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The Agency Hour
The Future of Agency Growth: An Exploration of the 'Get Paid to Close' model with Jeremy Moff
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It's helping us do the projects right because uh we're not necessarily being rushed in in certain aspects of it. So that's that's been a benefit, and then just the benefit of actually delivering a better product, a better website, a better experience for my clients. That's been huge.
SPEAKER_00Welcome to the Agency Hour Podcast. This week we're joined by certified story brand guide and president of Moth Interactive, Jeremy Moth, all the way from Seattle, USA. Jeremy is a Mavericks Club member and has been making beautiful, user-friendly websites since 1998 and has recently become one of our strongest case studies for our Get Paid to Close model. And in this episode, it's all about getting paid to close. We define digital roadmaps, we reflect on what life looked like before paid discovery, which to be honest, is where many agencies are still operating, unfortunately. We also explore how Jeremy has taken the Get Paid to Close training and made it his own, as well as the impact that it's had on Jeremy's business. I'm Johnny Flash. Stay with us. Hey Jeremy, how's it going?
SPEAKER_01Oh, it's going good. Good to see you.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, thanks for coming on. And um, you've had such great success with the digital road mapping recently, um, with with some of the stuff that agency Mavericks has been teaching that I just wanted to have you on here to uh kind of talk through that. So uh for those that maybe aren't familiar with like paid discovery or digital road mapping, well, yeah, let's define what it was, and then I I want to kind of hear how you were doing it prior to that. So, uh how would you kind of describe it for someone?
SPEAKER_01So I would describe it as really just getting paid to come up with a plan. It's really like kind of like I don't know if you remember back in the WP elevation days with the deep, the go wide, go deep stuff, right? You're doing a lot of you're going wide and going deep and coming up with a plan, you're really finding out about your client, your customer, and their business and and their needs and what success looks like for them. So, so when you're putting a plan together for them, you're putting a plan together that's gonna help them succeed. That in itself has made a huge difference. And then the cool thing is, you know, previously I would um put together estimates or or whatever, and some of them could be quite extensive. And you know, I might meet with a client for a half hour or or something like that and go over some stuff, and then there was always stuff where it felt like we're doing kind of some guesswork on well, what do they need here and and all that, and then you know, spending anywhere from depending on project, it could be a couple hours putting that proposal together, or it could be, you know, five or six hours, and then going in, and that's all time that you know was just kind of given away. Yeah, free.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and I think I and I think that's a common thing, right? I mean, I think a lot of agency owners or freelancers that are listening, we all have those stories of you know, spending a lot of time getting to know a client or writing a proposal or doing research to figure out how to solve X, Y, or Z problem, and you know, and then you know, the client's like, oh, it's too expensive, or I'm gonna go somewhere else, or this or that. And you're like, oh man, I spent all this time and I didn't get any pay for it. So um is that kind of where you know, describe a little bit how how it was before you were doing the road the digital road mapping?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so it's just kind of a little bit all over the place, but usually it would go like, you know, I'd meet with a client and like I said, we'd meet maybe for a half hour, maybe an hour at the most, and I'd get some ideas, and um, but it wasn't very uh in-depth. And and then we'd we'd put we'd try to put together a proposal for them, and we'd put to and part of the struggle was that is that we just didn't have enough information, right? We weren't asking the right questions, we weren't asking what what success look looked like, we weren't asking what their problems were uh necessarily, just not the right way. And then we'd put that all together, and um you know the close rate probably wasn't very good. I'm saying I'm I'm thinking it was pretty low, maybe 30% or something like that. And there, so there would be a lot of times where you'd spend all that I would spend all that time and just for not, right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. And I think it's so frustrating, right? You spend all this time, all this energy, and then you know, it's basically wait time wasted down the drain. So now that you're doing digital road mapping, like um, you know, what what does it look like in terms of like uh give us if you could an idea of like what you're charging, how how much time you're spending, and and kind of what that looks like in terms of of doing that.
SPEAKER_01Well, uh, when I first started, I just uh so I I took the course last August, I think it was, and when I was doing that, I had a couple clients on Joomla websites that uh we're not gonna support anymore. So we wanted to port them over to WordPress. And actually, in the middle of taking the course, I had sent just quick proposals over, or not even proposals, just saying, hey, we could one client said, hey, we could just move your website over, it'd be like $1,500. Another client, you know, I was uh e-commerce site. I said, hey, we can move your site over. Um, you know, it would probably be a couple thousand dollars, right? To do that. Well, I'm finishing up the digital roadmap course or the paid discovery, I think it was called then. Um and uh finishing that up, and I'm like, wait a second. No, I'm gonna call the these two clients and say, hey, you know, that's the old way we did things, but if you're looking to improve your website and really figure out how it's gonna help your business, then I recommend doing the the digital roadmap on it. And for those, I just did the the base, I think at the time the base suggestion, uh, minimum suggestion was like $550, $550. And going into it, I'm like thinking because I already had given them estimates on the thing, I'm like, oh, they're not gonna sign up. They both signed up, right? So went and did that for them. And the one the one that I estimated about $1,500, he signed up after doing the digital roadmap and everything. That turned into a $10,000 project.
SPEAKER_00$1,500 to $10,000.
SPEAKER_01Yes. And then that is incredible. Yeah, the e-commerce site um went from you know a couple thousand to uh twenty thousand dollar project. Wow.
SPEAKER_00So just just that shift in those two projects alone went from like four or five, six thousand to thirty thousand worth of value just from charging that $550 up front to do that. Those digital roadmapping.
SPEAKER_01The cool thing, the cool thing, their websites are so much uh better and and working for them much better than if we would have just ported the old sites over with nothing changed on it, right? Uh so they're getting a much better end product too. That's really gonna help their business, their businesses grow. So that's great too.
SPEAKER_00Wow. So and then what what does it look like in terms of so basically you got paid $550 to kind of like dig a little bit deeper and write the proposal, which normally you probably would have done anyways, right? But you did that for you you did that um and you got paid for it this time, right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so um doing the digital roadmap, the paid discovery. Um and like Troy says, you don't want to call it paid discovery because people call it discovery, right? So digital roadmap's a great name for it. Doing that, it does take some time, you know. Usually I, you know, I just did one yes uh yeah, yesterday, and the the interview took about two and a half hours to do everything, and then I then I'm gonna take it with my team and and take that and and make it look fantastic and uh get the proposal together for them.
SPEAKER_00Cool. Are you still charging $550? Or have you?
SPEAKER_01No, no. So this one I charge $700. It it kind of I charge kind of based on how long I I think it's gonna take. You know, if I'm meeting with one person, then it's probably gonna be about that $700 price. If there's a couple people involved, then it you know it's gonna be at least a thousand. And if there's you know more than a couple, then we're looking at a minimum of $1,500. Um to do that. So yeah, just depend the more people involved, the longer it's gonna take.
SPEAKER_00So how many of you how so you had those two initial ones, you've had some recent ones, like how many do you think you've done digital road mapping in the last because you've only started this in the last few months, right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. So I did um I've completed five sessions, right? I just started the sixth session yesterday. Um, but out of the five I've completed, I've closed three of those. And the fourth one, they're just waiting. They they had some other big business stuff come up, and every time I've talked to them, they're like, no, we want to do this. So there's a good chance I'll close that fourth one.
SPEAKER_00Uh okay, so then you'd be at like 80% close rate versus the 30% that you had before, right?
SPEAKER_01Okay, right. The fifth one was uh for an artist, and doing it for artists was really interesting because their business is so different, right? And it was kind of hard for them to wrap their mind around what we were trying to do. By the time we finish it, they got it. But um I uh that one I don't think is gonna close.
SPEAKER_00So that's still, man. That's um that's incredible. What have you found um with the ones that you've done and stuff? Have you found that it works? Um, I'm curious. One, if you've had if you've done any clients where you didn't do road digital road mapping in the last few months since you started doing this. So you are there certain clients or projects where you feel like, hey, you found it works really well for, or maybe some ones where it's like, ah, it's not quite as good of a fit. Like, I'd be curious any insights that you have on that.
SPEAKER_01So far, I've uh if it's any project at all, if they have any budget, I'd I'd like we need to do this. Um, even with the artist, he got information in there that was very helpful for him to move forward with, right? For the most part, I recommend doing it. Now, I did have a call with another small client where you know I gave him an option that we could just another Joomla move, right? That we could just port his website over. But I also pitched the the digital roadmap. And what part of my pitch with the digital roadmap, I'm like, you don't you wouldn't go to a a dentist and just have them start pulling teeth out, you know, they're gonna do x-rays and and and then they're gonna come up with a plan for moving forward on what they're gonna do and how they're gonna do it. So that's what we want to do with the digital roadmap. We want to really get into what your business is doing, what's going on with the business, and what success would look like for you so we can create the website and the marketing and and all that to help you succeed.
SPEAKER_00I love that. That's such a good analogy, you know, because I think a lot of times they do think like, oh, just pick out a template and build my website and you know, charge me a few hundred bucks and like have it done in a week, and as if it's just something that you like are gonna throw together, and you're like, well, like there's probably someone out there who would do that, but that's not the same as like what we're talking about, right? And and we're wanting something that's gonna really get the results that you want. If you've got the pain in your mouth, you'd be really upset if they pulled three teeth and you still had the pain, you know, after uh, you know, all doing all that, right? So it's the same kind of thing. It's like we're trying to solve problems, we're trying to like get results, and so just uh, you know, just kind of haphazardly or quickly do going in there and doing stuff is probably not gonna be the best um the route. So I think that's great.
SPEAKER_01Right. And just to add on to that, what I've seen too is that so the digital roadmap acts like an entry or a one-off project, too. And it builds when you're in there doing the session and everything, you're building trust with the the client. Not only are you building trust, but you're getting buy-in because they're participating, right? So then they're involved with this whole thing. So um I think that makes them more likely to close too, and and they see all the work and all, you know, the map, the plan, and everything that goes into doing this right. Whereas um, oh yeah, they could go have their nephew build it on Wix, you know, whatever, but it's not gonna have you know all the SEL, uh, the page speed, every, you know, the messaging and and all the other pieces that go in there. So by doing this, they get to they get to see everything that goes into building a website that's really gonna help them succeed.
SPEAKER_00Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. What are some of the other you just mentioned there a few of the benefits of doing um you know this digital road mapping where you're building the trust, you're you know, you're getting buy-in from the client, they're contributing to like the overall strategy, which then makes them more likely. Are are there some other benefits that you've seen too from from doing the digital road mapping?
SPEAKER_01Well, yeah, I mean, just as an agency, right, we when we go through and present the plan, we um if you take the course, Troy talks about uh using ClickUp to do like a 12-month visual plan. And that visual plan is very helpful too. So, you know, so the website build might take uh two months, let's say, or or something like that. And then after that, we'll have the ongoing stuff, whether that's just the care plan, or if they want SEO stuff, or if they want, you know, paid ads, or if they want help with content, right? Right, we have that that plan laid out there. So that's that's been huge too. And I kind of forgot the question. Oh, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_00I know I think that's I think you're hitting it in terms of you're you're not just kind of saying, like, hey, we're gonna do this website project in six or eight weeks or whatever. You're kind of laying out like a long-term plan, which has an added benefit, right? Because now they're not just thinking of working with you for the next six or eight weeks, they're thinking about wow, I could I'm gonna be working with Jeremy for the next year and he's gonna help me do all these things because he's got a holistic plan that he's talking about, right?
SPEAKER_01Right. And that's where I was going. Yeah. So uh a big shift for my agency has been instead of going, oh, we want half down or we want a quarter down, and then we're gonna get a quarter when it's almost done, and then the rest have final, you know, instead we're putting people on these 12-month plans, which is helping my cash flow too. It's helping us do the projects right because uh we're not necessarily being rushed in in certain aspects of it if they're on this 12-month plan. Still, we want to get the website built in a timely manner, but it's just a per perspective shift on it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's a long-term, it's a longer-term relationship and they have more buy-in, and and you guys are more bought in too, because I think we've all been guilty of probably building a website and then kind of like we put a whole bunch of energy in and spend a whole bunch of time with the client and then like kind of take our foot off the gas and you know, um, you know, just kind of and I don't want to say coast, but maybe don't do as much as we could, right? Right. Um, so I think I think that's huge. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So that's that's been a benefit. And then just the benefit of actually delivering a better product, a better website, a better experience for my clients. That's been huge. Also, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I love it. Love it. So good. I mean, there's so many like small applications, I think, that like it's it's like it's a it's not like a huge, huge shift, but just uh getting a like it because you're almost using the digital road mapping as like what we would call a fire starter in in Mavericks, right? Where it's like you're getting your foot in the door, you're trying to sell them on something bigger, and rather than just say, hey, buy this $20,000 website, hey, buy this $750 digital road mapping session, which whether you work with me or someone else, you're gonna be able to take this and use it and have a better product at the end, right? It'd kind of be like saying to the general contractor, like, hey, can you just build me a house? Like, here's my little chicken scratch diagram. Like, I kind of want it to look like this. Can you draw, you know, build this for me? And like, obviously, that would be a nightmare, right? Versus like sitting down with an architect planning it all out, getting it just right, thinking about where needs to be what needs to be where and how the flow is gonna go, and you know, all of that, and then having someone build it, it's like a totally different experience, right?
SPEAKER_01Right, it is. It's really been a game changer for my business, and then also for for for my clients, too.
SPEAKER_00So um yeah, and you taught you touched on something earlier about, you know, hey, uh Troy talks about in the in the course. Like, tell us about like how what what course did you go through? What you know, tell tell us for those of that might not be aware, like kind of just give the the the what you watched and what you went through.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so I think it was called paid discovery when I took it, but I think it's paid to close now. Uh I'm not sure. I think maybe the titles change, but yeah, I went through it. It um it seemed like it was a pretty easy course to get through. And then really, I've just been really using it pretty much uh like he he has like the the Canva template in there that that you get. I've been using that almost to a T. I mean, there's a little bit of customization that I've done, but not a whole lot, and yeah, it's been super successful for me.
SPEAKER_00Cool, awesome, and that's just one of the many trainings inside of agency Mavericks that you have access to, obviously. That some folks, if they're not as part of Agency Mavericks, they would have to like get that as a one-off. But as part of agency Mavericks, like we have a bunch of training in there. And uh as your coach, I'm all I'm constantly trying to think of, okay, Jeremy's talking about this problem or this person's talking about this problem. Like, here's a resource that we have that can, you know, help you with kind of fast track that, you know, as much as possible. And so I think that it has been it's been really cool to see you just um take that and apply it. And I think, you know, sometimes uh as agency owners or freelancers, we can be kind of our own like biggest bottleneck, right? Where we are like we're so busy focused on our clients' problems and the fires and spinning all the plates that like we don't take the time to level up our business or to work on our own business. And like you taking that small amount of time to like go through something, try something a little bit differently, like you took massive action. You're just like, hey, I've already told them an estimate, but I'm gonna just like this seems like a really great idea. I'm just gonna say, hey, that's kind of the old way, here's the new way. And like they they bought into it, and that turned from a small amount of money to like a much larger amount of money, I think is just is just really cool to see.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I I was uh I was just I was amazed because I I I thought, oh, because when I so part of the process when I do the digital roadmaps, I kind of give I give options, right? So there's kind of the Ford option, the Tesla option, and then the Ferrari option, right? And so when I when I finally uh presented these digital roadmaps to those the two clients I was telling you about earlier, uh in my mind I'm thinking, oh, they're just gonna go with um the Ford, or or they might go, no, I just want to do that estimate you sent, you know, weeks ago about just you know they both came back and did the middle, you know, the middle one, which I was just blown away. Uh when I am proposing the digital roadmap, I do say at some point, look, this is a once you have this, you can you could try to do it yourself, you can have somebody else do it. We prefer you work with us, obviously, but yeah, you know, it it's a it's a standalone thing that you can take and and use it. So I do mention that. Yeah. And then two of the big parts uh that I've seen really uh good reactions from from the clients are the user flow maps, the so how a user is gonna go through the website, a new user, and then a returning user. And then you I highly recommend you have to put in. I take the click up 12 month plan and I do a screenshot of it, and I put I made a created a new page in the uh digital roadmap Canva template that says 12 month plan. And I'd I'd put six months on top and six months on on bottom, and it shows that 12-month plan right there. I highly recommend doing that too.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's a great, that's a great tweak to the to the process that I think just kind of it furthers that you know long-term relationship with the client, and you've got a whole strategy, and like this is all part of it. And I think that just it I think you know, clients ultimately they want to feel like they're a safe, they're in safe hands, you know. And I was uh a few weeks ago, I was presenting to a bunch of business leaders my my own business, and they were not agency owners. They were in like all different businesses, right? That our agencies would all serve. And um, they they said the two things that they wanted more from whoever was doing their marketing, whichever agency or person that they were using, they said, uh, we want to know um more often how well we're how well we're doing because we feel like we're kind of in the dark. Like, yes, we could get an analytics report or whatever, but like we really don't know like how much how is this amount that I'm spending on ads or social media or SEO or whatever, like what's really the result that I'm getting for that. They feel like they generally in the room there was like a yeah, I feel like I'm in the dark too. And it wasn't that they weren't getting anything, it's just that they weren't getting enough or they didn't have clarity around what they were getting. And then the other thing that they said is like they would love for their, you know, marketing person or or agency to be more proactive, right? With with what their recommendations are and say, hey, look, this is what we've done over this last six months or year. Here's what um we we've seen work with other clients that are similar to yours, but we'd like to implement this. Like they were just longing for someone to come to them and be proactive and say, this is what's working for someone else. We think it would work well for you, and like, can we do this? And they just were wanting that kind of like more insight into you know all of that. And so I think that was just eye-opening for me as I was hearing all these business owners chime in. And I think this bringing it back, I think this digital road mapping is perfect for that, right? Because you're laying out a huge plan, you've kind of said this is what we're gonna do, this is where it's gonna take us, and I think it just gives a lot of comfort to business owners.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I I think so. And actually, one of the ways I've been uh using it is actually going back to current clients that maybe uh haven't done much on their websites, or even they if they are, you know, maybe their website, maybe we built their website like seven years ago or something, and there's just stuff that needs to be done, and and now going back and saying, you know, this is the first step in and doing this, and then showing them examples of the transformation of other websites that we've done this with, right? So they can see the difference, and the difference is is huge compared to the old way of just trying to do the estimate, trying to kind of guess what they need and what they want and and all that stuff.
SPEAKER_00Well, and I think it's such a great differentiator, right? I mean, because a lot of other agencies are just gonna say, hey, well, here's the price, here's what we're gonna do. And like for you to just say, hey, let's slow down a little bit, let's like really dive into this deep. And if you want to work with me after that, cool. And if you wanted to go somewhere else, fine, but you'll at least have a really solid plan. I just think it's brilliant. So, Jeremy, man, this is this is amazing. You're always so inspiring to me just by again, you taking action and just like running with it and doing it. Like, I just it's so rewarding for me to just see you like have the success and take the steps and stuff. So uh kudos to you and thank you so much for coming on and kind of sharing what's been working for you.
SPEAKER_01Well, thank you. I'm happy to come on anytime, and uh yeah, it it and it it's been working great. So I highly recommend it.
SPEAKER_00Thanks for listening to the Agency Hour podcast and a massive thanks to Jeremy Mau for joining us. We love hearing about your wins and can't wait to hear about all that you achieve next. Okay, folks, don't forget to subscribe and please share this with anyone who you think may need to hear it. Now, are you getting paid to close clients? You should be. Right now, we're guaranteeing you can get paid to close eight new clients in the next 30 days. If you'd like to chat with our team about how you can get paid to close, click the link beneath this episode. Let's get to work.