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Verbatim text
Lee: Before we kick off the show, can I encourage you to listen back to episode 200, where I share how to transform your agency? It’s a combination of my own story, but also five pillars of transforming your business. Really, really useful episode. We’ve had tons of amazing and encouraging feedback, so I just want to encourage you, if you’ve not listened to episode 200, please download that and go ahead and check that one out. Now Welcome to the Agency Trailblazer Podcast. This is your host, Lee. And in today’s show, we are doing a speaker profile with Martin Hunt, who will be speaking at Agency Transformation Live. Sit back, relax and enjoy the ride. Welcome to a conversation with me, Mr. Lee Jackson. And today it’s the one. It’s the only returning for a second time, Mr. Martin Huntbach , how are you?
Martin: Oh, good. Why did I get.
Lee: Your name wrong? I actually got it right and then doubted myself.
Martin: I was hoping you were going to get it wrong so that you look silly.
Lee: I feel so silly. But let’s keep it in.
Martin: Yeah, so people.
Lee: Know that, you know, despite looking so perfect in all those Instagram filters, I actually do make mistakes.
Martin: You’re a human. It’s fine. Oh, shall we forgive you?
Lee: Actually, we better not sing that song because I think that might be copyrighted. I’m only human after the fair usage. Fair usage. Just in case someone’s going to do a copyright strike against me anyway. Guys, if you don’t know who Martin is, then you really need to check out his last episode. He was on episode 114 with us. That was many episodes ago. It was actually January of 2018, just before his voice broke. So, um, it’s a great episode and he talks all about getting paid what you are worth. And we have a very common thread through that. And we’re going to continue that conversation today. Before I let Martin introduce himself though, folks, Martin is one of our speakers at Agency Transformation Live. So head on over to agencytransformation.live and you can see the speakers that we have. We’re getting quite a few of them on the show over the next few weeks as well. So you can get some experiences of their stories and their content etc. but check that out. Agency transformation live. If you want to be a part of that, then go ahead and grab your tickets because you’ll get to hang with this legend, Mr. Martin Huntbach at that event. Okay, Martin, over to you. Could you please introduce yourself for the people who don’t know who you are? So a bit about you, your company, all of that good stuff. And let’s learn a little bit about the Martin.
Martin: Of course. Yeah. Thanks so much for inviting me on for a second time. And honestly, I can’t wait for the event. I’d have I’d have been there, you know, camped out the night before, even if you hadn’t have invited me to speak. So thank you for that. It’s going to be an amazing event. And if you’re considering, you know, going to events this year, which I highly recommend, I really recommend you go to these events because, you know, just put a lot of effort in over the years with the content and everything. So yeah, it’s it’s going to be an amazing event. So yeah, I mean I run Jammy Digital with my wife Lindsay, and um, we help personal brands and small businesses build a better website. So we’re exclusively WordPress, really. And, um, and we teach people not just, you know, people don’t hire us just to build a website. They hire us for the strategy behind it. And that’s why people generally like to work with us, because, you know, we have a different approach than to just, you know, hire somebody to actually build a website. It’s more about how your business relates to that website. What can we do with the website to improve your business? What your main goals, you know, how can we make sure that the the website returns, you know, on that investment as well? And more recently, we’ve since launched a membership website where we teach personal brands how to build their own website. So this obviously is separate from the web design space in the agency world. But we actually help, you know, personal brands and solo entrepreneurs to build a website with that ethos as well. So if they can’t afford to hire us to build the website, then we’ll teach them how to do it, and we’ll give them all the tools and and resources to the, you know, that we use throughout our web design process and actually give that to them and allow them to do it. So yeah, it’s been fun. And obviously you’re a member as well and it’s been great to get your feedback. So thanks for that.
Lee: That’s all right. Well, you’re a member of Agency Trailblazer Community. So it felt only right to be a part of your group. And what I love what you’re doing there mate, is you’re actually giving massive value to your target audience. Now, these people may not necessarily be ready to buy a website from you yet, but you’re giving them those skills that they may not necessarily have been able to afford to invest in from other parties. And they can get those skills. They can get started with their personal brand. They can grow it to a point where they are then ready to do some of that bigger businesses with you as well, which I think is just phenomenal. And I know that’s not necessarily your reasoning for it, but I can definitely see that being one of the paths or the transitions. It’s those people who can’t quite or aren’t quite ready to invest, but can do some of the self teaching in a way that you guys have made is really, really easy for them to understand and they can then slowly build up their business. I mean, just on that, why did you create that community in the first place? What was your main driving force behind making that community to reach out to those those personal brands?
Martin: Well, actually, quite a lot of the people who visit our website and connect with us in our Facebook group and and things like that, they aren’t necessarily, you know, corporations or, you know, big teams that have a big budget. They’re just trying to make their way in the world. They’re trying to make their mark online and trying to get a little bit of the action. You know, it might just be a copywriter that doesn’t quite know how to make a good looking website. And she’s stuck using Wix, and she’s not really sure how to make it work and why it’s not ranking in search engines. And that was really the purpose, really. We’re not I mean, the actual gap between our ideal member and our ideal customer for a web design project is actually there’s a fairly big leap there. So I’m going to assume that probably a lot of the people who join the membership aren’t eventually going to pay us to build their website, and that’s okay. But we still wanted to help those people. I mean, we’ve had a few inquiries from some of our members about getting a website, and I’m sure that it will happen. But more than anything, we just want to help as many people as we can on the right, you know, in the right way. And we did it because, yes, we wanted to build some residual income and yes, we’ve got maintenance plans and things like that with the websites we build. But actually helping people understand what we do is it’s amazing. We we spend a lot of time when we build websites for people, educating them on why a website should be built a certain way. But at the end of the day, they’re paying thousands, so they’re expecting that you’re going to give them an amazing website, whereas actually when somebody’s paying $39 a month, which is what they pay, and then the join and they get the value, these people are surprisingly a lot more thankful for your information, even though they’re only spending a small amount of money, then the people that actually hire us for a website as well. So we’ve had a few of those members come up to us this weekend and just, you know, give us a big hug and tell us how amazing that the the journey has been inside the membership. And, uh, obviously getting clients and projects is great, for one thing, but you want to feel good about it, which is exactly what I mentioned in the in the previous episode that we did together. It’s about, you know, doing what you love, and we absolutely adore the membership, so it’s working out really well.
Lee: I saw some, and you’ve created a group of people that absolutely love you, and it’s clear that you absolutely love them as well. And you know, me and you, we’re always flirting online. Your wife gets a little bit worried now and again.
Martin: Yeah. She can wait. You know, I’m yours first.
Lee: And I, like you, mentioned that you’re at the I think you were at atomic, uh, atomic on, weren’t you? I always, I always get your name and atomicon. I get twisted around my tongue. Right. So atomic on. How did that go? What happened there?
Martin: Yeah, it was great. I mean, for us, we the best thing about going to events like that, like the one that we met at, which is new media at Europe a few years ago. And then since, you know, and then this this event more than anything for me, it’s about, you know, meeting up with everybody. You know, you do build some amazing connections by going to events like this, like your attendees will at your event. And it’s just about making sure that you’re rubbing shoulders with these people. There’s nothing better than speaking to people and clients and working together. If you’ve already seen them face to face, you’ve already had a beer together and you’ve already had, you know, that connection. So for me, I love going to the events for those things as well. And actually, I’d say that’s the main reason behind going to an event is the network that you’ll build. And yes, the content is always amazing. Naturally, Andrew and Pete put on an amazing event and got some great speakers there as as a view and as as usually, you know, when you go to events like that and you’re paying a few hundred pounds, that’s what you want to see. Yeah. So yeah, it was an amazing event. And and like I say, lots of members there and lots of clients. So yeah, it was just my heaven really.
Lee: Now it’s funny that over the years me and you have made separate friends and then since found out that we all know each other because we both rock around the same sorts of places. We’re in similar communities, we go to, the same events, etc. we make the same sorts of friends. And you know, you’ve you’ve passed me some phenomenal business as well, which is awesome because of the relationship that we’ve built up, because we’ve physically met. The very first day I met you, I was in your hotel room ironing my shirt. That sounds cozy, doesn’t it? Goes. I think we might have mentioned that in the last episode. Guys, to go back to episode 114, go find that story out.
Martin: All the Details.
Lee: Obviously details, but it is a wonderful way of of growing community, of being supported for yourself, building up your network, etc.. Now you’ll be at our event. You’re talking about how to attract better clients using content, and I wondered if you could just give us a little bit of a preview, just a few snippets of your experiences of how you’ve been able to generate those better clients using content, and also attracting some of the audience for your new membership as well. Maybe just share not too much because obviously want people to come to the event, but maybe just share a couple of stories of your experiences of why contents really helped grow your business.
Martin: Yeah, I think it comes down to, you know, the outcome is never the first thing when it comes to a problem in your business, it’s always the root problem. It’s always the what is keeping me up at night and what is causing me to, you know, not enjoy my business. And that’s kind of the contact came later. But if I could talk about that a little bit about the idea, and I think it’s a place that probably most agency owners have been in themselves, it’s it’s the fact that, you know, when you’re an agency owner, you don’t just open yourself up to, you know, your ideal clients, you open yourself up to everybody, every single potential client that can fill out a contact form on your website and actually get in touch with you has the potential to be either a very, very good client or a very, very bad client. And obviously lots in between. But I took on too many of the bad clients to start off with, as I’m sure lots of people, lots of listeners have.
Lee: Yeah. Same here. And yeah.
Martin: And it comes from a place of, you know, I want to build the business. It’s about pulling in as much money as possible, and then I can switch my business up and make it all. You know, I only serve amazing people, but in reality, that’s a lot harder to do, especially when you’re first starting out. And I had a few problems growing the business. You know, I was always really optimistic. I was always the kind of person to say, it’s going to be great, don’t worry about it doesn’t matter that we’re, you know, down on the credit card. It’s fine. You know, it’s it’s about keep moving forward, keep positive and keep working with as many people as you can. And, you know, say yes to everybody. And that got me to a place where, yes, the business grew at a pretty steady pace, but I was taking on a lot of the wrong kind of clients, and it was really damaging. It was damaging to my morale and my relationships. And, and I think actually, we spoke about this a little bit the very first time that we met. It was like we met instantly and we just, like, divulged our deep, dark secrets with each other. We just sat there having a meal and I actually started to suffer, you know, medically as well. And, um, I really struggled and waking up at night and stuff like that and losing sleep can cause your body to have certain issues. And I was finding that I was getting this nervous twitch. You know, it got to the point where my body was starting to tell me that things were going wrong, and I needed to get off this treadmill of agency, just full force, and actually just start reassessing things. Really. So we were sending out proposals left, right and center. We might get some of them back. We were, you know, we were just kept going. And we’re exerting so much energy that I just eventually got to a point where it was it was either make or break. You know, I can’t just serve everyone. I can’t just take on every client. It was just too damaging. And that’s where I kind of decided that I was going to let you know if I actually concentrate on using my website to appeal to a certain type of person and not take on all of these £500 or £1000 clients to just stack them, I’d sell them cheap and actually really go to town on the right clients. Then I could potentially appeal to them a different way. But what I was finding is all of the web design agencies that I was coming across, they were all the same, you know, they’re all like, no job, too big, too small. Get in touch with us. We can service your needs. We’re we’re always available for you. And there was nothing differentiating me from any of those. So why would people treat me any differently? You know, like Troy Dean says, you’re just a commodity if you treat yourself that way. So it’s really important that for us that we changed quite a lot. And that’s exactly what I’m going to be talking to you about and about how we used content, whether that’s content in emails, content on our website, content in resources that we’ve got, how we kind of gave ourselves this little bit of a force field to protect our time and protect our mental state in a way so that we could keep on top of, you know, a happy life that we wanted to live. And again, this is part of the reason that we gave up SEO, like what we mentioned in the previous episode that we did together, that came from potentially combusting into this massive ball of stress because, you know, we just chopped it off.
Lee: And the beautiful Line, that was poetic.
Martin: But that’s that’s what it that’s what it was. And that’s why I feel so strongly about it. And that’s why I’m always trying to, you know, I’ve always got kind of that in the back of my mind that mental health is incredibly important and it’s it’s very important. And somehow I managed to work out that, you know, with content and with planning and with preparation and structure. I could get my website to start, you know, appealing to some people and then putting off the wrong kind of clients. And, and that’s exactly what I’m going to be talking about, really, and breaking down what I did. So yeah, hopefully more people can do the same.
Lee: Folks, you can get a bit of a deeper dive into this as well, especially if you can’t make it and you want to get some some of the information that Martin is going to be sharing. Again, that’s over in episode 114. And he shares how they use education to find those right clients and also to educate their client with regards to why they need those bigger budgets as well. I think that was something that came out, was really important out of that podcast. It was very beneficial to educate our target audience As to why these things are important so that they will find. I think you said something along the lines of and that made them find, um, the revenue, as it were, that made them find the money they needed to be able to do whatever it is they needed to do with you to get the results that they wanted, which was awesome. So that’s episode 114. And Martin puts it way better than I just did. So on the mental health mate, I remember me and you talking about that actually. And and we were both struggling the same sort of things, those random twitches. I went to the doctor and I was like, what’s, what is this? Can can you scan my brain? Can you give me blood tests and all that sort of stuff? And, and he said, mate, you are just stressed out. Yeah. It’s all like all we can do. And they were weird. Like, just like my legs would fly up into the air and my arms had kind of like twitch massively. It was like these big massive twitches and be like, what are you doing? You’re right. I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah. And and I remember describing that to you and you’re like, no way. This is exactly what I’ve been having.
Martin: It’s crazy. And it’s it’s only from opening up that actually people start to actually say, I’ve had that as well. And I thought it was just so strange and so peculiar. And hopefully I’ll, um, expand on that a little bit more in the, in the talk, because I do think it’s important that we, we talk about the, the downsides of running an agency as well as you, as you do.
Lee: Mhm. Absolutely. We’ve we’ve actually got a couple of people as well talking about mental health, which will be really helpful as well. So giving us options for dealing with anxiety. And the cool thing is is again if people can’t make the event, we totally understand all of these people create fantastic content online so you can go and find those. So be sure to check out the website and go and click on the social profiles for all of these people and follow them because they’re all legends in their in their own right. Now, you’ve had some wonderful news recently and you’ve had a little bundle of joy. Tell us all about your little guy and how that’s changed the way you guys operate your business, because that must have been massive for you.
Martin: Absolutely. It’s changed the way we operate our lives, naturally.
Martin: Never mind the business.
Martin: But yeah, it’s, uh, it’s been absolutely wonderful. So little Lucas, you might.
Martin: Just You might get from that. I’m a bit of a Star Wars fan, so I managed to get that well, so that’s good. But yeah, he’s he’s wonderful. And he arrived 20 uh, around the 21st of December, actually. So just before Christmas and yeah, we expected him to come a little bit later than that. But it’s been amazing. And we always have some time off over Christmas. And as an agency owner, you just don’t always get time off when you want it. And we knew we were going to book some time off over Christmas anyway, so I’m glad that you arrived before Christmas. So yeah, it’s been amazing and it’s been great to spend so much time with him. I mean, although he’s in the next room most of the time, I’d still like to spend more time with him. But working from home, as you know, you get to spend more time with your family, so that’s wonderful. And, uh, yeah, he’s just coming on leaps and bounds is absolutely huge. I’m a really tall guy, and I’m pretty sure that he’s going to be a really tall guy as well. Yeah, but no, he’s, uh, he’s wonderful. And he definitely I definitely have to fight to get back into my office sometimes, because I just want to spend all my time playing with him.
Martin: Uh oh. It’s lovely in it. You just want to stare at them when they’re asleep for hours on end. Absolutely, absolutely. That’s when they’re the most worst behaved.
Lee: Exactly. And obviously.
Martin: Lenses on maternity leave now. But even she’s fighting. She loves the business so much and stuff. And she’s like, when he’s asleep, she’s trying to get a blog post done and some content done. And, uh, yeah, she’s, um. Well, when you love your business and you love obviously your family time, then I couldn’t you couldn’t wish for a better life, could you?
Lee: I do love how you guys are all set up. You know, you set up at home, your commute is 0.01 seconds from the kitchen to your office, etc. that’s also a downside for me because the fridge can be too close. But that’s I think that’s a completely other episode. That is just where I maybe seek some help. But yeah, I do love that you’ve got that. You’ve got your little guy. Little, little Lucas. Oh my gosh, you can totally do that, can’t you?
Martin: Oh it’s been done, it’s been done.
Lee: Oh, it’s already been done.
Martin: Oh, sorry.
Lee: Plenty of times.
Martin: Oh, just dawned on me.
Lee: Yeah. Why it didn’t dawned on me sooner. But yeah, you’ve got him there. You’ve got. And you’ve also got other family members as well involved in your yeah, in your business, which is awesome. I just love how you guys have really built everything up around family. So you’re still being able to help people outside of your family, obviously. But equally, you’re getting time with your family and you’re actually collaborating with family members, not just your wife, but also with her mom and dad as well, which is awesome. Absolutely. I really love what you guys are doing.
Martin: Um, yeah. No, it’s a it’s a truly awesome setup we’ve got and it’s, um, it took it took us a long time to decide, you know, it’s the right time to have kids. And we wanted our business set up a certain way so that I could see everything you could see as first steps. I could, you know, be there for his first bite of pizza, I suppose. And, um. And. Yeah, that’s why we we waited so long and we decided that now’s the right time now that we’re both out of our corporate jobs and, uh, yeah. It’s perfect.
Lee: That’s wonderful. So, folks, I hope this has given you a little bit of a flavor of Martin and the sort of content that he’s going to be bringing over at agency Transformation. May I really, really appreciate the time you’ve taken from your day just to share some of this with us, and I’m really looking forward to listening to what you’ve got for us, buddy.
Martin: Thanks. Been awesome.
Lee: Thanks, mate. All that’s left for me to do is to say love to Lucas, obviously, and to Lindsay. And, uh, thank you, Lindsay, for letting me borrow Martin for a while. Have a wonderful day, mate.
Martin: Thanks very much, mate. Can’t wait.
Lee: Cheerio. Bye.
Martin: And that wraps up today’s show. If you want to learn more about Martin, check out episode number 114 where he talks about how to get paid what you are worth. Don’t forget he is also speaking at Agency Transformation Live. If you want to find out more information about that, then head on over to Agency Transformation Dot live. If we don’t see you at the event, then we shall certainly see you in the next episode.
