SPEAKER_04 0:00

We have hired a new copywriter, which is something that again, I was looking I knew that I needed for a long time. I've looked plenty of times. Ended up um yeah, I'm now work with a copywriter who's the daughter of one of the MAPs. Um so yeah, managed to to find an awesome copywriter through MAPS as well. Uh and that, she's like she works directly with the client. Like she's jumping on a call with them, doing an interview, then contact like emailing them back and forth. Whereas before I was the middleman for for everyone, basically. Um, so that's like rescued a whole lot of my time. Uh, and it was also stuff that I just hated doing, and so I put it off, and so things would get delayed because I'd be the bottleneck. Um, I've now got a developer who's starting at like 12 o'clock, uh, so midday my time set in the Philippines that we actually hired through um through Mavs Team Accelerator, and he's doing awesome, so he's like part-time, um, but he is yeah, I'm on a time zone where I can actually I you know if there is something urgent and it comes in at nine o'clock, like for them to wait three hours for him to start on it um is no issue rather than having to wait till five o'clock that day. Um that was something I always felt horrible about. And so, yeah, that's he's also now because I'm creating, I've created like a process for like a basic wireframe um website for our niche. And so he's able to build websites really quickly because he starts from the wireframe and then just um after he gets the designs from our team, he can just use that um and just edit the the wireframe in WordPress. Um then yeah, I guess my team just gets a lot more direction from me, but or more sort of like mentoring rather than direction. Like now my I used to do the reconciliation, and then I got um a finance assistant who helps do the reconciliation, but I was still doing a lot of it and checking lots of things, but he's now fully got that process down, so I don't even like our accounts are always reconciled. He sends out emails to the client with all of their time, um, the time that needs for the the care plans uh and a couple of other things, and so he's doing that automatically without me now. Um he's so he's actually in the Philippines as well, this assistant, and he's also helping with the SEO side of things. So my partner has also been really productizing the SEO side of the business. Uh and yeah, things are just running without me uh a lot more than they ever were.

SPEAKER_00 3:03

If 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_01 3:13

All right, welcome, welcome, ladies and gentlemen. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, wherever you are around the world. Welcome to another episode of the Agency Hour live here in the Digital Mavericks Facebook group. Uh, this is a very special episode for me for a couple of reasons. One, uh our guest, which I'll talk to you about in a moment, just has an amazing story, and I'm super happy that he's come on to share that story with us today. Um it's literally the reason we all get out of bed every day is to create stories like this on Well, there we go. I'm super excited about that. The second reason is if you were watching this, you will have noticed that my screen just went black and now I flicked back to the right camera. The second reason is this is the last episode of the agency hour that I'm recording from home. Thankfully, because we are a a bee's dick close. If uh if you know what a bee's dick is, you'll know how small that is. We're a bee's dick close to actually turning on the lights. Why am I talking about bee genitalia? First thing on a Thursday morning. Uh, we're a bee's dick close to turning on the lights and the cameras and the microphones in our brand new studio office space, and next week I will be conducting the agency hour live from our new home, Hullabaloo House, which is our new studio that we have created, and uh I'm super excited about that. So this is a very special episode. It's a little bit nostalgic for me, it's a little bit emotional. I must say uh going live at home is challenging when you've got two kids under five out in the main house. Um my wife is amazing at keeping them quiet and uh keeping me relatively uninterrupted, but also I'm gonna be a little bit sad because it means that I'm gonna be leaving the house a bit earlier on a Thursday morning to do the agency hour, and I don't get to hang out with those uh little rugrats and have breakfast and do all that kind of stuff. So uh but uh yes, I'm super excited about getting into the new space. Alright, today, uh by the way, if you're watching this in the group, please let me know which country you are from so I can get uh you know just an affirmative that the technology's working, that you can hear me and you can see me, and also we just like to know where people are tuning in from around the world. And today on the and by the way, if you're not watching this in the group, if you're just listening to this as a podcast, please come and join the Digital Mavericks Facebook group and join in the fun. This is a live stream video into the group. Uh we then extract the audio and turn it into a podcast. So if you're listening to this and you're new, welcome. Thank you for tuning in. Uh come and join the Digital Mavericks Facebook group and join in all the fun and watch the videos. All right, today we're talking about the continuing our theme on from last week, talking about hiring team members. Of course, we do have uh one of our brand new trainings is open, and I think we're actually closing the doors in about 24 hours, I think, to the Team Accelerator Blueprint, which is a brand new training that we have just launched. People are enrolling in that program as we speak. And so we wanted to continue the conversation today because we I know from my personal experience and from having thousands of conversations over the last 10 years with freelancers and agency owners that there is a lot of fear around hiring team members. We're gonna unpack a little bit of that today with our guest who I'll introduce in a moment. And we're also gonna talk about what is on the other side of that fear. I can tell you mo I'll tell you a quick Oh, Max, I think it might be I think it might be time, Max. I think it might be story time with Uncle Troy. Again, if you're listening to this as a podcast, you just missed some great visuals on the screen. Uh I cast my mind back to 2007, I want to say, when I started out as a web designer and kind of ended up in business by accident. I was building websites for a few friends who were filmmakers in Melbourne. And I was doing some voiceovers back then in the post-production industry. I was doing voiceovers for commercials on television and radio. I came across a couple of studios that became friends with the owners of those studios. They said, Oh, you build websites. I'm like, Well, you know, I'm not sure yet. I'm I'm experimenting with Flash and uh Dreamweaver. And they said, Can you build me a website? I said, Well, I don't know, I'll try. And then they started offering to pay me to build them a real website. And then I kind of was like, Alright, well, I've got to figure this out. And pretty soon after that, I met uh my girlfriend, who is now my beautiful wife and the mother of our two beautiful children, Amy, and I also met Amy's godmother, Chrissy Violet. Big shout out, by the way. If Chrissy Violet ever watches this video, you have no idea the influence that you have had on my life, Chrissy. I love you to bits. She is an absolute force of nature, Chrissy Violet. And we went out for lunch one day in Sydney. We flew up to visit Chrissy, and we went out for lunch, and we sat in this little cafe that had this little kind of deck out the back that sat over the water over this little kind of harbour. And she we were talking about uh she was a business owner and we were talking about my my new business, my freelance web design business, and she was saying, Well, you've got to hire someone to help you, you can't do it all yourself. And I was like, I'm not I don't wanna I'm not gonna what are you talking about? You're a lunatic, I'm not gonna hire anyone. That's craziness, that's stupid talk. I don't want that responsibility. I don't want to have to answer someone's questions, I don't want to have to nurse someone through them having a bad day. I don't want to have to m have the responsibility of paying them and feeding them and you know, making enough money to feed them and not go broke. That's just stupid talk. I don't want to do that. I just want to sit behind my computer and play with WordPress for the rest of my life and hopefully earn enough not to live in a caravan. That was pretty much my level of ambition at that point. And Chrissy said to me, Listen, son, let me tell you something. Go and put up some posters at the local university, hire some interns, get some help, otherwise you will you will burn out and you will never get off the treadmill, and it's a horrible experience. And of course I didn't listen to her until a couple of years later when I started uh delegating things to other people. We started by outsourcing some work uh to developers elsewhere. I then uh and then we I started to build an agency, I hired my wife as a bookkeeper and taught her how to do the books. And I've made so many mistakes along the way, and every time I've hired someone up until probably the last five years, uh every time I hired someone back in those early days, it was terrifying because I it wasn't because I thought they were gonna be terrible, it was because I didn't know what I was doing. I had no process for hiring them and managing them, and I didn't want them to ask me a hundred questions a day. I just wanted them to get on with it and produce amazing outcomes. So we've learned a lot over the last, you know, 15 years of hiring and managing. And I just want to st I just want everyone to know it's okay to be absolutely terrified of hiring someone. It's perfectly normal to feel that way. If you in fact, if you're not n if you're just starting out and you're not a little bit nervous and a little bit scared about hiring your first or next team member, then you're doing it wrong. You should be a little bit scared, right? And in fact, it's that fear that you can harness as energy that will propel you forward to make the decision. Yeah. So I just wanted to normalise that for everyone and let you know it's okay to be a little bit scared. We totally get it. In fact, a lot of the feedback and a lot of the questions we've had from people who are joining Team Accelerator Blueprint have been emailing us saying, Oh, this looks great, but I'm just really scared. I, you know, I I'm not really sure I want to do this. And if I had this training that we've put out 15 years ago, if I could access this training back then, it would have made my life way easier because it literally is a step-by-step process. Having said all of that, what I would like to do now is introduce you to one of our Mavericks Club members who and I'll let him tell the story, but he has I don't even know how long he's been in Mavericks Club now, he'll tell us, but it has been an absolute transformation since this gentleman joined Mavericks Club, and when he joined, he had a pretty big motivation for wanting to make change in his business, and I'm gonna let him tell us all about that, ladies and gentlemen. Please welcome to the agency hour, all the way from New Zealand across the ditch, Carl Thu. Hey Carl, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_04 11:32

Hey mate, how are you?

SPEAKER_01 11:33

I'm fantastic, I'm all the better for having you here. Thank you so much for joining us and for sharing your story. For those that don't know anything about you, who are you? Where are you in the world? What do you do, and why are you here?

SPEAKER_04 11:46

Hey, um, so I'm Carl Thu. I've got a little agency called Static Shift, um, and we build web websites and do SEO. Um, used to be for anyone and everyone, and more recently we're focusing on on coaches and course creators and really starting to build up you know productised services around that um to help people sell more of their courses and and high-ticket services. Um so yeah, I most of our clients are in Australia because until recently I I was living in Australia, um, but I've yeah, moved back across the ditch um to be closer to family, as I've now just started my own family.

SPEAKER_01 12:30

Woohoo! Yeah, and how old is your little one now?

SPEAKER_04 12:35

Uh four weeks. Uh three weeks. Three and a bit weeks.

SPEAKER_01 12:39

Three and a bit weeks, freshly baked out of the oven. It's fantastic. And what yeah, you had a little girl, is that right?

SPEAKER_04 12:45

Yeah, a little girl, Lily.

SPEAKER_01 12:47

Lily, fantastic. And how are Lily and Mum doing?

SPEAKER_04 12:51

Um, they're doing really well. Not enough sleep, of course. Uh I think that was to be expected. We had a pretty rough start for the first couple of weeks. Um, but I was lucky enough to be able to take those two weeks off completely. Um and yeah, because she ended up in sort of special care at home, so we had to have her on a really tight feeding schedule, and um yeah, we were running on about two hours' sleep. But yeah, luckily the business kept going while I was I was away, and the last two week and a half things have have got to what I sort of imagine as normal for having a newborn.

SPEAKER_01 13:31

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then that'll change tomorrow, and then it'll change next week. Um, oh dude, I'm almost in tears. Like, I and I don't I'm not saying this to you know for any other reason other than it's absolutely true. Like I just cast my mind back to when we had Oscar our first. It is just such a bubble. You just live in this tiny little bubble with this beautiful, beautiful little newborn, and it just blows your mind. And it and there are just so many moments, and those moments continue. Um, and it's an incredible experience. Now, when so, congratulations, well done. Uh congratulations on becoming a dad, and I'm glad everyone's doing well. Um, let's just cast your mind back to, I don't know, when did you join Mavericks Club and why? How did that even happen? How did you come to the like how did you discover us and how did you go actually, you know, this is something that I think I want to do?

SPEAKER_04 14:25

Um, so I think it was November, I could be wrong, but around about then. Uh and basically I'd been running on the treadmill for quite some time. Um, I went through some good growth a few years ago, and then I kind of just got stuck in the doing. And I mean, I did a couple of um business courses with like some pretty high-profile coaches, and that was just really kind of general advice, and it was great advice, but I struggled to adapt some of the concepts to our industry and the challenges there, and so that finished up after a year of being in that. Uh, and then obviously we had some major um changes coming forward, so the baby on the way, and I just went like I I need to make big changes because basically I'm lucky to have an amazing relationship with my partner Lisa, um, and we the only thing that sort of ever goes wrong in our relationship has been the business, um, and that's just just the long nights uh and the stress that comes from that. And I guess like for that whole sort of last few years of of being together, and she actually started working in the business with me, and she's an amazing part of the team. Um, but it was constant, I was trying constantly trying to convince her and myself that there was a light at the end of the tunnel, but things just kind of would go forwards and they'd go backwards. Um, and revenue was going up, but time like not in a not very fast. And it the big thing was just the time freedom. Like for revenue to go up, I was spending more time in the business, and I just couldn't seem to break that cycle, and I just I knew there was a way out, but and I wasn't gonna give up. But there started to be sort of a couple of times where like she was going, you know, is are we actually gonna ever have a life after you know, after five o'clock um during the week? And I kept saying, yes, we are, and kept, like I said, trying to convince her and convince myself. There's part of me that was going, like, is it just impossible to do this with our sort of agency? Um, and so yeah, I knew that I needed a coach that had experience with agencies that had some like really you know, things that I could more easily adapt to my business because they would get a lot more relevant rather than more generalized advice. Um and so yeah, I had actually been following you guys for maybe four, maybe five or six years, it could be. I don't know. It was quite a while ago I first sort of heard about you and just kind of dropped in every now and then and read some of your content or listened to a podcast. Um and yeah, then I sort of started looking around and just thought, um, yeah, who when I was looking for a coach that actually knew agencies, I thought of you guys straight away and jumped on your website uh and just yeah, had a bit of a look around, jumped in the Facebook group and just yeah, something just felt right, and I just had a feeling that this was the the next step for me. And I was looking at like whether to do the blueprint course or something, and then I just I think I messaged, I can't remember who I spoke to, um, but I was messaging back and forth with someone on Facebook, and I just went, all right, I'm at the point where I know that you guys are the right um right team for me. Now I just wanted to know what you guys thought was was the the right path for me, and then yeah, jumped on a call and yeah, next thing you know, I'm in Mavericks and things are are changing.

SPEAKER_01 18:29

This is super interesting. Before we talk about the transformation that's happened, I want to just cast people's memory back to uh a few, I can't remember what episode number it was. Someone will find this out and put it in the show notes, I think. I hope. Um, a few weeks ago we talked about the four truths. The four things that somebody needs to agree to, or the four truths that somebody needs to believe in order to buy from you. And Carl has just laid them out in a really organic way, and without I didn't set him up for this, but the four truths are that the prospect needs to agree that they have a problem. Uh, and that that problem is worth solving now, that they can't do it themselves, and that you are the right person to help them. And if you listen to what Carl just said, he had already made that decision. He'd already he was already believing those four truths before he reached out to us. So then it was just a conversation about okay, well, where do I start? What's the next step, and uh what do we do from there? Uh so there you go, Michelle has just dropped that link uh near the near the video there in the Facebook group, uh, how the four truths can take someone from stranger to client. Now, Carl wasn't exactly a stranger, he'd been stalking us for about five years and consuming our content, which is another uh proof that content, putting out great, free, helpful content nurtures people and builds a lot of trust. Uh awesome. So, what did your team look like when you joined Mavericks Club? And what was your role in the business? What were you spending your time doing?

SPEAKER_04 19:58

Um, so I had an SEO manager, two assistants, um, a couple of developers, and a copywriter. Um, but what I found was that like one, the copywriter, she was doing the copy, I was reading it, doing a lot of feedback, often just ending up making changes myself. Um, and I knew ideal, but I just yeah, couldn't didn't have the time to look for a new copywriter or anything. Um and then yeah, I guess like the developers again, like I had developers that are on a very different time zone. So they were sort of starting at like four o'clock, five o'clock uh in my afternoon when I should have been finishing up. So I had a team, but things just weren't really working the way they should be. And like I said, like I knew there was issues with that, but I just didn't have the the time. I was scared of like hiring new people. Um and yeah, it was just things just weren't clicking right.

SPEAKER_01 21:11

What what was the what was the fear about hiring new people? Just talk talk me through that. Like what you know when before you make a big decision like this, you kind of put yourself into the future and say, all right, well, if I hire someone, this is what's going to happen. Just play that scenario out for me. What were you imagining and what was that fear that was holding you back? And obviously, I know you've talked about time because you were also really busy, so you couldn't carve out the time to to recruit and hire someone, but what was holding you back from making those changes?

SPEAKER_04 21:41

Yeah, that's that's exactly what it was. For me, the biggest fear was um time, having to then train them and spend that time with them. And I was just going like, I just had so much on my plate, and I just had no space for chatting to anyone else on a regular basis. Let alone you know putting the time in to train them and make sure that I'm training them right. Uh and as well as just the the process of you know looking for someone was going to take up time. Like I knew that it was needed, and I I wasn't worried about the costs and things like that. It was just that time thing.

SPEAKER_01 22:22

Um because you were nervous that you would hire someone and they wouldn't be able to deliver to your expectation and to your standard, and then then you would have to spend more time fixing their work and training them up, and you didn't have that time because you're already working nights, and so so like how does that how do you break that circuit?

SPEAKER_04 22:40

Yeah, that's yeah, that was exactly the exactly the actually the sort of things that were going on in my head.

SPEAKER_01 22:48

And of full transparency here. When you first joined Mavericks Club, uh the first four weeks were were pretty bumpy, right? It wasn't all rainbows and unicorns. It's not like you it's not like this hap- this is uh true for anyone. It's not like you join Mavericks Club or any program like this and all of a sudden the clouds part and everything is you know awesome and there's rainbows and unicorns and you're surrounded by a thousand virgins and you're living in paradise and everything's great within a couple of days. That doesn't happen, right? A lot of people think that that just by buying the the Stairmaster and putting it in the corner that you're just gonna get fit and lose weight and look like you know Arnold Schwarzenegger. You have to do the work. So the first four weeks when you joined Maverick Club, I remember were pretty bumpy, and you reached out to me and said, Hey, I'm not sure what I should be doing next. Can we have a conversation? Can you walk me through what you were feeling at that point?

SPEAKER_04 23:38

Yeah, I guess it was just that overwhelm of like, okay, I know a lot of things needed to change. Um, and I think like you're the agency GPS scorecard or something like that that I'd done and sort of realised like, okay, there's a lot of areas that I'm really lacking in. And that's like it was really good to have that because I went, okay, these are the things that I need to improve and um and how I can sort of get to being a a good agency that yeah, was sort of doing all the the things right. Um, but then you start to get in there, and then you know, I was still in the doing a lot of work, um, and like I said, like I was already so busy. So then it was kind of adding these calls each week, um, and then just going, all right, what do I focus on first? And yeah, then we had a chat, um, and you mentioned a couple of things about getting time back, like just the fact of actually just blocking out my calendar for to do certain things and then just making a you know a finished time and just going, all right, that's when my finish time is. And I kind of got off that call and went, okay, yeah, it sounds good in theory, um, but I don't know if I can make that happen. Like it's just doesn't, there just never seems to be time. Like I'm always just working late. But then that realization of something that that you said of just that, like, if you always have that, know that you've got that time. Like, I might go, okay, I've tried in the past, okay. I'm gonna finish at six o'clock, but then really I know inside my head that oh, you know, if I keep going, that that's fine. Like I can work till 11 o'clock, that's what I usually do, instead of being like, okay, this is a a hard stop. And then I guess you just I just naturally would get it get to six o'clock and I'd be like, oh yeah, but I wanted to do this, this, and this today, and then I'll just keep going. Then I started turning it around to being like, okay, well, I'm stopping at that time, so if that's not done, then yeah, I'm shit out of luck. That's that's tomorrow's job. And you start working a lot faster when you go, okay, this actually has to be done by this cutoff. Um, so that that really helped, but also understanding the importance of, I guess, like my brain, because I've I've been doing the business for over 10 years now, might be 11, possibly almost 12. And it became just a job, uh, a job where I worked stupidly long hours, and I was doing 60, 70 hours a week at times. Uh, and so I just got into the habit of of working late, and that was something that I just had to break. Um, that changed when I met my partner, and then I kind of went, okay, well, I can't work that late anymore, but I was still then working until 10 o'clock. Um, so you know, that was an improvement from midnight. Um, but yeah, I guess I can't remember where I was going with that.

SPEAKER_01 26:46

But so what so what shifted? Because so I can tell you that uh having been through this journey myself, you say, Well, I'll finish at 5 and then at 7.30 you realise you haven't eaten dinner, and then at 9.30 you realise you haven't showered for a couple of days, and you're just working and you're just totally in that zone, convincing yourself that you're being productive. I had a buddy of mine reach out to me once and said, Uh we've had uh the second baby's on the way, you know, the the the the eldest is now three and a half, second baby's coming, I'm working Saturday mornings, uh my wife is kind of giving me a bit of grief going, like, is this how it's always going to be? Like, why are you working Saturday mornings? I keep saying to her, I'm just working harder now, so I don't have to work these hours later. And I said, Well, hang on a second. You know that you're kidding yourself because whatever time you allocate to work, you will fill with work. So if you allocate less time to work, you will work less if you stick to that allocation. Mike McCallowitch talks about this in Profit First. This is the whole premise of Profit First is he watched an infomercial one night about weight loss and he was uh in a really dark place in his life. He's talked about this publicly, he'd you know lost all his money and uh he was sitting and watching this infomercial late at night, not sleeping, not looking after himself, had insomnia, watching this infomercial, and the guy basically says, if you fill your plate, you'll eat it. So the way to eat less is just to serve dinner on a smaller plate. And something clicked in in Mike McAllowitch's brain. He's he was like, Oh, so if you if you spend as much money as you make, then you'll always spend as much as you make. So if you allocate less to spend and you allocate some to profit first, then you'll spend what you've allocated to spend. So if you work, the time that you've allocated to work, if you allocate less time, you'll work less. And what that means is that you you end up working smarter and being more productive because you re-prioritise your tasks and you only work on the stuff that you know is important. And this happened to me when Oscar was born. He wasn't a great sleeper. And we did everything wrong, by the way, because we were new parents and there is no textbook, by the way, for being a new parent. Just want to let everyone out there know who hasn't got kids. When you do have kids, there is no textbook. Actually, there is. There's about three and a half thousand of them, and they all have differing advice. And our job is to figure out what works for us. So Max, who's becoming a parent in September, read everything and ignore it all and just figure it out yourself. Oscar didn't sleep very well. So we had I had him in a bassinet uh next to me while I was working from home, and I knew that he would sleep for about 45 minutes. So I'd put him down in his room, and then I'd wheel the bassinet out into the bright lounge room and put him next to me while he slept, right, so I could keep an eye on him. And I was like, Right, are you asleep? Yes, yes, go. And I knew I had 45 minutes to get shit done, and then he would wake up, and as soon as he woke up, I couldn't work. So it's amazing when you look at your to-do list. By the way, I don't have a to-do list anymore, which is a whole other conversation. Uh it's amazing when you have a to-do list and you've got 45 minutes to work before a newborn starts screaming at you, how you look through your to-do list and go, well, all of that's fluff. I don't need to do any of that. I'm just going to do that one thing there, because that's the big domino that knocks over the little ones, right? Actually allocating less time to work and then sticking to it means that you will fill that time with work. But if you allocate until midnight to work, you will fill that time with work. You just won't be very productive and you won't be working on very important things. You'll just be fluffing about. So how I'm curious, Carl, have you done this in the past? You'd said, well, I'm going to finish at six, but you didn't take it seriously and you didn't honour that commitment to yourself. Was it just the fact that you had a baby coming down the pipeline? Or was it that I, you know, gently kicked your ass and played drill sergeant, or was it that Pete Perry started screaming at you in slack, or what was it that made you go, okay, I'm actually going to finish at five o'clock today?

SPEAKER_04 30:48

Uh it was a combination of all. So, yeah, I guess that there was that the big thing. Like one of my partner's biggest fears and mine as well, was that the baby would come and I'd still be working long hours, and I wouldn't I wouldn't be able to be there as the father that I want to be, and that's like really important to me. Like, that's obviously my priority in life, and that's why I got I sort of reached out to you guys because I just went, Look, I'm having a baby, and I need to be there, and yeah, I need to to be present, not just there. Um, and my partner needs me to be there, and that was like yeah, the the driving force. But then there were just yeah, little things that you, you know, gentle nudges that you said, and I mean you mentioned that you'd kind of gone through the same issues and stuff like um, and I think it was as well. One thing that I kind of realized was that in the past I'd gone, okay, I'll set till six o'clock is as my finish time, but then I just keep creeping up. Um, and then all of a sudden, like just straight away I'm back to to square one. But this time I went like understanding that I know that things aren't going to improve, like unless I just stick to it. It's not going to improve straight away. It's not going to be like, okay, I'm finishing at six o'clock tonight, so I know I'm going to get everything done. It was more creating that habit. And then over time, my subconscious would actually know that I am really finishing at this time. There wouldn't be the little subconscious going, oh, yeah, right, I've got we've got all the time in the world. So that's like that's something that I really like to work on as well, is the you know, um being mindful and and figuring out how the subconscious works and and habits and things like that. Um, and so yeah, there was just a combination of lots of different factors, but yeah, there was that that key driving force of having a baby coming that really kicked my ass into gear.

SPEAKER_01 32:49

Totally. Love it. Now, also when we first met, I think from memory, you were doing a lot of work on care plans for clients. Is that right? Is is my memory serving me correctly?

SPEAKER_04 33:00

Yeah, yep. So I guess yeah, we we've got a bunch of clients on care plans. Um, and I do a lot, like we've got I've had developers, but often I was being dragged in because the if there was something urgent, like I said, the developers weren't starting till five o'clock my time. So I was getting in there and doing things um during the day if it was urgent. And there's also because I was working with such a wide variety of websites, it was really difficult to train a developer or you know, any team member on how to, you know, to deal with all of them. And so that's something that's really um clipped, which I'm not sure to go into that now, but um about sort of niching uh is that's been a massive transformation that I've started making over the last six months.

SPEAKER_01 33:56

Yeah, I do want to talk about that and also want to talk about what changed with your team since joining Mavericks, but before we do the team, let's talk about the niching thing. So you because you were I remember when we first spoke, you were very uh attracted to the online course creators and coaches, and but you you you were kind of pretty clear about the fact that you didn't want to work with newbie coaches who were just starting out, that you wanted to work with established uh businesses. So talk us through how you've made the transition from being a general workshop open to anyone to now just focusing on who your core customer is.

SPEAKER_04 34:32

Yeah. So yeah, I guess the the thing that I really realized after chatting to you and doing some uh things in Mavericks was I always looked at at niching. I knew it was something I needed to do. Um, but a lot of it was around the like marketing. And I mean like if you've got a niche, you can, you know, you can market easier because you've got a more defined market. But I was getting leads um from a business coach, I was getting enough referrals to keep me going. Um, I was yeah, putting turning away clients at times. Um so it wasn't that wasn't as much of an urgent issue for me. But what I started to realize was that like productized services were the way to go. And when I started to like look at all of my different clients and e-commerce websites and all sorts of other really custom websites, and I just went, I can't make a productized service that suits all of them, and like I'd have to make so many different productized services. So that was when it really started to click of like the other major benefit of uh choosing a niche and really going all in on that, and so that's when I started to yeah, just hone in on that. I found I had like a bunch of clients recently that were coaches and course creators, and I was starting to get them referred to me from my business coach, um, and I enjoyed working with them. Um, I found that a lot of the people like they were they valued my time, they valued my advice, uh, and I was able to create, I didn't have to create a really custom website like with you know, um, e-commerce websites. I was building e-commerce websites that had all these custom features and functionality, and it just meant that as well, like when it came to the care plan, I was having to look after that stuff because it was kind of you know, uh because my developer wasn't doing it on 10 other websites, he wasn't really invested in learning about it. Whereas now, like I'm focusing on the the coaching uh coaches and course creators, and I'm like everything that I'm learning is targeted towards that. Every product I'm developing is targeted towards them, and so then I can actually create a process for them that then I can train the team on, and that's been one of the biggest things that's changed since joining you. Like everything that I do now, like I'm turning away clients that aren't a good fit. Um, I turned away like a minimum $25,000 project that I've done a bit of discovery with, and she was keen as to to go with me. She was basically like just whatever you're charging, I'll pay it. But then I've gone and got went, okay, I need to take this seriously. She's not in the niche, it was a custom e-commerce website, and I knew that I wasn't gonna have to create a website like that for anybody else. Um, and so yeah, I turned her away and just said, Look, I'm really sorry. I know we've just spent like we've done three calls uh to really dig into her website, but I said, Look, I've got a baby on the way, which gave me a good out. And I said, like, I know that this is gonna just take a lot of my work, but I'll introduce you to a couple of other agencies. So I reached out in in Mavs and um got like three other three other potential people uh that that would be perfect for the job, that wanted the job, that would do probably a better job than me because that's the kind of work that they regularly do. And so I connected her with them and she was she was like disappointed but stoked that I was still I wasn't just leaving her um high and dry, like I was then giving her good options. Um and so yeah, that's that's been a big shift, is that like everything that I do that I take on, if it is really custom, then that's all good. If it's something that I know will be useful for other clients, um that you know, coaches and course creators, but if it's something I'm only gonna do once and it's custom, then I'm I'm out.

SPEAKER_01 38:52

Yeah, fantastic. Love it. And I just want to, and without I you don't need to share revenue numbers or anything here, but I just want everyone listening to understand that since you've made this decision, I know you've been posting in our Ring the Bell channel in Mavericks Club, you've had your best months ever, right? Yeah. In terms of like just focusing on who you serve and serving them better than anyone else, the work is coming in, things are growing. What's happened with your ta sorry, I just want to because the problem with niching that everyone has is that is managing their own FOMO. Well, if I just if I'm gonna focus on online course creators, what if there's not enough of them in the world for me to grow a business? And what about all those accountants that I know I can actually help? And what about the the physio down the road who needs a new website and I know I could do a great job for them, and then all of a sudden you stretch tooth and you're trying to be everyone the you're trying to be everything to everyone all the time. And y for those who live in Australia, you'll know what I mean when I say you end up looking like Channel 10 on TV, right? Which by the way nobody watches anymore because they don't know who they are. They're trying to please everyone. And no one watches it because it because it doesn't resonate with anyone, right? So the the the FOMO is real, but if you can manage it and just double down your efforts on who you serve and who you are best positioned to serve and just keep serving them, then on the other side of that FOMO you end up in a position where you're able to streamline your processes, you're able to delegate things to your team, you're able to train your team how to do things because we're going to be doing this over and over again because we're not building e-commerce sites anymore, right? We're focusing on our perfect customer because that's who we help. What's happened with your team since you joined Maverick? How how different is your team now to how it was, you know, seven, eight months ago when you first joined?

SPEAKER_04 40:37

Um yeah, very different. There's we don't have a lot of new people or anything, but I guess the way that they're working is different. Again, because they've got a lot more like process to follow now. But we have hired a new copywriter, which is something that again, I was looking, I knew that I needed for a long time. I've looked plenty of times. Ended up um, yeah, I've now worked with a copywriter who's the daughter of one of the Mavs. Um, so yeah, managed to find an awesome copywriter through Mavs as well. Uh and that she's like she works directly with the client, like she's jumping on a call with them, doing an interview, then contact like emailing them back and forth. Whereas before I was the middleman for for everyone, basically. Um, so that's like rescued a whole lot of my time. Uh, and it was also stuff that I just hated doing, and so I put it off, and so things would get delayed because I'd be the bottleneck. Um, I've now got a developer who's starting at like 12 o'clock, uh, so midday my time, so in the Philippines, that we actually hired through um through Mavs team accelerator. And he's doing awesome, so he's like part-time, um, but he is yeah, I'm on a time zone where I can actually I you know, if there is something urgent and it comes in at nine o'clock, like for them to wait three hours for him to start on it um is no issue rather than having to wait till five o'clock that day. Uh, that was something I always felt horrible about. And so, yeah, that's he's also now because I'm creating, I've created like a process for like a basic wireframe um website for our niche. And so he's able to build websites really quickly because he starts from the wireframe and then just um after he gets the designs from our team, he can just use that um and just edit the the wireframe in WordPress. Um then yeah, I guess my team just gets a lot more direction from me, but well, more sort of like mentoring rather than direction. Like now my I used to do the reconciliation, and then I got um a finance assistant who helped do the reconciliation, but I was still doing a lot of it and checking lots of things, but he's now fully got that process down, so I don't even like our accounts are always reconciled. He sends out emails to the client with all of their time, um, the time that we need for the the care plans uh and a couple of other things, and so he's doing that automatically without me now. Um he's so he's actually in the Philippines as well, this assistant, and he's also helping with the SEO side of things. So my partner has also been really productizing the SEO side of the business. And yeah, things are just running without me a a lot more than they ever were. And like it's it used to be it used to be me just checking everything, like the I would delegate tasks. Well, I would assign tasks. I wouldn't delegate them because the responsibility was always on me. The decision making was always on me. And so that was always like they would go, okay, I'll get it 60% done and then Carl will do the last 40%. And they knew that I would do that. And that's what they they just got used to, that so that's what they did. And then I wondered, you know, why can't anyone just do the whole thing? But it's I wasn't giving them the responsibility because I was always stepping in and getting my little boost of ego for saving the day and delivering that that final blow. So yeah, um, that's that's a big thing that's that's changed. Like my team has way more autonomy, which is way better for them. They don't have to go, oh no, is this gonna be okay for Carl or is he gonna jump in and make 10 changes and right on yeah, yep.

SPEAKER_01 44:59

I um had a marketing manager once work with us who uh eventually resigned, which was the right decision for everyone, by the way. Um, and uh during his exit interview, he said, one of the things that's most frustrating is that you you kind of fly in at the last minute and try and save projects. And he said, Uh it you just get in my way and I just can't do my job. And that was a that was a eye-opener for me. It was like, oh wow, I really had to look at myself and my own behaviour. And and a mentor once said to me when a team member comes to him and says, Um, I have a a problem, the first thing he says is, Great, do you have at least two solutions to this problem that we can talk about? And if they say no, he says, go away and come back when you've got the problem, but at least two solutions. He said most of the time they don't come back because they go away and they figure it out. But if they do and I was like, Really? He's like, Yeah, try it. I'm like, Wow, okay, true, it works. If they do come back with the two potential solutions, he listens to them, I'll say, here's the problem, okay, here's solution A, yeah, here's solution B, yeah. And then he says, What do you think we should do? And they nine times out of ten say the same thing that he would say. They say, Oh, well, I think we should do A. And he's like, Awesome, go do it. And he said, if you take on their problem and try and fix it for them, you will find that they all leave the office at five o'clock and you're still working until eight o'clock every night doing everyone else's work. Right? You enable that behaviour and also it's not good for them because they're not taking any personal responsibility and they're not learning and they're not developing. People want ownership over their role and their contribution. People want to know they're making a meaningful contribution to the team. And if you keep tidying the teenager's bedroom, the teenager's never going to learn to tidy their own bedroom and they're never going to feel proud of the work they've done because dad always comes in and tidies the bedroom up at the end of the weekend, and you're just enabling that that behaviour. Um, what how what are you spending your most of your time doing now in the agency compared to where you were seven or eight months ago?

SPEAKER_04 47:08

Um, at the moment, probably most of my time, a lot of my time is spent on training. I'm doing a lot of training at the moment to just up my skills uh and coaching like for the coaches and course creators and putting together like um products. So of yeah, spending a lot of time on product development and you know improving our like website wireframe, creating new like wireframes for different pages and funnels and things like that. Um and yeah, even just things like um you know the like fire starters and stuff that you talk about in Mavericks. Um so I've been building, you know, creating new like audits. Um so yeah, just things like that I've been spending a lot of time on, which is something that I've always wanted to spend more time on. Like that's the sort of stuff that I enjoy. I don't enjoy the like constantly delivering stuff. I like coming up with with solutions. Um, but yeah, I got stuck in the like coming up with solutions to mundane problems, um, clients' websites, just like technical issues, which I'd I've never enjoyed. Um, but it did give me that, like I said, you know, that boost when I did solve it. I went, oh yeah, awesome, I've I've saved the day, but it was just a very superficial short-term boost. Um, whereas this is the stuff that I've always liked. Like I did a business degree, um, and I mean everything I learnt in that business degree was theory, and I quickly learned that theory doesn't really um grow a business. Yeah, but yeah, I was always interested in like the growing of the business, but I just got stuck in the doing. And so yeah, now I'm doing a lot more on the business work. Um, and don't get me wrong, I'm still in there doing um more than I want to be doing of the actual task work, but especially project management is my next hire that I need to make because I'm still managing the projects. Um, but yeah, I I'm doing just yeah, a lot more work on the product development, I guess. That's probably the biggest place I've been putting my time.

SPEAKER_01 49:22

Love it. Um that dude, that's exactly where I'm moving to. I'm moving towards more product development in our business, excuse me, because that's my sweet spot. That's where I have the most fun, that's where I do my best work, that's where I add the most value to the company and to our clients. Um, biggest, what was the biggest your biggest takeaway or your biggest learning moment from going through our Team Accelerator process? Full transparency. We uh helped recruit a team member for Carl. We will continue to do that because he's in Mavericks Club, that's part of our done for you process. But it's the same process that we have packaged up into a training in the Team Accelerator Blueprint, which is open at the moment, and people are enrolling in that training as we speak. What was your biggest learning moment through that process, Carl?

SPEAKER_04 50:05

Um I guess it just having it more of a process for um getting the candidates for like interviewing the candidates and choosing the the candidates. Um I have I guess like you know, figuring out first of all that are a good culture fit, which is really important because that's something that I really have been focused on is developing, just improving our team culture. It's not always easy with being online only. Um and but that's something that's improved a shitload um over the last six months just with having regular team meetings and uh getting to know each other better. But yeah, so I guess doing that culture interview first, then going to I think it was like next was the competencies, then sort of making sure like okay, can they do all the things that we need them to do? Uh and I'm having a blank on the the third interview, but having that process, yeah, the commitment. So having that process uh that we could follow was just made things a lot easier. And I know now, like I could, I mean, you guys obviously sourced um the the team members for me as well, which which made things even easier, but I know that I'd be able to take that process now and I could jump on upwork or something, um, which I've done a lot of hiring on upwork in the past, but I could jump on there and know that I'm gonna get a much better um end result, and I'm gonna feel confident going into each of those interviews, not just going jumping on the interview and kind of winging it. Um I've got a nice process to follow to actually make sure I end up with the best candidate. And it's it's funny that the the candidate that I first thought was gonna be the like that I wasn't gonna end up with ended up being the one that I did because I trusted that process and I kept following through. And I didn't just go on my um my first like the on the first chat because he was it turned out, which I kind of gathered as well, that he was he was really shy, which um so I guess there was that like the culture fit when when I was first going through that interview, I was a little bit worried because he was quite quiet, he didn't talk a lot, um, that maybe he won't be the the best culture fit because I'm you know we're trying to create a team that talks to each other, but then I went, yeah, but does like not everyone has to be a talker, uh and most it's gonna be hard to find a developer that's a good talker and a good developer. I did one of the guys that was a really good talker, he when we got to the competency stuff, I started to see some cracks and go, okay, he's not as skilled as he says he is. Um whereas this guy was a lot more like was quiet and humble, and then I started to figure out that actually he's he's got a really good developer brain. Um and yeah, I mean he jumped on a team meeting uh for the first time because I I just was training him for the first few weeks and then I had had the baby. Um and yeah, he jumped on the team meeting and he he fitted in perfectly with everyone and he was you know chatted about what he was up to, and um, so yeah, I guess that's probably another takeaway is like I guess you're always told to trust your gut, and and I'm definitely not saying to not trust it, but I guess have a bit of patience and trust that process and give them that time to um to prove themselves, uh, especially yeah if they're just a bit quiet.

SPEAKER_01 53:49

I think there's a couple of really good mechanisms in the team accelerator process to to enable you to validate your gut instinct. Um, and as you say, now that you've got that process, it's an asset that you've got in your business that you can use for years to come to hire people. I think the tendency is that we hire on availability, not ability. And well, I've certainly done that in the past, and we continue to have that conversation with us all the time, uh in internally all the time now, is um, you know, is this person available? Great, let's put them through the process and make sure they're a cultural fit and their their accomp their competencies are are there and they've got the level of commitment. What's really interesting is when you get to a point where uh our latest hire, Aleandra, who runs our social media for us, uh she I didn't do the culture interview or the competencies interview. I just I just actually joined in the commitment interview at the end with Emily. Max, I think, and Emily did the culture interview, or someone did the culture interview, and then someone else did the competencies interview. So when the great thing about this process is that you can ultimately in the and one of the things I recommend is that more than one person in the team has an interview with a new hire to make sure they are a good cultural fit, because they might be a good cultural fit for me, but I'm a particular type of personality, which you know most people find a bit abrasive and a bit annoying. So I'm not you know, if I interview someone and bring someone into the company, the rest of the team might be like, Oh, bloody hell, what have you done, Troy? Like, this person's not a good fit. So it's really important in my world, it's important now that the other team members do those first couple of interviews, and then I'm really just rubber stamping it at the end, going, Cool, if you guys say this is good, then I just want to have a quick chat, you know, I'm all ears, great, love it, let's go. Um and it's because we now have that process that they can follow, uh, which is rather than just winging it, as you say, which is what I used to do, and that results in in misshires, and as we know, mishires cost time and money and send you backwards, and also can damage your confidence and can also raise up all of those fears about hiring people. When you hire the wrong person who doesn't work out, it can really take the wind out of your sails and prevent you from wanting to do it again, and you just kind of think, oh bugger it, I'll just do everything myself and I'll just be a superhero and I'll just drive this business forward on my own, and then you're back to square one. So, dude, well done for following the process and trusting the process. Um, how what's what are you most excited about apart from Lily and being a dad? What are you most excited about over the next 30 days in the business? What are you really looking forward to getting your teeth stuck into?

SPEAKER_04 56:27

Um well, because I've just come back from the the weeks off. Um I'm just kind of catching up on a couple of projects that um I still just need needed to have a little bit of input on. But I'm getting stuck back into continuing where I I left off and just working on the product development. Um I've yeah, I've sold a couple of products that I haven't actually created yet. So um that's yeah, so like these audits, so the fire starters as we can call them a map. Um so yeah, getting stuck into creating a process for them, and that's something that I am a lot more excited about now, is like I don't mind creating that process because I know okay, if I do this once in the beginning, it's gonna be, you know, I'm gonna be able to delegate that to someone else next time. Uh and yeah, we're gonna be able to use that for a bunch of clients. Um, but yeah, so that's probably the thing I'm most excited about. The next thing, once I've got those products done, then I'm gonna be starting to do run ads and start more on the lead generation because that's one of my issues at the moment is that I've got plenty of leads, um, but they're all coming from one source. Most of them are coming from one source, and that was another thing that I came like when I when I first came to MABS, I sort of said, like, it's fine for now, that's it's working, but I don't like having that, you know, being reliant on that. If that dries up, then I'm buggered basically. So yeah, um, yeah, so that's that's my next thing, which is it exciting to start getting stuck into some ads and and lead generation stuff.

SPEAKER_01 58:14

Awesome. Unreal. Well, I know I said it at the start, but I'm gonna say it again. I really appreciate you coming on and sharing your story with us uh and for just being really transparent and open about the journey that you've been on. And I can tell you, and I I think we spoke about this in the green room at the start of the show before we hit record, that you know, we talk a lot about revenue and we talk a lot about growth, and we talk about a lot about all that stuff that is a good barometer for measuring how the business is going, but seeing the impact, seeing the work that we do and how that impacts our members and our community and the change that it it it it it facilitates in their business and in their life is the reason we get out of bed every day and do it. And uh it's you know just been so rewarding for the whole team here to see you go on this journey and to get to this place. And uh yeah, just looking forward to to sharing more with you and helping you more into the future.

SPEAKER_04 59:05

Yeah, thanks very much. And and there's a big thank you in there as well from my partner, uh, my fiance, because she's like I said, like she's had a seen a massive change in me. She's said like she does see the light at the end of the tunnel now. She knows that since after joining Mavs, just the changes that I've made in the business, she's just like I'm I'm there for her so much more. Like I said earlier, she was worried I wasn't gonna be there enough for the birth, and for like she was worried I'd be jumping on emails when she was in the middle of the birth, and I was like, that is not gonna happen, but um, but yeah, then the the two weeks I was able to take that time off. Now, like I read a book about you know how the women shouldn't do really anything after um birth for a good like the first 40 days because they need to that time to recover and they're feeding the baby and all of that. And like I've she's just stoked. I've been you know starting work late, having long lunches, I'm doing breakfast, cooking lunch, dinner, um, and doing the washing, all of that stuff, the the good fun stuff. But yeah, I've been able to do that because yeah, Mavs has put me in that position. So yeah, she's she loves you guys.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:25

That is awesome.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:26

As much as I do.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:27

Yeah, uh, someone in the team said, amazing, that is the best endorsement, and it really is the best endorsement. I I got a thank you card sitting here somewhere uh from Simon Major's wife, Carolyn Major, at Practice Ed. She sent but she just randomly sent me a thank you card one day out of the blue um with uh a t-shirt that said uh what would Troy do? And uh and I the card basically said thank you for everything you've done because it's just been such a change, not only in the business, but also in Simon personally. He's just way calmer, way less stressed out. Um and it's like that is the ultimate validation for us that we're doing something right because when you know when you get that from our members, family members who see the change that that has been made is yeah, just the ultimate validation for us. So thank you so much again for coming on and sharing this. I know it's been super helpful for everyone listening and watching, and it's been very rewarding for us to get this feedback. So really appreciate you, Carl.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:25

No worries at all. Cheers, guys.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:27

Thank you. All the best to you and your partner and Lily. And uh, ladies and gentlemen, that is another episode of the agency hour. We're about 59 minutes in right now, so we're bang on. Uh, super inspiring story from Carl Thew at Static Shift in New Zealand. He's based in New Zealand, so if you know anyone who's an online course creator or an online coach and uh needs some help with their digital marketing, go and check out Static Shift in New Zealand. Um Thank you so much for being a part of this. Please subscribe and like the podcast and share it wherever you listen, whether it's Spotify or Apple Podcasts or wherever you uh listen to podcasts. I'm a I'm a big fan of Downcast. I usually get my podcasts on Downcast or on Spotify. Uh leave us a review, leave us some comments, tell us what you want to learn next, who you know, if there are any guests that you would like us to reach out to and bring onto the show, let us know. And again, uh if you're not in the Digital Mavericks Facebook group, please come and join the Facebook group and be a part of it. And you can also check us out on YouTube where I think we re-post the episodes of this on our YouTube channel as well. Um and apparently we've been doing some interesting things over on Instagram, and I do hear a slight little rumour that we might be TikToking soon. So uh keep your eyes peeled on the Tikram and the InstaTalk, as they say. We might be popping up there and uh sharing some stuff for you as well. Uh if you want to get around any of our training for Team Accelerator, I think the doors are open for another 24 hours. So please be quick because once the doors close, they will close for a period of time, and then when we reopen the doors to that thing in the future, the price will go up. So Team Accelerator Blueprint is our training that our done for you recruitment process is based on, right? So this is not done for you recruitment. What we're doing is giving you the exact same process and walking you through exactly how we recruit uh team members for our own company and for our clients in Mavericks Club. Uh if you want to get across that, agencymavericks.com slash team-accelerator dash blueprint. Uh or you could probably just Google Agency Mavericks Team Accelerator Blueprint and find it. I said, as I said, doors are open for I think another 24 hours. So please be quick, get in there, and then you've got this asset for life. You know, an average recruitment company is going to charge you anywhere anywhere from I've paid between $1,500 and $15,000 for a recruitment agency to find someone. If you hire a staffing agency, they are going to find staff for you, but they're also going to mark up the salary, so you'll be paying that staffing company in perpetuity for having that team member. Uh at the moment, Team Accelerator Blueprint is 997 and you've got this asset in your business for life that you can use to hire as many people as you like. So you hire one person and it will pay for itself. And we're offering a crazy guarantee. If you take the training and you don't think it's going to help you, uh you've got a year to test it out. If you don't think this can help you hire an A player in the next 12 months, just send us an email in the next 12 months. Uh show us the work that you've done, show us that you've actually been actively trying to recruit someone and we'll refund your money, plus give you $200 for wasting your time. It's an it's a crazy guarantee because we are so confident in uh the process that it works. Alright, thanks for being a part of the Agency Hour here. We really appreciate you all. Uh keep the conversation going in the group, and we look forward to seeing you next week. Until then, have a great day. I'm Troy Dean. Bye for now.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:47

Thanks 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 agencymaveric. 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.