SPEAKER_03 0:00

The guarantee is if you don't share what you know, no one will know that you know. G'day folks, welcome to the Agency Hour Podcast. My name's Troy Dan. I'm your host. This is the podcast where we help with design digital marketing and SEO agencies grow and specifically grow their revenue and their profit without growing their team unnecessarily. This week on the podcast, we have a special guest, Matt Olsen from MGO Studios in California. Uh, he's a good friend of mine, longtime customer of Agency Mavericks. And uh on this episode, he reached out to me because I posted recently that if you want to come on the show and get some free coaching and pick my brain and get unstuck, uh, go to theagentstower.com/slash apply, which Matt did. We then scheduled a time. He turned up, we had a great conversation about his business and what he's good at, what he enjoys doing and what people pay him for and the services that he offers and uh where he's stuck, and then I give him some advice on what I think he should do to get unstuck. So I hope you find this helpful. I hope that you can maybe identify some of the challenges that you're having in your business when you when you hear these calls that we're having. We're we're mixing up the format a little bit here on the podcast. So some weeks we do these uh free coaching consults with clients and with agency owners. You don't have to be a client, by the way. Anyone can go to theagenthour.com slash apply and apply to be on the show. And then some weeks it's just me bringing you updates with what's happening in the world of agencies and AI. If at any point you know that you just want to work with us to grow your recurring revenue, grow your profit, and have AI employees help you with the work, uh, then just go to theagenthouse.com slash headless and apply to work with us here at Agency Mavericks. All right, without further ado, let's go and meet my good friend Matt Olson. First of all, for those that don't know, tell us who you are, where you are, and what do you do?

SPEAKER_02 1:54

My name is Matt Olson. I'm in Santa Clara, California, which is Silicon Valley, for those that have never heard of Santa Clara, um, just south of San Francisco. And I do uh branding, graphic design, websites, and merch.

SPEAKER_03 2:10

And merch.

SPEAKER_02 2:11

And merch. Printed stuff for those of you who don't touch like physical things, right?

SPEAKER_03 2:16

Yeah, physical like t-shirts, cap hats, uh all of that.

SPEAKER_02 2:21

Yeah, I have a couple. Are we on video? So are they gonna see a video on this? Is this yeah, 100%? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I w I always listen to you on my walks, so I actually never watch the videos.

SPEAKER_03 2:30

Oh, there you go.

SPEAKER_02 2:31

Um, like, you know, here's a t-shirt I did for myself.

SPEAKER_03 2:34

Oh, beautiful. There we go. MGO Studio snowboarding team. Excellent.

SPEAKER_02 2:38

Yeah, it's a cool little guy.

SPEAKER_03 2:40

Who's your who's your typical client for the merch stuff?

SPEAKER_02 2:44

Um it could be uh you know, a few different people. My my favorite ones are like the the corporate ones because they have more money, right? Right. Um we've got a couple nonprofits that we're working with uh for that, but also like you know, construction companies, um tech companies. I've got you know one company that has uh they're called Glade.ai, and they have uh a software that works for bankruptcy lawyers. So we do some stuff for them, uh for their events, and we did you know some hats and hoodies, but we also did some stuff for their events, so you know, printed brochures and signage and and tablecloths and things.

unknown 3:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:22

Cool. So dude, next time we come to the States for Mavcon, I'll have to uh uh hit it up, man. Yeah, yeah. Um and so what percentage of your business is the merch stuff versus digital?

SPEAKER_02 3:34

It floats, um, you know, it's you know 40 to 50 versus 40 to 40 to 50, you know, depending on what time of year it is or you know how how good I'm doing on in on any particular month. It tends to go in waves, it'll be like you know, one or two months, it's like really high in merch and really low on digital stuff, and then the next month it'll be vice versa, right?

SPEAKER_03 3:58

Yeah. Um now full transparency, Matt is a headless agency client. You've been learning Victor Claude's skills, you've been using uh AI to do your proposal pages, which have been very impressive. Um where do so I just wanted to get that out of the way, where do your clients come from? And who do you want? And by the way, you I you saw my post about doing um free consults on the agency our podcast, and that's why you're here because you said I'm here.

SPEAKER_01 4:27

Why not do it, right?

SPEAKER_03 4:28

Yeah. Exactly. Um so uh where do your clients come from and who do you want more of and where are you stuck?

SPEAKER_02 4:35

Yeah, I'm I mean, uh every everything I get is it's always been a referral. It's still always referral. Um I know that it needs to not be just referral, but you know, but always just trying to figure out how to how to market myself, how to start doing content, how to start doing video to kind of really get out get out there and start networking and and doing things. And I know also know that doing the content and doing that kind of thing is is only gonna get you so far, also, right? So it's like how do how do you put together a strategy for yourself to to get more more stuff and what do I want more of? You know, that might be where I'm most stuck potentially, right? Because I I can do so many different things in so many different media it can sometimes stop me, stop my brain in my in its tracks and short circuit itself. If that makes any sense.

SPEAKER_03 5:31

I'm gonna hazard a guess right now. I think I know you well enough to to suggest that you enjoy the variety of what you do though, right?

SPEAKER_02 5:38

Oh yeah, for sure. Yeah, it's I I like having new challenges every day. Um it'd be nice to have something that uh you wake up and and do the same thing over and over and over again, like as a bread and butter thing that you know is gonna be there, but that would drive me nuts if I only had one widget to make that one widget every day. No way. Yeah, 100%.

unknown 5:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:55

I want different widgets, but all related somehow.

SPEAKER_03 5:59

What percentage of your revenue is recurring?

SPEAKER_02 6:02

Very, very small. Very, very small amount. Um I couldn't even give you a percentage, but okay, you know. I've got a handful of care plan clients that are, you know, hundred bucks a month.

SPEAKER_03 6:13

Yeah, that's the number one thing you've got to fix, right? Now we've talked, we've talked on on conversations on the agent on the headless agency call that we have every week. We've spoken about this concept of, and I guess I'm kind of teeing you up here because I think this is the opportunity is um because it combines your uh talent. You know, I I really do subscribe to Icky Guy, right? I mean, I I was I was teaching the sweet spot, which I didn't, it's not my concept. The sweet spot has been around for a hundred years, right? Every I mean everything's been around since the Roman Empire, but the sweet spot was really I mean Icky Guy wasn't even really uh isn't anything new. Um Icky Guy really is the hedgehog effect from Jim Collins Good to Great. And he talks about uh in good to great, he talks about um the three circle Venn diagram, which is like, what are you really passionate about? Like what do you really enjoy doing, right? Like you just said you couldn't get out of bed and make the same widget every day to drive you nuts. I get it. What are you so what do you what do you really enjoy? What are you good at? Right? That's the sort of the sweet spot. But the thing that people forget is, you know, like I love music and I'm pretty good at it. But I'm I the reason I kind of got out of uh pursuing music full time was because I was tired of being broke. And the reality is that it doesn't matter how talented you are, the chances of of making a living as a musician are you know, if you like being an artist is like winning the lottery ticket, like being an original artist is like kind of like the chance of like winning the lottery. Or the alternative is you end up in a tribute band and you know you just like grind and like play five gigs a week and earn enough to pay the rent and maybe feed your kids some baked beans, right? Right.

SPEAKER_02 7:58

And if and if you're coming from like the background of you wanted to be a creative musician, right, not just play somebody else. Right.

SPEAKER_03 8:07

The idea of being in a tribute band, I would stab myself in the face with a plastic fork, right? So so so the thing that people forget is like, what are you really good at, what are you passionate about, and what will the market pay you for?

SPEAKER_01 8:18

Uh-huh. Right.

SPEAKER_03 8:19

So that's kind of icky guy. And so I think um tell me about the uh the organizations that you work with that you have this kind of concept of um like them kind of renting an online store from you rather than uh you know, because if they're uh well you you you should tell the story.

SPEAKER_02 8:43

Yeah. Um trying to pull up one of their sites right now. Give me just a second. Um so basically, so you know, companies that again, those are usually sort of a like an enterprise or a corporate type type uh company that has a little little bit of a budget for merch, right? And sees it as like a promotional uh marketing type of a thing, whether than uh rather than like trying to start a line of t-shirts and get rich off of it. Right. So they're using you know, they're doing logoed uh and branded merchandise that they give away to to employees and partners um to spread brand awareness. Um and you know, they they see it as as valuable for you know, I I should I should I should be wearing one. I can put on one of their hats. So, you know, produce hats and stuff so people can wear them on on podcasts. Um so they'll come to me and uh Rewild.

SPEAKER_03 9:37

So who are ReWild and what do ReWild do?

SPEAKER_02 9:39

Rewild.org. They um let's read a tag one off the thing. Uh there's we don't need to reinvent the planet, we need to rewild it. So they're out trying to restore ecosystems, uh save endangered species, um, get rid of pollution, you know, save save nature and save our planet. That's their thing. Um and it was it was started by Leonardo Leonardo DiCaprio, if I can get that out of my face.

SPEAKER_03 10:03

Here we go. I never thought I'd have Leonardo DiCaprio on the podcast, but I think we just have. I think we've now had Leonardo DiCaprio on the podcast. I'm totally leading with that line.

SPEAKER_02 10:14

Um, so you know what what they want is they want to be able to, when Leo's going out to an event or any of their high, you know, uh uh high-end people are out in the world, they they want to make sure that they're they're logoed up and are representing it.

SPEAKER_03 10:29

It's a movement, right? Like these organizations are a movement. They're not they're like they're creating a movement. And swag is like, I mean, you go to a Star Trek conference, everyone's wearing the Star Trek costume buttons. So people, these guys want people to wear the re-wild t-shirt, the rewild cap hat, it's brand awareness, but it's also a sense of belonging to a movement, right?

SPEAKER_02 10:45

Uh-huh. And the other thing that that they need this particular client needs to know is that this thing isn't made out of plastic. It's got to be made out of uh some sort of recycled material or organic material or something like that that's got some sort of sustainable element to it. Um so they can't just necessarily go to like you know, like a printful or you know, one of those other things where that you know they just order a couple things and you know, because it's just gonna be junk at the end of the day. So they come to somebody like me, we produce a bunch of stuff ahead of time, so 36, 72, 145 pieces or whatever. So hats, shirts, backpacks, and then we make them, I charge them for it, and I store it in a w in a warehouse. And then whenever they want something, they go to a e-store that I set up for them. And I've been doing it in uh WooCommerce because it's pretty easy for me to kind of spin up a site for it. So I'll set up a WooCommerce store, their employees go on and and uh place an order like they would on any e-com e-commerce store, I get the order and I ship it out for them.

unknown 11:41

Got it. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 11:42

And sometimes it's like a bulk order, sometimes they'll, you know, but it's it's all already kind of made for the most part. And then they'll have special events, and I'll have to produce something special that maybe I haven't haven't produced yet for them. So you know, we just did like for Lollapalooza this year, they went and had they had a big booth, and we did you know some bandanas and bucket hats, and then we did some cool tank tops that had cartoons and stuff on it, and stickers. I think I still have some stickers, some stickers for them, like music-oriented stickers. Awesome. So stuff like that, and then I'll you know we're producing my I make a margin on it, I ship it out to them, and it's got it's got a little bit of a digital uh presence, you know, part of it, and then there's a physical uh thing to it, and it all works.

SPEAKER_03 12:29

Great. So just let me just understand this. If they are not, if ReWild, for example, let's just use them as as the case study, if they weren't, if you where if they didn't know you, where would they sell this merch? Like they you so you make the merch and you ship it to them and you go, here you go, you sell it. What would they do? Would they go to Shopify? Would they spin up their own? How would they sell it?

SPEAKER_02 12:48

They well, so uh to be fair, they're not sell this particular one, they're not selling to the to the public. Um they've this specifically is just for their marketing stuff. They've gone back and forth on whether or not they want the public to have their their stuff for whatever reasons. But um, anybody else, where would they go? I mean, there's um I mean they could set up their own Shopify store. There's other uh companies that go to a place called Bonfire. Bonfire is a kind of a competitor in that space for for smaller organizations that like want to have a whole variety of things, but maybe don't want to produce a bunch all all ahead of time. So a lot of like Bonfire stuff is is print on demand, which I can do too, but the quality is different than than something that's produced in in bulk. Um got it. And then there's other promotional product agencies that also special specialize in in this type of thing.

SPEAKER_03 13:40

And so the the benefit of and we took we and I'm you know I'm privy because we've had this conversation, but uh just for the audience's perspective, the benefit with you is that you uh design the thing, you make the thing, you store the thing, you put the thing on a website so someone can buy the thing, and then when someone buys the thing, you ship the thing, right? Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_02 14:02

So you're it takes way it takes care of all their headaches.

SPEAKER_03 14:05

Right. End-to-end solution, as they say, a fully integrated, synergized end-to-end solution, right? That's the buzzword, yeah?

SPEAKER_02 14:13

Yep. That's a big selling point for for a lot of these companies because a lot of times when they start off doing it, they'll do it themselves. And they'll they'll order hats from one supplier and they'll order shirts from somewhere else, and then maybe um posters or brochures from another print house somewhere else, and then that all lives in like the the uh director of marketing's house in their closet. And they're feeling that and trying to figure out how to ship it out to wherever the heck they're going. It causes them a lot of stress.

SPEAKER_03 14:42

Yeah, losing money on the postage and you know not factoring in. Yeah. Um, and so um okay, so you make a margin on so you do you get paid to design the thing?

SPEAKER_02 14:55

Depends. Uh I mean, uh yeah, yes and no. Um, whenever I can. Sometimes if it's if it's a big enough order, I'll do the design for free.

SPEAKER_03 15:03

Sure. You make a margin on on the actual the physical product, right? So there's a margin on the physical product. You make a margin on the storage and the warehousing. Yep. Right? You make uh there's a I'm imagining there's like a recurring fee for the website to recurring fee for the website, just hosting and maintenance type thing. Yeah. Do you charge for the website to set up the website?

SPEAKER_02 15:24

I've done it both ways. I've done it where I've charged in in the past, like where I charge a big setup fee and then a smaller per month. Um I'm toying right now, trying to do a model where there's no upfront setup fee, just uh a monthly thing.

SPEAKER_03 15:36

100%.

SPEAKER_02 15:37

Yeah, that's what I would do. Just to get them in the door.

SPEAKER_03 15:39

Yeah, and with AI, you know, once you've got that thing built out once in a WooCommerce, like a blueprint, if you like, then you can just clone the site, make some changes, right?

SPEAKER_02 15:48

Absolutely absolutely. Yeah. That's becoming easy.

SPEAKER_03 15:52

Okay, and so you so then okay, so there's a margin on making the product, warehousing the product, there's a margin on the website, there's a margin on shipping the thing once an order comes in, right? And so you bundle all this up into like a flat fee plus plus however many orders come in the shipping, right? Is that kind of the model? Okay. Yep. Got it. Okay, and so where uh what what what's the goal and where are you stuck?

SPEAKER_02 16:18

Well, um how to get that something like that. Yeah, I've I there's so many things I could be I got I'm stuck on, Troy, but if we're talking about you know this, um you know, really getting my next first client, you know, uh you and I have been working on uh you know, I've showed you the one that I'm working on trying to land. They haven't signed off on it yet. They're still in the in the process of of getting everything approved. If if they approved my um new model, you know, with the just just a monthly thing and and uh buying a bunch of stuff up front, I you know, I'd like to be able to promote that somehow. Right? Um so I'm stuck with like how do I promote it? How do I get it out to the world? How do I you know make it move fast so that basically you don't have to I don't have to go get a job, right?

SPEAKER_03 17:08

Um and so the okay, I mean finding uh was it bonfire? Was that the one that you mentioned?

SPEAKER_02 17:15

Bonfire, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 17:16

Yeah, does that come up in a built with report? Like I mean, I know I know I know Victor could find, I know Victor could just go and do the research and say, hey, so for those that are listening, Victor.com is my kind of AI employee of choice these days, full transparency. I use Victor.com and Claude every day. That's kind of my AI solutions. I'll put a link to uh my affiliate link for Victor in the show notes if you want to go and try it. Victor, but I know Victor can. If I said to Victor, hey, go find me uh, you know, um go find me, you know, eco-organizations or or purpose-driven organizations that are currently selling swag on bonfire and put together a list of all the websites and try and find the email address and all that kind of stuff, right? It'll do that. It'll put together a list, right? Yeah. So so finding the prospects, I don't think, is the problem. Um what have you like, and I'm you know, I know the answer to this question, but I want to give you some.

SPEAKER_02 18:09

You're gonna ask it anyway.

SPEAKER_03 18:11

What have you done in the last 30 days, Matt, to get in front of these people?

SPEAKER_02 18:18

Um well, uh I'm I'm gonna tell you my Simon Kelly quote again. You know, I've I've tried absolutely nothing and I'm all out of ideas, Troy.

SPEAKER_03 18:25

Um, that's it. Yeah, I don't think. So why? Why? Why? Why? So why? Because you and everyone else, you and everyone else, 99.999% of people on the planet are like, yep, I've fucking done nothing and I don't know where to start, and I'm all out of ideas, right? So and it's fine, there's no judgment, because that's why we're on this call, but why? Why what's holding you back?

SPEAKER_02 18:49

I don't a hundred percent know. Um maybe it's um maybe it's afraid of it working, maybe it's afraid of crickets, maybe it's a it's a it's afraid of I know it's gonna take some energy, you know, pushing this or pushing a different you know product that I have. I think it's gonna take a decent amount of energy and focus and time and really dial in on that. Um I'm afraid of putting in that energy and spending a whole bunch of time and potentially getting nothing out of it and going, oh my god, now I've wasted all this time. Maybe I should have focused on just selling logos or maybe I should have just focused on starting a car wash, or you know, not knowing if it's going to if it's gonna sell or not and and take off.

SPEAKER_03 19:36

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 19:37

So um And if it's the right product versus some something else.

SPEAKER_03 19:41

Well, you'll never know that. I mean that's you never know that until you try. Yeah. That's right. That's the thing. Uh so so a couple of things. First of all, I can tell you this that if there is no if there is just no plan B, I mean, I've had to reinvent myself several times, right? In the last 12 months I've had to reinvent myself again because of AI.

SPEAKER_02 19:58

Right, I know.

SPEAKER_03 19:59

You've you've seen it. And so you know, I went from like a musician and a voiceover artist to then building websites for clients and then starting a web agency, and then starting WP elevation, and then pivoting that to agency Mavericks, and then starting a coaching business, and then you know, doing rock star empires, and then um, you know, uh doing uh headless agency with the AI, right? So and and what I can tell you is that every time I've had to do that, I have a conversation with myself, and I'm like, okay, somewhere in my brain, I go, This is it. Like just this is you are just there is no plan B. You are all in on this, otherwise, otherwise, and there's some other things that I want to do, but I don't have the bandwidth right now to do those other things. So they're just they're in the back of my mind, they're on the whiteboard, I've got some bookmark websites bookmarked and things I want to get to at some point. But right now, I'm all in on the headless agency and Mavericks Club, right? That is my 100% focus. It's all I'm doing is talking to agency owners about their problems and trying to help them. That's all I'm doing. I'm 100% all in. And it's working. Again, as I said, this was this is like the sixth or seventh time I've had to reinvent myself and have this conversation with myself and go, you are just all in on this, and there is no plan B. You are not going to quit until this works. And what I can promise you, I had this conversation earlier today with Josh from Numeric. He was the first one booked in on these calls, and I said, you know, whatever the strategy is, if we so with Josh, it was like, I just think he needs to go all in on personal brand, short form video content, right? And I said, the problem is, Josh, you're gonna come back to me in three weeks' time, you're gonna get really busy for three weeks, you're gonna put out a whole bunch of short form videos, you're gonna be really consistent, you're not gonna make any money out of it, and you're gonna come back to me and go, It didn't fucking work. Because you've done it for three weeks and it hasn't worked. And you're gonna quit. And then it's never gonna work because you've quit and you've wasted three weeks. So the the

SPEAKER_02 22:00

the the And I know that about myself too and I'm afraid that's gonna happen.

SPEAKER_03 22:04

Right. So so the rule is the rule is don't quit.

SPEAKER_02 22:10

Sure.

SPEAKER_03 22:11

That's the rule.

SPEAKER_02 22:12

Like and so right, but it sounds right until it works. It sounds easy but how do you do it? How do you how do you fund how do you fund it? Right? How long you know because it's it's it's not gonna work in three weeks. It might not work in six weeks. It might take six months.

SPEAKER_03 22:30

How do I get sure that so okay so there's a bunch of so um you know Hormosy put a video up on YouTube the other day and the thumbnail is do epic shit right I'm like yep that's right. So the reason I did so I did done for you Victor installations for three months June, July August this year, right? And it almost killed me and it almost fucking killed me. I was working stupid hours it was nuts. The reason I did it is because I knew I had to pivot I knew I had to pivot and I couldn't just burn everything to the ground and start the headless agency again right from scratch because I needed to fund you know and you got expenses and mortgage and kids and a business and staff and all that kind of stuff. So I needed to fund it. And so I did epic shit. I put my hand up and I said I'm gonna install Victor for you for three months. It's a 10 grand engagement for three months this is what's going to happen. I bit off way more than I could chew and I fucking ran like the clappers and I got it done. Right. And I'm just coming to I think I've got like one engagement this is coming to the end of their three months now and I'll probably never do that again because it's way too much work. But I learnt enough in that that now we've now we've got the done with you headless agency which is working really well and Maverick's Lob and I don't need to do that again, right? At the moment I don't need to do it again. Maybe I need to do something again next year if I pivot again I'm not sure. But the so you can't just you can't just like you know you've got to pay the bills you've got to do whatever you need to do to bring the cash in because financial stress is the worst type of stress in the world. So you've got to pay the bills and keep the wolves at bay while you gradually pivot to you know to whatever the new thing is right. Hey just a quick little sidebar here if at any point you're listening to this podcast or hanging out on our YouTube channel or consuming any of our content and you just know the timing is right to take your agency to the next level, then go to the agencyhour dot com slash headless and apply to work with us inside agency Mavericks. We only take on a handful of clients each month and so if that page is up and the application form is open then that means we've got an available slot, it's the agencyhour dot com slash headless and we'll get you plugged into a great team of agency mentors, a great community of agency owners will help you grow your recurring revenue, get your team, your processes and your AI dialed in and turn your business into an agency that is not only highly profitable but an agency that you just love running. We've been doing this for a long time. We've mentored over 4500 agencies from every part of the planet over the last 15 or 16 years and we'd love to help you take your agency to the next level. So go to the agency.com slash headless. All right let's get back to the podcast. But the the thing is so here's the way I think about you know I don't care what anyone says like putting putting teaching sharing what you know and teaching what you know on the internet is is the it's the only thing I know how to do. Right? Like I'm not going to I'm not going to a B I breakfast or a networking event because I might meet three people who could potentially be my clients yeah whereas if I put Josh put a post up on Facebook a couple of days ago about payments he's in the payment space so he's a he's an alternative to stripe and pay paled numeric he put a post up on Facebook the other day I saw the post I'm like that's a good post. It's had over 4200 views on Facebook. Right? I'm like dude let's say 10% of those people are your potential client that's 420 people from a text post he wrote when he was pissed off at the gym right 420 potential prospects that he's just got in front of like how much would it cost you an ad spend or how much time would it cost you in networking or going out and meeting people in real the real world to get in front of 420 prospects or like I get a better idea let's run a webinar and get 420 people on a webinar do you know how much money you have to spend on ads to get 420 people on a webinar fucking thousands of dollars right so so sharing what you know on on a social media platform like Facebook or LinkedIn or Instagram or YouTube or whatever your poison is wherever your audience are sharing what you know and for you I would probably suggest Facebook and maybe LinkedIn sharing what you know is the is the best way it's not the fastest fastest way is ads but they're expensive and 90% of the leads are terrible right yep the best way and even if you're going to run ads you still need content that horrible C word you still need content. And so what I like to do is I like to share what I know on the internet and I see what go I see what people respond to and go fuck well that post worked and then I put some money behind it and we run ads behind it because I go well it's I know it's working organically I just put it up on Facebook didn't make a big deal out of it had 200 comments I'm gonna run that as an ad or I'll turn it into a bunch of YouTube videos and I'll make a podcast episode out of it because I know the message resonates right so so you so I I mean you've got to do this anyway unless you're gonna go and get a job. I mean that's the alternative is you get a job and you do this in the evenings. I mean this is a this is real advice by the way for anyone listening anyone listening if you if you have to pay the bills when I first started out I was a musician I was a voiceover artist I was doing five gigs a week as a museo earning a couple hundred bucks a week it was about a thousand bucks a week which in Melbourne is barely enough to pay the rent and eat food and you know and I was doing the occasional voiceover and then I was you know spending my days learning because I was working nights playing gigs I was spending my days learning how to build websites right this is back in 2008 right so uh long time ago but that's that was the reality it was like I you know like I I didn't watch TV I mean I have I I haven't watched TV for 20 years right because uh when I'm not when I'm not earning money I'm learning or I'm or now I'm hanging out with my kids right but before I had kids it was just I was just learning it was just learning learning learning learning learning about how to get better at the thing so I could then turn that into revenue and the more you do it and the more experience like all you have you just got to be a couple of steps ahead of your customer right and so if you're targeting organizations that are selling on on uh bonfire or targeting organizations that have got merch and they're not selling it or they want to get into the merch game all you need is one case study like one testimonial from Leonardo DiCaprio right just call my buddy Leo hey Leo can you tell me exactly just call Leo up and say Leo do you have any active friends who are involved in nonprofits that want to sell swag right just become his guy um wish I wish I wish it was that easy I I I've never had personal contact uh with Leo other than actually meet him a name tag for for an art event one time but I deal with the you know the people on the staff Leo's yeah yeah far removed from my my contact yeah so you know I think the um if you don't like the guarante the guarantee is if you don't share what you know no one will know that you know right and there's a there's a hundred reasons that people don't share what they know on the internet and I get it uh I think you know people don't want to be like my wife would never put shit on social media right she's just she just doesn't she just fucking hates it right I'm like but it you don't hate the money that I make from doing it do you so you know like there's a there's a I I don't like I'm just I'm public I'm on the internet I don't give a shit right but there are people that will never do it and I get it and so I was talking to an agency the other day and I said that's fine make a video and put it on Loom Loom is not really a social network but put a video on Loom and then email that video to everyone you know say hey I just made a video showing you what I've done with ReWild you might know it it's Leo's organization right I've just done this for ReWild check it out and just share a life update and just share it with everyone you know and to put it on Loom so you're not on YouTube or you're not on Facebook or you're not on Instagram. Yeah interesting that's a way okay get out there and do it right well the I think at the moment the the you first of all you've got to put a flag in the sand and say this is what I'm doing. Yeah yeah not not for the next three weeks but this is what I'm doing for like the next I think it's a two year play. I think anything's a two year play to grow something significant is a two year play. So can I get out of bed and focus on merch and swag and e-commerce stores for these organizations for the next two years. If that's what you want to do, if you can have that conversation in your head and make that commitment to yourself right then I think for the far and I this you know said to Josh and I'm aware that you know when you're holding a hammer everything looks like a nail right so I do have a very particular lens but the fastest way to get found by the people who are going to be your customers is to make short form video and stick it on YouTube because Google transcribe every video on YouTube and shorts are very easy to transcribe because they're you know a minute long and they just feed that straight into Gemini. So when people are searching on Google all the short form videos that you're putting into YouTube just get sucked straight into the AI large language model and when people are searching on Google you come up in the Google AI results. There's no guarantee but I can guarantee if you don't put short form video up short form video up you're never going to come up right and so if I if you're the guy that helps these organizations build a tribe by selling merch right then that's the conversation that you need to be having and I would just make a bunch of YouTube shorts stick them on YouTube and then never look at them. Don't look at how many views you get it's irrelevant who cares we're not here to try and go viral you could have a a YouTube channel of just shorts and it doesn't matter how many subscribers you've got it's irrelevant right to the most watched the most streamed platform on large screen televisions it's more people watch YouTube than Netflix.

SPEAKER_02 32:34

Fascinating fascinating really yeah 100% that's crazy yeah what am I gonna talk about merch how am I going to talk about merch every day without repeating myself that's that that's another that's another fear hey look at this hat.

SPEAKER_03 32:51

So well my post I put my post I put up yesterday right my post I put up yesterday get ai to go and do the research in Quora and Reddit and all the forums right like there will be if you research WooCommerce plug-in support questions which is public you can do that without a login Victor will go here are all the questions people have about WooCommerce right here are all the people here are all the questions that people have about WooCommerce that are shipping physical product. Happy days great answer those questions you don't have to you don't have to answer John who asked the question who's shipping bike parts because that's not the business you're in but you say okay this is a question that someone had about shipping rates in WooCommerce right to go hey if you're shipping merch to customers and you haven't got your head around shipping rates let me give you a tip there's this little plugin for WooCommerce called blah blah blah and it does this thing.

SPEAKER_02 33:48

That's the one that we use every day here at MGO follow me for more live tips right and and and by the way if you want to get ahead of the Christmas season and not have to pay extra for shipping you're about two weeks late because they already everybody already kicked in the shipping right here.

SPEAKER_03 34:01

There you go exactly right so there is net like there is there is an unlimited amount of content that you could make you just get AI to find the questions you get AI to help you answer the questions which you probably already know but it's like I can't be fucked doing the research it's like hey give me some ideas while I go figure out I didn't even know about that plugin. It's good go check it out yep cool right and then what I would do if I did that I would then ping the plugin developer and go hey I just made a video promoting your plugin right interesting interesting okay I could wrap my head around figuring out how to do that. So so you've got a phone right and so just get you've got airpods airpods are fine right so hey you know handheld you know you're just sharing something useful that's it you're just sharing something useful give it to Claude right and then get Claude to put it into visard and visard is a short form it'll put the captions on it and then you'll plug in your TikTok your YouTube your Instagram your Facebook your LinkedIn and then it'll just put it in the calendar and schedule it. Right? So I make a video on my phone I drop it in a folder on my desktop I airdrop it to a folder on my desktop make notes here kids I shoot a video on my phone I airdrop it to a folder on my desktop I say Claude there's a new file in the folder give it to visard it gives it to visard via the API Bizard chops it up I might make three or four videos at once there's a little gap between each one but it's one file rightizard chops it up into four or five shorts puts the captions on it schedules it in the calendar fucking done like literally all I'm doing is like everyone who's got a everyone who's got a phone now has everything and Claude now has everything they need Gary V has like famously had 15 people following him around as his video production team right you can do this now with Claude and a phone right you can do it with a solopreneur can produce the amount of content that Gary V produces with a phone and Claude a couple hundred bucks a year for Visard and you know 20 bucks a month on Claude.

SPEAKER_02 36:18

Yep interesting right okay so what about okay what about my own website what about my own marketing stuff so like if you go to my website right now it talks about all the 500 million goddamn things that I do excuse my cursing kids sure um do I leave all that stuff up there or do I just trim back some of it?

SPEAKER_03 36:37

So like you know I've got like doing like AI branding systems and digital marketing and of course we've got merch and print and website design and brand design do I leave it all up there or do I just go F it throw some of the stuff away and just only do leave it there and just build leave it leave it there and just build one landing page for the merch e-com solution for these organizations whatever you want to call it right yeah like you know I don't know what what like I don't know whatever you want to call it ship and swag or whatever like just you know come up with a name right and just build a landing page for that and that's the landing page that you link to if you if there's a link in bio or if a YouTube short you can link or whatever or LinkedIn or whatever that's the link that you link to people discover the rest of your site and go oh look at this he does merch he does ai he does digital marketing but what I'm really interested in is I'm just interested in this ship and swag thing that he does right I just want him to like take care of the swag and ship it out to our customers. So that's what I'm signing up for. So just have it as a landing page yeah right because then if it doesn't work you can just kill the landing page in six months or a year and do something else. But don't do it for three weeks. Yeah right and here's the here's the mindset is like find an organization so I'm making a I'm making a YouTube video I might get it done tomorrow otherwise I'll get it done Monday and I'm making it for Peter Peter is one of my clients and he focuses on on builders and the real estate industry in Australia is cooked because interest rates are so high and we've also changed some of the tax laws here so you know it's like no one's buying established properties and luxury builds are kind of falling through the floor and now everything's being pushed out to like mid-market mass builders out in the suburbs right so he's having to pivot and I had a conversation with him before and I'm like dude the 7 Eleven four research from Google is perfect for you because when you buy a property it's a very emotionally high stakes high trust transaction right so you shouldn't be selling websites and SEO to builders you should be selling the 7 Eleven four to builders right you should be a growth partner for builders and the mechanism is the 711 he's like so he gets it but he's like I just need to kind of see how all this fits together. I said great I'm gonna make a YouTube video for you. So what the point I'm trying to make is whenever I make content I've usually got one person in mind. I make a video for Peter and I go this is going to be super helpful for Peter but I'm just gonna put it on YouTube and then I'll send him a link and I know that over time a thousand other people are going to watch it right the last the last two deals that we've closed here have come from someone searching for something on YouTube they found one of my videos they watched a couple of videos kind of went down the rabbit hole a bit went down my funnel right clicked the link in the description went to my page filled in an application landed with our sales team paid in full joined the program right not ads YouTube free traffic watching a YouTube video because they get to know you they get to know you they like you they trust you so by the time they get on a call it's way easier because you don't have to spend the first half an hour building rapport and building trust.

SPEAKER_02 39:58

100% that's ex exactly how I felt with you know with you uh all these years right I mean I've started listening actually the you know the first podcast I ever really listened to was your podcast like 10 years ago whatever it was what got me into podcasts was your podcast. Right there you go now I listen to a ton of them.

SPEAKER_03 40:14

There you go. And I I wouldn't I couldn't tell you how many people download our podcast man I just don't care. I just don't even look at the numbers like what I'm interested in is I'm interested in the right people watching the more people watch our podcast on YouTube than actually download the audio right than listen to the audio. And what which is which is the reverse of how it was 12 months ago and this is my point about YouTube right more and more people are watching YouTube. And so uh the point is I just know that like the fastest way to build trust with someone is to hang out with them in real life. You and I have met in real life right fastest way to build trust with someone is to hang out. If you and I met again in real life and we had dinner right spent a couple of hours talking about our life mate we'd I mean I feel like we're friends anyway but we would it would just solidify our friendship. Oh 100% 100% correct second fastest right there you go the second fastest way to do that if you can't meet in person is to do it on either you know like we're doing now like live streaming live zoom call whatever third way to do that is to put a video up and have them watch it.

SPEAKER_02 41:12

Yep right it's almost the same thing they get to you don't get to know them but they get to know you interesting interesting okay I can do that slowly it'll take me it'll take me a minute to get comfortable with it but I think once I find my my footing I know again you preach and stuff like that I know that video's what you have to do right just to get out there to because nobody else is going to do it.

unknown 41:37

Right?

SPEAKER_02 41:37

The creditors aren't doing it everybody's everybody's afraid of it. Everybody just wants to sit back and watch it.

SPEAKER_03 41:42

That's right.

SPEAKER_02 41:43

You know we as designers and you know digital marketers and agencies we all have we all have the skills to be able to make this stuff.

SPEAKER_03 41:51

Right. But the first you know Amy Amy Porterfield had a podcast for years and she never made video and she was public about it. She was like I the reason I don't make video is because I'm self-conscious about my weight right about your weight right and her friend Rick right her friend Rick McCready who's an ads guy he said you're doing your audience a disservice by not making video because you're not letting them get to know you and they want to get to know you. So she started making video right yeah turns out she's now in the best shape of her life right because she started making video um but you know like I had a fucking mohawk for two years you know it was three years you know what I mean like I I've had weird hair over the years it's like and you just ditched it right maybe maybe growing it back I'm not sure right I'm having another midlife crisis who cares right no one fucking cares and if people are commenting about your hair well who cares they're feeding the algorithm right like whatever so so but here's the he practically here's how it works make a video with the express intention of just throwing it in the bin that's the first video you make is you make a video you watch it and you go that's horrible throw it in the bin do it again right by the time you'll get bored doing that pretty quickly so by the time you make the third one you'll be like fuck it I'm just gonna publish it. Right? Yep. Share it with me in Slack. If you're like oh I'm not sure about this I think it's good you think I should publish it share it with me in Slack and you know what I'm gonna say just just it's just publish it.

SPEAKER_02 43:10

Just publish it do it.

SPEAKER_03 43:11

Because the first few videos you publish no one's gonna watch them. So who cares? Yeah right if you just keep doing it eventually what happens is the algorithm goes all right you're not a flyby nighter you're here to stay you're doing this consistently I'm gonna start recommending you people don't the algorithm doesn't want to recommend you if you're gonna disappear next week. This is what a lot of people don't understand is you just got to stay in the game.

SPEAKER_02 43:32

It's it's like working out isn't it it's like going to the gym. Your muscles don't want to hang around and and and build bulk if you're not gonna go to the gym in three weeks.

SPEAKER_03 43:42

That's right man but like if you don't use it you lose it especially like if you're over the age of forty five and you're a you're a dude like atrophy muscles atrophy right of like you don't use them your brain just goes I don't need these biceps anymore yeah because I'm not lifting anything right so let's just fucking I'm not gonna I'm gonna stop feeding them right and then your muscles atrophy That's why you've got to keep using it. And so it's consistency. Consistency is the key. That it's so boring. But ca if you imagine if you only cleaned your teeth once a week. Right?

SPEAKER_02 44:12

Yeah, that'd be disgusting, wouldn't it?

SPEAKER_03 44:14

Like, why do you clean your teeth every day? I clean my teeth twice a day. Why do you sometimes three times? Why do you clean your teeth every day? Because if you don't, they rot, right? They rot. So it's consistency. It's the same thing. It's like just get into a habit of creating something every day.

SPEAKER_02 44:29

That's interesting. Yeah. Creating something every day.

SPEAKER_03 44:32

Yeah. Could be a post, could be a video, could be an infographic, whatever. Just create something. It goes on YouTube.

SPEAKER_02 44:38

Does it matter? Does it matter if it's portrait landscape?

SPEAKER_03 44:41

Portrait. If you're making shorts, if you're making shorts on YouTube, go go portrait.

SPEAKER_02 44:45

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_03 44:46

All the time, because they're on mobile. If you're making long form, go landscape like we are now, right? But long form, long form's an investment. Like I love long form. I love this kind of format of media, right? I love what we're doing right now. I like watching this type of content. I love making this type of content. But it's an investment. Short form's easier. Short form's way easier because you shoot it on your phone and publish it. Literally, you could shoot on you could shoot four videos tonight on your phone, give them to Claude, put them into Visard, you'd be done, right? They'd be they're going out. I I get shorts getting published right now on five platforms. I'm not touching any buttons. Right? I made them two days ago.

SPEAKER_02 45:21

And if you're doing long form, frame it in a way that when you do the shorts, it doesn't cut your face off in some weird way, kind of like you have right now. Because you know, I've seen your your shorts based on these videos that we're doing, and they're chopped in a way that also works well in the in the uh portrait stuff.

SPEAKER_03 45:40

Yeah, that's right. I mean, and the AI is so good it'll put you in the middle, right? Yeah, yeah. Um and if you were gonna do long form, right? Like if I were you and you were gonna do long form, what I I mean, and this is a lot of work, but what I would do is I would start a podcast and I would interview people who are in the space who are in the like I'd interview the people from ReWild and then I'd find like 20 other companies like ReWild and I'd interview them about what they're doing. I wouldn't even talk about merch. I wouldn't talk about e-commerce, I would just interview them about their journey and about their mission. People love talking about that kind of stuff, right?

SPEAKER_02 46:16

I I have yeah, that's that's a goal uh that that is a goal of mine to be able to do something like that. I I'll have to work up to it. I'll have to do the shorts first, I think.

SPEAKER_01 46:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 46:24

Um my my fear of the interview thing is being like um Chris Farley interviewing Paul McCartney on Saturday Night Live in 1994. You remember what I'm talking about?

SPEAKER_03 46:36

Oh no, I don't. I'm not familiar with that.

SPEAKER_02 46:38

Oh, you gotta go look that up.

SPEAKER_03 46:39

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_02 46:40

You'll appreciate that. So you know, he does stuff like remember when you said um love is all you need? Yeah. Is that true? That's my fear. Is that how that's how I'm gonna be as an interview?

SPEAKER_03 47:01

Uh well, you know, I mean that could be that's a whole angle, right? There could be like, you know, you can just all sleep, right?

SPEAKER_01 47:07

Yeah, you can do that.

SPEAKER_03 47:08

Yeah, you just get really baked and interview people. That could be a whole angle, right? Um so but yeah, I mean, yeah, that that if I was gonna do long form, if I was you and I was gonna do long form, that's what I would do. But in the short term, you know, I short form I think is the is the quick win for you for sure.

SPEAKER_01 47:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 47:23

I like that.

SPEAKER_03 47:24

Awesome.

SPEAKER_02 47:25

I can do that.

SPEAKER_03 47:26

Cool. Uh hey, where do people reach out and get in touch with you?

SPEAKER_02 47:30

That's a good question. I think uh mgostudios.com is probably the the easiest way. Just go there and hit my contact form or Instagram. I should know my Instagram handle, but I don't. Um, but I'm on there. Matt Olson in MGO Studios.

SPEAKER_03 47:45

There we go. Awesome. Link in MGO Studios.com. I'll put all the links in the show notes here. Uh thanks, Matt. Thanks for hanging out on the agency hour.

SPEAKER_02 47:52

Absolutely. Anytime.

SPEAKER_03 47:54

Well, I hope you enjoyed that episode of the agency hour as much as I did. I'm really enjoying hanging out with agency owners and helping them get unstuck. As I said, go to the agencyhour.com slash apply if you want to come on the show. If you want to work with us, if you just know that you want to take your agency to the next level, that you are 100% focused on it, and that you want AI employees to help you be more profitable, go to theagencyhour.com slash headless and apply to work with us uh inside agency mavericks. All right, I'll look forward to hanging out with you again next week on the show. My name's Troy Dean. Let's get to work.