hashtag in your post, like hashtag design agency, and then you have a bot going out looking for that hashtag, and then that bot is following, liking commenting, and doing all this interaction for you. So it’s, it’s kind of taken away the personal interaction, and I think that it’s really messing with the Instagram algorithm.
Lee:
I’m dead against it. I think the main reason why is because I’ve found there is absolute power in networking online when you are physically involved in that networking, having those conversations with people, real conversations, as opposed to the. Yeah, the thumbs up and stuff. So we’re, we’re growing slowly on Instagram, but I mean, on Facebook it’s really worked for us, which is having conversations. We’ve made so many friends. And I said this two podcasts ago, when I talked about social media, I explained to people that I was quoting on an opportunity that had come in through Facebook because we network on Facebook and we interact and we have real conversations. Well, I kid you not, it is now the next week and I am now quoting on yet another new project that has come in through Facebook because we have been personable, we’ve shown up, we’ve networked with people, and I think that’s what people should be doing as well on Instagram. And, and I’m all for generating reports based on hashtags to allow you to find people that might be of a similar interest. So you can go cheque those profiles out, maybe follow them like some pictures, etc.
Lee:
That makes sense because you need to find your target audience, don’t you? But the actual interaction part and bots, I think I’ve never tried one. I think I’d be too scared to because I wouldn’t want to get closed down by Instagram. But also that whole personable networking thing is actually the most important thing to me. I think beyond the numbers, although I really want 10k because I want to be our post links. And that is the only reason why I want to take a photo.
Melissa:
Right? So. And the reason why I kind of brought this up is because the Creative Hustler actually started as Stephen’s personal account as like Stephen Pacanza. And then he changed like years ago, and then he changed it over to the creative. So this is something we’ve been working on for years. But we used to get a tonne of likes on our stuff, but now we don’t get nearly as much with the same hashtags. And I think that that has a lot to do with so many bots being used that hashtags don’t like, that organic hashtags don’t get seen as often. And so I’m really disheartened by this whole bot thing. It actually kind of bothers me, you know, because now you have all these people out there doing crazy bot stuff, and it’s for. What is it? It’s not. I’d rather have 400 followers than 10,000 followers. If those 400 followers are all engaged and we’re talking to each other and we’re commenting. Like you said, engagement. It’s all about that. Real engagement. And Adam, Instagram is. And this is a conversation I have all the time. So Instagram kind of just. You brought it up.
Melissa:
And I was like, yeah, exactly. Let’s get into this. But, yeah, I don’t know what’s going on. And they shut bots down, and then people just make new ones and they let them in. And I don’t know why they continuously let them in, because they can take them out. Facebook itself doesn’t have. You’re not allowed to do that on Facebook, but you can still somehow mess with the algorithm in the API in Instagram. So it just doesn’t really make any sense. Sense to me as to why they haven’t fully been able to just shut that stuff down.
Lee:
Now, I believe there’s a service that will allow. If you allow access to, like, an account manager, an account manager can log in on your behalf and go. And like, other posts on particular hashtags. And that’s not a bot service. So I’m not sure. I’m not sure about that. I think. I think that helps you build up an audience. And if you’re asking that, if you’re then posting questions that. Sorry, Posting content that asks questions of your growing audience and you can then start to interact with them, then perhaps that’s okay. But it is definitely the bot thing. You know, I. I think it’s definitely the bot things for me, that were. Because we get so many comments from bots, it’s frustrating and you can tell it’s a bot. It’s like, great post, thumbs up. And I’m like, yeah, I just. I just report and block. So if you’re human and you write, great post, thumbs up, sorry, I might have Reported and blocked. You.
Melissa:
You know how you can tell if one of your followers is doing something like that? Do you know how you can tell? Because I’ve researched this tonight. So this is how you can tell if your followers are using bots or not. And it’s funny because I’ve seen some people comment on how they can’t stand that kind of stuff, and da, da, da, da. And then I look and I see, all right, I think you’re using one because you went from 600 followers to 5,000 followers in two months, and it took us years to get to 8,000. So I would. So you go to your. You go to your Instagram, you go to, like, who likes your stuff? You know that heart down at the bottom, it shows you and, like, your. Your notifications. But if you go into following, like, who you’re following, you can see their notifications. And if you see somebody constantly liking 8 posts all the time and following it and following a tonne of people, that’s how you know it’s. It’s eight posts, like every hour.
Lee:
Oh, wow.
Melissa:
They like. Yeah. So I’ve done a lot of research on this because I was like, what is it with this bot stuff? Is it really a good idea or is a good idea?
Lee:
That’s amazing.
Melissa:
Should do a podcast.
Lee:
I think we should do some experiments as well. I just looked at mine. I’ve got 666 followers. I hope somebody follows me soon. So I do not have that terrible number. That kind of scares me. I’ll tell you what. The hack I found at the moment is hashtags in stories. I get 800 views per story at the moment, and that’s where I seem to be getting most of my followers from. If I use a hashtag like hashtag web design or hashtag designer or design agency, then I can get up to 800,000 views on one story. And quite often people will then go and cheque, who’s this goofy guy? And then that’s where we’re finding our followers. So that’s what we’re doing at the moment, as well as posting those audiograms that we make. They seem to be quite popular as well. So that’s the video kind of video wave of an episode of ours. So you’ve just gone ahead and light something on Instagram for me as well. I just saw that popped up on my notifications.
Melissa:
I did, because I saw that I had a little thing and you said, your story, so I looked at your story stories. You know, you should be able to share These now. I just got a notification from Instagram that you can share people’s stories now.
Lee:
Oh, can you? Oh, cool. Well, that would be awesome because I tagged you in whilst you were talking on a story and I used two hashtags. I wonder what we’re looking at. I should probably look at my phone again, shouldn’t I? See how many views we’ve had with those hashtags.
Melissa:
Web developer, Web development.
Lee:
Yeah, web developer. Web development. We’re getting instageeky now, aren’t we? I’ll blooming. Blooming.
Melissa:
Yeah, I know, we totally are.
Lee:
Apple wants me to update my iPhone just as I’m looking. I posted it 21 minutes ago. We’ve had. That’s cool. We’ve had 29 viewers and 21 viewers on the two hashtags. That’s not bad in 20 minutes, is it? So that’s 56 total views. A few of them being my friend, including you, Melissa. So there you go. So there you go. So there’s some accidental Instagram advice from Melissa and Lee because we’re awesome.
Melissa:
And to just really quick, just to go off of what you were saying about hashtags and stories. So I have one story that was only seen by 30 people, but then I have another story that has a hashtag on it that has 147 people seen just because of the hashtag.
Lee:
Yes. Insane, isn’t it? I didn’t know they worked. I just tried a hashtag to see if it worked and then lo and behold, up they popped. So I am really pleased with that. And I find. I don’t know if you’re the same, but I actually look at Instagram stories more than I do even Instagram posts nowadays.
Melissa:
Yeah, yeah. And that’s. That’s. That’s trending.
Lee:
Oh.
Melissa:
Looking at the stories over scrolling through the feed, I think that has a lot to do with the algorithm change and the fact that I see the same five. The same five posts all the time. When I go on in one day, I’ll see the same five posts and I’ll be like, I saw this like a million times already. They’re doing this whole algorithm change.
Lee:
We’ll get. I think the whole point of my episode the other day was the fact that we need to keep educating ourselves on these things because the biggest mistake I made with social media was like nailing it on Twitter for at least six months or so and it generating tonnes of business for us and then just doing the same thing and getting lazy with it and not really following what was Changing. And then we’ve kind of stagnated. So I’ve been really just finding where my audience is, which is actually, well, already Facebook, but also it being Instagram, because, you know, I’m in a visual medium. People like to see pictures.
Melissa:
Yeah.
Lee:
And I was like, oh, crap, I’ve been missing out on the whole thing, you know, and we’ve now got followers who are our exact ideal clients. So now it’s a case of, right, how can we engage with these people and start to build up some relationships? So I’m excited about that and I do hope so.
Melissa:
It’s a great case study.
Lee:
It is, isn’t it? Well, that’s what we’re trying to build because I want to then do a video about it on YouTube and we’ve been taking screenshots and doing videos and stuff like that to see what’s going on. I’m going to hate listening back to this episode because I literally sound like a teenage boy whose voice breaking. So with that said and my voice nearly being lost, what is the best way for people to connect with you? And then we shall boot you off the show nicely. Obviously. We’ll do it nicely.
Melissa:
Yeah. Kick me out. So you can. You can email me directly if you would like at [email protected] or go to latinandcode.com and connect with me there if you want to cheque it out. But I’m on all the social media Networks, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and Facebook under Melissa Rautenberg. So look for me. I’m pretty easy to find. There’s only like three of me in the world.
Lee:
Three of you in the world. So that is over On latinandcode.com. remember that amazing podcast with two very energetic and lovely people, which is over on the Creative Hustler. And don’t forget, she’s one of only three routine or even Melissa Rautenberg’s in the planet. So you might as well go ahead and follow her on Instagram. And please follow me on Instagram too, so we can get rid of that 666 number, because it’s scaring. Melissa, you are a wonderful, wonderful friend. I really, really appreciate you taking some time just to have a chat about everything. I think we’ve managed to fit everything. This is like a pub conversation where you literally just go from one random conversation to another. And it’s been awesome. I’ve learned.
Melissa:
I love it. Thanks for having me.
Lee:
Alrighty. Well, you take care and I’ll speak to you real soon.
Melissa:
Cool.
Lee:
Cheerio. That wraps up today’s show. Don’t forget, if you are not following us on YouTube then head on over to agencytrailblazer.com YouTube that’s where we put up our Agency Life videos and there are a series of really good videos coming where we cover a whole range of subjects all around Agency Life, productivity and more. So be sure to to cheque that out on agencytrailblazer.com YouTube and finally, before I go, if you are not plugged into the community, head on over to the Facebook group on agencytrailblazer.com group that will redirect you to the Facebook group where There are nearly 2,000 of us now rocking and rolling Agency Life together. See you there.
