When something goes wrong, I tell team that okay, come up with the three things which we could have done better from our end in order to not get into this situation, right? So we are literally, you know, changing mindset of our uh entire leadership team uh to think more positive and optimistic and constantly learning.

Welcome to the Agency Hour podcast where we help web design and digital agency owners create abundance for themselves, their teams, and their communities. This week we're joined by Manish Dude Harajia. Hope I got that right, founder and CEO of E2M Solutions. E2M uh helps digital agencies solve bandwidth and capacity problems with white label services and our exclusive sponsor of the agency hour. Uh so it only made sense to have Manish join us this week as our 100th episode, which is amazing. In this episode, we explore why leadership needs to own failures and pass the credit, which is much easier said than done. We define the fundamentals of creating processes that actually help you solve the problems that your agency experiences every day. And we discuss problems with working outside of scope and how to avoid it, as well as the challenges of keeping your team on track and consistently delivering high quality services as your team grows. All that and much more. Stay with us. Manish, it's so great to see you. How are you doing?

Johnny, I'm doing fantastic. Uh, thank you for having me on the show again. It's I'm excited to speak with you again.

Oh man, it was so great to have you uh and some of your team come out to MavCon uh here outside of Washington, D.C. Just uh man, it was just last month. Um, and I just really enjoyed getting to hang out with you, um, your team, all the fun that we had. It was just really great.

Absolutely, you know, uh it was absolutely a very unique experience. Uh I know we sponsored last year Melcon in San Diego, but I wasn't there. Kevin from our team, who actually lives in San Diego, he was there. But this time, you know, we first time uh we in person attended the US Melcon. Obviously, we were in Australia a few months back uh in Gold Coast. Uh but yeah, so it was absolutely very unique experience, you know. The moment we got into Fairfax uh and then kind of like reached to the hotel, like you know, from there we came to your house, and yeah, thank you for inviting us, hosting us at your house. It was fun to play the game. So the beginning of Malcolm started very casually. Uh it didn't feel like we are at conference. It feels like you know, it's it's a get together of a community, a member. So that was a very uh altogether different feeling. And yeah, you know, it was so much fun to have be at your house, and and and I think the the highlighter of the entire uh event is like you know the actual event happened at the church, right? And which was very different experience, right? Um where the venue was very unconventional, and you know, two of uh my colleagues came to the states for the first time and did Melcon for the first time, and they also had a fantastic experience. So it was absolutely great experience.

Oh, that's so great to hear for our listeners that are listening in that maybe don't know all the details. So Mavcon is a three-time a year event that we have, um, kind of rotated around the world, you know, so that everybody can have the opportunity to come. Uh, but it's for our Mavericks and uh, you know, some special guests where we basically just have an in-person, you know, two, three-day conference. Uh and and like you said, I think it's really more like a gathering of kind of like-minded sharing ideas, learning things, uh, very just sort of um practical and kind of where the rubber meets the road. And we've got a number of amazing sponsors, Manish, who is one of them, uh, with E2M. And uh, we had a an event before the conference started that I hosted at my house. Um, and we uh we did this out, we had this guy come who has these amazing like laser tag uh kind of gun things and and all the things, and I have a big yard, and so we had all this obstacles and different things and made teams, and we were playing outside uh in the fall weather here in the United States, and it was it was so much fun. And we and then we went out to eat and all the different things, but uh it was great to host um both our our kind of mavericks and our sponsors for that um event that was before the conference started at my house. And then yeah, we just uh we kind of did it unconventional. Usually we're in a hotel conference room and you know, everything like that. And I I had messaged the team way long time ago, and I said, Hey, I know this is crazy and like not what we totally normally do, but my church just opened this $24 million building that's brand new. It has all this amazing space and AV and all these things. And I was like, what if we like had it at my church? I know that's totally weird, and it's not Mavcon's not a church thing or anything like that, but um, our church has just been so great about making space available for the community and for different organizations. We just had our local fire department's graduation ceremony in our main auditorium for like a thousand people and all these fire department graduates, and like obviously that's not a church thing or whatever, right? But we have this uh a lot of amazing spaces at the church that can be used by the community, and so the church was on board. I got Troy and Emily on board with it, and uh so it was really cool. And then I guess the big surprise was that we were able to do uh a concert uh at the I was about to say that toward the yeah, go ahead, you can share.

Yeah, I think you know, um I I I totally agree, you know. Uh when actually we were at your house and you know playing that uh laser shooting game, and and that's the time I got to know that uh the event is actually happening at church tomorrow. And and then you know, I had an image of church, like, okay, are we seriously going to have an event at church?

And then I, you know We purposely didn't announce that part.

I I thought so. I thought so. I'm like, this is a huge surprise. But then you know, uh I was discussing with my colleagues and they actually pulled up images of uh church on on Google, and uh we were like, no, it's it's not that kind of church, it's actually a really it looks like an event venue. Yeah, and I I feel like the space was perfect uh for the audience, uh the number of people we had. Yeah, it was absolutely comfortable, perfect, uh, you know, small, causy place, perfect. We had a great uh place outside for hangout, tea, coffee, lunch, and I think the concert, yeah. So you know, uh that was a huge surprise. It was on the last day when uh they had planned the surprise, and it was kind of like evening at four, and we were told to you know go into an auditorium. Uh we had no idea what's gonna happen, right? And we were sitting in the auditorium and Troy Troy and Adam Silverman, he was like, you know, playing the drums, and there was someone also, uh, and it was Johnny's uh son as well. You know, uh there were four people on the stage, and and they absolutely rocked the stage. It was like an amazing, amazing experience. Uh it was absolutely completely unexpected, uh, but we truly enjoyed, and that was like, you know, uh that was kind of like you know, the moment, uh the time when we felt like, okay, uh, this is the cannot could not think of better way to end the conference and the band event, right? And Troy truly performed like the Rockstar. We I was Troy came out, right? Yeah, Rockstar came out. We saw a uh you know, absolutely a different version of Troy on the stage.

Yeah, yeah.

Uh in the first half, we saw a different version. In the second half in Auditorium, we saw a different version. And and Adam Silverman, you know, it was hard to recognize him as amazing.

Is it amazing?

And then after the concert, you know, I I actually told him that why are you in this industry? Why don't why are you not being, you know, why are you not uh in a in an industry where you are you should be a full-time drummer? Yeah, and it was like uh absolutely they rock the stage and they perform like like rock stars.

Oh, that's so great. Yeah, we it was probably only like maybe six weeks before Mavcon, and I messaged and I was like, hey guy, and we had kind of joked about like, hey, we should do some songs, but like I knew if it just was like joking about it, it wouldn't actually happen. So I was like, hey guys, do we want to do some like put a band together? And and I knew Adam Silverman, who lives in Nashville, who's recorded on all these albums as a studio drummer, like he is a professional drummer disguised as a web agency owner. Um, and I know Troy had had done a lot of like you know, concerts and guitar and singing and stuff, and I played bass guitar. And I my son is a very talented uh keyboardist. Uh he's only he's only 15, and he's just he's a so so good. Um and so I was like, we just really need like maybe an electric guitar player that I could probably recruit from one of my friends in town. Um and so we put a band together, we were emailing and Slack messaging different song ideas and keys that we would do them in and which version of a recording we would do. And then everybody pretty much like practiced on their own. Uh, and then we came together and we rehearsed like just for one evening before that. Um, and I had programmed lights and video content and all the different haze and all the things. Um, and so it was it was a pretty it was a pretty big production for our small group of you know folks that were there, but it was a lot of fun.

What you have described and what actually happened, it was way more fun than what you described.

Oh, good, good, yes. Sorry.

I think if uh idea is that uh you know if someone have recorded that uh on their phone, I'm sure Max would have recorded that. We should actually put a video on Select Community and on you know Agency Merrick's Facebook page. So yeah, you know, members or anyone who haven't attended the event, they can see what they actually missed there.

Yeah, yeah, it was so much fun. It was so great. And and and the content of the the the conference was so great. You know, I think from hearing from the other coaches about um, you know, different like Thomas, one of our coaches talked about like the the I mean the I was just so inspired by the processes that he put in place. He got his whole team around it. I think we have a pro one of our previous episodes has gone into this in a lot more detail when I was talking with him. But just the way that he got his team around and kind of sharing some of that behind the scenes stuff was so great. Um, Jen talking about goals and uh kind of where you want to go, you know, five, 10 years from now, which most agency owners can't think five or 10 days from now, five or 10 minutes from now, um, you know, but to think like further out of like what why am I running this business and what am I trying to do and where do I want to go and what's the purpose behind all this, and then kind of backing that all down to like the here and now and just so many great uh sessions and stuff that were just really impactful. Troy always delivers amazing, you know, keynotes and stuff with uh talking about AI and all that kind of how that can be used and just kind of to grow your agency was incredible. Um, so I I wanted to, if we could while you were here, um I know last time you were on the the the uh agency hour, we talked about team, and you have an amazing team at E2M. Uh, what is it like 90, 100 team members, some some crazy number of team members, right? It's it's 180 people. 180 people. Oh my goodness. See it grew since the last time I talked to Manish. Uh and it's just amazing. And I wanted to if I know we talked about team and hiring, and you gave some great, I don't know if I've told you this, Manish, but um when we were on the agency hours, probably like maybe a year ago or it was a while ago, and we were talking about the team, and you had just taken your team to uh I think it was Bali or somewhere where you were doing this amazing trip and you had a video, and I was just like, I was just blown away. Yeah, um and it was just so inspired, which was amazing. Um, but you had said something on that, which I've used in a number of talks, and I've done my best to give you the credit, but you said something like um leadership needs to, I can't remember, own the failures and pass the credit or something like that. And and that just like really stuck with me, and I've used it in a number of different talks that I've given because I just feel like that is like where the rubber meets the road. Um, and I had a recent like test of uh how much I really uh, you know, was holding to that or not recently because I had been at a uh all day leadership thing off site with a bunch of business leaders. Um, and I came back to the office at the very end of the day, and my phone and everything's blowing up from a client who uh we were had just built their website. They've been a client for a long time. We've just built a new website for them, and we had launched it over top of their wrong website. Like they had two different websites, and we built a new one for one, and we replaced we replaced the other one by mistake. Um, and of course, I had been out of the office, other people were doing all the things, whatever, and I couldn't, I didn't have any answers. I didn't know how we had made that mistake, I didn't know how quickly we were gonna be able to get it back. Like I had just been gone and I didn't know. And like my I kept and he and like I realized I just needed to call the client and say it was my fault, you know, take take basically own the own the failure and and just and like it was the most hardest thing that I've like had to do in a while. But like the client was so appreciative that I just called him as the owner that I took the ownership that I said, I'm gonna give you an update every, I don't know if I said 15 or 30 minutes. I'm gonna I'm gonna send you a note every 15 or 30 minutes until this is resolved and let you know the status. And I mean, we got it up, I think, pretty quickly within an hour, hour and a half, whatever we had restored everything back and got it to the right place. But it was one of those things where it's like, oh man, like Manish said, like leadership needs to own the failures, and like here I was having to deal with that, not really wanting to, you know.

No, I I think it's very uh it's very important. Similar thing happened recently, uh, you know, with one of our clients as well, where uh the scope was not clear and kind of like you know, we quoted without uh looking at the actual design, and then the plugin was uh suggested by the team without actually looking at the design, and then later we realized that you know uh the plugin has its own limitations, so we will not be able to meet the 100% design and the final output. And literally, like you know, we decided to go on a call and you know, saying we are client really appreciated. Client is actually from Australia, and he really appreciated that. Um and and I literally, like, you know, after that, we emailed him that how can we make sure that we don't get into the same situation again? And we understand that we should not have quoted this project without having 100% clarity. So uh, you know, long story short, I want to add one more thing that what we started doing uh at E2M as well. When something goes wrong, I tell team that okay, come up with the three things which we could have done better from our end in order to not get into this situation, right? So we are literally you know changing mindset of our uh entire leadership team uh to think more positive and optimistic and learning from you know constantly learning uh from every single mistake, right? So I want to bring a quote. I mean, uh unfortunately we all know like Charlie Munger passed away yesterday. Um I personally have learned a lot from his wisdom, right? And his is his favorite quote is like, you know, uh the life is kind of like you know, it's all about like learn, learn, learn, right? So I think that life properly lived is just learn, learn, learn all the time, right? So uh I always let our team know that when something goes wrong, let's not play a blame game, right? Uh let's first own the failure and see like, hey, what we could have done better in order to avoid this situation. So I think you know uh that adds up to like it it requires a mindset that yeah, first you own the failure, and then you know, and then only you can learn from that. Otherwise, you cannot learn from that.

And I think when you demonstrate that as a leader that you're willing to own a failure, even though like you didn't push the wrong thing or you didn't, you know, whatever. And and in this case, I hadn't done anything with that, and we had documentation in place, and like there was a number of things that got overlooked that made that resulted in the mistake. But um I think it then is easier for your team to take the ownership when they fail, because this team member was very on my team, was very much like I just totally messed this up, and this is why I thought it was supposed to be this one. And and he and he it's not like he just was not paying attention, like he had a reason why he thought it was supposed to be the way that it was, but he owned it in the end. Um, and then I think also by letting your team fail and not like permanent fail, like you know, fire them, then it allows them to like experiment and get better and stuff. Because if everybody's afraid of like, oh, if I make a big mistake, like I'm out, then like no one's gonna take any risks, no one's gonna take any ownership, no one's gonna like you know wanna do the things because they know if they make a big mistake, like they're gone. But instead, if it's like you said, like a culture of learning and how can we get better at this and stuff, then like everybody just kind of like rises up, I feel like.

Yeah. Yeah, it's uh I I know I whenever every time we have a uh you know discussions going on around our leadership team and entire team, we all we always tell them that it's okay to fail, it's okay to make mistakes, as long as you are not making the same mistake again. Right, right, right, and as long as you are learning from that, I think it's super super important that every mistake you make, uh you think like you paid a price to learn something new uh while making that mistake, right? So that is super super important. You are absolutely right that you know otherwise they wouldn't learn and otherwise uh you know as a leader you will not uh free up your time because you will be always afraid to pass on the responsibility while thinking that okay, what if team might make a mistake, right? And that you know, vicious circle you get into, and that never lets you free up your time.

Yeah, yeah. And I that this ties perfectly into what I wanted to ask you about on this episode because I was I was so excited to get to come on with you again, and uh especially after we had just spent time together in person. And um, I I wanted to ask you about this because I I feel like even though I I try to, my team and I were trying to, you know, we're just a team of 20 or whatever, and you're a team of 180 um and all that, but still we we're trying to figure out like processes because just like you, we have a lot of people doing the same thing, you know, different designers designing different projects, different managers managing different projects, different all the things. And you guys have some amazing uh white label services that you offer to agencies with uh development and design and copywriting and all the different things that you guys are doing. Um, I wanted to just ask you about how you basically keep the quality high with so many different people doing so many different things. And I and I kind of know the answer, so I'm kind of trying to give you a softball pitch here, but I would love to just hear like things that you've learned about processes and kind of getting people all to do the same job in a in a similar manner and that kind of thing.

Yeah, absolutely. Uh I think you know people think that running this kind of organization, big team, and being in the position of uh you know, as a leader, you know, as a CEO of running this kind of organizer is fun, it's not fun actually. Uh you need a high pain tolerance. Uh you know what happens you know with this kind of big team, we have a like structure. There is a uh senior leadership team, uh there's a second level leadership team, right? And a lot of times, most of the times actually it happens that you don't get to work on the problem which you want to work on, but you actually have to work on the problem which the company is going through, right? Because uh at things like that at my position, uh I pretty much get all the problems filtered which have not been solved.

So on my table.

There are only worst problems. Because they have already figured out and they already solved the problems which they were able to do it. But if something is coming to me, which means they were not able to figure it out, and then obviously there is a bunch of worst problems, right? And when you get into this situation, uh, you know, as a as a leader, you always think like, okay, I really want to work on uh things which are working really well, and so we can 10x on that. I don't want to work on things which are not working well, right? So but however, you know, as a leader, what you really have to do is, although you don't like it, but you literally have to stop working on doing things which are really working well, instead, you have to shift your focus on making things right which are not actually going really well in the organization, right? So I think you know uh one of the first steps about creating the process uh is making sure that there are clear roles and responsibilities defined at your organization, right? So one uh rule we have in our organization that there are no uh two people should not be doing the same thing. So there should not be overlapping of roles and responsibilities, otherwise, there will be always uh possibility of you know uh getting into a situation uh where there is a conflict, right?

And you and you don't necessarily mean two people not doing the same thing, you mean kind of two people were I I think what you're saying is two people not responsible for one thing, right? Because then nobody owns nobody knows to use it, right?

Yes, in that case, it's very hard to find who is going to take the full accountability, right? Right. So that is the very first thing. Second thing, you know, when you run into any problem uh which you are seeing commonly coming up again and again, again, and again across the different uh or uh across the different you know departments of your company, that's the number one priority. Uh you should create a process around that, right? So and then uh I think you know we always think like, okay, we need to have a process for everything, but I would say if you want to have the processes and build start building the processes, make sure you start building processes around your top level problems which your organization is currently going through, or which might go through when you scale. Because if you are going through a certain problem, and when you grow, the problems is going to go even bigger, right? So you want to fix the problem right now while making sure define the processes. While defining processes, there are two things, right? Uh, you want to have the key stakeholders while defining the processes. So uh when we define, and I allow to be a part of that as well. So we have like a couple of people, we sit brainstorming that okay, let's put everything what we know. We record a Zoom meeting, we when we start discussing the okay, this is the process we need to define. We start a Zoom recording, we start like AI summary, and then you know, we put that transcript into AI tool that gives us the process, uh, and then someone goes through that to make sure that you know the process outlines everything what we discussed. So because you really want to make sure that the stakeholders, the people who are going to follow the process are part of creating the process because they are the people who are gonna use the process. It's not me, it's not like you know uh you as a leader who is actually going to work on the ground, right? So in that case, they are on the same page and they can think of everything uh they can think of, and that is something makes them also excited to follow the process because they are on the same page, right? So one of the common mistakes I see uh you know a lot of leaders make at organi where it's a large-scale organization where they are growing, they want to define the process for the problem they want to solve, not the problem organization has, right? They want to just create the process for the sake of uh making their organization look like more organized. But you might sometimes do not need a tons and tons of processes. So it's super important to know that you only have the processes which solve your day-to-day problems, right? And which kind of helps you automize things and kind of like uh make sure that you can avoid any sort of like you know uh situations uh which put uh projects into escalation or there is an inter conflict of interest or there is like accountability issue, right? So it's kind of like you want to have the process of something which you are using on a daily basis. You don't want to have a process uh which is sitting there but it is not being used on a daily basis, right? Which is super super important. So I think these are the things you know we make sure while uh creating process. And also one of the most important things is like uh that process has to be constantly evolved and updated based on your experiences. You cannot have the same process forever, right? Uh it's kind of like the process you have for 100 people company would not work for 200 people company, right? And and same goes on. So it's super important that you know we are we kind of like you know at least update that every quarter. Uh, and right now also we are in the process of creating a lot of new processes to facilitate our future growth. Um, but yeah, I think you know that's what my uh thoughts are uh you know for the uh processes where yeah, make sure that you know uh you have a clear role and responsibility, there is no overlapping of responsibility divided to two different people. Uh people are involved in creating the process who are actually going to follow the processes, and processes you need to have only for the things which you are, you know, which are your biggest problem and which you can foresee and which solve your day-to-day problem and which can be actually used on a day-to-day basis. Uh, and then you know, processes need to be constantly worked.

Yeah. Oh, it's so good. So so much gold right there. I was if you heard my keyboard clicking, I was taking notes on your on your advice because it was just so good. Um, one thing, one more thing I want to ask you about this while we're on this, and we can go to something else. But um I know a lot of agency owners, and and I I honestly find myself struggle with this sometimes too, where you know, we try to define, and this is kind of more with like support plans and some of the different plans that I'm sure you guys offer and that we offer. You know, you try to define, like for me, if it's a care plan or an SEO plan or a social media marketing plan, whatever the plan is, we try to define like this is what's included with the plan, right? And it might be a certain number of time, it might be certain types of tasks, it might be certain deliverables, whatever the things are. And then, you know, inevitably there's somebody that wants something that's just a little bit outside. And I think the temptation of it is that like we could probably do the thing, right? It's not that we don't know how to do the request or we don't have the ability or the technical know-how or whatever, but it's kind of outside this box that we've defined. And if it was just one client asking for one thing outside of the box and that's all that it ever was, it wouldn't be a big deal, right? You would just help one client and be done. But when you have hundreds or thousands of clients, you know, and you're even if you only have 20 or 30 or 40 clients and you're a smaller agency or freelancer and you're just kind of starting out, like pretty soon what you find is that, like, oh, well, we did this one exception for this person, we did this exception for this person, and you know, all these different things where it just starts to feel like, well, the box is supposed to be here, but now we're solving all these other things that like take extra time and maybe we don't have as well defined, or not all the team knows how to do that extra thing or whatever. And so I would just love to hear from you, like as you've kind of as you all have crafted plans and boundaries and what's in and out, like what have you found? Like, how do you I don't want to say hold the line, but like how do you hold the line, you know, or or where do you think? Absolutely.

Yeah, I I see exactly what you say. And we have faced this situation, you know, when we were kind of like small in the size. Uh team used to facilitate just to make clients' experience really great. But then, you know, we started realizing that we have to draw a boundary, we have to draw a line, right? Uh, that's where the process comes into the picture, right? I think it's a great client experience, but then you see that it is not sustainable. Uh one of the problems uh happens with that when you do it once, your client will always expect it in the future. Then you cannot stop, right? So instead, if you just draw a line from the very at least uh I would say that two things, if you are doing it for your existing clients, make sure you make the price change and include that, and at least stop doing it for your all your new clients. So at least you are not setting the wrong expectation from that, right? And start incorporating that thing in your you know package and increase your pricing accordingly. And even if they are coming up with something outside of that, you have to say no. You have to say, I wish we could do it, but that's something out of the plan. If you would like to do it, we'll be happy to provide you an additional quote, or we can you know create your package accordingly where we'll include that as well, because that way client will also appreciate, but uh you have to absolutely draw a line. So the best way to solve this problem is uh communicate very clearly to your client if you are doing, because you cannot say we won't do it from you know next month onwards, and they were like, you know, you guys were doing so far, you know, till there, and what happened now? So you want to communicate very softly that hey, you know, we have been doing this, it was not a part of that, we would continue like doing it, but in order to do so, we are increasing our price, and at least you know, for new clients, you want to absolutely uh set a process that this is the boundary uh you really want to set.

That's good, that's good. So, yeah, I think there can be a tendency of like the freelancer, the agency, right, to just say like, oh, we'll just keep doing it, or we'll just add that in, or like we kind of make that sacrifice. But I I like your approach of saying, like, hey, we can't do that, but if it's something that you really want done, you know, we can we can charge us additional fee or put you on this higher plan or or whatever, right? So that there's compensation. Because what happened we both know what happens, right, when you do that. Nine out of ten of them are like, actually, I really didn't need that thing. I don't want to pay the extra money, and like I don't want it that badly, right? Every once in a while they'll be like, I really want it badly, and I'll pay the money. But if you put that line up, you're not quite saying no because you're giving them the option to get it, but because it's costing them more, then they're gonna they're gonna think twice or three times about it before they do it, right?

And sometimes, you know what happens that uh I have experienced that team actually uh went like you know above the abo and V own, you know, they went extra mile, they did something additional at without cost, and something wrong goes, and then client fires back. You know, that you guys did, and and and the team's intention has been really good. They actually went extra mile, but that backfired, and that's where the team realized that oh, we were trying to do it going above and beyond, and that kind of backfired, right? And that's where the process is very important, and that's where you know we let then we have to chime in. Our customer service team will chime in and let clients know hey, you know, a team actually did it, you know, went extra mile and did it for you. So you really want to make sure that uh if you are doing something uh which you are going extra above and beyond, you want to let your client know that hey, this is not included, but I would be happy to do it one time, right? But will not be able to read next time, something like that, right? Yeah, uh depending on your uh relationship with client, but you have to communicate if you are doing something extra, and and and and and the psychology of you know people and and obviously client is like if you do it once, they would expect it, you know, a second time as well. So yeah, I think the communication uh is super, super important in these kinds of situations.

That's so good, and that's why you have so many team members and clients because you've you've done a good job at this. Um, Manish, this is episode 100. I can't believe it. Episode 100 of the agency hour. Um, you guys have been uh a longtime sponsor of the agency hour, which we so appreciate um you just supporting this and helping agencies and freelancers grow through all the content that we're putting out here. Um thank you. I mean, that's just incredible, that's amazing.

No, absolutely. Uh you know, it is absolutely a special episode, the 100th episode. Uh, congratulations to you know Agency Mavericks, you and Troy and Emily for uh you know uh running this community and for this podcast where you know people learn a lot. This is absolutely special, and it's kind of like you know, I feel like it's a coincidence, it's privileged to be on 100th episode as a guest. So it's absolutely privileged. And uh, like you know, I was talking to you earlier as well. Uh uh we feel like we belong to this community. This community has given us so much love, and we have made like so many valuable connections. Uh, we have met incredible people in this community. So uh we absolutely feel great to be grateful to support you know this community, support this podcast, and it it feels like you know we are giving back to the community because we love agency ecosystem. And yeah, this way we kind of like feel like giving back to the community.

Oh, it just it's we just so appreciate it. I know I can say on behalf of the whole team, like we are just uh thrilled to have you as a partner and your support, and just I know for Troy and for me and for Agency Mavericks and and everything, just uh your support has been unwavering and uh it just means a lot to us. Um take us back if you would. I you probably know the story better than me. Um, how how did this come about? Tell tell me tell us the story.

Yeah, it's it's actually interesting. You know, uh I think we underestimate, still underestimate the power of cold email, right? Uh so it was like one and a half year ago. Uh you know, I was randomly browsing late night, and uh I actually uh came across agency mavericks. I saw the website, I saw I did a good amount of research, probably for an hour or so. I around the same time when Troy stepped down as a CEO and uh Emily took it over around the same time. And I I I saw you know uh about the community. I I kind of read more about Troy, and I I really liked uh the the entire uh community, and I'm like I I think you know I want to uh connect with Troy, I want to learn more about community, what this uh you know these people are doing. And I literally, you know, it was like very late night, and I did a cold email. You know, I sat for some time, I did like a cold email to Troy that hey, I love what you guys are doing, and I would love to see if there are any collaboration or uh opportunities how we can support your community because I think we saw the same audience uh but at different capacity. So uh I actually wrote this thing to Troy that you know I feel like what we do is an extension of what you guys do at Agency Mavericks, like you help agencies to grow and scale their operations, and when they scale and grow, the second, the first problem they run into is bandwidth and capacity, and that's what the problem we solve, right? So uh and it wasn't very open, I had no any idea what kind of collaboration it will look like, uh, right? And and then Troy replied to me on the very next day, and I like I would love to have a conversation with you, and and that's why that's the first uh our association started with like you know, uh I was I recorded a podcast with him, so that was the first thing we did, and then we got to know more about that, and then we uh talked about like okay, we are doing this move on, and and we did the first mcoin sponsorship last uh you know year in San Diego, yeah, and then you know that was really great. I unfortunately I couldn't attend that. Uh, and but one of our team members attended, and we really liked the community and you know, the vibe, learning. And then, you know, uh Troy and I had a discussion, we decided that okay, okay, we want to be an exclusive sponsor of all Melcon events for entire 2023. So we were the sponsor for virtual happened in February, Gold Coast happened in May, and you know, this Melcon in Virginia and October as well. So, yeah, that's how uh you know we got connected, and since we met a couple of times uh in person, uh we kind of like got to know each other a lot. I think you know uh Troy and I have a lot of similar thought process in a in a lot of uh you know different ways, uh so which is great. I I like you know uh how you guys run the community. You know, I truly we truly believe in what Agency Maverick does and mission and reason and everything. So that's how you know the collaboration uh started getting you know more and more uh we started collaborating more and more things. And so yeah, a few months back, you know, uh we discussed that okay, we want to be a exclusive sponsor of the podcast, as and that's how we became a podcast sponsor.

Yeah. I was gonna say, you know, you're such your you and your team and and the service that you guys provide is such an invaluable uh service for our whole community because there's so many people that you know they they need some support, but they don't need a full team member, or they they don't want to try to figure out how to manage this, you know, teach this person or get make sure they're doing the right thing. And so to just have someone like you all that can just come in and deliver a high quality service, get up to speed very quickly, right? Obviously, like just kind of hit the hit the gate running and and everything is just so invaluable, I think, for our audience. And so I'm just I'm just thrilled to uh to have you guys uh and be partnered with you guys. And I have to ask you, Manish, you don't seem like the cold email type of person. Do you do you send a lot of cold emails, or was this sort of an out-of-the-blue type of thing, like an unusual thing for you?

It was uh absolutely unusual. Uh it's just like I don't send uh tons of cold emails. I truly do some research and I only do cold email when I feel like okay, you know, this is something I want to get involved into, right? And I think you know when your reasons uh are aligned, I think our reason is very much aligned. What reason we have at E2M and what reason agency Maverick says, like helping agencies grow and scale, right? Uh so which is the same reason we have, then you feel like okay, uh you want to work with these kind of people who have the similar reason. And uh I I truly believe like you know, uh you are absolutely lucky if you get to work with people who have a similar thought process and similar vision, and then your journey becomes so much fun, and you your work doesn't feel like work, it it feels like you know magic to someone else, but for you it's just the fun, right? So yeah, uh it wasn't like you know, it's very it was very unusual. Uh yeah, yeah.

Because I'm sure I'm sure you like me gets a ton of uh I get a ton of cold email. I just it's very spammy and like, hey, you know, we can we can improve the SEO on your website. I'm like, we do the SEO on our website, and you haven't looked at it, and you're just spending me some spam email or whatever the thing is, right? Um, and I'm sure you get a ton of those as well. So uh that's why I just think it's really cool that one, it's not the normal thing that you do, and two, that uh Troy responded, you guys connected so quickly and stuff is just is just really awesome. Yeah. So um, yeah, and I think and I think like you said too, you know, having the similar passion and values, and you know, we're we're serving the same community, but we're obviously offering different services and ways to help that community. And so I just think there's so many things that align really well. And um, yeah, it's just it's just just a joy to get to work with you guys. So exactly.

It's it's that's the right word you picked up. It's so much, you know, when we support this uh Maocon events, when we see that agency owners are you know meeting each other, learning from each other, and we feel so great and it's so much joy to see people learning from each other, right? Uh, and then you know, people take away those learnings and implement on their agency business and seeing them helping their agency grow. And you feel like, okay, you by supporting these kind of events, you feel like you are contributing towards their agency uh success, which is a great feeling.

Yeah, it is, it is great. And I yeah, I personally love helping anyone, you know, if I can help someone shortcut and do something that I learned the hard way and help them do it faster or better, easier. Like it's just such a great feeling to be able to help others, and I know you feel the same way. Absolutely. So, Manish, thank you so much. Wow, this is just such a treat to get to hang out with you. Uh, I feel honored to get to to host the hundredth episode with you. Um, and I just I can't wait for us to get to hang out uh hopefully again real soon in person. And uh I've already I already told you pre-call what uh my my next outing is gonna be when you're back in the States. So we're gonna have an amazing time. Uh Max, who's our producer, uh, got to go ATV, four-wheel riding with us. And so I'm gonna I'm gonna get you when you're back here and we're gonna do it. It's gonna be awesome.

No, I'm excited, and you know, thank you for having me on this uh special 100th episode. Um grateful for you know the connections, grateful for uh you know to be part of this agency Mavericks community. And super excited to see you next time in person.

Thanks a lot, Manish. I'll talk to you soon. Thanks for listening to the Agency Hour podcast and a massive thanks to Manish for joining us. I always enjoy catching up with him and I'm so appreciative of everything that he and his team does at E2M to support the agency Mavericks community. Okay, folks, don't forget to smash that subscribe button and please share this with anyone who you think needs to hear it. I'm Johnny Flash. Let's get to work.