The Agency Hour
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The Agency Hour
How to Manage New Accounts
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The very, very first thing you have to do is set is set those expectations so that from the moment they sign the contract, they should instantly feel like, okay, I'm in good hands. So that could be a series of emails that, hey, here's what to expect, right? It's always about here's what to expect next. Here's the next step. And you're always giving them the next step. Here's what we're going to do. Here's the bullets of the thing. So that I think first is is you are going to establish again, you you have a process in place. This is how I work. And we're going to do that with the very first email. Hey, great, you signed. Um, we're super excited to get started. Um, the next step we're going to need you to do is schedule an onboarding call. Usually that's the first thing I want them to do. And I try and give myself about two or three days minimum because during those two or three days, I'm establishing the at least I'm pulling out from the proposal everything we agree to because the onboarding call is where we really go through expectations. That's when we have a big discussion about and not just expectations on the project, but expectations of them as a client and us as an agency.
SPEAKER_03If 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_04Hey, here we go. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another episode of the Agency Hour. I believe this is like episode 43 or something. Crazy. There's so much to unpack here. There's so much to talk about. There are some evolutions in our production. There's a fabulous guest that we've got coming on today to talk about managing new clients, managing expectations, onboarding processes and systems. And uh yes, it's going to be a lot of fun. Of course, this is the Agency Hour podcast. My name is Troy Dean. I'm your host, and we are streaming this live into the Digital Mavericks Facebook group. So if you are listening to this in your AirPods, you should come and check out the Digital Mavericks Facebook group. Just go to Facebook.com, search for Digital Mavericks, join the group. We'll ask you some questions, make sure you're a real person and that you're not here to sell us your multi-level marketing essential oils. And as long as you pass the test, then we'll let you into the group where you can join in all the fun. Um, my one thing I want to give you an update on is I'm I'm on a mission to create a fabulous experience for our guests as well as you, the listener. And so what I what I'm and also to make this a really pleasant experience for me as a podcaster, I spend a lot of time looking at screens and I'm getting older, and my eyes are starting to hurt. And don't worry, I've got a good optometrist and I'm doing some work there, uh, full transparency. I'm actually exploring the possibility of whether or not I can have laser surgery done. I'm at that age where I'm I'm short-sighted. I've been short-sighted for years since I was about 15 years old. I've started wearing glasses in school, and then I got contact lenses in my mid-20s because I wanted to play sport and go camping and be active, and glasses are just a pain in the ass. So I've been wearing contact lenses for the best part of 23, 24 years. But you hit mid-40s, and what happens, and I'm short-sighted, so my contact lenses correct the short-sightedness, but what happens is you then start to become long-sighted. And so I'm holding things further and further away to read them. When I read at night on the Kindle or my books, I wear reading glasses on top of my contact lenses to magnify them, right? Uh, and staring at a small computer screen all day makes me grumpy. It hurts my eyes, it gives me a bit of a headache. I've tried all sorts of things. I've tried the blue light glasses, these things here, which I'm gonna put on my head right now. I'm convinced these are a fashion statement. I'm convinced that these do absolutely nothing. Max will disagree with me. Max loves his blue light glasses. I think they're a crock of shit. They haven't worked for me. So, what I'm doing is I'm trying to have bigger screens. So, right now I'm looking at a teleprompter that's got a 15-inch HDMI monitor, an ASUS 15-inch HDMI monitor in the teleprompter so that I can basically see my guest as big as possible and eyeball them down the barrel of the camera. So I can look at the camera, make eye contact, but also my guest is big, you know, on the screen. And to my right here at a 45-degree angle, I have a 43-inch high-definition television to also give me confidence that what is going out, the broadcast is correct and is all working. So, anyway, this is an experiment that I will continue to evolve and I'll continue to keep you updated. Now, of course, the problem, and not to get too stuck in the weeds here, but the problem with the HDMI monitor and the teleprompter is that it's backwards. So whenever the Max pulls up those lower thirds on the screen or the comments on the teleprompter, they're backwards. I do have another little piece of hardware called the decimator, which is supposed to flip it vertically or horizontally. At the moment, it's not working. We tried to get it working just before we went live. So we will solve that problem later today. So there you go. That's an update on what's happening here from a technical point of view. There's much more to unpack, but we'll talk more about that later. Because my guest, ladies and gentlemen, on the show today is one of the coaches here at Agency Mavericks. She is affectionately known as the Process Queen. And uh, she is from Sugarland, Texas, and she's here to help us figure out how to manage new clients. Of course, I'm talking about the one and only Christina Hawkinator Hawkins. Hello.
SPEAKER_02Hello, hello. I could wear a little crown.
SPEAKER_04Now, for those that have been living under a rock for the last 10 years, just tell people who you are, where you're from, and what do you do?
SPEAKER_02Uh, I am Christina Hawkins. I own Global Specs Internet Marketing. I have been working in this space for, I had to count to myself because I'm forgetting how long and how old I am, but about 23 years now. Started in 1999. Um websites, we typically work with oil and gas energy, but as well as construction companies. So I have kind of niche down as much as possible. Uh, we do uh digital marketing, website design, care plans is the core. And um, yeah, I'm just south of Houston, Sugarland, Texas. I can pull out my Texas tying if y'all would like. Um, and yes, I do have a cowboy hat and cowboy boots, and just down the road are some you know longhorn uh bulls, if we aren't head on down there. Wow, yeah, yeah, awesome years.
SPEAKER_04Um, and and now how did you come into our world when back in the day when we were called WP Elevation all those years ago? How did you how did you find us and come into our world?
SPEAKER_02How did I find you? Oh Lord, I think it was your you know what I I can't remember. I think probably your original 101. Remember when you did 101? I think that's where I first heard of you. I think it's been so long, I can't honestly remember. Uh, but I think that's how I first heard of you. Um, and then the course was so amazing. It was the first time that uh because I've been through when you've been in this business as long as I have, there nobody had an agency. There was no such thing as a web design agency. Nobody had done this before. There wasn't a there wasn't a recipe for this. So most of us were floundering around trying to figure out how this works, probably definitely not charging enough ever. And you came along with a method, like it just made sense. And I just remember the aha moment going through the course, going, God bless this whole time, son of uh, you know, all those years wasted, all that money down the drain. Ah, so I think having that again, there was a process, there was a system, and that just melted my heart. It makes sense. I get this, I get it.
SPEAKER_04So and you have uh over the years affectionately become known as the process queen here at WP Elevation. We were called that for a long time. Of course, we're now called agency mavericks, and and you went through the blueprint, you then went into Mavericks Club, you then became a coach at WP Elevation for our course clients, and then you became a coach at Mavericks Club. What are what's how have your processes first of all? Pro like a lot of people find process creation and management as boring as batshit, right? So if you if someone if I was sitting in front of you and saying, Christina, I have ADD, I can't concentrate on anything for longer than three seconds, which is kind of true. Uh, what like why should I bother making processes? Why should I bother? Like, I just want to make it up every time as I go along. I don't want to make processes. Why is it important? The what's the what's what's the other side of it? What's the other side of that hard work?
SPEAKER_02The other side of all the hard work that you're gonna put into building a system and processes out and an in in an intranet and SOPs, are you have to think about one, your growth. So it's one thing if you're one man shop, that's fine, you can probably get away with it. But I would even say for a one one person shop, having a checklist, a process, you it will give you back your time, I think is another thing. I don't have to think about it. Um, if you are ADHD and you are thinking all over the place, this is this is the only way you're gonna grow. Truly, you will not be able to scale, grow, hire a team, get more clients, get better clients. If you don't have something in place that you know what to do next, because I have that too. I have the same problem. My brain goes in flittering all over the place, but I I can always come back and go, oh God, that's right, the next thing I need to do. Um, and it especially if you add some automation to it. But definitely if if you're worried about um where to start, just go start with the high-level stuff, the things that you do on an everyday basis. Um, start with what is it that I have to get done today? And the things that are the minutiae stuff, how can I build this in a way that makes sense? But then you have to think if I do something like this, I'm gonna get my time back. Because if you're constantly having to reiterate the same thing over and over again, you have to remind yourself the next thing, write the email out, right? You have there's emails that templates that have to go out. There's little onboarding slide decks. Where's that onboarding slide? Where did I put that? Oh, what did okay? I think it's somewhere here. And that's gonna take 10 minutes for me to find it on my Google Drive, right? But if you've got an SOP, I know step one, step two, and I mean, I can open up my process street and show you how it's all laid out. But it's not just that, it's it's if I'm gonna grow a team, the first hire is the first thing they're gonna ask you is what would you like me to do? What do you want me to do? And if you don't have that documentation up front, it's gonna be a very rocky road. So I'm recommending if you are a one-man shop right now, start documenting your processes now. It doesn't that be perfect. It never is perfect, it's never done. But if you think of it, you're getting your time back, you're not frazzled thinking about the thing I have to do next, and you can scale and grow.
SPEAKER_04What's your I know we're gonna talk about managing new client expectations and processes around that and the importance of process around that. But uh, before we get there, what is your typical process for creating an SOP or a process?
SPEAKER_02Well, I've built it out so much now. Now it's a matter of uh if a if a team member or even myself or somebody asks me how do I do this thing, the the first step is is it in notion yet? If not, then there's usually a video. I just quickly spin up a video how to do the thing. Um, and we have a template. So I spin up a template, I do a video. I might have my VA take my video and kind of build it from there, but sometimes I'm already doing it. So I'll just build out build out what I need, um, what you need. Um, but yeah, that's usually the video is the first thing. Um but I also would recommend just kind of the high-level steps that you want to kind of have accomplished. And I think the third thing to make sure you do is what is done look like? How do you know it's complete? Um, and you can do screenshots, you can do, you know, the next step would be whatever that is. But yeah.
SPEAKER_04And what if someone comes into your team and says, hey, uh, you know, I'm really good at doing GMB optimizations. I've been doing this a long time and I've got kind of got my own process. And like I know you've got your process here, but I kind of do it my own way. Like, I do you encourage your team to contribute to your processes and you know, as long as we're getting to what done looks like.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Oh gosh, yeah. My whole team has access to my internet for sure. They I encourage it. Um, if because I I'm not the end-all be-all. For example, with web development, I'm no longer in there anymore. I wouldn't, I couldn't tell you how to do any JavaScript or checklist or anything like that. So I re I tell them I'm relying on you to build this out, correct things. And we all know technology changes on a daily basis. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Exactly.
SPEAKER_02What worked last month doesn't work this month. So the person that comes in with their own GBP process, it might be uh, I might have my own because mine's typically mine is proven at this point, but if they they might have their own, and what we're gonna do is probably get together and have a conversation about what needs to change within the process.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um, I wouldn't really just hand it over to him, all right, do your thing. I would, we would definitely talk about what what needs to change on our process side and how can we how can we do the best parts of yours with the best parts of ours?
SPEAKER_04And if you're sharing processes around like a particular user interface, right? So say, for example, it is, you know, say for example it is the optimizing the GMB listing, and then three months later you log in and you realize that Google have changed the interface. Do you make your own? I mean, I know we're stuck in the weeds here, but do you make your own videos showing how to do that? Or do you just reference, go, hey, in this is what needs to happen. Go watch this video by Google that it shows you how to use the Google product, or do you actually make your own custom?
SPEAKER_02Oh, it depends. Depends on how how minutia it is. If it's something like um, yeah, setting up a Google My Google business, you know, setting up. I might find a video on YouTube and use that for sure. Got it. But um, I've got my own process. If we don't have um, you know, if we're setting up a Google account for a client, I have my own process for that because we don't want to use my phone number every single. So here's here's what that looks like. You you can't find that on YouTube. I did that, and so uh I do screenshots. Now, if something were to change and Google made a change, I'd probably have to go in and redo a screenshot. Um, but uh yeah, I'll I don't it doesn't have to be my process, absolutely not.
SPEAKER_04Or or ideally the team member doing it would actually update that screenshot. Uh, I'm curious about your cadence for um updating or reviewing processes. Do you have like a certain rhythm where each process needs to be reviewed every three months or whatever to make sure it's still up to date and still current?
SPEAKER_02You know, I don't. It's probably something I probably should institute, but it's more or less when we get if we get to that process, um, if we're in the like saying we're in the middle of doing a G VP um localization. And uh the the the the hard part is sometimes the team has been meet me long enough. We don't look at it, we just know how to do it. That's the hard thing. Um, but if we do hire somebody new, that's probably the time to maybe, which happens. I revisit things because it's just old, and I do have a his notion. There's a uh when was the last time this was was was edited? Um but I don't really have a kind of an audit process of looking back. I've got I I have thousands of processes. I I don't know how I would do that.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Uh it's tricky. We I know we're rolling out a thing, um, we're working on a thing called Kipwise, which integrates with Slack, and it's kind of like a knowledge base that is searchable in Slack, and it has this cool feature where it basically pings the author of a process. You can set the review cadence so you can say, Hey, I've just written this review, remind me in three months, I've just written this process, remind me in three months to review it. And Kipwise will just ping you in Slack three months later and go, hey, you should come review this. Um I've I have found over the years that because business moves quickly, I've found over the years that we end up with a lot of, we have ended up with a lot of SOPs in the knowledge base that are just irrelevant. You log in and go, oh shit, we haven't used that tool for like a year. Like, let's just get rid of those processes because we're not using that anymore. Um before we dive into managing client, managing new clients and the processes around that. I just want to, this is not, I wish this was sponsored. And if anyone in the tech space wants to sponsor this podcast, you should come talk to me. Because what I do want to do is I want to just give everyone a shout out to your setup. Yours, your you look incredible. I mean, I know you look incredible anyway, but your whole setup there looks amazing. So I just want you to walk people through what camera are you using, what lens are you using, and what microphone are you using? Because I know we're gonna get asked this because oh my gosh, yeah. It just looks incredible.
SPEAKER_02Well, I've got the Sony, which actually, thank you. That was your recommendation. So this is the I don't know the model, but it's the Sony.
SPEAKER_04It's the A, it's the A6400. Yes.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, what you said. I do have a uh um, what do you call it? The light, the same light that you have too.
SPEAKER_04The um oh yeah, the Elgato.
SPEAKER_02Yes, yeah, the Elgato light, yeah, which is all connected to my phone, so I can turn that on and off. I've the lights behind me are all Wi-Fi, so I turn those on and off as we go. This is a road mic. I've had this forever. It's the I will never change it. It's great.
SPEAKER_04It always NT USB, I think it is, but it looks like and the lens, I can tell you the lens is the Sigma 16mm F 1.4 lens. They are just it's great, absolutely sensational. They're beautiful. And how far is that lens away from your head? You can reach out and touch that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I'm touching it right now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There we go.
SPEAKER_04It's about super wide, and it's arm's length.
SPEAKER_02Looks great.
SPEAKER_04I, you know, uh the reason this is important is because it's not just about, you know, uh making yourself look fantastic. I had a lawyer reach out to me recently. I just want to park here for a second because this is check this out. I had a lawyer ping me recently. I posted a photo of my new office setup. I've actually got an iPad or a teleprompter in my office as well. I've got the same camera and lens as Christina in my office. Here on the live stream studio set, I've got the same camera, but we've got a 30mm lens because we don't want to show the whole set. It's a little bit further away from me, so we haven't got the 16mm. The 16mm is really wide angle, it's great for Zoom calls, makes you look fantastic. The problem is you end up looking down at your camera, at your screen like this because it's on Zoom, right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_04So I've set up a little teleprompter which literally hangs off the front of the camera, and then I've got my iPad in there. Um, and I I just so I can look at people on Zoom. I had a lawyer reach out to me recently. Now, if you're an agency and you serve any particular niche, check this out. Lawyer reaches out to me recently, and I think he's in this group, so I'm not going to name him, but he reaches out to me recently and he says, Hey man, you know there's your you your stuff looks amazing. You know there's a business in helping people set this up. He said, Not only do I have lots of client calls on Zoom, but he said, I'm quite often in court via Zoom, right? And I would love to have this set up. And I said to him, Um, there's no leverage in me doing it one-on-one, but what I could do is make a bunch of videos and recommend all the equipment, but I'm guessing you would still want someone to come into your office and set that up. And he said, yes. And I said, How much would you pay for that? And he said, I'd easily pay a thousand bucks plus whatever the gear costs me. And I'm thinking, if I was a digital agency and I was going after lawyers, I would put together a package where I, hey, I'll come to your office, I'll set this up for you, I'll make you look a million dollars on all your client calls and in court. It'll cost you, you know, four grand, including all the equipment, and it's completely done for you, and it's worth a million dollars. And by the way, we also happen to be a digital agency. We can help you with all this other stuff. But I would just get in the door doing that done for you setup. So I thought that was really interesting that there are a whole bunch of people out there who don't know how to do the basic stuff that we've figured out, which is how to make ourselves look and sound good on client calls, because we spend our lives on the internet doing this stuff, whereas there's a whole bunch of other people in other industries that don't know how to do it. And this is, you know, is this related to digital agency? Well, I think it is because if you're a lawyer or an accountant, you want to put out some videos and you want to position yourself as an authority, looking and sounding good is is is you know part of that. So I'm not suggesting that you become a A V tech support company, but it's a way to get your foot in the door and start a relationship. And there's a massive need for that kind of help in those industries. So anyway, I thought I would share that.
SPEAKER_02To caveat with that, I think it's important for an agency uh owner or whoever's Doing sales, reserve and having constant communication with the client. It's important to have this kind of look, this very crisp, clear look. Um, I think because this world is a lot virtual, I know companies or marketing agencies here in Houston that used to have in-person spaces. So it was very cool, right? These are cool office spaces, right? Is that that whole Google look, right? They're gone. All of them realize how much money they were spending, thousands and thousands of dollars. Um, and now all of them, the at least the top three big ones are all virtual. So in my mind, this is this is the coolness. This is what makes me look like a legit professional. Um, and with proper lighting as well, because what you don't want to do is show up with a Zoom call like this and have it be dark. You can't see me. I look like I'm in the basement. Yeah, I don't present myself just like we have our websites, just like those are the first impression they have of us. But this I I spent time on this, I'm professional, I've thought about this, and and they that comes across, which then leads into the systems and processes as well. I have a process in place, they like that, they know that what to expect. And so this is just uh an iteration of that.
SPEAKER_04That's right. It's intentional, it's intentional. It's not it's not left a chance. Nice segue into um typically what happens is you get a new client, right? And uh everyone's happy and everyone's in love with everyone at the start of the relationship. And usually uh what happens is there's every chance that that relationship is going to go sideways or south within the next 90 days for a number of reasons, but primarily I think because what the person bought is they expected something different to what was on the tin. So when they bought something, they were thinking that they bought X, you were thinking they bought Y. The truth is probably somewhere around Z. And and when you start to deliver, we've all had that moment where they see the first iteration of something that you've built and they ask a question like, oh, where does where's the membership login? And your heart sinks and you start to sweat bullets, and you realize, fuck, I think I've missed a meeting. I must have slept through a meeting because we have not talked about a membership login at all. This is news to me, and now I'm extremely nervous about how I navigate this relationship and keep it on track. So how do we and then scope creep, you know, happens and scope creep will kill you basically. Uh, if not bury your business, it will give you a heart attack. So, how what is your process? And I know again, this is something that's evolved over the years, but how can we how can we manage new clients to make sure that the relationship stays intact and that we we stay on the same page? We might start on the same page, but how do we keep everyone on the same page and how do we manage those client relationships with a brand new client?
SPEAKER_02I think the very, very first thing you have to do is set is set those expectations so that from the moment they sign the contract, they should instantly feel like, okay, I'm in good hands. So that could be a series of emails that, hey, here's what to expect, right? It's always about here's what to expect next, here's the next step. And you're always giving them the next step. Here's what we're going to do, here's the bullets of the thing. So that I think first is is you are going to establish again, you you have a process in place. This is how I work. And we're going to do that with the very first email. Hey, great, you signed. Um, we're super excited to get started. Um, the next step we're going to need you to do is schedule an onboarding call. Usually that's the first thing I want them to do. And I try and give myself about two or three days minimum because during those two or three days, I'm establishing the at least I'm pulling out from the proposal everything we agree to because the onboarding call is where we really go through expectations. That's when we have a big discussion about and not just expectations on the project, but expectations of them as a client and us as an agency. So that it's usually a good 30, possibly one hour call, depending on the size of the project. But that's you will you will find that if you can establish ground rules within the first three days, the rest of the relationship is very smooth and very clear. Everybody's on the same page, and we keep reiterating a lot of things throughout the relationship. Don't forget, here's what we agreed, here's where we agree. So you talk about scope. I'm literally going through that right now. We just before this call, we've got this big, big, big client that's like, dude, this is not in the project scope. So we're gonna charge you more money. That's usually what the answer is. Either we don't do it, I charge you more money. Anyway, but that's that relationship starts with the minute that they sign that and then reiterating over and over and over again, this is how we work. And don't break your own rules, too. So if you've got something that you do on Mondays, that should always happen on Mondays. If you've got something that you need them, for example, we use teamwork for our project management. I tell them you can email me. That's fine, email me, but I don't look at my emails every day. I might go a whole day without looking at my email. So it's gonna take a day. So expectations are use the email address that we're going to give you. And we talk about all of this during the onboarding. I've got a pitch deck, I've got screenshots, I have a form. We click the we click and we open the form when we go through. Okay, you what's your name? What's your official name? What's your what's your web address? What do you what other domains do we have? We go through that. We have all the questions. What phone number do you want on the site? What emails do you want to use? All of that gets in that onboarding. Because the time by the time I'm done with onboarding, I just really don't even want to touch it anymore. All of that information gets passed on.
SPEAKER_04Now, this is interesting because you've got a team who are doing, who are executing, who are delivering on the promise, right? So you're still doing sales, you've got the relationship with the client, you've got the profile, they come in, you charm them, you get them to sign the contract, you give it over to your team, you need to make sure that your team are delivering on what you've promised. What is how long does the onboarding call usually last?
SPEAKER_02Uh, between 30 minutes and 45, sometimes an hour, depending on the complexity.
SPEAKER_04Okay. And uh what happens when they sign the proposal? What happens between the proposal and the onboarding call? Do they have homework that they need to do or not a lot.
SPEAKER_02Uh, the first the first homework is to set up an onboarding call. That's the first thing that they need them to do. And we will remind them, like, oh, you haven't set the onboarding. Um, of course, the proposal includes a contract, so I don't really have to worry about that anymore. That used to be a separate issue. Um, I do set up things on our end. So next homework is to send us that deposit. You know, we I don't really take checks anymore. I send them to my online store and they set up a subscription instantly, right? So I'm you and I both agree that the your recurring revenue is the soul of your business profit.
SPEAKER_01100%.
SPEAKER_02Right. So everybody gets on a subscription of some kind. Um, so that's just three pieces of homework probably on their end. On our end, we're getting things all ready. The outline, we set up teamwork, we got, you know, we have one email. What a new thing that I just sent them is the everything about us email. Actually, I got this from Johnny. Um, it's the big onboarding, big old PDF document. That's everything that I'm gonna talk about during the onboarding is it's just one big old PDF of everything in there. And they can they can keep that, print it out, but that's essentially how we work kind of business and what to do if you have questions, kind of PDF. So that gets sent to them before the onboarding. Um, we also send them the agenda for the onboarding. Um, so there's we I tell them during onboarding, you're gonna need to spend for the first week or two, there's gonna be a bombardment of information we need from you. So expectations are you need to focus on this. You've signed the contract. We're we are together working on this, and I need your attention. So you just just know that. Um, and so again, it's all about expectations on both sides, it's not just me.
SPEAKER_04I like the fact that you the the PDF that they get, which explains everything about who you are and the way you work, and then you're gonna repeat some of that on the onboarding call anyway, because people learn in different modalities, right?
SPEAKER_02So you can half of them probably never read the PDF, you know.
SPEAKER_04Exactly. Like I'm never gonna read the PDF, but I might scan it and I might something might something might you know pop out to me, and then you say it on the onboarding call, and so we're just repeating ourselves.
SPEAKER_02And also don't forget, you get a lot of people that come in midway through the project. That's a problem that we run into too. So you have somebody that starts with you, and then a month later they've just hired, oh, they're gonna take over.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_02And that and I either I I usually spend 20 minutes telling them because they don't know, they don't know how we work now, it's brand new. So I send them, I resend the PDF, and like if you've got any questions, but I can't stop to have another onboarding call with you. So you're gonna have to catch up. Here's a way to do that. I thought about doing a video for that as well, like a simple hey, you're new to the project, here's how we work. I think I might do that.
SPEAKER_04No, I think yeah, because uh that's right, they have no idea, and and they might even be new to the company, right? They might be new to the organization, and so they're still trying to figure out where they fit into the organization. Then they're in the middle of this new project and they're trying to prove themselves and they're trying to show that they're relevant, and that's when scope creep, you know. Hell, meet our new marketing manager who thinks this new project's a terrible idea. Great, thanks. Well done. Hey, for you.
SPEAKER_02Well, my other company, this is how we did it. I'm like, whoa, whoa, okay, that wasn't part of the scope.
SPEAKER_04That's right. You're in Texas now, sweetheart.
SPEAKER_02Um we do things differently, hair.
SPEAKER_04That's right. Um, and so the walk us through the walk us through the mechanics. You've got a slide deck, which is what is that? It's just in Google Slides that you when you when you yes, please, of course.
SPEAKER_02Yes, I've got it all queued up here.
SPEAKER_04Come upstairs and I'll show you my etchings. Uh please show us the slide deck. And and then you've got uh, where's the checklist to manage this? Like if you got hit by the bus, right? Uh we've we've had team members hit by a bus before, right? So I don't think that doesn't happen. We have had team members hit by a bus. If you get hit by the bus and and Pete rings me and says, Troy, you've got to onboard a new client for HawkeNator because she got hit by a bus. I'm like, all right, man, I'm gonna dive in. Like, where's the checklist that tells me what to do?
SPEAKER_02Right now it's in process street because um yeah, a process street allows me to fill information in the very beginning and then it populates later on down the process. So emails that get sent out, all that good stuff. I got checklists, and there's a lot of um automation that goes on. If we do this, another checklist kicks in, you know. So, for example, we use termaged in, right? But there's a bit of a process for that. So if they if they have bought termed, we check it, a new termed process kicks in and it got screenshots and what to do next. So that if I could I could truly never do onboarding. I'm I actually my project manager does onboarding right now. I just do the I just do this, I just show up. Okay, you just show up and you you're the singing and dancing excellent.
SPEAKER_04All right. So so show, let's let's dive in, let's have a look at your screen. For those of you who are listening to this as a podcast, by the way, I keep telling you to join the Digital American Facebook group, and here's why. Because we share screen and we show stuff. So come and hang out in the Facebook group, watch the videos, have a look at our beautiful cameras and lenses and uh make fun of us, and then you can also uh see what happens when we share screens.
SPEAKER_02That's right. Okay, so um let's see, are we showing it yet? I don't think we are.
unknownNope.
SPEAKER_02There we go. There we go.
SPEAKER_04Look at that kickoff meeting.
SPEAKER_02It is our kickoff meeting. So um, and this is a this is a slide that I'm using Canva.
SPEAKER_01This is not I love Canva so much, right?
SPEAKER_02It's the best thing because I'm constantly in here tweaking and editing this. Yeah, um, I just did it this morning, I rearranged it. I you know, I don't spend a lot of time on every single thing, so I've got an agenda, um and I've I show the team, you know, they visually can see who is the person that they're talking to and sending messages, right? And we do first thing is the scope of work. First thing we do is this is what we've agreed on. Um we talk about teamwork because this is how we communicate internally, right? So I go through that process, I've got screenshots because most of them are probably gonna use their phone. Um, and I thought about another uh section here I might open up teamwork for them because it it we used to use like a spreadsheet of the things we need from them. But as people have gotten a little bit more tech savvy, uh I don't have a problem anymore opening up teamwork and just letting them see their own list inside teamwork. But I talk about that, I talk about expectations on how you communicate with us. You have to use your company email address. You cannot email me. You you can, but all I'm gonna do is forward it into teamwork because we don't, I don't work in a vacuum. I have a team, I have people that need to know what you're sending me. I can't, I'm not so you you have to use teamwork. We talk about the customer dashboard that we've created for them. All the things that we talk about, all the links and the emails, everything like that, is all in our project dashboard.
SPEAKER_04So wow, it is an is that all teamwork is is the is the customer dashboard in teamwork?
SPEAKER_02It is actually a notion. I created a special page inside Notion because it was um uh there's too many things. It's still difficult in in notion in teamwork to build something like this. So yeah, um uh we do talk about data requirements, these are the things I'm going to expect. You need to start collecting. Hopefully, we can do it right then and there. That's what I try and do. So do you have your domain name? Great, let's get that right now. Do you have your CPA? Great, let's get that right now. Um, and we just do if they don't, well, I explain to them, please don't email me your logins and password. Please don't throw it in your body of your email and I explain security and how we're very security conscious. So I'm always talking about our process. This is how we work, and we do it for a reason. It's to protect you, it's to make sure you get the best product possible. So I don't just do this willy-nilly, I do this to protect you. So we talk about so good. Yeah, we talk about it.
SPEAKER_04Can I just can I just kind of interject here? The reason I love this so much, right? Is because this shows them that so this is confidence, this is strength, you this is experience, this is years of experience, right? It shows them we have a process, right? So it's best if you just shut up and do what we say because we know what we're doing, right? And right from the get-go, if this is the first, like this is onboarding, we're gonna walk through the slide that can show you how we work. I would instantly go, awesome, you guys know what you're doing, that's why I'm paying you. I'm in good hands, I feel like I'm in good hands. I love this so much.
SPEAKER_02And we get less pushback later on because I've already established my expertise at this point. Like I know what I'm doing here. So I am more than happy to hear feedback from you and your recommendations. We'll have that conversation. But and and if that's something you really want to do, I'll do it. But yeah, walking him through this establishes that um, yeah, I know what I'm doing. Um, we talk about timeline. I don't specifically say we're gonna deliver on this day. I talk about timeline in a sense that these are the things that are going to happen, but at the same time, it is dependent on you getting content to us, getting access to certain things. So that timeline can change based on what on you. So it's important. Um, we talk about delays. That's again, I reiterate the delay issue, you know, and I have a policy. If if I don't hear from you in 10 business days, then we will archive your project. We'll let you know. If if you disappear on us, I don't have time to constantly send you updates and stuff if you're not gonna talk to us. So yeah, just tell me, tell me you're in the hospital or you're just quick email, Christina. I can't, um, I can't do this right now. That's fine. We'll just we'll hold off on it. We're not gonna, you know, that's cool. We'll do what we can on our end. And then I also oh, there's no free funds.
SPEAKER_04We don't, that's right. If you if you change your mind and go missing and decide you want to go and live in a yurt, that's fine, but we're not giving you your money back, right? Because that's right.
SPEAKER_02And I I explicitly say that now, too. It's yeah, I don't dance around that anymore. That's yes, there's no refunds. Um, yeah, I do we talk about site maps, what to expect depending on the complexity of the site map, you know, something to be simple. Now, this was a new thing that I've just added the what we need section. So, one of the things that I'm trying to do in my own mindset is I'm not a web designer anymore, I am a digital marketing consultant. So we do a lot of things now. I try and plant in their minds. They may have come to me, you know, just to build the site and do some care plans, but I kind of want to plant in their minds the other things that we can do for them. So I kind of go, so we're doing web development, um, but I know this other stuff is here, but we'll just skip through that because you're not there yet.
SPEAKER_04Nudge, nudge, wink, wink.
SPEAKER_02You're not there yet. You're not ready for this yet. When you're ready, we can talk about it. So we talk about content and I we have a content checklist that we go through and I talk about specifically what we need. The questionnaire, I usually open this up. This is the point where I open it up and I start going through. It's just a simple Google Doc. All the little details, it's a bit of a discovery, but it's just more of a fact-gathering kind of thing here. Um we've got now this is where I go, we're not doing SEO for you at, so we'll just get that. We're not doing any paid ads, so we'll skip that too. Um, we do reputation management. This is what it looks like, but we're not doing that right now. So it's just uh it's just my way of just kind of we do these things.
SPEAKER_04So planting the seed for later on.
SPEAKER_02Later on, yeah. I do talk about care plans. That's a whole other side of expectations, is the care plan. But care plans are always discussed throughout the project from the proposal from the minute we have a conversation of discovery and proposals all the way through this is care plan support, care plan support, because this is my bread and butter at this point. Yeah. Um, now this is also rather new. I do give them expectations of them. This is what I expect of you. I expect your content and photos to be in the proper format. I have a document that shows them how to do that. What um we talk about branding documents and the kind of documents that we need from there. We talk about I need access to your domain registrar, I need timely responses. These are my expectations from you. I'm not saying you got to answer me the minute I send something, but I can't go a full week and you're not giving us any feedback. It just isn't gonna work. And we talk about staging feedback. I can't tell you how many times we deliver staging and like three weeks go by and we haven't heard from them. Um, and just so you know, I don't wait to go live to get paid. Um, we send an invoice two weeks after we deliver a staging site. Um, and then I ask them about their expectations of us. And this is where I like this because I just kind of get it's their opportunity to talk to me about what's what they're expecting to happen, what they hope to happen. Um, and so that every again everybody's on the same page.
SPEAKER_00So good.
SPEAKER_02Then we have what's next, right? Now it's these are the things that are gonna happen next. And then just uh sometimes we schedule a discovery at this point. Um, if we need if they're doing more custom, you know, content and all that, and then they go thank you.
SPEAKER_04So awesome. Love uh with some team pictures of you guys on Zoom. That's great. Yeah, awesome. Hey, that's that is uh that is, ladies and gentlemen. Oh yeah, round of applause for Christina Hawkins, the pro see, I told you she's the process queen and she's called the process queen for a reason. Oh, by the way, I don't I know this is kind of obvious, but if you like my team are always telling me, dude, you need to tell people what we do and how we work. If you want to come in and get some coaching from us, Christina, and the other coaches on how to set this stuff up for your business, just jump on a call and chat with our team and we'll figure out the right program to put you in because this is what we do. We help agencies grow their teams, grow their revenues, sort out their processes, become more profitable. Um, what does your team look like these days? How many on the team?
SPEAKER_02Nine, including me.
SPEAKER_04And where were you when you started with us? How many were on the team when you started with us?
SPEAKER_02Me and a VA.
SPEAKER_04Wow. And what do you uh what do you spend most of your time doing now compared to where you were even three years ago in the business in terms of like your activities and and your role?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, definitely a lot more leadership stuff, um, which I never thought of myself as being. So there's a conversation, a lot more meetings with the team about what to do next, and here's a problem with the client and all that. So um I would love to step away from that and have an operations manager. I'm not quite there yet. Um, I still do the PPC and the SEO work. That's still me, but I have a content writer and uh an account manager, a project manager, a care plan manager, three devs. Yeah, and three devs. And still a VA.
SPEAKER_04And a partridge in a pear tree. Now, do you like doing do you like doing the SEL on the PPC stuff?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I do, but I need I I need to find somebody. I need to I I need to step away from that because it's it's uh it's a lot of busy work. The the beginning is great. I love the strategy of it and I love learning all the tools on it, but there's a lot of busy work that happens.
SPEAKER_04And then it's groundhog day, right?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, I really shouldn't have it anyway.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I love the idea of building websites for clients. I I love logging into a brand new WordPress installation for the first time. And it lasts about seven minutes, that that rush. And then I'm like, I'm done. Someone else take this over. I I haven't got the attention span for this anymore. I just want to move on to the next person and design the next strategy. Now, you couldn't have grown, I know this goes without saying, but I'm gonna say it anyway. You couldn't have grown your team and gotten out of all of those roles, the dev role, the care plan, the copy, all that stuff without having processes in place. Oh, yeah, you know, so that your team know what to do. Now, the other thing is that sometimes the process isn't necessarily like, for example, if we hired a copywriter, I wouldn't say, well, great, now you're now you what you've been hired here as a copywriter. Here's how we write copy, because I actually I'm pretty good at writing copy, but I'm not the best. And we would hire a copywriter because I don't want to do it, and I'm hoping that they would be better at me, uh, better than me at writing copyright. So I'm not gonna hire a copywriter and then show them how to write copy, but I'm gonna show them how we do things here, how we communicate, yeah uh, you know, who our clients are, where they live, how we communicate with our clients, how we communicate internally. And that's the kind of stuff that you have to have process driven, because otherwise you just spend your time answering the same question over and over again, right?
SPEAKER_02Right, right. Exactly.
SPEAKER_04So, so with your uh your developers or your care plan manager, I'm gonna make an assumption that at this stage of the game that they're better at doing their job than you would be because you haven't been doing it for a period of time now and you're probably a bit rusty. Is that fair to say?
SPEAKER_02100%. I rarely am in there. There's it's just gotten so complicated now. I rely on my my lead developer now. I just, hey, Rebecca, help. I have no idea what's happening here. Um, and I don't even try and get in there now. And I just don't even try it. She is my lead developer, she is my right hand person when it comes to this kind of stuff. But I still, I still uh, you know, there's still parts of it there, and I'm sure a lot of y'all out there that are listening to this or can relate to this, I still have a perfectionist side to this. So I still feel like I need to get in there and QA the work. Um, I still need to look at the final product before I can hand it out. Um, I know there's some of you guys that might have um uh account reps. I do have, I'm training in account rep now, but there's still the side of me that uh I can't let it go. I gotta look, I gotta look through it. But when it comes to the inside mechanics, I'm definitely not doing it anymore. No.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Uh love this so much. So your tech stack for processes, it looks like you're using Process Street for kind of checklist stuff, Notion for sort of long-form documentation and storing uh a knowledge base and FAQs, and then other things like Canva for slide decks and teamwork essentially is where a lot of we we hang out, teamwork desk for our support and teamwork is is our primary project management tool.
SPEAKER_02And I I have to say, I I'm I'm a huge teamwork fan. I know everyone's kind of click up and all this stuff, but teamwork seems to have been growing a lot lately and they've been establishing a lot more. Um, I do like the direction they're going. And what I found out is I I probably use 60% of it. And um, from a process person, I'm that again, it's another side to a growing business is getting better reports. So that's that's something I'm doing more of as well. Is I we've instituted a US, so the process for them is I need to know where we are with the, I need to just look at a report on teamwork and see overall. I shouldn't have to go project by project by project and ask a bunch of questions. I should be able to go poop and see, see it all and know based on tags and dates and categories and and all that. I should be able to get that now. So that's something I'm I'm pushing toward is establishing that kind of reporting system so I can get a high-level view of how the company is performing.
SPEAKER_04Great. Uh the tool, the tool doesn't matter. We, I mean, we're at Asana house. We still use Asana internally for projects. The reason we like ClickUp is because we can export things to our clients really quickly. So all of our agency clients who want to know how to run a Google My Business campaign, for example, or local SEO or whatever, we can, or our recruitment process or our sales groups, or any of that kind of stuff, we build that out in ClickUp and then we can export to our clients really quickly through their template center, which is why we used ClickUp for that thing. Uh, but we still use Asana internally. I don't think the tool matters. I think what matters more is the process and the consistency of using it. Uh, I I I I know people who cannot stand Asana and I've had issues with it over the years. Max loves it, our team love it. It's grown a lot in the last couple of years, and I think a lot of these tools have had to evolve over the last couple of years because everyone's gone to work from home because of the pandemic. And companies who previously never thought about using a project management tool have all gone, well, now we need something because we can't just shout at each other in the office anymore because we're working from home. So a lot of these companies have had to accelerate their development pretty quickly. The tool doesn't matter. No, uh, it's the process behind it and the consistency of use that matters. If I, if we were starting out a brand new agency and we said, hey, we're gonna start a brand new agency and we're gonna go after this particular industry because we love it. Uh, the experience that we've got now, what would be the first handful of processes that you would recommend that we get documented before we go and start talking to clients?
SPEAKER_02Uh definitely, I well, I think uh an onboarding, because onboarding is crucial to the expectations and gathering the data. Um, depending on the kind of agency, because you want to collect as much information up front as possible. So that process of every single minutiae detail you can think of, because it's funny how later on you try and find that, you don't have it, where is it? So definitely that kind of data collection process, um, whether that's onboarding, a form, whatever you want to call it. I think also um a delivery checklist. These are the things I think these are the things it goes back to these are the things that we want the company to be known for. So we we want quality work. I know it's ubiquitous the word quality, but we want work that people love. They walk around going, so how do we what are the at least the top 10 things that have to happen to make people love us? And then you drill down, right? So the top 10 steps, right? So communication. All right, so what does communication look like? Um, if you're building websites, what building a website, what are the things that we have to happen for people to love the website we have? And that's how I think of it. When you're starting a new agency or you're trying to figure out a way to start a process, is work backward. That these are the things that have to happen for when I when I'm done and this client, he's they're just gonna love me. They're gonna think I'm the knees, bees knees. They can't can't enough of me because I've done these these things.
SPEAKER_04So you're really starting, uh, and I'll take liche, but you're starting with the end in mind, you're really thinking about the outcome, putting yourself. What I like about this is you're putting yourself in the client's seat and going, if I experienced this, I would just think you guys are amazing. Yeah, what do we need to do to craft that client experience, but also protect ourselves and get everything that we need to make sure that we can deliver and keep everyone on the same page. What's your I know we've only got a couple of minutes left. What's your process? If someone turns up three weeks into a project and they throw a spanner in the works and and and they just that you and all of a sudden they're expecting something that wasn't in your initial scope. How do you handle that conversation?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's funny. Like I said, I've got to do that probably. I well, the first thing is we have a we have a phone call. That's just I there's only so much you can do on emails and documentation. All that you really need to pick up the phone, pick up the bloody phone. Yeah, it's just you got to have a conversation and say, hey, listen, here's what we agreed to, here's what's happening. And the thing too is you kind of want to see it coming. You you sometimes get the flags before it it happens, like that's what's happening now. We kind of saw this coming, and last week we were like, okay, um, we started a process of things that are going outside the scope. We add a little tag to it that says outside the scope, right? So we're starting to collect things. So tomorrow we're gonna have a meeting with them and like, all right, these are the five things that that are just this just not what we agreed on. We've got a wireframe that we've established, we've got guidance here that we've agreed on in the very beginning. And here's it now for me, I need to come up with a solution. I think that's the other side of it. The process is see it before it comes, establish a way of deciding what specifically is out of scope. What is the solution? You either we're gonna do one, two, and three. Yes, we can do it. That's fine. We'll we'll let that slide, but three, four, and five are gonna cost you five, six, seven, and eight, we can't do it. And we're not going to do it. I think I that was a conversation I had two weeks ago with the same client. Like, we're not doing that. And they just wouldn't get in their head that what do you mean you're not doing it? We're not doing that.
SPEAKER_04And what and what is that because you is that because you don't have the skills to do it, or you just think it's a bad idea for the project?
SPEAKER_02Uh yeah, it's a it's what definitely was a bad idea for the project. Um, we have the skills, but it would probably it they wanted software, and I'm trying to reiterate to them I'm not a software engineering company, I don't build SaaS programs, I build marketing tools. What you're asking us to build is a SaaS. That's not what this is. If you want SaaS, we need to end the project and you go find somebody else. And I'm okay with that.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, that's right. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, totally fine.
SPEAKER_02Good terms, expectations didn't quite meet here. Yeah, and it's okay.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, that's okay.
SPEAKER_02And I have to be okay with that too. I have to be okay with letting that go.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah, we can part ways as friends. It's like getting into an Uber and then saying, Hey, and you pull up outside your house and you go, Oh, cool. Now can you drive me into state? And the guy says, No, dude, I have to go home and see my family. Get out of my car. Exactly. You should have told me that before you got in the car, you lunatic. Get out of my car.
SPEAKER_02Now, what we can do is you can request a new Uber and I'll see if we can maybe on my way to my daughter's birthday party, but you know, that we're renegotiating the term.
SPEAKER_04That's right. It's a different scope. A lot of people, I think a lot of people just get wigged out about this and they get nervous because the client has the money and they're the prize, and we need the money. And, you know, um, I went through that when I first started out, and then I realized that uh you just get pushed around by other people and their expectations, and that's just not fun for anyone. No. Hey, this has been awesome. Thank you so much for sharing the slide deck. That was epic. Uh, this has been an epic share, an epic share, as they say. Uh, for those of you again who are listening to this, please come and join the Digital Mavericks Facebook group so you can see the beautiful slides that Christina walked us through. Uh, I'm I don't know what you're looking forward to over the next 90 days, but I'm looking forward to coming out to San Diego and hanging out.
SPEAKER_02Can't wait. It's been too long.
SPEAKER_04Two and a half years, two and a half years.
SPEAKER_02That's honestly where a lot of things happen is during those side farms. So good. Yeah, they're so good.
SPEAKER_04Uh for those who don't know, we are going to San Diego in September for Mavcon, which is our conference for our Mavericks Club members. If you are listening to this and you would like to come along, please reach out to our team, email us support at agencymaveric.com because we haven't done this for two and a half years. We are making Mavcon available to a very select few number of people who aren't already in Mavericks Club. You can buy a ticket, you can come along, you can check it out, uh, kick the tires for a few days, see what we're all about. And then if you do end up joining Mavericks as a result of that, we will of course credit your ticket price towards uh joining Mavericks Club. So uh email support at agencymavericks.com if you want to have a conversation with us about that. It is September 12 through 14 uh in San Diego uh in September. Uh super exciting. Thank you so much for coming on and doing this with us, Christina. Appreciate you and I love the attention to detail and uh thanks for being a part of it.
SPEAKER_02You're welcome. Thanks for inviting me. It was fun.
SPEAKER_04All right, take care. All right, ladies and gentlemen, that is another episode of the Agency Hour Wrapped Up here in the Digital Mavericks Facebook group. Please subscribe, check us out on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, wherever you listen to your podcast, and share this with anyone who you think might benefit from being around it. We appreciate you. And also let us know what you want us to talk about on the agency hour. And if you have any guests that you would like us to reach out to, please let us know in the group. I asked a question in the group yesterday. So let us know in the group. Uh, we are going through and collating all those responses and we are starting the process of reaching out. Uh, we have a team here, Anna and Aleandra and Charmaine, and the girls are reaching out to guests and uh filling our pipeline of guests. So let us know what you want us to talk about so that we can make this podcast and this show even more relevant for you guys. All right, this has been super fun. We are right on the hour again. This is called the Agency Hour for a reason. I look forward to seeing you again next week. Until then, I'm Troy Dean. Bye for now.
SPEAKER_03Thanks 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.