The Agency Hour
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The Agency Hour
Surviving the New Era of Digital Marketing
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You have to give context and you have to give the why behind everything. You can't just say, do it this way, because I said it won't click for anybody and for most people, right? But if you explain, like, here's why we're changing this process, or here's why I want us to do it this way, that helps a lot. And I noticed my team in a meeting in meetings. I started to notice this as I observed. They'd be like, here's a new SOP, guys. These are the steps. Okay, move on to the next thing. And I'm like, no, nobody's gonna click. They're not gonna, it's not gonna click to go pay attention to that. Maybe a few will, but you have to explain like the problem we had. Let's even pull up a story from a client account and then go deep into that. And then here was our solution and why we changed it, and here's the result we expect. And you gotta like slow down. But that's something I've been working with my leadership team on is like you guys gotta slow down and give them the why on why we're doing things so that it clicks for the rest of the team.
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 Crispy Butter, how you doing? Hey buddy, how's it going? I'm good. I was just saying I'm good. I was just saying pre-shy. I live in Melbourne, which is the allergy capital of the world. And I get allergies, right? Um interestingly, fun fact, back in my 20s when I used to smoke Siggy's, no allergies. No allergies, probably because all the nerve endings in my face were dead. As soon as I stopped smoking cigarettes, allergies. Yay!
SPEAKER_00So somebody who probably doesn't know what the hell they're talking about told me once that our physiology actually changes every seven or eight years of our lives.
SPEAKER_04That's right. Because so the the average life expectancy of a cell in your body is about seven years, right? Well, I think that's the longest. So seven years from now, all the cells in your body are gonna be different cells. Right. You're actually gonna be a completely different person.
SPEAKER_00I also never had allergies until about ten years ago. Um and now I have dust allergies. So anytime we turn on the heater, which is forced air, we turn on the heater and I'm just a mess.
SPEAKER_04Like so, I'm sneezing all the time. I sound like a drag queen with the flu, and every time I go near anyone, they just look at me like I've got COVID. They hold up to the case. Uh yeah, we've just come out of lockdown here in Melbourne, too. So everyone's like, What are you doing? You should be home. Anyway, hey, today we've got a very special guest. I'm a bit of a fanboy of this girl. I've been following her for a while. Tried to hire her a couple of years ago, or her agency a couple of years ago, to come and do work for us. Didn't quite get over the line. Finally got there, I don't know how long ago, a few months ago, we pulled the trigger and we hired this company to come and do some work with us. Little did I know that uh Emily, who works for us in New Zealand, is a bigger fan girl of our guests than I was. So she was super excited when we made the decision. Uh, she was a guest at our recent MavCon event. And she joins us here live in the Digital Mavericks Facebook group for the agency hour. Please welcome Emily Hirsch.
SPEAKER_02Yay, hi.
SPEAKER_04Hi, Emily. How are you doing, Emily?
SPEAKER_02Good.
SPEAKER_04Um, now I heard a rumor that you're still in your 20s. Is that right?
SPEAKER_02I just turned 27 last week, actually.
SPEAKER_04What is it with these overachievers? Happy birthday, am I?
SPEAKER_02Thanks.
SPEAKER_04Um, it's amazing.
SPEAKER_00Uh how did you my by the way, my kid was 26, so blows me away. It just blows me away.
SPEAKER_04How did you know, like, how did you know uh that this is what you wanted to do? Because you started out quite young, right? You started, first of all, for those that don't know, tell us who Emily Hirsch is and what you do and why you're here.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so I own a marketing company, agency. Uh, we specialize in Facebook and Instagram ads and specifically work with digital businesses. So digital products, digital services, high-ticket services in that area. So I didn't start out and say, like, I want to have an agency, actually. I um have, I mean, going back, I've always had a business. Like, I've actually never had a job, which is people think that's really crazy. Um, I've always had a business, like little things, like since I was literally 12, I've had legitimate businesses. Um, and so at 19, I actually got pregnant with my son. And that pushed me into the online world because it was like, okay, I wanted to still have a business. I wanted to still contribute financially, but I knew I didn't want to have to leave him once he was born. So I started my business when I was pregnant. He was born when I turned 20, and I started out as a virtual assistant. And so I was thrown into like this whole online industry. I still, to this day, I swear these skills are so useful because I know like every platform, octoported, infusion, soft click funnels, active campaign, you name it. I've done, I've worked in it because I was a virtual assistant. So I started out with that, and then that's what kind of introduced me to Facebook ads initially. And I started doing Facebook ads for those clients. Marketing is for sure where I'm meant to be. Like my brain very much, I have a I have an ability to take complicated marketing strategies and just simplify it and be like, here's what we need to do, and here's the process. And so as soon as I got into that, it was like, okay, this is what I'm meant to be doing. So I started specializing in that. Then I got to the point where it was like, okay, I can't take on another client. I'm doing everything, I'm doing my sales calls, I'm writing ad copy, I'm managing the ads, like I'm doing all of it. Um, I had my second baby at 22 and was like, okay, I have to hire a team. That's what pushed me into building the agency, and that was four years ago.
SPEAKER_04Wow. Wow. I was like so far removed from my reality when I was that age, you know. I was like drunk and like wandering around the planet trying to, you know, like figure out what to do with my life. Um, it's remarkable and frankly, a little depressing for me. Um, the so now now the quick backstory though, who was your first client?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so one of my first clients was somebody I was doing virtual assistant work, and she was in the parenting. Her name was Susan. She was in the parenting industry. She taught like parenting webinars for people on like helping with parenting techniques. And it's funny, I was like just becoming a parent, so I would go to these webinars. So she was running a summit that was actually like really big. It had some big names, like I don't know if you know them, but Dan Siegel, um, Alanis Morriset, like big names that were a part of this summit. And she was like, We run the ads for this summit. And I was like, okay, sure. And and so I just, you know, dove into that. And that was like my first real introduction to like a big live launch. I remember we were getting like less than a dollar cost for what registration, which is so crazy. Now that doesn't really exist, but it was the first time that it really like clicked for me the process and how it worked of going to this is when summits were really big too, like four or five years ago. Um, that process of like summit to then sell the product and how you could have this potential to get thousands of people signed up if you ran the ads. And so that was my first experience. And from there, I feel like I just did something and then leveraged that experience to get the next client until my first big client was Marie Forleo. So she obviously is very big in the online industry, and they were referred to me somehow by some graphic designer or something that knew me and worked with them and referred me. So that was my first big client when I was still doing the ads when I we actually started working with her. And then from there, I was kind of like in. So then followed Mel Robbins and Amy Porterfield and the other influencers as I was able to grow my team to that level. Um, so yeah.
SPEAKER_04Wow. Um, and your uh I just want to also give a little backstory on your husband, who was originally, this is just such a fun story I want to share. So tell us the story about uh how tell us the story about how you met your husband.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so he was my personal trainer. I um joined a gym when I was still like in high school, basically. And I my I always have had something that like my ambition goes towards, and a lot of times it it was health. And so I was even like as a very young kid, I was like the weirdo. I actually just told this story of I can remember being in like fifth or sixth grade and waking up at 5 a.m. to do like workout shows or something, like there's some old Denise Austin was her name, and she had like a show, and I would do it, and I was like in fifth grade, and like that's so weird. You know, like what am I doing? But I always had like really strong ambition and discipline. And so health is kind of my other passion, and I'm still very disciplined with it. So I joined this gym. You got like a free consultation when you joined the gym. That was with my husband, and he kind of introduced me to kettlebell training. And at first I was like, I'm never doing that. That looks crazy when I saw it. And then he basically was like, everything else sucks, and you need to do kettlebell training. And I was like, Okay, I'll come to your class. I went to every class, like started going to every class he had. I was like in the best shape of my life. I would go just to see him and like try to go to the gym. We have a we have an age difference, and so it was very much like slow, like we just met each other and then nothing happened for like six or seven months. Um, and so, anyways, then we we got together and built our life from nothing. Like, I essentially left the town I grew up in with him to go kind of restart our life in San Diego. Um, and then so he was a personal trainer, and so he also built an online fitness membership site. And so that was another way I was able to kind of utilize my marketing and Facebook ad skills and just like use it as a guinea pig. I'm very much the entrepreneur, so we don't really work together anymore because I would be like, come on, like you gotta work harder. So it was very hard for us to work together because my drive is just like 10 times what his isn't that's okay. He balances me. I've learned to accept that. But in the beginning, it was like, I don't understand. I don't understand why you don't want to work harder.
SPEAKER_04Oh, fantastic. Are you still based in San Diego?
SPEAKER_02No, so we moved to Northern California and then now we live in Austin, Texas.
SPEAKER_04Oh, that's right. That's right. I love San Diego. I love San Diego, it's one of my favorite parts of the world. Although I had a colleague once tried to build an outbound sales team in San Diego, and he said, don't ever do that because they're too stoned and they just want to go surfing, they're not interested in hustling at all. I'm like, okay, I will uh I'll make a note of that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's a tough seed to have a business in for sure.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Tell me, tell me what what it was like working with some of those big names when you first landed Marie Follio and Amy Porter. I'm such an Amy Porterfield.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, we love Amy.
SPEAKER_04Love Amy Porterfield. Yeah. A buddy of mine, actually, Pete Gregg, uh, Greg Corhan, is actually doing some, he he built her live streaming studio because she's moved to Nashville.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_04He's in Nashville, and he built her live streaming studio and he's been helping her with some live webinar stuff. So, what was it like working with those people for the first time? Like, did that like did that blow your mind? Like, how did you hold your own in that environment?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I mean, um, it for sure did. Like, especially, you know, the email from Marie Forlio at first, I thought, like, is this a scam? Like, is this real that it's actually their team? I mean, I was very much at the beginning phase of my business then. Um, and and then I just I have a natural gift to kind of just like have that confidence. So luckily I was able to be like, yeah, we, you know, we can help. And we were able to, and and it was so cool to get to see that level of a business behind the scenes. Um, at that time, Marie, I think it had launched like she'd have done B-School like six years already. So she had a you know, a massive list, massive audience. And so it's just such a large scale. But also, what I love about working with those types of clients is just their organization on the back end, you know, they've been around the block. So they've built teams, they've built systems, they know what works, they know what doesn't work. And so that's just a little bit different of an experience when you work with that level. I'd say Amy was one of the most surreal for me because that she I learned from her. So when I was first starting my business, I'd have like my newborn baby, we'd go walk on the beach in San Diego and I'd be listening to Amy, and she'd have like Rick Mulready on Facebook ads on her podcast. And I was like learning. So then to be like, now she's a client of ours in that full circle. You know, if you would have told me back then when I was starting my company that she'd be a client in four years, I would have been like, that's crazy. But now, I mean, we're friends. I talk to her, you know, it's just surreal that that happens. And so I guess you never say never and you just kind of keep going after it. And I think a lot of people, you know, ask me, like, why do you think that you were sought after? You know, and for me, I really focused so much on my delivery, especially the first like four years. I really didn't market. I I got all my clients through networking and referrals, putting out good content, but I was way more focused on the delivery side and making sure like we could get good results. And as I built my team, that the quality didn't wasn't sacrificed. And so I think that is a big factor because you don't want to blow it once you start getting those clients. Like you they all know each other, so you have like one chance to leave that great impression and get those great results.
SPEAKER_00So I can uh I can kind of relate to that whole um starstruck, like, oh my god, I'm working with this person now.
unknownNot really, not really.
SPEAKER_04Oh, you're talking about me. Um how do you how do how do you know the thing, like the thing about fame or like internet fame, right? Is I've had pa I've had it's so weird. I've had people lining up three deep at conferences to meet me. I remember this one story I met this guy once at a in Chicago, and uh he introduced himself and he had quite an accent, so I couldn't really I didn't really understand everything he was saying because I'm an ignorant white Australian who only speaks English and has no ear for other languages. And he, you know, and then so he he said he was a huge fan of the podcast, and so great to meet you, blah blah blah. I said, Oh, thank you so much, and you know, he goes off, and then someone said, Oh, you know, that was uh I think his name was Raphael, I guess. You know, that was the Raphael who designed the UX for and the UI for a platform called Rainmaker, which was owned by Copyblogger at one point, and it was basically like a hosted WordPress platform. I can't remember the guy's name. I was a massive fan of his and I'd been following his blog. I didn't recognize him when he was talking to me and speaking in real life. So then I chased him around the conference for the next half an hour trying to find him to go, dude, I'm such a massive fan of yours. And I think, and it's weird, like the difference between like the fast, like, and I never wanted internet fame, I wanted market leadership, which is why I started making videos and doing a podcast. But what happens is you get internet famous. The only difference is that I we as content creators hit record when we uh think out loud and we post it as a podcast. Whereas most people just think their thoughts and maybe talk to themselves, but they don't bother recording it and putting it on the internet. We're crazy enough to do that. But when people meet you in real life, and like when you got the call from Marie or Amy, you must have been like, they're such big names and they're such celebrities, but they've just published some videos on the internet. I mean, break it down. Like outside of our world, none of my friends know who Amy Porterfield or Marie Ford are. And and and I don't care. You know what I mean? They're like they have no interest in that whatsoever. It's not like they're they're not mainstream celebrities. And I think this is where I kind of started to follow you, Emily, because I started listening to your podcast and I started consuming your content, reading your blogs, and and I think I connected with you on a personal level before because I had no idea if you were capable of doing your job. I mean, you just said that you were, and you had some thoughts and whatever, and uh in case studies and whatever in your podcast, and you have to take that at face value. But I think the fact that you publish that content is what makes that personal connection uh possible, leveraged across the internet, and you buy from people that you like and you trust. So how like you you're 19, you're early 20s, you've got a couple of kids. Do you is like publishing content and putting yourself out there online always going to be a thing for you, or is that an intentional decision that you had to make to have like a public profile? It was definitely because I know like since I've had kids, I've kind of wound back a little bit from doing that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it was definitely intentional, and I didn't I didn't go into it when I first started thinking I would ever do that. Or I probably was like, who's gonna listen to me? Is probably what I would have thought, you know, then is like, what do I even have to say? You know, and and then it just slowly started happening, first on just social media posts and then added in Facebook Live videos. And I was terrible at those when I started, and then came the podcast. And so it's it's stepping stones. I do relate to that with kids because it's such a balance, especially the way social media is set up today of like document your whole life every minute of your day. It's like, when are you actually present? And that's really important to me. So I don't do things intentionally that probably would get me better results, like stories, for example. I'm pretty inconsistent on Instagram stories because I refuse to be like with my kids recording them, but not really there with them.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So there are things that I have boundaries around. Like when Clubhouse came out, I was like, I'm not, I'm not doing it. Like, I don't care if it's working for you guys. It's just, it's not worth my time. I don't want to sit on there for hours. Same with Instagram. And so I relate to that. And I think you have to find your own boundaries. And also, it's not that you have to do everything or you have to do what somebody else is doing. Like you should do what's okay for you and in the way that you can show up the best. So I relate to that a lot with kids for sure.
SPEAKER_04I remember someone, I remember Amy Porterfield saying that someone said to her, it might have even been Rick Mulrady, uh, she was really, really self-conscious about making video. And she's been public about this, so I'm not talking about turn or anything, but she was really self-conscious about making video because she was really self-conscious about the way she looked on camera. And she someone said to her once every time you don't make a video, you are robbing your audience of your best uh thoughts and your best work and your connection. And you're actually doing them a disservice by not sharing your knowledge and your experience on video because people want to watch you on video, they want to watch you talk about what you know and your experience. And so that for her unlocked her uh her self-consciousness. And she was like, All right, I'm not doing this for me, I'm doing this for my audience. And then once she started and she got into a rhythm, it was like opening the floodgate. She was like, Oh my god, I just I just wanted a video all the time. And I think that's a that's a big I I see a lot of people get stuck, they just don't want to make video. And video is not right for everyone, I get it. But I see people that get stuck that they just won't even share and won't even put some slides together and share a piece of content or share their thoughts in a blog post because they're super self-conscious that, well, you know, how many blog posts can you write on email marketing subject lines? You know, everyone's done it, everyone's done it. So why would I contribute to that conversation? Why would I bother? Because I have nothing unique to add and no one's gonna listen anyway. And so I wonder if you can just talk a bit about like how you get through that initial period where there are crickets where you don't have much of an audience. How do like why do you just keep going?
SPEAKER_02There, I got muted, unmuted. Um, yeah, I think I think one, knowing that like everybody feels that way, I feel like even you know, I have seen behind the scenes of very successful entrepreneurs, and it's it follows you always that you're always like, is this gonna suck? You know, I have that too all the time, where I'm like, maybe this will actually suck. So I think in the beginning, you have to do it not for the views, not for the comments, not for the engagement. You almost have to just do it saying, like, I'm just gonna do it, and I'm not gonna look, maybe don't even look at those stats in the beginning and wait like three or four months and then go look at them. I um used to be in Russell Brunson's inner circle and he talked about like he started his podcast and it was a long period of time. I want to say like six to eight months. He never even looked at the downloads, like he just kept doing his daily podcast and ignored those stats because he knew it would kind of defeat him that they weren't big enough. And so you're not doing it for that in the beginning. You're doing it just to start, and that will put you ahead of people who aren't showing up in that way. And the reality is like whatever version of content you want to create, whether that's writing or video or podcast, you just have to be super consistent because there is a lot of competition out there, but you don't have to be perfect. You know, some of my best content is when I'm like super raw and and vulnerable or I make a mistake and I share that. People love that. You know, marketing is about connection and they're gonna feel more connected to you when you're when you share that. I know Amy just recently did a podcast about something difficult. I didn't actually listen to it, but something difficult she was going happening in her life. And that was shared so much. It was definitely like a top podcast episode of hers. So also keeping that in mind is like people aren't, you're gonna judge yourself 10 times more than any. Anybody else is going to judge you when you go start to create content. And so you just have to commit, I'm going to show up once a week and do this. And that's, you know, no questions asked.
SPEAKER_04And the reality is, I talk to agency owners all the time who say, you know, uh, I will, you know, why would I put out a podcast or a piece of content about this? Because it's all been said. You know, one of HubSpot's most most popular blogs in recent history was a blog article on how to write the perfect blog article or how to write the perfect blog post, like the anatomy of a perfect blog post. That blog post, the anatomy of a perfect blog post, has been written hundreds of thousands of times by people all over the world. Yet HubSpot still did it because they had something unique to offer the conversation. And they also the the thing I say to agency owners all the time is it may have been said by 10,000 people, but it hasn't been said by you. And there are a certain percentage of people who will just resonate with your personality or your style or your humor or your sarcasm or your intensity or whatever it is. And if you don't publish that content, they're going to learn that from someone else and they're going to become someone else's client. So it doesn't matter if it's all been said. I mean, you know, I think music since the Beatles, there really hasn't been a lot of innovation, you know, since the Beatles and the Beach Boys. It's like, well, what do we got? Nirvana? Sure. I mean, Oasis were a cover band of the Beatles, right? One of the most successful bands of the 90s. By the way, I much prefer blur. Um but the the it's not about being completely unique or like reinventing the wheel. It's just about connect for me, content is about connecting with your tribe and teaching them and leading them the way that the the the way that you only can, right? The way that only you can. Because and I know that there's a whole bunch of people who would never follow me because I'm an Australian and I'm, you know, weird and people think I'm a, you know, whatever, I don't care what they think about me. But there's a whole bunch of people that just don't follow me because they don't like me, and that's fine. They can go hang out in another tribe. But if I wasn't putting out content, if we weren't putting out content here, then our tribe wouldn't follow us and they would eventually go follow other people. So I think just getting over yourself and getting over the fact that it's all being done, you know, it hasn't been done by you. And I think that's just an important thing to sort of remember. What is your what is your content post-production system like? You produce some content, then what happens? How do you get it published and how do you then promote it? What's the what's the process there?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so my podcast is my personal driver for for our content right now. Um I will be branching into YouTube soon, so I'm excited to test that out. But for the last three years, my podcast is like the main way I personally show up, record the podcast, and then my team takes that and turns it into social posts, an email. And then oftentimes we reuse that content in social posts that maybe don't even directly relate to the podcast. So, in terms of like process, I have a tech VA who does like the tech side of editing the podcast, publishing it, getting the transcript, all those things. And then I have a content writer who takes it and does the email, the social post. Um, and then usually we'll pull in like a designer or creative manager to do like the graphic for it. I also utilize my podcast for ads. So usually every month I'll do like four to five podcasts from the previous month that were maybe the top downloaded, and I'll run ads to that page on our website um just to get to build up our warm traffic. So that's like my brand awareness visibility strategy. I do think people put a lot of effort into content and then they don't fully utilize it. And you know, if what you if you can streamline it so that you as the CEO, it's like, this is the content I create, I batch it, this is what I have to do. And then you create the process to reuse it in unique ways or strategic ways, like with ads or on your social media or your emails, that just makes it easier on you. I think oftentimes I hear people think like, oh, I just have to create more and more and more content. And it's like, but you just created all this stuff and then you barely did anything with it. That's also why I like running ads to it because it just gives it a little bit longer of a lifespan because your new traffic is seeing those podcast episodes every month, and then hopefully becoming you know a follower of my podcast.
SPEAKER_04I hope the team here are paying attention and making lots of notes in the green room. Something we talk about a lot here is we've got enough content to sync the Titanic. We're just not overly um, we're just not the best at actually promoting the content that we have.
SPEAKER_02You know, we have years of content here, and we it's like making a great record and then sticking 500 copies of the CD under your bed and not actually getting out there and it's easy, it's easy to tell the CEO like you have to create more content. I just had this conversation with my team the other day, is they're like, we know you don't have a lot of time and like you should create this. And I'm like, guys, no, I create content all day long. Like, we have plenty of content.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah. Um can I want to pivot I want to pivot a little bit and talk about team and talk about there's two things I want to talk about. One is how to get the obvious question is how do we get the team to deliver consistent results because you're no longer doing the thing, right? You're no longer running ads, you're no longer doing copy, you're not buying the media, you're not doing that stuff. So how do you get the team to deliver the way that you would be happy if it was just you working with one client? And the second thing is, how do you how do you attract the right talent? And then how do you build a culture so that people are autonomous and that they can deliver those results without you becoming the conduit through which every decision needs to be made, which I see happen a lot as agencies start to grow their team.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so so much on that. I mean, I think like agencies and service businesses get tested the most on these types of issues for sure. Getting the team to deliver in the way that you will, you know, comes down to process and figuring out like one of the first things that I did was create like what is our process? What is, you know, I started the Hirsch process. And the reason I actually created that, which became a public thing that I share and teach on and all these things, but the initial reason was for training my team and figuring out how do I translate the way my brain works with marketing into explaining it to my team. And it's not always like things too, people think of processing as just like SOPs and like you do this, and then you do this, and you do this. And that's true, but there's also process in the way you think as an entrepreneur, and that's what gives your your brand that spin. So that comes down to like your values as a company. And so there's, you know, some for me that it's like we have to be super innovative. Like I want to make sure we're always ahead of the trends. And and I like personally act with a lot of urgency. So when I was managing clients just me, it was like I would respond to issues before they were even issues. Like that's the way that I operate. And so I've had to build that into our culture as an expectation. And so, yes, processes about SOPs and like making sure people follow the steps and do that, but it's also about trying to identify what makes you different that is translated into your brand that you don't want to lose when you start training a team. And that takes kind of like pulling it out of you sometimes and just kind of asking yourself, like, okay, if you were to get a new client, what would you do? And how would you want that communication to be? And what do you want that to feel like as a team? And pulling that out takes time, but that's the way to do it. And ultimately, you know, one thing we consistently talk about now is I have, you know, eight ads managers, and I want the experience, no matter what ads manager you're working with, to feel the same, to feel like you got the same amount of value, not like, oh, this ads manager is different than this one. And that's hard to do because they all have different backgrounds, communication styles, personalities. So that's also the process of making sure it's a lot of repetition and repeating, especially, you know, in the service and an agency, you have a lot of like core places where process goes bad. Onboarding is like the first one because there's so much information transferred during that time. And then also that's the first impression, you're building that relationship with the client. So if you mess that up, you're starting on the wrong foot. We're constantly refining and improving our onboarding process. Then you have like the ongoing communication with clients, you have reporting. Like, there's usually core places where you basically just have to cycle through and keep updating and improving it. You're never gonna be like, I'm set, my business is perfect. It, you know, it runs great and everybody's clear on process. But I think you have to, we we've set up like almost like themes where we just like rotate through all these major things and talk about them and find holes and go fix those things. But it was a big realization for me when I was like, oh, I have to pull out my strategy, how I think. Like everybody doesn't think like me. Oh, like that's you know, a new thought is you know, people can't read my mind because things to you as a CEO are like so obvious. And I still have that feeling of like, why did you do it that way? Like, that's making any sense, but that is the reality, you know. Of people, they they do things different, they have different backgrounds and experiences and strengths and weaknesses.
SPEAKER_04It's um it's it's so good to hear you say that because I had this conversation with myself last night while I was cleaning up doing the dishes, uh, while the kids were kind of getting ready for bed. I'm like like how like what how is that even a thing? Like, why I feel like it's so clear to me and uh I I you know I I hear I hear the guys that on trade leadership talk about this all the time that the biggest the biggest misunderstanding with communication is the fact that it's taken place.
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_04So I have these conversations in my head all the time, and then I wonder why the person that I've had the conversation with in my head doesn't understand the conversation, right? Because they're not in my head, but I'm like, it's just so obvious to me. How is it not obvious to everyone else? And I it's still baffle, it still baffles me.
SPEAKER_02Like, all the time.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, it's a husband that baffles me. Is it just it just like and then you meet someone who thinks the same way as you and you're like, yeah, right. So like, why doesn't everyone think this way? And that's been like understanding process of of tactical stuff and you know, SOPs is one thing, but you're right, like process of how I would approach this situation and how I would communicate this and how I would deal with it. That's something that I'm still like I I'm like a beginner. I'm still trying to communicate that to the team, and I'm still trying, and I and it's part of it's time zones, part of it's the fact that we're a remote team. There's a whole bunch of reasons and a whole bunch of excuses. But I think what it comes down to is that I get self-conscious that I'm gonna repeat myself and that people are gonna roll their eyes and go, fuck, here he goes again. And the reality is that if they if they are saying here he goes again, then you know you've communicated it enough that they're getting it. And I get self like I just get self-conscious because I talk a lot about my the business and what I want and where things are going. And you know, I get self-conscious at home and I'm talking to my wife about it, and I get self-conscious because it's all I think about and it's all I talk about.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_04And so you know, you know, it's like you don't want to become that boring person that just talks about that all the time. And and it's so refreshing to hear you say that that the way to get people to understand the way you would approach something is just to keep communicating. You you guys are a remote team, so I'm curious how do you document or communicate, like tactically, what do you use to communicate those processes and and that stuff?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I have some good, I think good suggestions around this. So um, yeah, my team's fully remote and I have 27 uh employees. And so one thing that we do is a daily team huddle that's 15 minutes, but that is an opportunity to, you know, a lot of this stuff happens in the micro experiences, and that's the frustrating part, is because you're like, I just want to do a big speech, a big state of the union, and tell you guys all what you need to know, and then we're set. Yeah, but it doesn't work that way, it happens in like the micro interactions that you create. And so there's a lot of opportunities. We do a daily huddle, it's very fast, it's primarily shout-outs, but it allows me to make a statement. Like, for example, this morning I talked about the whistleblower campaign, and I was able to kind of put my thoughts so that my team then can now translate that over if it comes up on a client call or whatever happens. So little things like that happen. Um, and me being on them is very powerful. And then we recently also implemented um twice a month, we do an all-team meeting. One meeting is for kind of sharing our goals for the month internally as a as a team. And the other meeting is sharing results from the previous month. So we share like, here's what we accomplished, we share financial results, and then we added at the end kind of like update from me message so that I can say, you know, here's the conversations leadership's having. Here's the thoughts I'm having right now, you know, that I want to translate to the whole team. And that's been really important, especially the last six to 12 months, just because so much has been changing in online in the marketing world that I want to make sure we're consistent and that my voice is translated over, you know, to the team. So I guess what I'm saying is it happens in those micro, micro experiences, micro interactions with people. The other thing I do is I go to team meetings and I sit on mute and I look for problems. I look for like, okay, we need to dig into that a little bit more. And I know like naturally, I have a good, I think a lot of CEOs do, intuition of like, that doesn't hold up, like pause. That doesn't make sense. Let's figure out why. Let's dig into the root of that. So I do a lot of observing in that way. Um, and that helps kind of proactively figure out like if someone has a disconnect, or maybe our whole team has a disconnect that I didn't realize until I heard that, you know, one example or something. So I think your job as you grow as a leader is to kind of do that, is to like probe and find problems because they're there. Like that's a reality. And so, and then you just keep sharing how your how you would respond to it and giving guidance. And then the other thing I'll say, and this is something I've been training my leaders on, is you have to give context and you have to give the why behind everything. You can't just say, do it this way, because I said it won't click for anybody and for most people, right? But if you explain, like, here's why we're changing this process, or here's why I want us to do it this way, that helps a lot. And I notice my team in a meeting in meetings, I started to notice this as I observed. They'd be like, here's a new SOP, guys. These are the steps. Okay, move on to the next thing. And then, like, no, nobody's gonna click. So they're not gonna, it's not gonna click to go pay attention to that. Maybe a few will, but you have to explain like the problem we had. Let's even pull up a story from a client account and then go deep into that. And then here was our solution and why we changed it, and here's the result we expect. And you got to like slow down, explain it to everybody. And I do think it's hard remotely because you're everyone's on mute on Zoom and you know, you're talking to yourself and you're like, are they paying attention? Am I talking too much? But I found for the most part, it's like the more you give context and explain. And I watch their faces like really shaking their head, yes, you know, are they still look confused? So I'm looking for those like little signals. Um, but that's something I've been working with my leadership team on is like you guys got to slow down and give them the why on why we're doing things so that it clicks for the rest of the team.
SPEAKER_04With Pete, I'm Pete and I have this conversation quite a bit because time zones are really tricky with us. We have staff in the Philippines, we have staff on the East Coast of the States, we have staff in Australia and New Zealand. So it's we have a daily huddle with the Philippines staff at 1 p.m. our time, which is like I don't know, 11 a.m. or 9 a.m. or to 10 or 11 a.m. their time. And then of course Pete's asleep at that point. So it's we do have a weekly meeting where Pete joins in and that's a little bit earlier, and the Filipinos are just up early. Um, it is tricky. Um, but what with the leadership group that you're talking about, do you I'm curious about the structure of your agency as you've grown. Do you have like pods? Do you have like a pod structure? How does that work? How does that work?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so we have micro teams. So we have a senior strategist who has two or three ads managers. We actually just lessened the ratio because we wanted to have like more intimate relationships with our clients. So yeah, we have three basically pods.
SPEAKER_00The pod thing is interesting to me. Like I never would have thought to rate to grow my, and I never wanted to grow my company that big anyway, but I never really thought to grow my company in that way. But I I'm not sure where I got introduced to that concept.
SPEAKER_04But um so I know Chris uh Martinez does this at Dude as well. Uh so the pod is you know, like a project success manager or an account manager that deals with you know a stable of clients, but then that account manager might have two or three pods of creative developer. Like if you're talking about web design, it might be a designer, a developer, a copywriter who work in a pod or a you know, content producer, you know, content copy design developer who work in a pod, and then they uh they are managed by a project success manager or an account manager and that account manager. That's right. Yeah, they can't do that.
SPEAKER_00And then as you grow beyond that, you add another pod.
SPEAKER_04Correct. You just hire people and you grow the agency in in pods, yeah, yeah. Um you just have you just got to know your capacity. You really gotta be we're doing this with the girls at the moment who are tracking time. Uh not and Chris Martin has really kind of leaned into me on this. Not tracking, I've always hated tracking time and I've always hated asking people to track time because I don't want them to feel like I'm micromanaging them. But you need to know how long things take. A, because you need to know how much it costs you to deliver so that you can price profitably as you grow. But you also need to manage client expectations. So if a client comes in and says, you know, we're we're adding a new client, you need to under like when we started work with Emily with with Hirsch Marketing, I think it was like three weeks or maybe four weeks before they pushed a campaign live. Right? That first three or four weeks, we were downloading all the content, everything we had, and having strategy meetings with them and they managed our expectations. Like I knew that was gonna happen. I wasn't sitting there going, come on, start running the ads, where are the ads? I knew it was gonna take that long because she knows that's how long it takes because they've tracked time at some point in the past and they know you know the work involved. How do you know when to hire someone? And how do you know, okay, we're gonna need another micro team, as you call it, in three months' time?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so we base it all off of client capacity. So we know basically how much can an ads manager handle, how much can a senior strategist handle. Um, our senior strategist basically manages ads managers. Those are our pods. And so we know, you know, what the capacity is of one pod. And then our clients, we have like a 30-day notice, which allows if you don't have that in an agency, it's like gold because you need to know who's gonna leave your roster next month if you have clients so that you can plan for it for those reasons because you don't want to be hit all of a sudden with like either you thought people were leaving and they're not, and now you don't have a space for your new people, or you didn't know they were leaving and then they end up, and now you have an ads manager with nothing to do. So it's obviously balancing that. Um, so we base it all off of capacity. Every day I kind of get an update, it's on that huddle actually, where we say this is how much capacity we have. And we try to keep our team always where we have a space for three to four clients, basically. And then if we're gonna plan like a really big promotion and we know that's coming, we might plan to hire beforehand, make sure we have somebody trains. It takes about three to four weeks to fully train an ads manager to take on their first client. And then it takes about 90 days to like full have them fully like they are managing four to five clients at full capacity. Um, so yeah, we plan it all off of capacity and then we know when to hire. Obviously, if an ads manager leaves, we have to fill that role and that's an immediate, you know, recruiting effort.
SPEAKER_04How do you manage what do you use to manage everything? Are you an asana house or click up or Monday? What do you what do you use to manage stuff?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so for um for like training, we use Asana, like onboarding checklists. We use Asana for all of our project management. Um, we have some HR software we use for recruiting. I can't, I think it's called applicant stack. I've also used something called bamboo HR, something to organize all of the applications coming in and the open roles and kind of the status of them. Um, are where are they in the we we do like a three-part, they do a screening interview, they do a test, they do a final interview, then we either send the offer or don't. So kind of managing what phase they're in.
SPEAKER_04And do you talk to me about your leadership team? Do you have people managing this stuff for you? Do you have like an operations manager? Do you have HR? Do you have a CFO? How does that work?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, uh, yes, definitely have people managing it. So the the pods basically report to a director of operations. She's my direct report. She manages our entire ads team. She's head of the ads team, so that's one of my direct reports. We also have an HR manager that reports to that director of operations as well. Um, I'm most involved in like our market, our internal marketing team right now. That's where I'm actually like maybe lacking the leadership a little bit to take over the marketing team. Strategy, it's so hard when that's what you do, and you're so you know, it's so easy for you. That that's been my hardest thing to get off my plate. Um, so yes, I have a leadership team. My direct reports right now are a creative manager, um, are I have a content writer who's reporting to me. She should be reporting to a marketing manager or somebody, but she's not. I'm kind of filling that role right now. Then a director of operations and our director of sales. That's who kind of reports to me, and that's our leadership team.
SPEAKER_04Um, so while you crashed and came back on, I was uh talking to Pete about the carrot and the stick approach. And what I'm curious about is um how do you do you reward and incentivize or hold people accountable? And I know it's probably a bit of both and a bit of a balance, but what's your take on like not everyone gets great, we don't get great performance out of everyone all the time, right? Because people are not robots, they're sentient beings and they have, you know, stuff going on and have mindset issues and they have emotional stuff and they have whatever, you know. How do you manage the performance of the team? Uh, and do you kind of take a carrot or stick approach or a combination?
SPEAKER_02I got muted. Um uh I do both. So we do have an incentive program for our ads team. I also do have incentive that's around like a net profit percentage that my leadership team gets. So I do have that in place, but I don't think that's the only way, you know, to incentivize people. I think a lot comes down with who you hire. So I hire a lot of, you know, my my people are driven. Like that's a qualification to come into the company is like I don't hire people where it's like I have to tell you exactly what task to do, and then you do it, and then you're asking me what to do next. Like, I hire people who solve problems who come in and that's their mindset, and you can't really train that. Like, I think people have that or they don't have that. So then it just comes down to accountability and really transparent, good conversations. So we have systems set up where every single month we do a review with them where we're both kind of reviewing and giving each other feedback, the manager and the direct report, but we don't hold back feedback. One of my favorite books on this, if you are interested in this, is Radical Candor.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Such a good book. And I like live and breathe that kind of mindset of just giving that feedback right when you need to, being radically candid, teaching the team to do that with you. And I think that, you know, creates that space where people want to constantly do better. The thing is, people want to be held accountable. They they actually want that, you know. But if you don't give that to them, they will just start to be like, ah, I'll just not do that, or I'll slack a little bit. That's also human nature. So you have to create that accountability, whether it's a weekly report they send you, or in a meeting, I have team members who come and present statistics and things, you know, from the week before data. So it's built in and a little bit different in each role. I also do have the incentivized program um that kind of serves as like bonuses for ads managers and senior strategists. Uh, and then my leadership team gets a percentage of net profit, a small percentage of that, so that they also are looking at margin and they're looking at the business as a whole.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Radical Canada is a fantastic book, by the way. I think I'm gonna reread it. It's that it's one of those books that keeps coming up in the back of my mind. I've read it once, it was a probably three years ago. I think I need to reread it again.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I've read it twice. I've had my leadership team read it. Yeah, we send it to all our new team members. Like I that book is the top book for the whole team should read it too, because then they understand what you're trying to do when you're creating that environment.
SPEAKER_04That's right. Because frankly, Pete and I need to have some really honest conversations, you know, and I think we're just gonna, yeah, it's just gotta be done. Um, hey, um, so I want to pivot a little bit to marketing and like what's working. I mean, obviously, iOS 14 has frightened the shit out of everyone and it has kind of changed things, but you gave this amazing presentation at MavCon. Um and I kind of came away going, well, we're we we're kind of going back to basics. Like, I think about SEO and how the way that we used to hack SEO for years until the algorithm, until Google kind of went, you know what, this is a really bad user experience. Let's just get back to having a good it's like dating. Let's get back to not being assholes, right? Let's get back to just being really good people, building long-term relationships, building trust. So can you can you and I'm not asking you to recant your presentation from uh from MavCon, but can you just give us like the too long didn't read version? Like, how is your thinking shifted because of what's happened with iOS 14?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, definitely. So one of the biggest things is around that content that you create and and the increase in value that you need to put out. And I think the sooner you kind of look at your front end and your attraction, you know, how you're attracting your audience at just giving over-delivering in the value and not being afraid to hold back any information. Because the reality is, I mean, you said it earlier, it's like information is everywhere. So you shouldn't ever be like, oh, well, I don't want to share my secret steps or something, because people buy execution. They buy like, come help me do it. So, number one is really like up-leveling that, up-leveling your content, up-leveling how you use content on organic, on paid, super important. And then the other, which I think this is what I talked about in the training, is just like you were saying, looking at marketing from the perspective of how do we leverage it to grow our audience and generate leads? And that's really the one of the main best parts of Facebook ads in marketing. And if there's something that is way too expensive, like let's say a webinar registration has become $25 plus and you can't afford that because it doesn't make sense on the back end, how do you create a lead generation strategy that still brings in leads at a cost you can afford? Because what every single business needs is leads. That leads to sales. That, you know, every month you should be seeing that number go up. And oftentimes the only way to do that is with paid ads. Organic marketing is hard to get a lot of momentum from, not saying you shouldn't do it at all, but paid ads kind of speeds that up. And so that's the other piece is kind of shifting the increase in brand awareness and visibility and lead generation. And maybe it's even simple lead generation, like lead magnets and downloads that are going to be a little less expensive, potentially, not for everyone. You have to base it off of numbers, but that could be a good strategy to execute.
SPEAKER_04Um, one of the things I learned a long time ago was just from running my own ads, was that people who had already consumed some kind of content of yours, whether it was a Facebook video or whether they had like visited the blog or that they were at least aware of you. They are typically speaking cheaper to get into a lead magnet or a webinar than people who don't know you at all. And that makes perfect sense, right? It's like you you drive home from the office and you see the billboard on the freeway, and you get home that night, and you hear the radio and the ad on the radio and you see the same ad on TV, and it's like brand awareness. Now I'm familiar with this insurance company, whereas 24 hours ago I wasn't. So uh is is that something like, and I know a lot of people don't want to waste money running ads to podcast episodes or videos because they think, well, I'm just building up video views, but you're actually building, you're warming up your audience, right?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, exactly. And I I typically say spend about 10% of your monthly budget doing that. So it's not like a massive chunk, but it is a percentage that you're putting every month into that. And there is a lot of value. You know, it takes seven to 10 touch points typically with the brand before somebody decides to buy, you know. So that consistency and that level of connection that you're building, like look at you said you followed me for two years before you became on as a client. It's like that's that's normal. That that's playing that long game is really important. And so one of the ways you can for in an inexpensive cost is leverage that content you're probably already creating into paid ads so that new people see it and you're able to get them in your world and start nurturing them and then moving them along in the customer journey.
SPEAKER_04Um quick question before we before we wrap up. I'm respectful of everyone's time, but I'm curious. I've I've I've I I think about this when I think about people like Amy Porterfield and Marie Folio as well. What happens when Emily Hirsch decides that she just wants to take a break and doesn't want to be the key person of influence anymore in Hirsch marketing?
SPEAKER_02Well, that hasn't happened yet. Um, but I think that comes, you know, my team, I could take a month off. I could take a month off tomorrow and everything would run fine, especially my agency. I have other things I've built and our done with you program that still requires more of me. But because my agency is now, you know, four and a half years into building process and sustainability, it really doesn't require me to run. And that comes from one, a good leadership team and two, processes, strong core values as a team in that culture. And so I could on the back end, I could I could be gone for a month or more and everything would run. And I trust my leaders to make decisions. That's like really key when you're growing your business, is you can't be the only one making decisions, or you'll never be able to step away. On the marketing side, it would be more challenging since I'm still the face of the brand. And I think that would take time to kind of transition out of and either bring in a new face or multiple. We are trying to highlight the team more because that really is Hirsch marketing. It's not just me. Like the reality is I haven't been an ads manager in years. Like, I don't go an ads manager. I lean on my team for that intel and I bring the high-level big picture marketing strategy, but the more tactical components can be completely run without me. So the delivery could run completely without me. The marketing would definitely struggle right now, which is just something I could, you know, and continue to want to work towards because you also never know what's gonna happen. Maybe I do need to take a month off, you know, at some point or months off, and you want your company to not die when you do that. That's the ultimate goal and and brings more value. So I think working towards that is really important.
SPEAKER_04Uh, final question what question should we have asked that we didn't?
SPEAKER_02Um gosh, I don't know. Um how about let's say, you know, I just did a piece of content on like what would I go back and and tell myself when I started my company? So I can answer that. That popped in my mind.
SPEAKER_01Um for me, yeah.
SPEAKER_02One thing I I said that I would go back that I wish I kind of knew was how important you're how much to value your time and how to get help sooner. Because I think as entrepreneurs, like we don't really value our time because it's free. So we for us it's free, right? Versus paying someone to do something. And instead, really saying, like, okay, how much if I were to actually put an hourly rate on my time, what is that? And then what am I doing every day that equals that hourly rate? Is it admin stuff? Is it stuff other people could do? And I've definitely been in places where I'm I step in and just okay, I'll take that on, I'll solve it. It'll be easier if I do it, or it'll be less expensive for the company if I step in and do that. And even recently, I like I did this in the marketing department and I was like, well, just save on hiring that role. And then it's like, well, now I'm spending a huge portion of my week in this tactical space versus strategic. So it's actually costing us more money unless, you know, instead of bringing in help. And so that's continued to be something I've had to really pay attention to because I think it's natural for us to just go solve problems and step in and be like the savior of whatever needs to happen. Or we see it as like a way to save money for the company. But in the reality, it might be costing you more money making that decision.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Oh man, it's a constant lesson, isn't it? It's a constant lesson. Um, refreshing to hear you say that. Hey, Emily Hirsch, thank you so much for being a part of the agency hour here in the Digital Mavericks Facebook group. We appreciate you and everything you and your team are doing. You're a breath of fresh air, and uh, and thank you so much for being a part of it. We look forward to maybe having you back for part two sometime.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, thank you. Sorry about my my internet issue in the middle. Thank you for having me. You're so much fun.
SPEAKER_04Awesome. All right, go spend time with your kids. Thanks, Emily. Uh another episode of the agency hour live here in the Digital Mavericks Facebook group. Uh, pure gold, value your own time, get help sooner, says Christopher Stratman. Exactly. Exactly. Um go and check out Emily's podcast, hang out at Hirsch Marketing. Uh, I'm not exactly sure what the website is, it's probably just Hirschmarketing.com. Um check it out and get around what she's doing because it's pretty impressive and uh she's grown a great business. Um and they run our ads, they they do our all of our uh digital marketing, um not SEO, but all of our ad stuff and our funnels. They're across that and in charge of that. So um you can see their work in action. All right. Hey, this has been fun. Crispy butter. You had a play a couple of days ago.
SPEAKER_00I did last week. That was fun. Awesome. Went well. Went very well. Did you have fun? We did. Excellent. You're gonna do it again next year? Uh that's the that's the plan.
SPEAKER_04Good stuff. All right, well, thanks for being a part of the agency hour again, man, and uh, we'll see you again next week. All right, we'll see you guys. All right, ciao.
SPEAKER_03Thanks for listening to the Agency Hour Podcast. Subscribe at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pocket Cast, Audible, and wherever you like to listen. You can catch all of the Agency Hour episodes on our YouTube channel at youtube.com slash agency mavericks. 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 channels. We'll see you there.