Latest / Stronger Business Together / E5 Stop being the bottleneck with Richard Hubble
Transcript
- Granger Forson: So hello, this is the Stronger Business Together podcast where business owners learn from other business owners. No theory, no gurus, just real journeys and real hurdles. Today I'm joined by Richard Hubble who runs its easy website in Gosershire and like any owner he's in the middle of building, fixing and growing something that really matters. So Richard, welcome. Richard Hubble: you Hi. Hi, Granger Forson: So Richard, in plain English, what does your business do? Richard Hubble: Pretty simple really, it's a digital marketing agency primarily focused around providing websites for start-ups and small businesses in Gloucestershire but also providing some related services such as social media marketing, pay-per-click advertising, search engine optimisation and the rest of the digital arena that our clients looking for. Granger Forson: Richard, who do you love helping and ⁓ what are they typically dealing with and why they come to Richard Hubble: So, interestingly, I basically help small businesses in particular because they're the ones that don't have a marketing team obviously built into the business and they're the ones that really need the help more than anybody else. think startups, brand new businesses who don't really understand a lot of the stuff that we do and small businesses who want to grow but don't have the resources to be able to. do. So that's who I love helping the most and that's really what I set the business up to do. Granger Forson: Brilliant. when you start the business and what was that original spark or idea? Richard Hubble: was nine years ago. yeah, why I start my business? But I'd worked in a corporate career before that, in corporate for an international telecoms businesses and things like that. And I just had had enough of ⁓ the rat and I wanted to get back to running my own small business again. And so I cast around to see what sort of market I was interested in and digital marketing was sort of the one that I settled on and I found had the most affinity with so that's why I did it. Granger Forson: Excellent. I a So what does the business look today the size and the shape? Richard Hubble: Yeah, so I bought the franchise basically to reduce the risk really ⁓ also as ⁓ small business myself, a sole trader initially myself, ⁓ obviously ⁓ have resources to be able to do everything. I didn't want to be a bottleneck or anything like that to growth. ⁓ And ⁓ the seemed like the logical way forward for that. And it's proved to be brilliant, brilliant, absolutely fantastic for me. We've now grown to over 350 clients six staff and over six figure every year. So it's been a decent growth path. Granger Forson: Yeah, excellent. Nine years of growth and there with everything you're doing. you know, why do pick you and how do you delight them? Richard Hubble: They pick me and business, primarily because the local support. We have a lot of focus on ⁓ helping the clients really supporting them locally. That, I think, is the most important thing that they're looking for. But they also want really good quality websites that load quickly and are secure and safe in ⁓ cybersecurity conscious world. and that are really easy to edit and update and keep up to date. So those content, those concepts combined with the other related services that we offer is probably the reason pick But certainly I would say it's the local support that is the one that most people mention ⁓ most often. Granger Forson: so, tell me about one proud customer that you have, tell us about them. Richard Hubble: Well, okay, there's one that's just ⁓ sprung my mind now, because I've literally just seen the client, he was doing okay, I would say. He was about three and a half thousand hits on his website every month. He was getting inquiries via his website. been going for many years, 25, 30 years I think, if I remember rightly. But ⁓ he'd of lost contact with his web design partner. They sort of stepped away from the business and weren't really helping him at all. He felt he was probably leaving business on the table that he would otherwise have got had he had a more effective website. So we had a chat. He came into my office, we had a chat, ⁓ the end he agreed to go with me ⁓ ⁓ ⁓ a new website for him and went live. ⁓ And a year, he'd gone from sort three, three and a half thousand hits ⁓ every to about 12,000 hits a month, which was huge growth and now ⁓ to about... 15,000 hits every month on his website. he's getting inquiries literally day, two, three, four inquires every day on his website. So it's worked fantastically for him. And I'm proud of what we've managed to do for his business. And he says lovely about it, ⁓ to the where he even ⁓ invited me to his... his staff Christmas party because he felt that we were part of the team which was a lovely thing to happen and is the sort of relationship we try to build as much as we can obviously with our clients. Granger Forson: that's fantastic. Thank you so much for sharing that one. That was beautiful. let's about business. ⁓ How do you about generating leads? Richard Hubble: So for my business, it's obviously our website generates leads. You'd be surprised if I said anything else. But also I think the primary way we've generated new clients is through business networking. But also we've done a little bit marketing, I'd call it, as far as handing out, doing leaflet drops and brochures and stuff like that. and our business networking probably generates 60 % of all our new clients. And then the other big source of business is existing clients recommending us. So another 20 or so percent comes through existing client recommendations. And then the remaining 20%, as I said, comes from the website and a few other bits and bobs that we've been doing. We get a little bit because we're a main road in an office with obviously signage and things so people do see us that way as well. We've raised the profile ⁓ the business locally by doing that and investing in that office location. Granger Forson: Wow, and I mean 20 % referral from customers, mean that just is testament to how well they enjoy what they get successful from working with you. So that's absolutely brilliant. yeah. Yeah, yeah. ⁓ Richard Hubble: Yeah. Yeah, it's a good number. It is a good number. I'd always like more. I can always cope with more, mate. Granger Forson: what you aiming for in the next 12 months for the business and why? ⁓ Richard Hubble: My next target is to get to a magic number of 500 clients. it's going to take a couple of years to get to that, to be fair, from where we are at the moment. And I'll look to exit the business ⁓ and up most probably. Although might put a manager in and keep an investment in it, but I think that's probably my... likely plan. Granger Forson: Yeah, excellent. Exciting times ahead. So let's go on to act two, your journey to date. So you talked about nine years ago, you were sort coming out of the sort of corporate world and you were looking for something to do in the space. What was that initial thought or problem you were trying to resolve in the marketplace? Richard Hubble: I think I sort of touched on it earlier in that I felt that in particular for startups and small businesses, they need the help to get, you to have an effective online presence. It's so important now. You've got to have an effective online presence nowadays. Even if not generating inquiries directly, ⁓ is, you people you out online before they'll choose to work with you. And so you have to have that effective shop window, you like, digital shop window. And I had some around ⁓ services. And I first left college, I was doing graphic advertising and design. So ⁓ I had ⁓ skill set, I thought very transferable for this new market. ⁓ And so it's to be. Granger Forson: Excellent. So over the last nine years, there are highs and lows in every business. There are moments when the business just gets hard. So when did it get hard for you and what did you learn about yourself and your business? Richard Hubble: The hardest thing is hiring the right people. I'm many of your guests on your podcast have said a similar thing. It is to find the right people ⁓ and keep I had a couple of fantastic business development execs that I'd who then got hired away from me. And that's always really challenging because you've invested time and money bringing them up to a certain level of competence and they intrinsic parts of your business and then suddenly, they're wooed away by somebody who pays them £10,000 a year more than you can afford, example, is one exact example of happened. And so... ⁓ That is always, I think, the toughest, is getting the right people getting them on boarded and training them up without it distracting from your ⁓ working day is already full and then suddenly you're creating a bigger for you to bring somebody on board and train up and get them up to the speed. I think that's been the hardest part ⁓ of my journey. Many of my franchisees don't have staff. They just do it themselves. ⁓ And when they're if you like, if they're up to capacity, then that's where they stop. I'm ⁓ more ambitious that. want to grow this into a business that in effect runs without me. therefore you've got to at some point bite the bullet, take people on, train them up and get them working for you so that ⁓ have that flexibility of taking time off and still knowing the business is running without you. So that my choice and I'm glad was my choice most of the time. Occasionally not. Occasionally I think why have I this stick beating myself up with? ⁓ most of the time I'm happy I made that strategic decision fairly on in the business's life. Granger Forson: You I think people is always one of the biggest hurdles in all their guises and everything else that we have to do. I mean what's one habit that you've put in place within the business that brings the team together stronger? Richard Hubble: We have a weekly meeting, in fact we have one this morning. Every morning we have a couple of hours where we all get together and we review how last week's gone, we look at any challenges that have arisen, we do knowledge sharing ⁓ between the of team and then we plan out what we're going to do over the next seven days or five working days. ⁓ Although I end working every day, but anyway that's beside the point. Yeah, so that is that in itself, that weekly rhythm of team meetings, which rarely miss, except the odd holiday, obviously, or somebody's off ill. But mostly, it's very rare that we any of us miss it, because it is such a valuable check in, really, with everybody. And it's amazing how much you learn about so one guy. you know, this morning was talking about a particular client that he was doing a quarterly review for and another member of the team said, oh that's funny, I've just updated his website with this, this and this. And if we didn't have those team meetings, they would have been ploughing on in their own journey of doing their roles without realising the impact it was having on the other. And so I think that's really important. Granger Forson: Yeah. Richard Hubble: You don't get that sharing of knowledge any other way. Granger Forson: Yes, I agree, totally agree. don't know any other way that that would take place. So about your business over the last nine years, are there any decisions do think you've made that changed the trajectory of your business? Richard Hubble: on the additional know the social media the pay-per-click advertising, the search engine optimization, the other services, the complementary services around, it still means that the websites are the core of what we do and the primary focus of the business, but those additional services have helped the business in two ways. bit of additional revenue, lovely, helps to pay for the staff. But it's helped clients because it increases loyalty because they've got multiple services from us. It's not just a website provider. It's website provider, it's an email provider, it's a search engine optimization provider, it's a... social media marketing provider. So we're partnering with our clients in a much broader sense and I think that probably what changed the trajectory of my business for the better. And I didn't do that for the first three or four years because I was still, you know, learning the ropes and everything. once done that, I think we had a much more rounded business. Granger Forson: Yeah, fantastic. And everyone's talking about AI and using AI in businesses these days. So does AI genuinely save you ⁓ time and where is it still maybe a distraction? ⁓ Richard Hubble: We're a little bit an AI cynic a business. We don't use it much, which might be surprising to you bearing in mind the business we're in. But I quite I think, that we need to keep the creativity into what we do. And I'm not sure AI... ⁓ Granger Forson: Hmm. Richard Hubble: actually is that great at creativity because it tends to... You know when a poster for an event has been created via AI, it just kind of looks like all the other posters for all the other events that have been created by AI. you know when AI... Yeah. And when AI has written copy for a website, ⁓ there's always giveaways and you think, it's the same, they've just... Granger Forson: Yeah, it does average everything. Richard Hubble: I just want to hear a much more authentic tone voice from the client. we're writing it for them or they're writing it themselves, think individuality matters nowadays more than anything. Google in particular, for example, ranks websites have more original human content versus AI-generated content, for example. even though Google's got its own AI agent, which is hilarious, but it actually ranks websites that have less AI in them higher. it's trying to play both sides of ⁓ tracks, which is typical Google, but that's fine. ⁓ how come they're the biggest company in the world, but it's one of them. ⁓ But for me, in because we're working small local businesses or small, smaller local businesses. I want them to have their own voice. I want them to be original and, I said, authentic and genuine. And so I don't think AI really works ⁓ that context very well. So we're kind of resisting the maybe, but we're resisting it ⁓ for long as we can, we're resisting it. Granger Forson: Maybe, but... Yeah, I There's a really successful company in the UK, Games Workshop. model figures, and have said, we will never use AI to design the figures. We'll never use AI to write our stories and our copy. And they've banned it internally because of that because ⁓ it's all about and their product is about physically engagement and also ⁓ enjoying and painting and structuring So yeah, really interesting. about creative side definitely and and Richard Hubble: I don't think it's something that AI is particularly for. creative, No, I'm sure things will change, but at the moment we're resisting young rushing trend in that Granger Forson: Brilliant. a final question in this section. So you about your weekly meeting as a team. Is there anything else that you do to keep the business focused on doing the right things and remaining ⁓ healthy when it gets really busy? Richard Hubble: I use a business coach who helps me keeps me accountable. I think that's important. acts as a sounding board, which is important. You need that really, because staff, whilst they're valuable members of the team, don't have the same perspective and don't have that that you need. So find that quite helpful. But I'm long in there too, so I kind of know what works and what doesn't work. I'm, you know, I think that's the additional thing. I doing an increasing of bringing in training. ⁓ So for for my business development lady, I got some external sales training in for her to help round out her skills a bit and give her a different voice to listen to other than mine, which is never a bad thing I think. But yeah, I think that's probably the main thing. Granger Forson: Brilliant, love all those, fantastic. So let's move on to Act 3 now, our hurdle round. we've picked question ⁓ from listener today. So what's the that we're going to discuss? ⁓ Richard Hubble: So the question was, I know I'm the bottleneck and I keep jumping in to help, but it stops others from growing. How would I go about resolving this? And this question ⁓ resonated me because I often feel like I am not. I am despite my best efforts, I am still often the one that I know I'm the bottleneck and I keep jumping in to help, but it stops others from growing. How would I go about resolving this? I am still, despite my best efforts, I still the one that Granger Forson: Mmm. Richard Hubble: everyone comes to to say what about this, what about that, And it's tricky because there's a lot up here that I've tried to put into our operating policies and procedures, but I haven't put it all in for sure. So I have struggled with this as being the bottleneck and it is a constraint ⁓ on growth, everyone comes to to say what about this, what about that, what about this. And it's tricky because there's a lot up here that I've tried to put into our operating policies and procedures, documents, but I ⁓ put it all in there for sure. ⁓ So I have struggled with this as being the bottleneck and it a constraint ⁓ on honestly. Granger Forson: Mmm. Yeah. Yes, definitely, Okay. Richard Hubble: ⁓ which for me is an anathema. I want to stop. Granger Forson: Okay, let's start the beginning with any hurdle solving So what's happening today? What the facts on the ground do you think? And you've talked about that you've probably got some examples as well. let's talk through that. yeah, what's going on do we think in this business that's having this problem? Richard Hubble: Interesting, I mean all my team are under 25 or 25 or under. They're all really young. a young man or woman's, it's a young person's business in a lot of ways this digital marketing world, right? So I've kind of purposely hired younger people because they have an affinity with, the likes of Facebook and Instagram. TikTok and whatnot, which, with my advancing years, I don't necessarily share. None of my team members have ever known a world without the internet. Granger Forson: Yeah. So with this level of bringing younger people that have got this experience, what's happening today that would be causing you to be the bottleneck? Richard Hubble: or the mobile phone Facebook. ⁓ Well, great example, ⁓ one of team might come to me, fact, one of my team did come to me this very morning ⁓ and said, know, do I do And I realised that that particular task, which I know how to do, I hadn't passed on to anybody else. So I hadn't informed the others, the rest of the team on how to do it. Another one came to me and said, this client looks like they want another website. I don't know how to deal with that. Do come to you? And I said, no, no, go to my development manager. Instead, she can deal with it now. She knows how I've trained her on how to do that. So until had her trained up, I would have been the bottleneck there. At least now they've got two choices, right? They can come to her or me. ⁓ And then we can, and some of the things, some need to be controlled. You don't want... Granger Forson: Yeah. Yes, so there are natural bottlenecks, absolutely. You do need points, and it may have been your job previously, so yes. Richard Hubble: I don't necessarily want my support staff to be able to set a new ⁓ website on the admin system, for example, ⁓ because might some rules and policies around that that they won't be aware of, but which my business development manager and I obviously are. So there's things like that, where I look at each job and I think, how many of the team need to know this or should know this or could know this and benefit from it. So I think that is hopefully giving you a flavour of what I mean by being a bottleneck. Granger Forson: Okay, yep, so I definitely see that how that's showing up. So what you tried already? ⁓ Richard Hubble: Well, I have written policies and procedures, like an operating manual, where tried to download my brain and done a brain dump ⁓ on I do stuff, whatever stuff is, how I with whatever the task in hand is. But as I it's not comprehensive yet. Well, it probably will never be comprehensive because there'll be something that comes up that I hadn't thought about, which I'll then do. I don't really update it that often, honestly. I probably only updated it last when I brought ⁓ my latest employee. So have happened since then which ⁓ I updated. ⁓ Things that, really. Yeah. Granger Forson: Yeah. Absolutely. So there's always sort of written procedures which are available in the business but there's also then there's the sort of collective knowledge and know-how within the business which is often a lot bigger than just the process and procedures and we can't write everything down. So what Richard Hubble: Mm. Granger Forson: What do you think then is probably if you think you've got a fairly good set of procedures we can talk about that in a moment but let's think about the collective knowledge within the business, the tribal knowledge. What do you think is sort of holding that back in terms of development and growth within the team? Richard Hubble: So interestingly, in the team meeting this morning, something came up I didn't know. So of my support guys had ⁓ worked a way of doing something on one of his client websites that I wasn't even aware was possible, right? Which was really interesting. Every day's a day and all that. So that knowledge was then shared amongst everybody, so we all now know. how to do that particular little enhancement. whether it's... It's the classic, you don't know what you don't know, I think. So I think, you know, he may well know quite a few other things that hasn't come up in the conversation and the team meetings, which could be useful to us all, had it been brought to the fore as a learning from that week, whenever it happened. And maybe we need to formally, or more formally, Granger Forson: Yeah. Richard Hubble: put things I learnt this week section into weekly meeting maybe. I don't know. It might be a useful thing actually. Granger Forson: Definitely. think we that. have lessons learnt. Things we've learnt this week section within our ⁓ daily meeting ⁓ writing things around that. ⁓ But also, absolutely, to be written down. has to be written down. And like any good meetings, things should only be talked about in a meeting that have previously been written down. Richard Hubble: Yeah, because you could forget it after a week, you're right. Granger Forson: It is vital because you can capture that. mean there ways of capturing information and using it. AI is a great tool, unfortunately. Yeah, it's great for that. You can take all your procedures, can put in a proper set of environments so nobody else can get at it. And then you can use AI ⁓ and you can AI that it can't make anything up. And if it doesn't know the answers in there, it has to say the answer is not in here. But it can go and ⁓ Richard Hubble: to that. Granger Forson: look through huge amounts of information that you've written over the time and pull out specific answers that. So ⁓ can use AI to do that. ⁓ I ⁓ think though, we as business owners can be a big bottleneck because we actually answer all the questions that come through. And what I mean by that is if you always answer the question, then those individuals have never been challenged to grow. How did you get that answer? Because once upon a time, you didn't know. Richard Hubble: Yeah, and it's trial and error often, isn't it? certainly remember discovering about ⁓ checking domains, for example, to see if they're available. And just because you Google it doesn't mean it's available. If there's nothing comes up and things like that, might have been registered but just not in active use yet and things like that. Just little things that I just learned through default, really, by doing it. learning stuff, you ⁓ Granger Forson: Yes. Yes. And that's one of the biggest things around that sort of collective knowledge in the business. If everybody keeps coming to you and asking the question and you always give an answer they will always come to you and ask the question. actually if you can turn around and say okay how would you solve this problem? Yeah. And just ask them to go and solve it. Yeah. Now there's some critical ones that maybe you want to give us some advice on. Richard Hubble: Yeah, I probably don't do that at all. But certainly not enough. Yeah. Granger Forson: Absolutely. But building collective knowledge comes from collective knowledge. So everybody has to have that knowledge. It doesn't come from one person telling it, it comes from everyone experimenting and playing and learning and understanding. Richard Hubble: Yeah, good point, really good point. I don't really send them off. think I probably because I think, well, you know, we've only got so many hours in a day and I know the answer to this. So why don't I just tell them? you're right. Maybe they should discover some of the things at least maybe the less time critical things themselves. Yeah, it's good. Granger Forson: Yeah. other ⁓ should maybe be brought to a group discussion. So you have a weekly meeting you can say, Riley, I believe is in business, ⁓ so Riley, you asked me a question on Wednesday, last Wednesday, what was it? Yeah, he's now written that because knows he's gonna be asked in that meeting. And what did you find out? Richard Hubble: Mm-hmm. Granger Forson: So he's now collectively telling everybody around that. So everybody next time goes, ⁓ Riley might know how to solve this problem. Or actually, remember Riley talking about this. ⁓ because you don't say ⁓ said this and this was the answer, that's still you as the central point. ⁓ you're encouraging Riley to write that question down and then at the weekly meeting, ⁓ about that question, talk about the answer that he came up with, you're now starting to share more of that collective knowledge between everybody. Richard Hubble: Man. Yeah, nice. I like it. Granger Forson: So often we think we're the bottleneck. Actually, we have created the bottleneck and that's often what's actually happening in as business owners. think we're being quicker, but we're not because all we're doing is we're just piling the next question on the next question on the next question that people come to us rather than actually building ⁓ group of people that can solve problems. ⁓ know, why didn't Riley just go and solve that problem rather than actually come to you? ⁓ it might be quicker ⁓ but actually in the long run, ⁓ will constantly keep coming back and asking those questions. Richard Hubble: It is interesting. I've made them the team meeting occasionally when I'm not available. And that's been very interesting because the ⁓ actions come out of that meeting were just as good as if I had been there, typically. ⁓ Which good, you know. But it is interesting. Granger Forson: Brilliant. Fantastic, well done, well done. Yeah. for what we've ⁓ through, ⁓ ⁓ experiment do think you would do next week, you know, so we're giving this advice to our listener that wrote in with this problem, what experiment would you try and advise them to try in the next week that could start to resolve this issue? Richard Hubble: Well, I think you just said, I mean, you said two things which I thought was interesting. One was write down the questions before the meeting so you know what you're going to be considering. Because generally, whilst I have a section in it saying, you know, what happened, ⁓ what well, what went badly, blah, blah, what did you learn? We don't sort of have a process of... of capturing those in advance of the meeting, we capture them during the meeting and in an advanced type of thing is a good idea because it also gives you better clarity of thought. But also this idea of ⁓ effect sending them off to do something even if you know the answer and do their own research I think is something that I would certainly be looking to try and do a bit more of now because you're right, unless you let them grow... in their own knowledge and always going to keep asking you. That's certainly where I sort am at the moment. I am the Oracle and I don't really want to be an Oracle. Granger Forson: Fantastic. And what do you think if you started doing that, what type of outcome would you think you'd expect over the next few weeks? Richard Hubble: Well, I'd like to think that they'll be a bit more self-sufficient and a little bit more, little bit less, well, less dependent, clearly. And bit, maybe a bit more curious, bring bit more curiosity into their roles, which will make it more interesting for them, actually, which will make, hopefully, hopefully would mean that they'll... Granger Forson: Mmm. Richard Hubble: they'll be happier at work, which is a virtuous circle then. So that could be quite a big impact from a very small little change. Granger Forson: Beautiful. Love that. Yeah, fantastic. I really like that Richard, thank you. let's go to our close and wrap up now. So what's one thing you've heard yourself say today that surprised you? Richard Hubble: That's a really good question. thing that surprised me, I think... Probably. Through the conversation earlier, realizing how I was still really annoyed at having a member of staff, in fact two members of staff, get headhunted away from me, I haven't come to terms with either of those actually, even though was some years ago now. Because I did put a lot of effort and time and money into developing them, and why should some other... organisation get the benefit of that time and effort and money. So, that sort of surprised me. It is still annoying. Granger Forson: Richard, thank you so much for your honesty. Finally, can people get hold of you if they want to learn more about your journey and your business? Richard Hubble: course I'm online as you'd expect. So you search for It's Easy website ScosterShirt and you'll find my website. You're welcome to email me at richard.hubble.itseasy.com. It's easy as I-T-S-E-E-Z-E as per little banner above me. And you can me, I don't mind. ⁓ I'm generally available. mobile number is... 07901944465. Granger Forson: Awesome. Richard, thank you so much for a fantastic conversation today. Richard Hubble: Enjoyed it mate, well done, thank you.