The Agency Hour
The Agency Hour is for digital agency owners like you who want to start, grow and scale their businesses. It’s like hanging out with friends while getting a masterclass in how to tackle the most significant obstacles you’re facing as an entrepreneur.
The Agency Hour
How to mine local leads
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So, how we convert it at such a high rate is our website is actually one big godfather mess that mixed in with a little bit of that hook story offer from um kind of click funnels. Um when I take people through that meeting, it's a curated experience. Um I take them through my website uh and it's scripted to the word. Um every step at every step there's a Mavericks uh process being played out, whether it's from the blueprint, whether it's custom acquisition formula, sales accelerator, guide from Godfather Mather, content strategy, high-ticket sales funnel. There's not a unique thing that I do in the um in the in the sales uh call that I have. Um and if you want to see that, so one of the things it takes too long for me to do it today, but if you want to see it, rather than me have it recorded and go out onto the internet just for people to copy, if you want to see it, whoever's watching this, you can actually book on uh a call with me and I will show you.
SPEAKER_00If you have a vision for the agency you want to build, then we want to help you build it. Welcome to the Agency Hour Podcast, brought to you by Agency Mavericks.
SPEAKER_01Hey, there we go, look out. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to another episode of the Agency Hour live here in the Digital Mavericks Facebook group. And the smooth, smooth tunes today are being supplied by a band called the Delegates. This is a track called Eight Points Later. Now, listen, Facebook and YouTube, you can't take this one off the air because this is what's called royalty-free production music. That's right. We paid for this one. So I'm just gonna let the beats roll for a second.
SPEAKER_06I wasn't winning it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, baby. Uh, so for those of you who don't know, traditionally what happens is I would just play some of my favorite jazz music at the start of the show. And YouTube and Facebook always just silence that part of the live stream while they take us off the air because we're infringing copyright. If you want to have a conversation about that, go and follow my friend Rick Biatto over on YouTube. He's got a whole theory about uh uh digital copyright management uh for the internet. He's well worth following. Go check out Rick Biatto at the Everything Music channel on YouTube and uh get around there. But anyway, we decided to pony up and uh we use a service called Artlist. Artlist.io, I think it is. I should have an affiliate link, but I don't. And uh that's where we get our production music for our videos, and they're royalty free, which means we are allowed to use them. So there you go. Little tip for you all this morning. All right, today on the agency hour, I am, by the way, the set here, I think, is really coming into its own. It's looking, I feel like, I feel like I'm uh either on the set of friends or I'm hosting Sesame Street. I can't figure out which one it is, uh, but it's feeling like it's getting pretty cozy in here and uh the lighting's good, the brick wall's good. If you're listening to this as a podcast, by the way, and you don't know what the hell I'm talking about, come and join the Digital Mavericks Facebook group, and uh you'll be able to see what we are talking about, and you'll be able to um enjoy the live stream and come and leave some comments and get involved in the conversation. My guest today is a member of our Mavericks Club mastermind for agency owners. He is a massive, massive action taker. He is from the land of the Long White Cloud, just across the ditch, as we call it here. He's in New Zealand. Uh he has he's got a very different business model. He's been on the podcast before. He was on a couple of weeks ago. I said I'd invite him back for part two. He's got a very different business model where he essentially finds companies that have crappy websites and offers to build them one for free. And that is basically his lead generator. Today, what he's gonna do is he's gonna show us how he would start from scratch. If he had to start again and had no list, no audience, no connections, how would he start an agency from scratch and get his first batch of clients in terms of how where to find them, the offer to make, all that kind of stuff? Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to the show. Mike the magician sprat, all the way from New Zealand. Gurken Media. Hey Mike, how you doing?
SPEAKER_03Really good. Never better. Thanks. Yeah, thanks for having me back.
SPEAKER_01I've nicknamed you the magician because uh you uh you what I love about working with you is that you take an idea and you run with it and you embellish it and you augment it and you turn it into something completely new and knock it out of the park, and then you come back and you show me, hey dude, check this out. It's very rewarding uh to see uh that kind of action being taken. So um, for those that missed part one of this podcast, just give us the too long didn't read version. Who are you? Where did you come from? What do you do and why are you back?
SPEAKER_03Um yeah, okay, so um, you know, Gherkin Media has been my main focus for about four or five years. It was actually started in 2019, uh, but I always had you know kind of other, you know, uh uh balls up in the air. I I had a uh digital print and signage company to start with. I started that company when I was about 23. I think I sold it when I was about some 30. Then I had to help my old old man, you know, with his business for a little bit. And in the background, Gherkin media was always there. Um, but yeah, it didn't really become my kind of um main focus until about four or five years ago. Um that's when I started to staff it. That's when I started to prioritize it, you know, started to really kind of push towards the front end of the curve from um you know my skill set, you know, point of view. Um and then yeah, I think the the big catalysts for my success have been, you know, uh one of my first you know staff members, plus you know, the the ones that followed and obviously joining digital uh agency Mavericks, um, you know, it was uh a huge uh you know kind of growth multiplier for me and um yeah, I love care plans and uh any type of recurring monthly revenue. And uh our success so far has allowed us to be in a position where we also like to buy other agencies. And so um that's what I think I'm gonna talk to you today about is kind of like at both ends of the scale, like how I would start again, you know, should I have to, um, or how I would recommend part of the activity that someone would take when starting an agency. And then uh secondarily, once you've got some wins under your belt, you know, some staff, you know, um, and stuff like that, and and cash flow positive and friendly and and you're making money, uh, how you reinvest that into um the acquisition of other agencies um, you know, to create a triple win for yourself, the outbound owner, and the the staff that you uh the clients that you acquire. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So love it. Love it. A couple of questions before we dive in. One, when you decided to go all in on a digital agency, a web design agency essentially at that point, were you like, hang on a second, there's like eight million web design agencies like on every street corner, everyone's competing on price, the whole thing's a commodity. I'm you could have done anything really at that point in your life. You had a decision, you could have chosen a different business model. What gave you the confidence that you would be able to get into this space and differentiate and and be and not race to the bottom on price and eventually get enough clients to be sustainable and profitable and make this a real thing? What how what was that what was that inkling of inspiration that you had that this that you were gonna make this work?
SPEAKER_03I'd already operated in competitive markets. Um I I don't ever think about competition. In fact, competition is a good sign that you know there's a market and and a business there. So even though we started out our agency with no unique sales, you know, proposition, with no, you know, great offers, uh, you know, it it just wasn't something that I was scared of. I don't think I I it was I I'm I'm all like I'm all about relationships. I transactions are annoying, you know, like they're just I I actually hate the money part of uh uh of business. And so I've always been good at extending my hand uh you know in in in support and in adding value and and and stuff like that. And in the previous things that I did in my career, uh both in the signage digital print game and then when I helped my old man uh who's in finance, um you you you're you you're always gonna have competition, you know, you're always gonna have you know people undercutting you on price, you're always gonna have commoditization. Um, you know, but you know, if you know it but in all three you know scenarios, people like to work with people. That's you know like a fundamental that will never go away. We human beings won't be replaced by AI. Uh, you know, shitty operators might be, but nothing beats a relationship. And so the confidence from me being self-employed from such a young age, um, you know, plus I like helping people, I like people, and um, you know, I like to solve problems and uh, you know, so uh an industry with lots of problems to solve, which is the one that me and you are in, um, it's a great place to to find yourself if you um you know can solve problems for other people. And um, and so it it wasn't it had nothing to do with the thing that I do. I don't even do the thing that I do, I don't build websites, you know. I I don't I don't I don't do you know create you know I don't design anymore or anything like that. I I solve problems for small to medium-sized business owners. And um uh, you know, you could sit me in any industry and I'd be fine, I think.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, love it. It's a great mindset. And I think you might have just answered my next question accidentally, which is why the hell are you giving up so much of your time? Because this is not the first time you've done this, right? To come back and share what you've learned. When you first joined Maverick's Club and you started knocking it out of the park, you put together a PowerPoint presentation and came to me and said, Hey dude, check this out. And I think we got on a call and we did a live stream. This is the second time you've come on the agency hour. Why do you feel compelled to give up so much of your time to come back and share what's working for you?
SPEAKER_03Um I've I I guess I've had a lot of course correction in my life that's come from other people building bridges so that I don't have to, you know, wade through what they've gone through. I I guess. People like yourself, you know, like you know, you know, you come to uh you know a big divide and and and you know, you know, part of me says there's a right of passage into business ownership, you know, um, and and therefore you should have to get your kind of like, you know, hands hands dirty and and and there are things that you need to kind of you know uh you know battle through, but but some stuff doesn't. Like the stuff that I'm gonna you know show you today, the business owners are gonna have enough trouble, you know, getting through to viability without also having to, you know, um do it without the support of you know people like yourself and and myself and stuff like that. Well weirdly, I'm watching the um um Tony Robbins Thrive thing at the moment. He's got one going over the next five days, and um uh it's all about uh packaging up your own IP and stuff like that. And he drew this thing on the whiteboard where he said, like, look, you know, like there's lots of divides to cross, and if you can build bridges for other people, you know, to accelerate their success, um, you know, it it's it's not the same as emboldening your competition, right? Because my competition won't want to do what I do, you know, like fundamentally someone who's who's in it for the money won't do what I do because money comes at the end. Um and so I guess the the long the long answer to well the short answer to that kind of like long question is um if I can help other agencies owners owners accelerate to where I'm at, then more small to medium-sized businesses are gonna be dealing with good operators who are there for the good and with good intentions, with uh, you know, and that are gonna go do good work and stuff like that. Um, and the more, you know, small to medium sized businesses out there um that are doing well, the more staff that they're gonna hire, you know, the the the the higher the prosperity into those kind of regions and stuff like that, and therefore the the greater good, I guess.
SPEAKER_01Love it. Yeah, it's a great abundant mindset, dude. The other thing I find is that when you share something that you've learned, it really forces you to codify it and to really understand it at a deep level. Like uh someone taught me something a long time ago, Ed Dale, one of my mentors, and one of his mentors said to him, if you want to if you want to learn something, teach it, because then you have to learn it really comprehensively in order to be able to teach it. Because it's one thing to teach something, but then it's another thing to be able to answer the questions that come up along the way from the people that you're teaching, and you can't you can't you can bluff your way through that to a certain point. I've done a pretty good job of that so far, but at some point you actually need to learn the thing at a deep level in order to be able to pass that knowledge on to someone else. So uh I just want to say thank you so much for doing this, man, because it's uh what you're gonna share, I know is super valuable. Um, and so uh I really appreciate your time and generosity in doing this. And so we should dive in. Uh, let's just kick off. Who is this right for? If someone's watching this, who is what you're about, what you're about to share, who is it aimed at? Who is it right for?
SPEAKER_03If you're selling websites and you know uh you have no recurring revenue in your agency, you can bolt this on. Um if you're at this, you know, like if you even if you're at the the same level as me and you're struggling to implement kind of like care plans um and just getting stuck at the lower level recurring revenue products like email registration and uh hosting. Um if you want to maybe if you are a um someone in this industry and you're employed and you want to go to self-employment and you wanna, you know, maybe just kind of like chip away and get some recurring revenue under your belt before you leave your job, um, you know, or if you have no idea, you know, about um, you know, this industry, uh but you know that it's a growth industry, you know that it's in the STEM fields, which means it's going to be scalable, um, and you are prepared to build a team around yourself uh you know with the competency, that might that might be a little bit harder. But it but anyone who wants to build uh monthly recurring revenue, um and and and the disclaimer that I would put in it is if you want money now, don't do what I do. If you want money later and a big chunk on exit, then then do what I do. Um if you need if you need money now, maybe sell some websites, um, maybe split it 50-50. Traditional model, sell a website for three grand, do one a month, and then do you know five of what I'm about to show you on the side. You'll do six websites a a month, you'll get paid for you know one of them, but you'll have five people on a care plan at the end of the month paying you 200 bucks each. And so pretty quickly after month three, you're you're not gonna sell the website for three grand anymore. That's right, you know, because you'll see the benefit of the recurring revenue. So um agencies who want to bolt it on, someone who wants to leave their job. Um when I get into the you know the depths of this, maybe someone who like like because I had a background from the um signage stuff, I knew how to design websites and and I had one skill set within the hundreds of skill sets you need to run a successful full-width digital agency. Um so maybe someone who with no web skill set, maybe. Yeah, we'll see.
SPEAKER_01Cool. Okay, love it. So do you do you want to share your screen and we'll dive into your slides and and uh get started, by the way, while Mike's doing that. Uh, if you're listening to this as a podcast, if someone shared it with you, if you've accidentally discovered us, this is the Agency Hour by Agency Mavericks. My name is Troy Dean. I'm your host. We are live in the Digital Mavericks Facebook group. So come and join us there. And like and subscribe wherever you're listening to this. Uh leave us a comment, send us an email at support at agencymavericks.com. Tell us what you like, what you want more of. Uh, if you've got any feedback where all is, we do read all of the feedback and we want to make this show as uh useful and as uh entertaining and as uh as you know awesome as possible for you guys. So please give us some feedback. Um I think Mike is just sharing his screen. This is another reason you should come and join the Digital Mavericks Facebook group because occasionally we do this where we screen share, uh, which is a bit tricky if it's just a podcast. Here we go.
SPEAKER_03Um, so is that working?
SPEAKER_01It is. I can see that. It's uh it's uh says agency map is interviewing yeah.
SPEAKER_03So first part of this is gonna be make mining your way uh to a good start with a new digital agency, and the second part will be um how uh I buy other agencies with confidence to create a triple windmill. Can I use my um can I I can just scroll my mouse? Cool, cool, cool. Um so a few disclaimers here. So I'm actually a consultant, you know, for web agencies or any other businesses. Uh, I don't actually help anyone in a professional environment improve their web businesses. I'm just showing you uh three three core things that I did when I got started. Secondarily, especially when I show you how I buy businesses, don't take anything that I give you as financial advice, tax advice, or anything like that. You'd need to check with your own accountant and within your own jurisdictions and stuff like that. Additionally, I'm not saying that you should replace what you're currently doing in your agency, or this is the only way that you should build your business. And large, large lastly, as well, is um I'm gonna build a big business. So scale this to the size that you want. Um you know, you don't have to kind of like follow me to where I'm going with it. Uh, also gonna make some assumptions. So I'm gonna make the assumption um that you have some ability to put a website together. Um, I'm gonna show you how to create websites fast and without disruption or and or delay, uh, but having some knowledge of the web industry, um, yeah, I'm gonna make that assumption. I'm gonna assume that you have the knowledge of common marketplace tools for web design and web development, CRMs, stuff like that. I'm gonna assume that like most businesses, your intention is to start local, you know, close to your home or office. Uh, and obviously, I'm gonna, you know, assume that you're prepared to take some action. Some of it might be uncomfortable. You can, you know, um do the uncomfortable stuff if you want or not. Um, you know, and um also gonna assume that you're you know gonna put some time into this. So, mining your way to a good start with a new digital agency. Uh number one would be the scalp. So if you take a bird's eye view of your city, of your area, you know, or of anything, can you look at it in this view, you can't really kind of like tell too much. If you look at the satellite view, what becomes apparent in any city is where businesses cluster. So with the satellite view, I can obviously see that kind of like north and southeast of uh Auckland is farm area. You it's easy to see what residential looks like, and it jumps out at you of where big clusters of businesses gather, right? They're always kind of like all of the big white roofs and stuff like that. Uh you can see that I was obviously at home when I took this screenshot, uh, but my offices are actually in East Tamaki here. Um, and as you can see, like I could do this in any city. Uh so this is Melbourne. I've never been to Melbourne before, but I would kind of know where to go and kind of like get started if I wanted to see where uh industry and businesses cluster. That's not to say that there isn't businesses that uh you know go through the spines of all of these streets and all of these stuff in the residential areas, but when you're mining, you kind of want to go to where the biggest kind of like you know chunks of of gold are. So as you can see for for this mining, you know, kind of one, like if I live here out in the eastern suburbs of Auckland and I work in East Tumaki, that's probably a pretty good place for me to start. And so what I did was I started with this street that was actually a crescent called Andromeda. So as you can kind of like see, it looks pretty commercial, pretty kind of like industrial. And if I flick back to here and I count up all of the Google My Business listings, I can see that there's uh about 23 GMB listings for this street. So at this stage, we need to move from a bird's eye view and change it to a curbside view. So what I do when I mine a street is I give myself a little bit of a just an XL, I give myself a little bit of a kind of like a roadmap for the addresses on that street, and then I actually go there and I fill it all out, right? So I actually go there, park my car, and I'll just walk along, you know, that street and I'll take notes of all of the kind of like uh businesses that are on that street. Here you can kind of like see uh you know all of my scrappy kind of like notes and my terrible handwriting. And lo and behold, there are actually 103 businesses, not 25 on Andromeda Crescent. And so what it kind of like leads me to believe there is there's you know, still obviously the 25 opportunities that you could mine without going and getting the curbside view. You know, you could also kind of like drop into street view, but they're not always kind of like guaranteed to give you accurate information. Um but there's what I've noticed whenever I do this is there's a big difference between what you can see and what's actually there.
SPEAKER_01Wow.
SPEAKER_03So face phase two would be the mine. So what you've got to do is you've got to take all of that information that you gathered on the scale and you've got to clean it up a little bit. What I do is I cross-reference as much information as I can, you know, business to business. I'm looking for who owns it, how long it's been running, how many staff it has. I'll look at the website and I'll make ratings on the type of website, the complexity, the quality. I'll see if they've got stuff missing. Like do they have a GMB panel? Are there any reviews on it? I'll take notes on stuff that I might see that's broken or needs improvement. I'll also jump around and have a look at signs of post-launch activity on Google and Facebook, LinkedIn, social media. And ultimately what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to get like a little bit of a general feel for that business and whether it's going to be a good fit for me. And so what you end up with after those kind of like scribbles in this mining process is I do this in Airtable because I like Airtable a little bit better than Excel. Yeah, me too. It has more um, you know. Um, but what I end up is with these lists that show the company, the address, Google My Business, yes or no, the type of website, whether it's a brochure, whether it's e-commerce, whether it's just like way too complicated, the quality, good, poor, DIY, or none. I get the URL, and then from the the um the those are kind of like mining, I'll be able to find out who I think the decision maker is and get their contact name, email, uh, and phone number. Mine group I'll get to a little bit later. Notes I'll get to a little bit later, and rating I'll get to a little bit later. So, excuse me, for this, what I did was I not only did Andromeda, uh, but I did only hunger mall, slightly, slightly kind of skewed. This is more kind of like restaurants, barbers, all of that kind of stuff, uh, eateries and uh, you know, small little businesses. I did a street by my house, which is called Vincent Street, which has like a whole lot of um, you know, like a dentist and um, you know, kind of other bits and pieces, um, uh carpet store, um, you know, those kind of businesses. Um, and for me, you know, this is maybe more kind of like uh for a business at my stage. I also went out of Auckland, about an hour and a half out of Auckland, to a township ship called Waihee. And this is really to, I guess, kind of like show the flexibility of the of the mining process. So I have other investments going into Waihee. I own this piece of uh land just here. I bought it in November, and I'm gonna be building um me and my wife's first investment property there. My cousin lives here. When I uh um roll out here in a second, my my parents also have a place down on the beach, and this mine is getting filled with water, it's gonna become a lake, and a lot of infrastructure is going into Waihee. Additionally, as you can see, here's Auckland, here's Waihee. Tauronga is New Zealand's second biggest port. And one of the reasons I want to get, say, 50-60 care plans going in Waihee is it'll allow me to maybe hire like a uh my you know, the person who might become my first licensee or franchisee, or maybe they'll just be a good operator for me, and they'll be able to, if I give them Kate, who does all of our um data mining, I'll be able to give her, you know, I'll be able to say to that person, hey, I want I want all of the businesses in the Coronamantal Peninsula, and I want you to get me a foothold in Tower Honor as well. So this is you know, this is me mining out for future steps for the kind of like growth of my business. Um and one of the ways that I mined Waihee is I actually what last time I was down there, I just went into Bunnings and I took a few know these things you still get in like small townships and stuff like that. And then I can actually zoom in and I can actually take all of the details straight off these things and you know ended up getting like 120 you know business contacts into the Waihee area. Um and the and and the last one that I did is everything on my phone. So I'm quite prolific at this. Um, if I see a vehicle that doesn't have a uh a UI, a business vehicle that doesn't have a URL, if something pops up on you know, kind of thing, if I see like a flyer, if one of my friends posts something and I can see that their business has a website, um, if I see something really under like if this one I think was like running ads and it was going to this really terrible website. Again, this company didn't have a URL on their thing, you know, like a little flyer. I had heaps of it. This is this is like the first 10 that I came across. But I was quite I I like if I if I see something that I see as an opportunity, I'll just take a photo or a screenshot of it. And so I tracked my time for so for the scout, so you know, like going to Andromeda and walking to it, going to Only Hung and Wall and walking it, going to Vincent Street and and walking it, um, you know, taking the time to zoom in on those photos and and and um you know stuff in in Waihee and going through all the phone. The scout took me about three, and the mine took me about you know uh seven. No, I actually was sitting on a Sunday watching the UFC when I did that, so that's probably a little bit slow. And another note is Kate, who I've trained how to do this, does it way faster than me, way faster. But you know, you could still say that you know I'm 10 hours deeper into this process at this time.
SPEAKER_01Does Sate do the walking around the streets or is she remote? Does she just do it on a computer?
SPEAKER_03No, I've I've showed a bit but one of the I'll show one of the there's a a thing coming up that I'll show you that um led me to those areas that's a little a little bit different. But no, she can give me she can give me real clean records though. Um but without without one thing that I'm about to show you that's quite powerful. So on my efforts, so this is without Kate, this is me doing it because I wanted to play devil's advocate for for you guys watching was we got about 380 full records, ones that I'm you know, like um uh pretty confident that we've got good data and that we know who the decision maker is. Also got about 95 where the data is a little bit kind of like scrappy and it'll just need a little bit more cross-referencing and and and work uh you know to kind of like clean up. Uh yeah, as you can see here, mainly that I don't know who the decision maker is. So this sorry, there should have been one here where it went from the mind to the rating. So this is phase three, the rating. You would have noticed that on my air table, I broke it down to company name, address, GMB, website type, website quality, URL name, email phone, mining list, notes, and rating. Out of those 476 businesses, by the way, there was 142 or 30% that I rated as good, uh, 5% or 24 that I rated as DIY, uh, 209 that I rated as poor, and 99 that didn't have a website. Okay, but that's actually not how I choose them for the activity phase that's um about to come. What I do is I give them a five-star rating. They get one star for having complete data, one star for the that the that the website sucks, uh, a third star that it's a simple uh website and a simple business, another one that's a common business or in a competitive market. And the last one is that we have a locational anchor. So I have a client on Andromeda, I have a client on Only Hungamore, I have a client on Vincent Street, I also have one client in Waihee already. And what this allows me to do, given that all of these people are strangers, is when I move into the activity um um uh portion of it, that I've there's a little kind of like trick in the wording of of how I introduce myself.
SPEAKER_05Right.
SPEAKER_03So the good the the angle that you want to take in the activity phase is all of the people that had good websites, like depending on what you want to do as an agency, I kind of like leave these ones alone. But the angle would be to wrap it in a care plan with the emphasis on the last three pain points of our care plan. So number one is we'll get you a website, but they already have a good website, so you can't really win based off that. Number two is all of the monthly, number three is ongoing um uh reactionary support, no additional invoices, and number four is a brand new website every 36 months. So they would still fit into that category. None, obviously, we want to take through our free website uh channel and then put them on a care plan. For me, the two I like the best is the DIY and the poor. Reason being that there might be a reason why a business doesn't have a website, and these or people already have a monthly or an annual expense with their website. You know, this person you're getting to spend money for the first time. This person's you know, maybe already happy, these people have a problem, right? So DIY, we're doing apples for apples conversion with core improvements plus a care plan, and poor will do our full rescue proposition plus a care plan. And so what you want to do with this activity phase is you want to grab you know the top 100, and you want to for the hot um uh you know, leads, if you want to call them leads, they're not quite leads as at this stage, they're still strangers, but um, you want to choose the top five that you would love to have as a client. Warm, you want to choose the the the next 40 that you think you have a really good shot at, cold, which is the remaining kind of like 55. We need to feel out, and I'm about to show you how to do that. And some as well, as you come as you're going through it, you might just want to throw away. But seeing that you've taken the time to, you know, you know, set seeing that their representative time already spent, you could just do something like send them a my web audit audit and and put them into your CRM and just see if that hook stays in the water for long enough for um, you know, to um you know provide any you know kind of stuff in the future. Um and don't ever put any of this stuff into some type of EDM and send it out because that's spam. All right, and that's not what I'm showing you to do at all. Like at all. You know, don't don't do that.
SPEAKER_06That's what I would do.
SPEAKER_03You can, but I mean you can. I mean, hey, I don't you you you can. Um okay, so what's important to note as well is on this next phase, I didn't used to, but I now have processing pages. So these are uh uh hidden pages on my website, and they actually have all of the uh Mavericks IP, you know, the the systems around triage calls, strategy calls, go wide, go deep, uh not quite right emails, um, all of that kind of stuff. And I have it open uh when I do this next phase so that by the time I'm um getting off the phone or whatever it is going to be with these person people, that um the next uh phases happen. And so for the cold stuff, all you want to do is you know break it down across your week. So if you've got 55, you know, maybe you do 11 a day. Um, and what what I do is I go, I ring them and I go, hey, it's Mike here from Gherkin Media, how are you doing? You know, what whatever they say, okay, that's awesome. And so when I what then what I do, I was saying, hey, when I was down on Andromeda Crescent yesterday, visiting my locational anchor, so that's the business that I have on that stream, right? So when I was on your street visiting an existing customer whose website and digital marketing we look after, I saw your business emphasis on your business, because at that stage, if they're not the decision maker, they'll tell you, and you've obviously got your mining wrong, but but but normally you know that'll be confirmed. Um, and their company, company name. And you what you want to what I do is I say, before I jump off the call as I know you're busy, what would it look like for you for um you to consider us for the next time you upgrade your website? At that stage, they're gonna tell you all of the reasons why they don't want you to do that, uh, and they don't need you to do that, or they're fine with their existing, you know, kind of like whatever. And then you say, totally understand. Hey, look, in case you ever change your mind, would it be sweet if I sent you just one email directly from my email? I'm not gonna put you on a sales in sales easy news e newsletter or anything like that, just so you had my contact details in the future. They want you off the phone, so they'll be like, Yeah, you can send me one email. Okay, cool. Just confirming and then make sure that you've got the um the right uh you know kind of email for if it goes really, really well. You can also say, Hey, um, I would if you want, I can put you together an audit so you've got some information on how your websites you know perform. You know, it's that's an additional extra. Right? That that automation page that I that I build and that I um uh thing, so I would have you know confirmed that and hit go. What it does is it sends that email directly out of my email to them with my contact information. It also attaches the market my uh my web audit thing if they say yes. And then what it does is it waits till the 23rd of the following month. You can set this as fast or as slow as you want, and then it sends them another direct email from my email that says something along the lines of, hi, you know, whatever. We build five websites a month here at five free websites here a month here at Gherkin Media. Uh, one is just dropped out for next month. Would you like that next spot? It's worth five grand. All you need to do is cover the monthly hosting fees. When can we jump on the call to discuss? Right, and then follow up the kind of like next day. And so they're like, Oh, I remember that guy from five months a month. Oh, someone's dropped out and I can get a free website, you know. Hey, okay, that might be worth it. On this call, right? Remembering that everything that I want to do is get someone on a call. If I get someone on a call, that they're mine. I I've got that process dialed within my business. Yeah. Um, and so if you do that, by the way, if if you do that every week, you'll you will get in front of 2860 businesses alone.
SPEAKER_01Right? This is this is like the free book, you just pay the shipping, right?
SPEAKER_03Kind of, yeah, kind of. It's just a little trick, you know, like it's it's not even a trick because they are gonna get a free website and they are gonna go on the care plan and they are gonna get us to help them, you know. Okay, so that's that's the cold ones. With the next 40, and I've done this before, it works really, really well. And um, you know, I've even got the the iPad to do it, and that's what this thing, you know, behind me um is. I'm hoping that that's coming through, you know, all right. What you want to do is you want to run a key competition. So just go to a locksmith or whatever, he'll sell you 40 keys real cheap, doesn't cost much. Give them to you like five bucks or whatever, and you get some little tags with like a Gherkin media, and then on the back you put one to 40. You also then create a flyer, a DLE flyer, and it you run a your website on a brand new, your new website on a um uh a brand new iPad competition, and you design the flyer that you know shows the iPad, it shows where you are, um, you know, kind of like geographically. You can do this online with like a random number generator kind of like thing or whatever. And then you walk into those 40 businesses. Now those 40 businesses will think that you're walking into every business on the street, and they'll think that you don't know who they are, but you're not walking into every business on the street and offering them a key, you're walking into your preferred 40 um you know clients that you already know who they are, and you already know who how you can help them, and you already know that they've got a terrible website. And what you'll find is that you know to get them to come into the office is is kind of like fairly low. And so what you can do is you can either do two things. What I do is I drop them another little one and I say, Hey, hurry up, there's only five keys left. And now they think, hey, I don't have a one in 40 chance of winning the iPad, I've got a one in five. Or I'll take the iPad with the lock on it. And so I put like a pad lock on it, you know. So when they're when they come into the office or when I take it over there, the key pops, and there's this kind of like cool moment. And whenever the whenever for the 39 that don't win it, you've got to get them to do a second chance draw because they don't know that you already have their information. And so what ends up happening is for 500 bucks or whatever the cost of the iPad plus a little bit of print, you'll get um, you know, like you obviously do the website for the person that wins. But what you'll do is you'll go through the 39 that didn't win and you'll say, Hey, I feel bad that you made the effort to come and try the key and it didn't work. Hey, we can still give you the free website, right? So we can still give you the you know, five out of the $5,500 worth of prize, we can still give you the the five grand's worth. Um, you know, um, you know, and then you can, you know, kind of do that. This works really, really well. And you give you, you know, potentially could give you, and you can change the number. I do 40. I think it works out to be like 12 bucks a lead or whatever. You could do 100 and and and and bring it down to five bucks a lead or you know, whatever the you you design it.
SPEAKER_01But what's really key is gonna open the you you don't know which key's gonna or do all keys open it.
SPEAKER_03And what I sometimes do is I if if I you're not supposed to, but what I'll do is I'll give the key to the person that I want the most, like the one that I think's like the best fit for uh my business.
SPEAKER_01But so the deal I don I don't I don't want to you know So the deal is they get the key, you walk in, you give them a key, you say, Hey, listen, we're running a competition for local businesses where you can win a new free website on a brand new iPad. All you need to do is come over to my office and try this key in the lock and see if it works. And if it works, then you get a free iPad and a free website, right? But hurry, there are only five keys left. And that so that they come over to the office, they uh if if it doesn't work, what do they do when they're in your office and they've opened and they go, Oh Mike, it didn't work, you goose. What do I do now?
SPEAKER_03They fill in the second chance draw form and you say, Hey, the key might not come in, so so um do the second trance draw. If the key doesn't come in, we'll draw it out of the second trance draw, um second chance draw application. Got it, got it, got it. So these two you drop off, right? And about a week later you drop this one off.
SPEAKER_01Got it.
SPEAKER_03Right? Because um, you know, some will come in, some will some will come in straight away, uh, some won't. And then this one kind of like hurries the ones that didn't bother coming in yet. Yeah, you know, and so ultimately you want as many of the 40 to come in and try it. And then what you do as well is you can see this thing behind me, right? Um what I do is I you know I build the competition on one of these, kind of like, you know, you can just get these things from anywhere. Um, and I'd put like branding on it, you know, I'd put the iPad on it and it would have like the lock. This would all be branded. I'd probably cut a little slot in the front here uh for the second um you know, uh chance entry forms. I'd probably put a little box so that they can put their keys, you know, back onto the site so I can re-uh run the competition next month uh and just have that as like a cool thing. Then what I would also do is either myself or my staff or whoever's going to run the competition is I would film everyone trying, and when the person pops the lock, well, that's a really cool social media thing that you can put out onto your LinkedIn and all the rest of it. But oh hey, yeah, I want I want a thing. And then the next competition you can do doesn't have to be mind, it can be hey, we're running another key competition, and you could do it with like a random number generator uh one and you could do thousands of entries for um you know an iPad and stuff like that. So that's uh my warm. So cold was the calls, uh, warm is the competition, and hot. So if you thought that was cool, this is actually my favorite one, although it takes a little bit of balls. You take the top five, uh, the websites that you chose that you want to make the worst that uh that you want to work with the most, and just build them, right? At this stage, you want practice building websites, or if you've got a team, you want them to always be busy. And here's why it doesn't matter. You're gonna build these people a website, you've already chosen them, you already got a feel for them, you know they need a new website, you know. You do whatever you need to do around that once you've built them, but here's why it doesn't matter if they don't take them, right? June 3, 2020. Hey everyone, we did a really cool website for a professional services client who doesn't look at doesn't look to have survived the lockdown. That's not true. I didn't like the guy, he was dick, right? So I was like, I don't want to deal with this guy anymore. And so what we did is we removed all of the branding and all of his IP off the website, and we said it would be super easy to convert this into any type of a website. Um, so long story short, first in first serve serve for a free website worth 5k, and we could even um assist with the content, right? We we we we multiply to we took that website, which we were never gonna sell for five grand either either, by the way. It was just gonna go on a care plan.
SPEAKER_01Correct, but it's still worth five grand, even though you were never gonna sell it for five grand. Yeah, they are worth five grand. Of course it is.
SPEAKER_03Um, and so um we yeah, we turned that into five five people hit us up for that website and we created five websites off the back of it. This one here, the uh the one for the uh for the school, uh uh Haley, we did that website, and then she also said, Hey, I can give you heaps of other schools, and we actually have since then we've never had capacity for it, right? That's that's like like you know, like that that that one like she could give us, like if I rang her tomorrow and said, Hey, we're ready to go on the rest of those school group uh groups, you know, can you put us in front of she she she'd probably give us like a hundred principles to run ring tomorrow, you know? And so one little bit of activity like that, you know, can can really give you like a caliph. And and that's my problem. If you're asking why don't I do this all of the time, it's because of everything that came you know from when I originally done did this. And secondarily, here's um oh um and and this all falls in because it's a the one of this the ratings, the five star ratings, remember was because it's a common business or in it's a competitive market.
SPEAKER_05We
SPEAKER_03Took one barbershop website, and I think we now look after seven barbers on those things. And again, we didn't send, we didn't continue on with it because we got too busy. So we built one website for one barber. He he was like a little bit kind of like flaky. And so I said, Lee, can you just um remove his branding off it and then just like email you know 30 different barber shops and say we'll give him a free website? We ended up getting like seven, you know. So that's $1,400 a month worth of care plans that we got off building.
SPEAKER_01Let's just do the math here, right? Because I know a lot of people watching this going, dude, you just build seven websites for free. You're a lunatic, you're gonna go broke. And Troy's been telling us for 150 years not to do shit for free. But if they're worth $200 a month by seven, that's $1,400 a month, right? In 10 months, that's $14,000 of recurring revenue. 12 months is $15 for $16,800 a year in recurring revenue, right? If you sold each of those websites for three grand, seven, it's 21 grand. So by March or April of the second year, you're in front and it's recurring revenue. You keep building on that, and before you know it, you're doing two or three hundred grand a year in recurring revenue, and you're not having to chase and convince people to give you five grand for a website, right? Because what I love about this is this is a godfather offer, you know that, right? What I love about what you've done here is you've you this is true. I went and saw Maverick on the weekend, right? The Top Gun sequel. And the one thing I learned about it did not disappoint, by the way. It gave me exactly what I expected and nothing more. It was cheesy as and it was fantastic. And the one thing I learned about what it means to be a Maverick is that a Maverick is so good at what they do, they are willing to take on more personal responsibility than anyone else in the relationship and in the transaction. And that's why they win, and that's why they lead, and that's why people follow them, because they're willing to take on the responsibility, which is exactly what you're doing here. You're taking on all the risk. Your team is building the websites anyway, which makes them an efficient machine at building websites. You go to the client, if the client doesn't want it, that's okay. Just take the branding, offer it to someone else, and in the meantime, you're building that recurring revenue and you're taking all the responsibility and removing all the risk from the client. I love it.
SPEAKER_03Um yeah, so I think that's um that's the end of that um, you know, kind of uh section. You know, it's not the end of the mining kind of like process, but that's you know, um, you know, how we get to uh you know that stage. Right, exit out of this. Should I just keep on going and then I'll jump out in between? Please, please. Yeah, yeah. Okay, so how we build websites so fast. Okay, so there are some core reasons. So how we build websites so fast now is obviously because you know we we aim to have clients who don't need complicated websites. I also have a really kick ass team, we have great systems and procedures. Um, you know, our clients' input is like literally one percent. We just talk to them at the end and they you know make a few kind of adjustments. And we have tools for imagery content and design head starts. Okay, so that's cool for me. But if uh if if you're just getting started, here's some things that we've implemented as well that you could do um that to kind of like speed things up if you want to play this game. So I bought this um growth design kit off GrowMoto. Um, you know, it's a popular thing. Um if you click on all of these buttons, if you click on the home page, it opens up and it's got like a hundred different home pages. If you click on the sales page, it's got like a hundred you know different sales pages, um, they look like this. And what's really cool is they are all wireframed and they give you their Figma um um uh uh file as well. So what we did is we just built them all, right? And so what happens is when I'm um you know, when I when I'm thinking about when when we're we're we're kind of like positioning, you know, well, when we're onboarding, sorry, for a for for a website. So someone's like, yeah, hey, I want a website. Like in Figma, I can go and I okay, well, yeah, that that was a pretty cool website, but like if you use like Alimentor or um Divi or or anything like that, templates look like this, and therefore it's likely that the website that you build will also look like this. So like a wireframe is very different to a template, right? And I and my advice to you is wireframe, don't template. And so these things, what I can do is I can kind of like you know drag the header across, and then I can go to the next section and I can drag that across, and it will give uh a wireframe to be able to hand off to you know one of my front ends. So they've got like an idea of the structure of this the website, the homepage, and in the sitemap. And then what we also did was we didn't just you know um label and name all of the individual areas in Figma so that I, as you know, in order to hand off, can quickly kind of like you know put a skeleton together. We also built all of these um areas and put them in our uh cloud on our uh WordPress. And so we can drag them in, and you now have like a functional skeleton that's also got all of the padding and all of the spacing and all of the CSS and all of the kind of like everything. And so within like five minutes, we've actually got like a fully functioning website wireframe skeleton that when we jump into shut a stock, you know, for imagery, or maybe they give us some imagery, or maybe they've got some imagery off their old site, we use Jasper to write the content, um, and then you know our team will kind of like manipulate it to make sure it's fine. And if they don't give us a brand guideline, we just get them to choose one off like type.ai, or we choose one off of type.io. And so once those three things are kind of like pushed over onto this uh you know fully functioning uh you know um wireframe, you know, and you've then given it the kind of you know, the like the flesh and the skin and the and the rest of the things, basically at that stage you have like you know a custom website. It is a custom website, you know, albeit that we've you know used things to kind of like accelerate. You know, I wouldn't say we template websites because you know we we still start from scratch. We've just had things that kind of um accelerating. And the other cool thing is like once we get it to that stage, our job is actually done. So when we push it across to the client and say, Hey, here's your website, you know, that um we've put together for you, they might say, Oh, yeah, I need to wait for this, or I need to wait for that, or I'm gonna do this, or I'm gonna do that. And we go, Oh, that's cool, but what's that got to do with us? Our job's done on the first of next month. We're sending our, you know, we're getting started on the care plan. And so what happens when we do that is they go, oh yeah, actually it's all on me, right? I'm the one causing the delay. At that stage, normally what they'll do is they'll go, oh, okay, actually, you know, it's fine how it is, or they'll they'll actually get you what they're you what you're asking for, or kind of like whatever, because it's hard for them when they're looking at it to kind of like see how we're creating a delay. So, you know, if you've you know if you've got everything ready to kind of like go so you don't have to start from scratch, when you take those five hot leads for the month and you go, oh, okay, cool, I want to create five websites for my top five off my line mining list. It's not like it's not me telling you to do you know, like six months worth of work to earn $200 a month that you should be able to do, you know, like maybe to start with one every two or three days, you know. Like my guys, when they do this, like they're they're real quick on an apples on a DIY like Wix or Squarespace, um, uh, you know, apples for apples conversion, we can do them in the in in a matter of hours, you know, and stuff like that. So those are some kind of like quick wins. Love it. Um staff and tech stack. What you want to start to think is like how many um care plans do you need to um you know have in place in order to grow your team, right? If you want to get paid five grand a month, right, you need you know your first 25, right? Or stay at your job and get your first 25 and get whatever one that you want first, a front end or a full stack, you know, depending on your kind of like skill set. But what you can start to do is think, okay, well, I need 25 care plans in in order to you know cover my five thousand dollars a month, you know, for my 60 grand a year base salary. Then if I want um, you know, people you know sitting on seats in the country that I'm in, you know, I need another 25 more for a front end. At that stage, now I don't have to do any design, you know, and so I'm freed up to do more mining or do more, you know, whatever it is that we want to do, uh, you know, another 25 will give you a full stack. You're always gonna need a couple, cover a couple to cover your server. You know, you're gonna need, depending on the size of your tech stack, you know, you need some some to cover that. But at this stage, I think this is, you know, like if you want to, if you want an agency, so if if you want to be a like just an operator, then and and you're the person that designs and develops websites and stuff like that, and that's the business that you see for yourself. Obviously, you just stack as many care plans on top of yourself as you want. Um, this is this is where my business really started to accelerate. When I had myself a front end of full stack, the full stack looked after the server. The server cost me about four or five hundred bucks a month, and we were able to have about a thousand dollars a month uh you know in tech stack, you know, um that's the shutter stock account that I talked about. All of the kind of like little things. And that as well, I think at this stage you'll qualify for Mavs as well, which is uh additionally really kind of uh you know important. You would have met met met the monthly kind of like threshold to um to get into that, which I would obviously kind of like massively recommend. And if you're looking at that and thinking that that looks difficult or unachievable or unim or impossible, every single one of my staff members is covered by care plans, right? Wow, that's you know, it's it's achievable. You can do it, you know, like when I have a look at my care plans each month versus what my overheads are, I'm covered. I said this on the last call. You know, it's it's just one of those things for every, you know, you know, and once you're at this point as well, you could also get a VA to start doing the mining for you, like I have.
SPEAKER_01You know, yeah.
SPEAKER_03And so at that stage, you know, you you're really just designing whoever you want to be because you don't doing any of the work anymore, right? And so that's why so that's why it accelerated to the point where um you know I've got this team, and it's why I also think that when I'm having a look at our work in progress, I'm not thinking about like how much extra money am I going to make each you know uh next month for all the care plans we um add on. It's who can I hire next? Yeah, that's right. It's who can I hire next and they're covered? Who can I hire next and they're covered?
SPEAKER_01I had a conversation with Emily this morning. Uh, who obviously is taken over as CEO, she's in New Zealand. Obviously, you bought her agency. We'll talk about that in a second. Um, I said to her, you know, like I've stopped spending money on gear. We have enough gear to sink the Titanic, we have enough gear to keep me happy for a while. Now I just want to spend money on people. Like, we've moved into the new building, we spent a shitload of money fitting it out. We had to do it because we needed a new home. We've done that, we've got the gear. Now I just want more people because more people help us go faster. And having a recurring revenue business model is the holy frickin' grail when it comes to onboarding new team members, because you can look three, four months down the track and go, well, that's where our cash flow is going to be. We can afford to hire someone, and I'm not scared about paying them next month. Because I mean, sure, anything can happen in the world. We can there can be another pandemic, interest rates can go up, inflation, whatever, right? There can be a war, all that shit can happen. But if you're just if you've just got project revenue and you have got no recurring revenue in your business, it's really scary to hire people because if the projects don't keep coming, you've got a mouth to feed. So recurring revenue is absolutely the holy grail. Dude, this is epic.
SPEAKER_03The other thing, as well, is if one of your customers goes under, it doesn't matter.
SPEAKER_01Correct. That's right. That's exactly right.
SPEAKER_03We have really low attrition because we do our job, you know, and our clients love you know the the the care plan product and and and stuff like that. But um, you know, like if one person you know says, Hey, I don't want to do this anymore, it's uh it's okay, you know, like it's it's it's fine. You know, exactly.
SPEAKER_01You I you know, it's funny, it's funny because every now and then I see you do this, I see what you're doing, and I'm like, fuck, I want to start an agency. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because when I started in 2007, right, I had no idea what I was doing. This is like shooting fish in a barrel, dude, because you're identif now, it's work, it's hard work, don't get me wrong. Like this takes work, but you're identifying people who have a problem, and you are making them an offer that is that would be stupid to say no, which is the hormosy way, right? I mean, this is it does create it, there is work involved. There's one other thing I want to mention before you talk about how you buy agencies. Mike said at this point in his business, he's got the sales process down pad. If you put people in front of him, he'll close them, he'll convert them, right? We've spent the last few weeks here on the podcast talking about lead gen. I did a case study on my Facebook lead ad campaign where I showed you how I got lawyers for $4.01 through Facebook lead ads. Mike showing you here how to drive your car down the street and get out and walk the pavement and collect the information and put that together and a complete plan of attack. I do not want to see anyone in this group ever again complain that they need leads. Bullshit. You don't need leads. You need to get off your ass and you need to focus on a strategy to attract the right people and make them a great offer. Leads are not hiding. You don't need to go find leads. You need to serve people and offer them something that they actually want and make it really easy for them to say yes. Okay. So given what we've talked about over the last four, five, six weeks on the agency hour, if anyone says I need leads, I'm gonna tell them to come and watch this and tell them to go watch my Facebook lead ad case study. Conversation over. Okay, get off your eyes and do the work. Now, uh, you want to talk to us about the code.
SPEAKER_03So um I think I think, yeah, so so I can quickly finish this one out. So how we convert it at such a high rate is our website is actually one big godfather mess that mixed in with a little bit of that hook story offer from um kind of click funnels. Um when I take people through that meeting, it's a curated experience. Um, like I take them through my website uh and it's scripted to the word. Um every step at every step there's a Mavericks uh process being played out, whether it's from the blueprint, whether it's customer acquisition formula, sales accelerator, guide from Godfather Method, content strategy, high-ticket sales funnel. There's not a unique thing that I do in the um in the in the sales uh call that I have. Um and if you want to see that, so one of the things it takes too long for me to do it today, but if you want to see it, rather than me have it recorded and go out onto the internet just for people to copy, if you want to see it, whoever's watching this, you can actually book on uh a call with me and I will show you. By the way, uh, you know, thank you, Michael Donovan, for the um uh bottle of whiskey. I did this with one of the people from the um last time I was on, and he sent me a bottle of whiskey just to say thanks. So thanks, thanks for that. Love it.
SPEAKER_05Um fantastic.
SPEAKER_03Uh and so oh yeah, um on my final notes on this before I talk about how we buy businesses. Um, I've done everything that I showed you with success. Um, when I get someone, if I ever was to hire a sales assistant, I would actually make them do this just as like a uh you know a learning curve. Um and I'm actually going to process all of the data that I uh mined um in preparation for this in October. So if you want to do it with me, or if you want to, I'll do like a vlog and you'll see me make those calls, you'll see me run my competition, you'll see me create those websites and the way that I position them to turn them into care plans. And just on a side note, Kate, who works for me now, as a default, when she is waiting for me to tell her what to do next or whatever, she mines. We have we have a list now of 5,000, I counted them, 5,307 companies that I could apply this method to. Uh, we're shutting the door of our agency when we hit 600. We're currently at 380. So to get the the next 120 out of that 5,307, my success rate of running what I was showing you today to close the doors, I could hit as low as 2.2%. So, you know, it's one of those things, you know, like it's it's you know, it you know, infinitely kind of um uh you know, kind of uh you know, scalable and um uh you know, and something that you can attach to your business. You don't have to do that, you know, 100%, but it it it is definitely something that um you know would work.
SPEAKER_01And the thing I love about it is that it's systematic, right? It is it's you it's predictable, it's process driven, you just follow the bouncing ball, it's systematic. You don't sit there on a Tuesday afternoon and go, how am I gonna get clients? You've actually got a process to follow. Uh, we're gonna go a little bit over time today. I know this is the agency out, but we're gonna stay on a roll here because Mike is gonna just wrap up by sharing with us I'll burn through the process of how he buys other agencies.
SPEAKER_03This one is this one's nowhere near as big. Um, so how I buy agencies with confidence and create a triple win. Okay, there's three questions that you need to create that triple win. What do I want? What does the seller want? What do the clients need? Okay, what do I want? I want fast growth, new opportunities, diversification. Obviously, I want to make money, I want brand exposure and technical control. The seller wants maximum amount of money, fast decision, quick exit, no strings, no stretch, to have their staff have an opportunity with the new company and for their clients to be looked after. Um and what do the clients need? They need support, no disruption, they prefer the status quo, not to be pestered, no price hikes, you know, better or wider service and value to be added to their business. How do I get what I want? I build in a guarantee. I'll show you that in a minute. How does the seller get what they want? Okay, so I don't buy on Ebitda, I don't even look at their financials, I don't hire, I don't fire their staff, I don't give them, I give them the money that they're asking. I don't make them sign a non-compete. I have my cash ready and I do my due due diligence and make my decision um uh quickly. How does the clients get what they want? I do my job, right? Me and my clients, we do our job. We're there for them, we add value. We don't just buy them and park them and never talk to them again. So that one that one should be easy. Okay, what does my due diligence look like? Okay, so I'm looking for an owner exiting for the right reasons, uh someone who's you know, maybe like paddling hard, but maybe just realized that they're in the wrong boat. You know, Emily and Alex were both perfect examples with this. It wasn't that they were complacent, it was just that, you know, for whatever reason, it wasn't the right vehicle for them. Uh lots of clients, uh, more the better. Uh monthly is better than annual, but I look for uh monthly rather than annual um invoicing. I look for control levels levers like control of the domain, email, hosting, uh, and I look at the core running costs uh that will need to remain. I look for a book that is a lot wrong with it. Um I almost want every client to have a problem, you know. Um I look for long average client relationships, years if not decades, uh, and I look at the lifetime value um from a cash point of view. Uh I need all of the client um access details, uh, the notes on each client around how they normally engage. And what I look for is signs of signs that their book is similar to my book before I started um selling uh care plans and growth plans. And so, what do I mean by I build myself into a guarantee? Okay, so what some business owners won't put together um if they haven't sold a business before is the function of the clawback. And even if they uh know what a clawback is, they'll be expecting it from a strategic inquirer. A financial inquirer, a financial acquirer will try to discount the purchase price when they buy the business. Uh, you know, normally buying off a bit there, they'll want the financials when the end of years and and and they'll do all of that kind of like stuff. I get the advantageous position of bullying them away as at face value I'm offering, you know, like way more than uh a financial acquirer. So uh what you need to understand about a clawback is it looks like a risk clause, but it's not, it's actually a financial financial instrument that allows me to get a business owner to finance their own company to me. Okay, and here's how it works: if you had a company that had 100 customers and they were paying 500 bucks a year in MMR products, then they would normally be asking 50k a year on a one times multiple of turnover. A business that, you know, maybe that business if it had $25,000 worth of overheads and therefore kept $25,000, a financial acquirer is likely to only offer them $25, you know, but unlikely they'll unlikely they'll take a risk on a multiple, especially on a small business. So my offer of one times turnover looks way more attractive. And here are the two reasons that I don't care that I paid more. One, it's an active acquisition. Okay. If I uh within the first year, I'll be disappointed in myself if I haven't at least 5x to the business. I'll normally aim to six, seven, eight, tenx the business, uh just with systems and products that we already have in place. And secondary, the clawback. Okay, so I have a cla uh a clause in the letter of offer. That means if a client leaves before they pay their next annual bill, I get a full refund and uh you know, of of what I bought them for. And if they pay monthly, it's pro ride it. So if they if they're paying a hundred bucks a month and I get to, you know, six months, I only claw back six hundred or half of You know, so so so so no matter what, I'm getting my money back, whether it comes from the client or whether it comes from uh the the owner. Obviously, if we drop the ball or bump the client on our own, you know, we don't get to enforce a a clawback. Um and a few tips and odd odd observations from when I've been doing it. Okay, discharges and clawbacks are actually few few and far between if you communicate well and you do your job. Yeah, quite often we don't end up enforcing clawbacks, is there's some reciprocal thing that will happen. The the business owner will help us with something, therefore, you know, we don't do that. Um normally what I've noticed is people that are gonna leave will do so quickly. Uh geography doesn't matter. Um, don't get it in your mind that you can't buy a business somewhere else. Uh, when you treat your um uh one exiting business owner, often they will refer you to others. So that's happening right now. I'm looking at another book right now uh that came through the one I bought in the Gold Coast. Uh by not nickel and diming the previous owner, um, they'll stay receptive to you, so they'll answer your questions and and and all the rest of it. And this one, this one is where I said at the beginning, don't take this as a financial advice. If you can manage to not buy it as a going concern, it's an expense. It's like a it's like a collateral, collateralized um sales commission, right? That means that whatever you pay for the business is an expense on that year. If you buy it as a going concern, that's an asset, right? So an asset doesn't appear on your PL. So what happens is as a business, I get a 30% discount on whatever I buy it for. Right. So if I pay 50 grand, you know, I'm getting 15 off my tax bill at the end of the year because I bought it and amalgamated it or acquired it into my own business, and I paid the owner as a uh a bulk sales commission. Yeah, but again, uh check that. Um uh you know, the same. And the process is exactly the same as mining. I get them on a call, I do my sales father, so I have Godfather sales accelerator, triage, and intro. I have a process-driven web uh webpage that does all the triage and strategy that pushes across to my team for a care plan onboarding checklist. Uh we offboard them when they go live and they're tagged for a growth plan onboarding checklist, and we service the hell out of them and we do our job as a all the new clients that you've acquired go through that process. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Wow. Far out.
SPEAKER_04Um stop sharing my screen.
SPEAKER_01There we go. You've stopped sharing your screen. Dude.
SPEAKER_03I have yet. Sweet.
SPEAKER_01Yes. I feel like I need um a whiskey or a cup of tea and a lie down. I can't decide.
SPEAKER_03I was gonna um I don't drink alcohol anymore. And so I was gonna like, I was gonna like have I was gonna have one of these, you know, like say thanks, Michael Donovan, and and drink some. But um, I appreciate it, trust me, I do, but it will be you can address it to me, Phil.
SPEAKER_01I still drink whiskey, so you feel free to send it to me. Um mate, that is just unbelievable. As I said, like if I wasn't so happy doing what I'm doing now, I would start an agency. Anyone watching this, you I mean, I don't even think you realize what you've just experienced. It's gonna take you weeks to understand the value that you just got from this. I hope you've made notes. Please feel free to come back and ask questions under this video. I know Mike is active in the group. He will come back and answer those questions. Book a call on his website, jump on, and he'll show you exactly how it works. Uh, dude, this has just has been an absolute masterclass. Thank you so much for sharing this. And if you are listening to this as a podcast, please come and join the Digital Mavericks Facebook group because you're missing out on all the gold. Come and have a look at the slides and everything that Mike shared. It is absolutely epic. Emily has just said, very happy I sold to you. The process was so easy, and my past clients are happy. Win win win. And I have a lead for you, too. There you go. Love it. There we go. That is amazing. Hey, um, this is a rhetorical question, but what are you most excited about over the next 90 days?
SPEAKER_03Well, again, I'm going to try and take November. I don't remember if I said that last time, but I'm going to try and take November off. Um, you know, and and see if I can, you know, leave it alone uh for a month. Um when you when I was showing you my kind of um staff, my um uh team um before, you might have noticed that they're all like uh uh competency-based doers. And um, so I'm gonna start to replace myself in the business, you know, coming up next. So um, you know, looking forward to you know getting an account manager, getting a um uh, you know, maybe a sales assistant, an accounts person, you know, just to replace those kind of like final roles with within the business. Um you know, uh last time I talked about the three channels that uh we have in our business in the plans that we make. So get to 600 care plans, then 66 growth plans, then 13 signature systems. We're actually going to push high level in in between the um care plan and the um um uh growth plan um as well, which will probably add another, you know, kind of like you know, massive um opportunity. Uh there. That's a uh uh um something for another um question. But you know, as you can probably tell, um I like I like to work and and you know I like this business and and it's enabled me to to kind of like do a lot. So um, you know, as always, it's just looking forward to more learning, you know, more, you know, participating in Mavericks, um, you know, getting good results for our clients, um, you know, reading good books, you know, and and um, and not not to not to outweigh the kind of like personal stuff, you know, time with the family, trip, trip book for um come over to Sydney. I've never been to Sydney before, so going over there in in December with my wife and take the first trip away from our uh little rug rats that we've had in in in a little while. And and and yeah, just um when you asked me how I was doing earlier, I said never better. It's it's a weird affirmation that you can do a little life kind of like you know, tip because it makes you make it true. If someone asks you how you're doing and you say good or fine, you know, what does that mean? Change it to of never being better and see what happens because you'll start to kind of like make it true, and and that's where I find myself right now. And and and you know there's some catalysts there, obviously. Yeah, life's going well, um uh under 100 kgs right now for the first time in a decade. So that's going well, and my business is going to drive. So um lots lots to lots to look forward to, and um you know, it's all it's all you know the the business stuff, most definitely one of the kind of catalysts has been from joining Mavericks. So you know, you guys watching are probably expecting that, but get to the point where you can join Mavericks and come join the kind of um you know the the work that's going on there because it's it's it's like the the not only is it worth every kind of like penny from a financial um you know kind of like investment, um, but it just makes it that more kind of like fun when you don't have to do all of the heavy lifting yourself and um and you can have access to to other people that are doing it alongside you and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_01Well, dude, it's been incredibly rewarding on this side of the the screen as well to be a part of your journey and to see you take massive action and it wasn't always perfect, it wasn't always rainbows and unicorns, you just kept going, and it's been it's the most rewarding thing as someone who you know coaches, mentors, inspires, leads, whatever you want to call it, is to see the work being done in the real world and then see the results coming back and see the impact that we're having. Um, so thank you for being a part of it and uh thanks for taking so much massive action. And I can't wait to hang out in real life, dude. I'm really looking forward to to meeting at a live event one day.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, me and uh my wife still haven't been on it. We've been married since 2015 or something. Like we still haven't been on our honeymoon, and so I I couldn't, I couldn't have gone home and gone, I um, you know, sorry my love. I'm uh I'm I'm heading up to San Diego, like one of the places that we're gonna go when we go and finally have our honeymoon, she would have uh she would have killed me. So um let me get that one out of the way first and and then I'll I'll come to the exposure.
SPEAKER_01Well we're we're planning an event in Australia. Well, we're planning an event in Australasia somewhere in February. It could be New Zealand, it could be Australia, we're not sure yet. So we'll definitely be hanging out. Hey, quick question before we go. Angie Neil wants to know which CRM are you using to manage all of your clients?
SPEAKER_03You're gonna laugh at me. I actually got them all on an air table, but we're about to move to go high level uh to high level. I've been told not to call it go high level.
SPEAKER_01Well, it's called high level, the product is called high level, their their domain is go high level, so everyone just calls it go high level. Um and Angie is a high level user, so there we go, answers that question.
SPEAKER_03That's not 100. We we do we have active campaign um client for for my for my staff, they use active campaign. Um for me, um, I have a big air table. Um, and the reason I have an air table is it lets me it's a it's a uh uh it's a better view for me uh on uh you know on things that need to be done. Whereas a CRM I find is a little bit like like just one client at a time. I like to look at all of our clients at a time. So I use Airtable, so so two, airtable and um active campaign. However, um that probably will be reworked with uh high level when we take that dive.
SPEAKER_01One of the things I love about high level is that you can filter your contacts by anything, tag, custom field, whatever. So you can get that. They're called smart lists, right? So similar to what you do in Airtable is when you go, hey, show me all the uh all the business owners in this suburb with a poor or DIY website in a filtered view, you can do that very easily in a high level. It gets weird doing stuff like that in active campaign. Traditional CRMs, you're right, it's like one record at a time, whereas high level uses the HubSpot methodology of a smart list so that you can filter people via a particular tag or a custom field and then save that view as a smart list. And it gives you really easy access to the contacts that you need uh at that high at that you know high-level overview. Awesome. Hey, dude, thank you so much. I need to bounce out of here and go and help Joel Warren run some Facebook ads, I believe, who's in Mavericks Live. Facebook ad account and help him do that. It's gonna be fun. Look forward to hanging out in real life. Thank you so much for being a part of the agency hour. Really appreciate you. Keep up the good work and uh I'll see you on the next squadron call.
SPEAKER_03No, no, thank you so much for having me.
SPEAKER_01Thanks, Mike. All right, ladies and gentlemen, that is another episode of the Agency Hour Live here in the Digital Mavericks Facebook group. Thanks for being a part of it. As I said, if you're listening to this podcast, please come and join the Facebook group, Facebook.com. Uh, then search Digital Mavericks, join the group, we'll ask you a few questions. Uh, as long as you promise to be respectful and not be a dick, then we'll let you in. Uh, we kind of have a bit of a dick for his own in the group. And uh we there are some tickets left for Mavcon in San Diego in September. It is September 12, 13, 14 at the Spring Hill Suites by Marriott, downtown Bayside, uh, San Diego. It's a beautiful venue. There's going to be some guest speakers there. Uh, it's it's an amazing event. It's a life-changing event. I will say that because I have been doing this since 2014. Our first mastermind was in Chicago. We have been to Thailand, we've done them in Australia, we've done them in the States. They are life-changing events. So if you are serious about taking your agency to the next level and you are available to get to San Diego for September 12, 13, and 14, reach out to support at agencymaverics.com. The team will do whatever they can to make sure that it makes sense financially to get you into the event. We're very flexible. There are some tickets left. Uh, come along, hang out, and uh it will completely change everything about your agency. And in 12 months' time, you look back on it and say, wow, that was one of those inflection points. That event changed so much. We got a video yesterday from Jenny Lakinan saying that exact thing is that it's it's not until afterwards that you realize how powerful these events are. So that's enough of me pitching that. Uh support at agencymavericks.com or just leave a comment with the hashtag Mavcon and our team will get in touch. All right, look forward to seeing you again next week on the agency hour. Uh, like, subscribe, do all that kind of thing. Until then, have a great week. My name's Troy Dean. We'll see you next week. Bye for now.
SPEAKER_00Thanks for listening to the Agency Hour Podcast. Subscribe at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pocketcast, Audible, and wherever you like to listen. You can catch all of the Agency Hour episodes on our YouTube channel at youtube.com slash agencymavericks. Or you can get involved. Check out our free Digital Mavericks Facebook group, where we broadcast these episodes live for our community every week, along with a ton of free training. We'll see you there.