Note: This transcript was auto generated then some poor soul sat and listened to it, and followed through correcting any mistakes they spotted. Please however expect human error and shout if you spot an issue. Email: lee [fancy curly symbol] trailblazer.fm.
Verbatim text
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Welcome to episode number 113 of the Agency Trailblazer podcast. This is your host, Lee Matthew Jackson, and on today’s show, we’re going to be talking to Jerry King. He’s going to be unpacking his journey over the last six to seven months on really niching down in his business. So sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
This podcast is brought to you by the Agency Trailblazer community. Are you frustrated with your business? 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.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Welcome to a conversation with me, Mr. Lee Matthew Jackson, and the funeral director website guy, Mr. Jerry King himself. Jerry, how are you today?
Jerry:
Good morning, Lee Matthew Jackson. I’m good, thanks. How are you?
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Mate, I am tip-top and champion. And if anyone can remember this beautiful, rich, gorgeous accent of yours, it’s because Jerry has been on the show. You may remember him from such shows as number 81, which was Stay the Course with Mr. Jerry King.
Jerry:
Oh, yeah.
Jerry:
Yeah, the Geordie accent resonates well with some people, but not with others. It’s interesting.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Well, yeah, man, no problem. But what we’re going to do, though, is we’re going to make sure we transcribe it for anybody who can’t understand the accent.
Jerry:
Yeah, yeah, do it.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Thankfully, I can understand you. I’m sure everyone can. Actually, there’s accents in America when I was over there last, and I had no idea what they were saying. I actually had my wife was trying to explain to me what they were trying to say to me, and I was getting all stressed at the counter. I’m like, I just don’t understand a word.
Jerry:
Southern drawl.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yeah, well, they thought I was Australian, which kind of offended me as well. No problem with Australians or anything, but clearly I’m not Australian.
Jerry:
No, no.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Well, mate, can you just give us a little bit of an introduction to yourself? So, like me, you appreciate the short haircut, which is great, but we’d like to know a little bit more about yourself. For anyone who didn’t listen to episode number 81, can you just give us a brief background of who Jerry King is, a little bit more about what you’ve done for the last few years, and then we’ll kind of launch into what’s happened since 81? I’ll start kind of pummeling you with awesome questions. So over to you, mate.
Jerry:
Good. Okay. So I have a web design business called iNetCo Limited, which I started in 2003. Before that, I did some night classes on HTML and various web things when the web was very much in its infancy. And I ran that business part-time for a few years and then went full-time about six or seven years ago. For the duration of that time, in the early days, I worked with an independent funeral director. And I’ve had referrals from that, so I’ve gradually built up the number of funeral director websites and clients that I have. So I’ve been clients for quite a few years. So a part of the business has been specialising in web design for independent funeral directors in the UK, and the other part of the business has been general WordPress web design for all kinds of clients. And that still is the case, but the emphasis is much more on the niche market at the moment.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
That’s awesome. And I joked, didn’t I, just before we started recording, that you’d been building websites since the invention of the very first computer by Mr. Charles Babbage. But then you did correct me, and it was actually 2003. I kind of felt like it was the late 90s for some reason. But I remember now, you’d been teaching yourself, haven’t you, for a long time and doing the courses, etc.
Jerry:
Yeah, I started night classes around about the year 2000, as I remember. I’m not exactly sure the date, but I did that for two or three years. At that time, there were all kinds of free courses going on. And they were basically short courses of, say, 12 weeks.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yeah.
Jerry:
And once you’ve finished one, you could have a look through to see what else was on offer. And I just would sign up for another one. So I did that for two or three years. And it was basically IT courses, but I went towards the website of things, and I picked all the web courses. And then I decided I didn’t want this to be a hobby. I wanted to do something with it. I remember watching the programme on the TV about the advent of the internet. And it was a documentary, and I was seeing the Internet train leaving the station now, and you need to jump on.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Well, I mean, I imagine some people may have thought that the internet was a little bit like Bitcoin, because I feel like they’re all saying that now, that the Bitcoin train is leaving the station, and I need to get on board. Apparently, if I’d have bought some Bitcoins a few years ago, I’d now be a millionaire. So, but hey, we live and learn. You haven’t bought any, though.
Jerry:
No, I still haven’t bought any, and I’m still convinced it’s all just going to crash.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
You understand it.
Jerry:
Sorry?
Lee Matthew Jackson:
You understand what it is.
Jerry:
No, absolutely not. I understand the premise of a Bitcoin. I understand that if you make it difficult to mine this, and you all agree that this thing has value and all that sort of stuff, then yes, I understand the premise of what Bitcoin is. And now that we all agree it has value, we can all kind of sell it and use it to purchase things, and obviously, its price is increasing. So, I feel like I understand quite a lot, but the minute people start saying blockchain and going into deep detail about what blockchain is and how blockchain is going to be the future, and it’s going to change the way we do computing or whatever else, my brain just liquefies. And I just go right back to, you know, watching, I don’t know, Father Brown on BBC, because it’s so freaking great, and if anyone can get it, watch it.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Back to what you understand, yeah. Stick with what you understand.
Jerry:
Exactly. And for anyone who doesn’t know what Father Brown is, it’s a 1950s slash 60s, I would say period drama, I don’t know, and it’s very much like Agatha Christie. It’s like, there’s been a murder, and you’ve got to work out how did it. It’s quite weird, because I watched my first ever episode of Father Brown just at the weekend.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
No way! It’s so good! I love it!
Jerry:
And it’s based in the Cotswolds, which is this gorgeous little area of England, so any of our American listeners, go down to the Cotswolds if you’re ever in England, and we kind of do this. We’ve watched Father Brown now for five years, like ever since it began, and we do like a pilgrimage every year down to the Cotswolds, and we go to the church, and we go inside, and we look around. I need to watch some more episodes, and I was quite impressed with it, but I need to get more into it, I think.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Well, there’s blockchain, or there’s Father Brown, so you can see how my interest is so turned off the minute somebody says blockchain. I do actually, and funnily enough, I do have on my list of things I need to cover on this podcast. It is about Bitcoin and blockchain, because I don’t understand it. And the reason why I started this podcast in the very first place was so that I and everyone who listens can go on a learning journey.
Jerry:
Well, I’m disappointed because I thought you said, I thought you were going to say that you were going to have a featured podcast on Father Brown.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
I could do that, I could try and do that, but I’m not really sure how I could, well, I suppose we could, like, what lessons could we draw from his logical, analytical brain to the process of quality assurance with our websites? Do you think that would work?
Jerry:
Yeah, yeah.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
And everyone would have to go and watch the entire five seasons first before they listen to the podcast.
Jerry:
I think you would make it work.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Well, I’m making a Disney podcast work somehow.
Jerry:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Oh, mate. Well, I’m grateful to have you back on the show, and a lot has changed in a very short amount of time. And I remember listening to you talking about the funeral directors and how you’ve, I guess, kind of accidentally and then subconsciously, purposefully started to build up that niche. Now, you’ve absolutely gone all in. Tell us a little bit more about that.
Jerry:
Yeah. So, I’ve had a rebrand of the branding. It was basically, it was just an offshoot of the iNetCo brand for a lot of years. But I’ve worked with a graphic designer to create a new brand for the business. You’ve asked me in the past about networking. Rather than generic networking or general business networking now, I tend to concentrate on doing funeral director events and exhibitions. And because I’m now operating, it’s rather than locally, it’s UK. So, I work with funeral directors all over the country. A lot of it is online. I’m finding that email marketing works quite well. I’m trying to put into action a lot of the lessons I’ve learned from the Content Marketing Academy, which I’ve visited for the past three years in Edinburgh. So, I’m writing blogs on a regular basis and trying to create content just to put me at the forefront of these guys. I’ve also joined another one of the trade associations. So, this is one of the advantages of having a niche market, that a lot of trades, a lot of industries have trade organisations where suppliers can join and become a member and get access to their prospective customers. So, I’ve joined these two main trade bodies for the funeral industry. And I joined the second of those just back in the summer there. And that’s proven to be really good. I just had, just at the beginning of this week, one of the benefits of the latest organisation that I joined, an organisation called the NAFD, is that they have a monthly magazine. It’s a good quality magazine for their members. And if you are a trade member, then you can have an article in that magazine every month, free of charge. So, I had an article in this month’s magazine, which I’ve actually put a post on Facebook with a picture of that, so that you might, in the last couple of days. So, yeah, so there are those kinds of benefits for working in the niche market.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Well, it sounds like to me, I mean, you, like I said, you kind of built up this name over time because you’d done one and then did another because of the other and so forth. But now your whole mindset appears to have completely changed. And we’re covering a lot of this, and we’ve covered a lot of this in the past, all about niching. But the minute you have, like, you’ve worked out what your service is, it’s building out websites. You’ve also then worked out who you can do that for, which is for the funeral directors. And these are independent funeral directors as well. So, you’re niching down even further. You’re not trying to go for the big corporate companies that have got multiple sites all around the UK. You’re actually going for independents who need support, which means you can talk their language. It means all of your branding, obviously. And I’m looking at the website, guys. You can check it on funeraldirectorwebsites.co.uk. All of your branding is focused. All of your messaging is focused. And everything you’ve just said off the top of your head about what you’ve been doing, all of those activities are things you are doing because you know who your target market is. And you need to be reaching these funeral directors. You’re getting your articles in the industry rag, I guess they would call it, which is freaking awesome as well, which is raising your credibility. And it’s, you know, do you find yourself like just thinking, maybe you don’t, but do you find yourself often thinking, like, what next can I tell my target audience? Or this would be great for my target audience?
Jerry:
Yeah. How can I help them really is the, and how can I be more of a help than competitors? Because, of course, I do have competition because I think the three options generally for a funeral director who wants to get a website built would be to use me.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Well, one option. Obviously, the best option.
Jerry:
The second option, which a lot of them go for, and I think they go for this option because they are pressurised by sales calls, is the Yale or the BT websites option. A lot of them get told into doing that because traditionally they’ve advertised in Yellow Pages. So sometimes those businesses have got a relationship with the funeral director already. So, and then, you know, they have these telesales people who just are quite relentless. So a lot of them do go down that route.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yeah.
Jerry:
And then the other option is to use your local web designer, your local web agency. And my persuasion would be on that one is that, yeah, that is a good option if you’ve got somebody who you know and you can trust. It is a bit of a gamble if you’re just sourcing from scratch and trying to find somebody without any prior knowledge.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Well, I’m going to assume as well that when you’re building a funeral director’s website, there are a whole range of things that you probably understand above Yale or above the local guy because I assume, well, first of all, there is the fact that this is a subject which is deeply personal. It’s, you know, deeply distressing for the people who are dealing with the funeral director. I lost my dad, I think it’s nearly four years ago now, you know, so, and the content on their website was done very respectfully. There’s a lot of thought process gone in, the communications that we had with the funeral director. He was an independent funeral director as well. But, you know, their communications with us both in email and on the telephone and physically when we met up with them was wonderful. They were so kind. They were understanding. They would give us lots of time and space when we were upset, et cetera. So, I imagine there’s a whole load of things that you need to be considering that you understand a hell of a lot more than, obviously, the cookie-cutter Yale.com or somebody who was just coming in at this with no experience.
Jerry:
Yeah. And having that experience and knowing the industry, it is most definitely a benefit. And a lot of those people are looking for somebody that does understand the industry. But having said that, the principles are exactly the same as far as building a website is concerned. And it’s got to be done with care and attention and effort and going the extra mile. You know, you’re not going to create a reputation in any industry if you’re haphazard and you don’t do good work. And that’s, you know, some of these, the more cookie-cutter options that you mentioned. Getting content, as you know, is not always easy when you’re building websites, getting content from your customers, presenting that content. So, it’s unique to that customer. And I’ve had a young freelancer working with me lately. And I have outsourced before as well to various freelancers. And it’s always difficult to get somebody to put the same care and attention into building something as you put in yourself. That’s a bit of an obstacle for me because I’m having a problem getting past that idea. But, you know, you can build a website for a funeral director in a morning, but it’s just going to be ticking boxes, really. If you’re going to put stock images in, if you’re going to copy and paste text from another guy’s website, then you’re not going to be satisfactory and you’re not going to build a reputation by doing that. I get a lot of guys say to me, “Oh, they looked at my portfolio when I’ve got a prospective customer and they say, I love this website, I love that one,” because it stands out. And that’s the same if you’re building websites for anybody. That’s really the way to approach it, as far as I’m concerned.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
That’s so true. I think that’s a common problem we have with regards to outsourcing some of the things that we do, especially because we have our own unique way of doing things. We have our care and attention to detail because it’s our business. And then when it’s handed over sometimes to some freelancers, and this is not to label all freelancers, but there are some freelancers there who will just quickly turn around and slap it back as quickly as they can. One thing we found really helpful internally, and we actually had a meeting this morning just before this call, because we noticed there was a few slips in our QA, in our quality assurance process. So I came and did kind of an after-the-fact check of a website that my team had done. So this was one of the projects that no longer involved me, because obviously I’ve been working on some different projects. So I came back and I noticed a whole load of issues. And I said, look, this is very disappointing. We need to work out how have we missed these. Thankfully, the client had not yet noticed, which was great, because it means we’ve got everything fixed before they did. But what we’ve done, and they finished this morning making the first list, was refining the process of how we build and how we do our QA, which is our quality assurance. And Larissa and Karthik actually got together and made a list of some key things that we should check. Because one thing I’d noticed, I mean, I’m almost ashamed to have confessed this, but I noticed one page was 85 meg in size. And what happened was that they were loading the images for the slider, which you didn’t even need to yet, because unless the slider was triggered, you didn’t actually need to show all the images. But also they were showing the full-sized images instead of the cropped versions. So there was, I think there were 24 meg images plus a whole load of other stuff, et cetera. So, you know, so they were able to fit into the existing process, which didn’t include check the page footprint, a new line of check the page footprint, check for thumbnails, et cetera, and all that sort of stuff. So, and that’s something that we’ve continuously evolved. Now that document then goes over to any freelancers or any contractors that we then have as well. And they have that same checklist to do. So we found that super helpful.
Jerry:
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that is one thing that I’ve used if I am working with a freelancer or outsourcing, is checklists. And I haven’t found it better. And we actually, to keep on top of production and quality control. Yeah, I don’t know if I’ve worked out shouting doesn’t work, by the way.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Right. Oh, man.
Jerry:
No, yeah. So, I mean, it’s, at the moment it is just me. And I do have a freelancer that I work with. I do have one of the other things that not everybody. And we’ve just had a brief conversation on Facebook about it this week. I think you mentioned the security plugin. And I’m always looking at that side of things as well. So, I pay attention to that. I have a guy. I’ve got a security expert. I mentioned this to you the last time we spoke, who has worked with me for about three or four years now. And he does all of my updates on a weekly basis.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yeah.
Jerry:
So, I know for a fact that a lot of, that’s a bit, that is a USP in a lot of respects because not everybody does that for clients.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
So that’s added value you’re adding to your clients. Is that something you’re charging for as part of like a hosting package or as part of a support package?
Jerry:
Yeah. It’s an ongoing fee. And, again, these are things that, it all comes into the whole pricing question, doesn’t it? You know, you try to get your pricing right. You try to get your ongoing fees right. And I charge a fee which is hosting and support and maintenance. But, actually, the hosting is not the important part. Sorry, it is the important part because I believe in using a good hosting company. But, it’s not the costly element of that fee. Instead, the big value in the hosting fee to clients is the fact that they don’t have websites without date plugins in which are a security risk which are liable to be hacked. And, that’s the kind of thing that, you know, you need to have clients who are prepared to pay for that.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
I guess, as well, again, in your niche, having a protected website is very important to them because they don’t want inappropriate messages being inserted onto their website and potential upset customer having a look.
Jerry:
Mate, I’m already speaking into your industry. I’ve just given you an idea there for a new blog post. And if anyone’s watching on video, he literally just pretended to write that down. Brilliant. Now, one thing me and you were talking about, and I always love having a good chinwag with you. And you were mentioning that when you niched down, there was one thing that’s been in the back of your mind. And that’s what the modern youth of today called FOMO, which is fear of missing out. And you have, you know, you’ve gone for super niche. Your communication, your messaging, what you’re all about now is, you know, independent funeral director websites, which can be quite a mouthful. How are you dealing with the FOMO? Are you still struggling with it or have you seen some green shoots of success, which are encouraging you to plough on on your new mission?
Jerry:
Well, when I decided on the rebrand and the relaunch, if you like, of this niche part of my business last year, the plan was it would become 90% and eventually possibly 100% of the business. Because, the FOMO aspect that you mentioned, the fear of missing out is that you can talk about doing that as much as you like, about niching down and concentrating on your niche market. But, until you actually start turning other work away, so you create the space that you’ve then got to fill with that work, you’ve got to do that first. On a daily basis, unfortunately, I get enquiries every week, all kinds. And some people think you’re a fool if you’re turning work down. It’s work, why are you turning it down? And that’s something that you’ve got to do if you’re serious about niching down. I am probably at the point now where, if I’ve got an existing customer who has a project that they want me to work on, and if I think the project is a good fit for me, I still will do that. But generally speaking, new enquiries, I will refer them on to someone else. When I first, I knew that there was going to be some pain with that. And when I did that initially, there was a gap. When I was turning work down and trying to, I was concentrating on marketing on this niche, and your marketing doesn’t work overnight, it takes a while for it to kick in and it went to a month. And I wasn’t seeing any more work coming through than that had beforehand. And I was starting to be a bit concerned. But I hit about, I hit a three-month period and then it started to kick in a bit. And I think with marketing, you do have to be patient and you have to take a leap of faith and get over this fear of missing out.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
With regards to the marketing there, so what sort of things were you doing in those first three months? So, you’d already decided, I’m going to create this new brand for funeral director websites. Obviously, iNetCo still exists and still exists to this day for now. But what were your marketing efforts, at least for the first few months, to try and get exposure to the new brand and your new messaging?
Jerry:
Attending events. So, industry events and exhibitions.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yeah.
Jerry:
Working with, I’ve got partners who I work with in the industry who refer work to me. So, building up relationships with them.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Mm-hmm.
Jerry:
Content marketing. So, writing more blog posts.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Mm-hmm.
Jerry:
More helpful stuff for funeral directors. I’ve actually created a lead magnet, which was content, how to market your funeral business, which was a PDF.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Brilliant.
Jerry:
But I then went to the next step and got that printed as a booklet. So, I took that to the exhibition with me.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Fantastic.
Jerry:
And I’ve been able to post those out to people. The two industry associations that I’m a member of, they have magazines, which I can A, advertise in, or B, put articles in.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Mm-hmm.
Jerry:
So, all of those things. And some social media as well. Not so heavy on the social media so far, but mostly those things that I’ve mentioned.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
I suppose, though, with your particular niche as well, is you don’t actually have hundreds of independent funeral directors tweeting and being on Facebook. Because, again, it’s very much an industry where you do have to be careful what you say, don’t you, as well. You can’t just share anything, do anything online. And they have to be very reserved and make sure they’re very respectful in any and all of their communications. So, that’s one of the more unusual industries where, actually, print is really powerful. They are receiving their industry magazines. They’re sat around a lot, you know, waiting for things to happen. They’re going to read that at these industry events. They’re all going to go there and connect with each other. And I like the fact that you’ve been forming some alliances as well with strategic partners in the industry; you know, people who have your target customer who also work with them, etc., which is very good. And I think what you’re building a picture of here as well is, yes, there was the fear of missing out. Hey, will you build me this website for my restaurant? I’ve got lots of money to give you. And you’re like, no, I need to focus on my niche. And that is scary as anything, especially for those first three months. But what I’m hearing from you, Jerry, and perhaps what wasn’t happening six months ago, but is now, is that the minute you’ve got my ideal customer is, you are now, like, it’s rolling off your tongue. I asked you that question. You know exactly what you’re doing, what you need to do to get your target, to get eyeballs, as it were, on your message for your target audience.
Jerry:
Now, if you were still a full-service agency doing websites for anyone, I would challenge you to give me a succinct answer about what you were doing. It’s really hard, isn’t it? When you don’t have a target market, I’m like, well, maybe I’ll do a bit of networking. And maybe I’ll put an ad in the local, that magazine that comes through my door with ads for, like, plumbers and everyone else in there. Maybe I’ll put an ad in the Yellow Pages and you just don’t, there is no focus, is there?
Jerry:
I don’t know what to say or do. That’s the thing that I want to overcome. It was one of the big challenges and one of the big worries for me. I think marketing is the biggest challenge for any business. Quite often it’s the biggest worry because you think you’re not doing it right or you’re not doing enough of it. And I had this moment about six months ago when I thought I would love just to be able to work in one industry and just market that industry rather than try to constantly think of ways to market to different people. Marketing is a real challenge for any business. So if you can simplify that and if you can be more focused every day because I think you should be marketing your business every day of the week, it’s the first thing you should be doing. Then it actually gives you a bit more peace of mind. You know, you’re not so confused and so distraught every day because you’re wondering who am I going to market to? How am I going to do that marketing?
Lee Matthew Jackson:
And a lot of the things you’re investing in as well are no longer shots in the dark. They’re no longer risks. You know, it’s there. It is far more likely that your article in the industry rag is, again, that’s what we call it here in the UK. But in the industry magazine is going to be read, is going to be seen, is going to be potentially going to convert as well. There’s a lot more rather than just putting an ad in the local paper because you’ve got that focus. But also the messages that you have and the things that you say are always going to have more power because they’re targeted at that particular person. The independent funeral director needs to know these messages, wants to know how to market their business, wants to know how to have locals be aware that their service even exists or wants to know how to get a local to choose their funeral service above any other funeral service. And having that leaflet, How to Market Your Funeral Business, I can’t remember quite what the title was, but that has immense power versus How to Market Your Business, How to Market Your Funeral Business, Mr. Independent Funeral Director. And he or she is like, I need to read this. This is something for me. And Jerry King’s credibility now is through the roof because he is the guy who knows how you need to market your funeral business. And it’s like, right, we need to connect with this guy. I’m a massive advocate of niching, and I’m really excited so far to hear your conversations.
Jerry:
I mentioned earlier on the content marketing and the academy conference in Edinburgh, which I’ve been to for the last three years. And at last year’s event, one of the last speakers, they had some big-name speakers. And then they had some smaller businesses who were part of that community did presentations. And one of the last speakers at the event was a girl who was named, I can’t remember now, but she gave an absolutely passionate talk about how she just works with accountants. She has a marketing business. And she was extolling the benefits of working with a niche market. Her niche market was accountants. I know people back in the early days when my business was part of a franchise, they had an arrangement with the National Hairdressers Federation. And they concentrated on serving hairdressers. So there are so many niches out there. And as soon as you’ve done a good job for one reputable person in that niche and helped them to be more successful, helped them to get more business, then you’ve got a great case study to start building your niche.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Absolutely.
Jerry:
It does take time to build. It takes time for you to be that person.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
I feel, though, that the amount of time that it takes to establish yourself and to grow a successful business in a niche is still a lot less than starting off as the full-service agency. You’ve been in business since 2003, building websites and doing design for many different people, many different industries, etc. And yet you’ve seen results in three months. In those first three months, you saw it being very quiet. And now you’re making a name for yourself very quickly. And obviously, you’ve got the credibility of all the years of experience since 2003 of building websites, of being in this industry, which is also great. And you’re also exceedingly good looking, which also obviously helps as well. But it is, you know, in three months, start to see… I’ve actually got my glasses off because they reflect. So perhaps it’s just because of my glasses. But, you know, to see results already after those three months and now six months in and, you know, you are being successful, you are already known, you know, your name, Jerry King, and your brand is already known in the industry. You’re already at these industry events. You’re already converting. That is phenomenally exciting. So we’re not saying that niching down is the quick win for your business, but it’s certainly going to set you up for a hell of a lot more success. And I speak as well as someone who has two niches. I have a niche business in the events industry, and we only talk to big conference event organisers. And we have this business who only talks to agency owners. And everyone listening is somebody who builds websites or does design. And they either work in an agency, work for agencies, or they are an agency. So, again, all of my messaging and all the things I’m talking about is targeted at you. You know, we all know, you know, we know what we’re talking about, and we are creating a name for ourselves in those spaces.
Jerry:
Yeah. And the way to start is to do it organically, isn’t it? And I started locally, so initially I built up about four or five customers in the northeast of England where I am, and then cast the net a little bit wider. And, I mean, when I first, when we first crossed paths, I think it was on the Beaver Builder.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
That’s right.
Jerry:
And there’s a girl on there who’s in South Africa, Chantel.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Chantel, yeah.
Jerry:
He specialises.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Chantel Edouard, something, I can’t remember her name.
Jerry:
She specialises in women, female coaches, I believe, female business coaches or life coaches, and she just builds websites for that market. And she’s another one who she talks often about the benefits of doing that to her business when she made that decision.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yeah. And also, I think for Chantel is that she also then started to put herself out there as well as images of herself. And she said that that actually helped really increase the conversions that she was getting because people connect with people. People buy from people. There’s a lot around personal branding. I think that has a lot of power. I mean, Chris Ducker talks about the Youpreneur and about how he’s launched several businesses over several years. And every time he launched a business, he had to go through the whole process of marketing that brand and building up its brand credibility and all of the other stuff that comes with it. Whereas because he’s now put himself as the forefront, he could actually start a business tomorrow and it could start making money. Because there is the brand of Chris Ducker, who is the kind of the connector between all sorts of different things. So, you know, and you’ve got some great photography on your website, not on your website, on your Facebook profile. In fact, I believe I stole one of them for your podcast.org. Of you kind of looking all cool into the distance and all trendy with the river behind you.
Jerry:
Yeah, yeah. I swear I’ve been in business about 12 years or something before I even had a headshot.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Well, there you go. And it’s been great, yeah. Well, that looks amazing. And what I would challenge you, mate, is it ain’t on funeraldirectorwebsites.co.uk. I would say maybe get that on there. I don’t know.
Jerry:
You know, it’s a funny one. It hasn’t been on. And then I’ll get it off again. I suppose what works for your industry. But, you know, there is certainly power, I think, from what Chantel, you know, has established. And other people as well, like Adam [unclear].
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yeah, putting yourself out there, people really connect. Apparently, people like me, I had one message actually from someone who’s become part of the Agency Trailblazer. And for some of the modules in there, I’ve actually just done audio. But they were used to consuming my content as video. And they were saying they really miss seeing my face for whatever reason. But I think a lot of it is because there’s the visual, isn’t there? There’s seeing the person. Like, I’m talking to you now on video. And I’m actually looking at your eyes, even though you can’t see me looking at your eyes. Because that’s the way we’re connecting and we’re having a conversation. So, yeah. Sorry, that was a bit of a tangent, wasn’t it? But, hey.
Jerry:
No, but it’s another one of the factors that you need to consider these days because it’s part of marketing, isn’t it? And because we are so used to be able to converse in this way and to get to know people who years gone by, you wouldn’t have had this kind of relationship with people because you couldn’t see them. You didn’t know what they looked like. So, yeah.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Well, on that, I mean, one of the things that fascinates me is how small this world is. So, you are a big believer in getting out. You’ve already shared with us that you go to industry events. You shared with us that you attended CMA for three years in a row, which is a huge event up in Edinburgh. And I attended the Youpreneur Summit a few months ago. And I met Andrew and Pete and several other people who all said, wait, I know you. I’m like, how? Even Andrew and Pete said, you interviewed Jerry King on your podcast, didn’t you? I was like, what? I’m in London. You’re in Newcastle. And these are all people that you’ve met at CMA and you’ve become friends with. Networking has changed, hasn’t it?
Jerry:
Yeah. Networking need not be local.
Lee Matthew Jackson: Yeah.
Jerry:
I don’t know if you’ve ever thought about getting Andrew and Pete for a session because they’re really—I work with them a lot. They’re based up here in Newcastle as well. But they’re really interesting guys who are the marketing experts as far as I’m concerned. And I’ve had a lot of support from them and a lot of push because they’re young and they’re full of great ideas. And they believe in just going for it. So sometimes it’s good to work with people like that.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
But it’s always good to work with people like that. I love their energy. They’ve got a YouTube channel. I’ll make sure I put it in the show notes as well. Andrew and Pete, they specialise in marketing, don’t they, based in Newcastle. But they’ve got some great content, including one that I was watching, I think, a few days ago about how to stop procrastinating.
Jerry:
Yeah.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Which is something that I struggle with. One that I would recommend because there’s so much talk about it these days and so many people seem to be cashing in on it with classes and courses: GDPR.
Jerry:
Yeah.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
That’s a big one. If you Google GDPR, Andrew and Pete, they’ve got a YouTube video, which is serious, but it’s not serious. It’s a different take on the subject we want to get there. It’s only about five minutes long, but I’d recommend it to anyone to have a look at that, yeah.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
So that’s GDPR. And, I mean, the point I think I wanted to make, really, was that the one thing that I struggled with a lot when I first launched Angle Crown, particularly, was that I felt like I’d run an agency. I’d had to travel to London all the time. There was all this travelling and meetings, and it was all very overwhelming. So the first kind of six months of Angle Crown, I kind of hid behind my computer. I never went out. I never met anyone. I did a bit of networking locally. But I kind of thought that I was going to make money online by sitting behind Facebook ads and kind of automating my marketing. And people know that I have not a low regard for funnels. It’s just that I just choose not to necessarily understand them very much because I’m very relational and I just like having conversations and that. But I was going down that line at first and getting absolutely nowhere. And then I attended the NMEU down in London and instantly got clients just by hanging out with a whole load of cool people who were all in media. And all of that kicked off. So I’ve definitely found two things from events is business suppliers. I’ll put that under one. And then the other one is friends and the small world.
Jerry:
Yeah, yeah.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
So how did, if you don’t make me ask, and I know it’s your interview, not mine.
Jerry:
No, this is a two-way conversation. Go for it.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
How did things go when you were across in America? You were there for two months, were you?
Jerry:
Yeah.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
That was a business focus on that, was it?
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yes. The idea there was to be in the correct time zone and have conversations with existing clients, but also to meet new clients and to also network locally in Florida. So I got to meet a lot of friends from the WP Innovator community, including John Perez, Nick Bostic, etc. So we actually got to have like beers together, meals together, hang out. I also gained a whole load of business because my phone was on in that time zone. People were able to call and I actually sold a few websites whilst I was out there with a few agencies. So a lot of it was about that. And also just trying to see for us whether or not we could, you know, we want to try and create a lifestyle for ourselves where we’re spending some time in the UK and also some time in the United States and sometimes in Canada as well. Because we love all three countries. We’ve got family in all sorts of different locations. So it’s great to be able to move. So that was a good try for that. But again, like literally going full circle back to events. If it wasn’t for all the events that I’ve attended and the events you’ve attended, then the world would be a lot lonelier because people in Florida I met because of the events I attended in London, which is ridiculous, isn’t it? You know, I attended an event in London and they have friends in Florida and I got to meet those friends and we did business.
Jerry:
It’s like, yeah.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
It’s like, yeah.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yeah.
Jerry:
Yeah.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yeah. And likewise, when I say to, again, when I talk about this niche market and about the fact that I wanted one option that my potential customers have is to work with a local agency. And what I actually say to them is, well, you might find that you meet me more than you would meet the guy from the local agency because of the fact that I go to these, your events and I’m out there. Whereas sometimes you can procure a website from a local agency and might never ever meet the guys. So that’s, yeah, it’s getting out there. Yeah. Face to face, social media. Yeah, that’s good. But there’s no substitute for being at a weird event for two or three days and getting to know people. And with that sort of, and it’s not rushed, you know, you can stop and have conversations with people face to face. Yeah.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Well, the other thing about that as well is you’re hanging around obviously with your customers, but you’re also hanging around with your customer suppliers and potential customers, obviously. But you’re all bouncing off each other. So you have relationships with other suppliers. You’re all talking about what does and doesn’t work. Therefore, you’re all learning how to market to your target audience together because you’re a bunch of peers. But also that is amazing client research for you, Jerry, because when someone then goes to launch their next website with you, you are now armed with really, really, really, really, really, really, really valuable information about how best to position a funeral director’s website, how best to market it, what the latest trends are, what the latest things are that are working, the latest app that apparently does something incredible in your industry, because you found that out at an event that you’ve been chatting with some fellow suppliers or with, you know, and you’re learning from people who may never become your customer, but the conversations that they’re having with you is gold. Because they’re telling you things and problems in your industry that are phenomenal, that you know you can solve, that when you’re then next having a conversation with your next potential client, you can put those out, you can put that conversation out there. And again, your credibility is going through the roof. You’re like, this guy really understands me. He understands my business. He understands the problems. Do you think we’ve sold niching to everyone now?
Jerry:
I think so.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
I think so.
Jerry:
Do you think we can just wrap that up now and say, go niching?
Lee Matthew Jackson:
No, they never will.
Jerry:
What we could do is just re-record this podcast now and go, hey, and welcome to the podcast. Go niching. Goodbye.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yeah.
Jerry:
Yeah.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
So, yeah, it’s, well, it isn’t all about niching as well, as I mentioned earlier. It’s also about, it’s about the fact that it’s attention to detail on the work that you do. It’s about giving people, going the extra mile and putting the hours in, putting the hard miles in, rather than just turning out something that is not going to impress anybody very much. You know, it’s got to be right in every respect. And that really has got nothing at all to do with niching and all to do with standards, hasn’t it?
Jerry:
Yeah, definitely. Obviously niche, but also run a good business. I mean, niching is no substitute for quality as well.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Both go hand in hand for definite because if you niche and provide bad quality, you will get a name for yourself in that industry. Unfortunately, it won’t be a good name.
Jerry:
Yeah, that’s it. A good reputation takes years to build up and you can do it overnight. But I’m also really interested when you mentioned quality control earlier on there, because you have a, I think it’s fair to say, a bigger agency than I do. And how you manage quality control. I mean, I think that in itself would be the subject of a great podcast, you know, to home in on that, how we can improve that quality and improve your standards.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Well, we will do one. We’re actually working on updating our own documentation that we use because that’s then going to be available in the Agency Trailblazer community for people to download as swipe files. But then what we’ll do is we’ll complement that with an in-depth podcast, which will go out for free. So if people want the swipe files, they can join the community, but we’ll obviously try and put as much free information out there as we can to help people get started as well on their own journeys because, I mean, we’ve built up these processes for over a very long—well, over 10 years because a lot of them I actually brought over from my last business. But we’re still making mistakes 10 years later, mate. So I think this is an ongoing journey where we just need—it’s not going to—
Jerry:
It’s not going to—We’re human.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Until Skynet is real and takes over and starts building websites for us, then this is going to be an ongoing process.
Jerry:
So, mate. Since I started, I think I mentioned to you the last time, the Michael Gerber E-Myth business model, that’s the thing that I’ve always been working towards and I continue to work towards that. But actually, I sometimes wonder whether that is quite an old book. And I just—there’s so many businesses run differently to that these days, that model where the business owner is detached from the business. I’m just wondering whether that idea needs to be revisited or whether it’s still relevant.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Well, I think—I don’t know. It’s a great question. I think if you’re going to go down the line of elevating your personal brand to drive business, then there is scope for you being elevated as kind of the brand of your business and having other people involved doing the day-to-day. I think there is still—a lot of us are not good business managers. We’re great at being out there publicly. We’re great at creating content. And maybe we’re great as well at building websites, etc. But I think a lot of us still do need to employ a business manager and other people to do things so that we can be out there more. I mean, your time is best and most valuably spent by being out there, by marketing your business. And obviously, you do need to make some time to do the actual work as well. But—well, I mean, a quick story was in our agency years and years ago, one of the biggest phrases we had was “paying client work first.” And that’s actually a real big mistake to make. I mean, it sounds great. I mean, yeah, this client’s paying. So let’s ignore that call of a prospective customer because we need to do this paying client work first. But our priorities were all wrong. You know, we were not actually putting any time aside for our own marketing of the business, which includes looking after those potential leads. And all we were doing was focusing everything on the work that we were doing, which then meant by the end of that project, we had no work coming in. We had to hustle to just get the next month’s worth of work coming in. So—
Jerry:
That’s a really good point. Yeah, I like that. Yeah.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yeah. So I think you can be out of the business a little more as more of a brand in your own right, which will in turn drive traffic around full circle. And you can build up a team around you who are doing the things that you don’t do so well, which is another mistake I think a lot of us make, is that we all think we need to employ—like I’m a very good WordPress developer. So in my head, I might think I need to employ another very good WordPress developer so I can do more on business development. But actually, I’m probably a terrible business development manager. So actually, instead of that, why don’t I keep doing WordPress and I employ a business development guru or have a consultant or something like that? And that’s exactly what we’ve been doing this year is we’ve been paying an awful lot of money to some very clever people to do things that I can’t do. And I’ll keep doing WordPress and I’ll keep doing podcasts and we’ll see how it goes.
Jerry:
Well, actually, in reference to that, right back in the early days when I started this business, I formed a limited company right from day one, but it was a really small part-time business. I bought a franchise initially when I kicked the business off. So I got an accountant, set the business up, I had to go limited. And for the first couple of years, I actually paid the accountant more than I paid myself.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Wow.
Jerry:
But I just took the view that if the financial side of the business wasn’t right from the start, the business hasn’t got hope in hell, has it?
Lee Matthew Jackson:
I think we need to do, I think it’s definitely an important podcast to do soon is finance, is management and cash flow management and things like tax man and all that sort of stuff. And I know a lot of it would be based on my UK experience, but I’m pretty sure, you know, the processes you can put in place are pretty much universal as well, you know, because I’ve seen agencies that have been borrowing the tax money to pay the salaries and then the tax bill comes and, you know, there’s all sorts of potential problems. I think that’s a minefield in its own right. So you did the right thing, I think, getting set up from the beginning with an accountant who can look after you. You mentioned things that you’re not good at, I’m not good with the figures and the bookkeeping.
Jerry:
Same.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
I can’t, I used to try to save money and I would spend till the middle of the night, and I mean 2 a.m., filling in FreshBooks and whatever else or changing apps because I was, wasn’t doing it right. So I thought, oh, it must be FreshBooks’ fault. I’m going to go and try something else. And it wasn’t, it was just me making a pig’s ear of it all. You mentioned FreshBooks gives me shudders because it sounds very much like QuickBooks, which I have nightmares every time I think about.
Jerry:
You use QuickBooks, I used to hear QuickBooks.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
I use QuickBooks as well and I was excited about it because I thought, oh yeah, it’s got all these integrations and everything like that. But it’s actually, I don’t know, it’s a bit frustrating. Like I can’t do draft invoices. Like one of the ways I manage my upcoming invoice pipeline is if I’ve sold a project and I’m invoicing 50% on it, I can then create a draft invoice, which is another view. In our old software we used to use, I could create all these draft invoices. So I could very quickly do a quick report and go, oh, look, we’ve got 50 grand over the next three months coming in of, you know, these are all the other 50% or, you know, a combination of 50s and 25s. You can’t do that in QuickBooks. So I’m having to keep a spreadsheet outside of QuickBooks. And then we’ve done this little Zapier integration now that if I move one line onto the other tab, it will then create the invoice in QuickBooks because I’m trying to automate as much as I can. But it’s a bit of a, you know, arse about face way of doing things, unfortunately.
Jerry:
So perhaps in the comments on the website, so agencytrailblazer.com, this episode is going to be on agencytrailblazer.com. Go over there, go into the comments and guys, share your processes for accounts as well. I know we’ve talked about niching, but me and Jerry are doing a classic, which is going completely off topic and share your accounts packages and why you love them or why you hate them in the comments. I’m just going to get something.
Jerry:
And now Jerry has run away and is running back. Here we go. It covers all those things. It’s written by an accountant. It’s Stephen Brigginshaw, The Profit’s Principles. I recommend it. And we’ve actually tricked everyone into a big, long advertorial. For the video, do you want to hold that one up? Let’s have a look at that cover again. And all the crowd all start nodding. Oh, The Profit’s Principle. He’s a British guy and I came across this on Amazon, had great reviews and I’d recommend it. It’s a good book. So it covers all of that.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Mate, this has been awesome. I could actually talk for another hour, but we should probably wrap it up.
Jerry: Yeah.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
You are a legend. How can people get a hold of you, connect with you, etc.?
Jerry:
You can find me on Facebook, Jerry King, Jerry with a G on Facebook. You can find me on Twitter at WordPress Jerry. And you can find me online on my two websites, www.i-netco.co.uk. Or funeral director websites. If you Google funeral director websites, you’ll find me.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
There you go. And that’s the other power of niching.
Jerry:
Yeah.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Being able to just type in funeral director websites. He’s at the top of the list, guys. That’s right. Niche today.
Jerry:
Mate, have an awesome afternoon. Thank you so much for your time. It’s been an absolute pleasure speaking to you, as always.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
I love it. Thank you for inviting me on. Pleasure. Take care. Bye.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
And that’s a wrap. Now, in next week’s show, we’re going to be talking to Martin Huntbatch. And he’s going to be unpacking his journey in agency life, how him and his wife have gone full-time together on the business, how they were originally doing 50% web and 50% SEO, and how they’ve shifted into 100% SEO, and have been able to position themselves in such a way as they can charge much higher than they used to, and much higher than a lot of their competition, and yet still run a very successful and profitable business. So that’s next week, episode 114. If you’re not already a member of the Facebook group, then head on over to wpinnovator.com forward slash group, where you will find agencies, web designers, freelancers from all around the world who have a love and a passion for WordPress and all things agency life. We’re a great community. We have lots of fun. We share gifts, maybe a few cat pictures now and again. And it’s just a great place to be, hang out and get some support. So that’s wpinnovator.com forward slash group. We will see you next week.
