Latest / The High Ground / Why Business Owners Waste 20% Of Their Ad Spend | ft. Jason Le

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Why Business Owners Waste 20% Of Their Ad Spend | ft. Jason Le · The High Ground

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  My guest today is Jason Le, founder and managing
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  director of JRNY Digital. He's managed more
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  than $40 million in ad spend over 200 businesses.
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  So if there's anybody that knows where that money
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  is quietly leaking, it's him. And he's been named
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  one of the top 50 small business leaders in the
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  country. He built his agency on one idea, be
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  accountable to revenue, not vanity metrics. Over
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  90 % of people watching the podcast right now
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  aren't actually subscribed. And we release conversations
• 0:27
  like this every single week. So make sure you
• 0:29
  hit that subscribe button down below. All right.
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  Welcome to the podcast. Thanks for having me.
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  Thank you for coming on. So you've managed over
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  $40 million in ad spend. So I want to cut straight
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  into it. What do you see people spend the most
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  on and where is that money leaking? Yeah, that's
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  a really good question. It's probably more than
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  that now. I just use that number because... It's
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  a ballpark. Yeah, I mean, a couple of years ago,
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  I counted it and I was like, oh, it's $40 million.
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  And ever since then, I haven't really counted.
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  But I just keep using that number. It's probably
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  more than that. Where most businesses are probably
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  leaking that budget, it's a variety of different
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  things. I think that there's probably two kind
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  of like opposite ends of the spectrum. You've
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  got people who absolutely like torch the money
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  and just like have no idea what's happening with
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  it. And you've got really aggressive business
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  owners that have built really large businesses.
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  And then you jump into the ad account and you
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  realize there's like... hundreds of thousands
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  of dollars of wasted spend here. And you know,
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  the Pareto principle of like 80 -20. It's pretty
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  much always the case when it comes to a lot of
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  these ad accounts. So there's like 20 % of the
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  ads that are actually producing a lot of the
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  effort. And then there's like so much wastage
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  to the point where you could pretty much almost
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  just cut 20 or 30 % of the budget and still get
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  the same result. And then the other end of the
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  spectrum where a lot of business owners actually,
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  it's like bleeding. money very slowly. They didn't
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  even realize it. So a lot of businesses, they
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  might spend a little bit, but they might spend
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  a little bit here. I might spend a little bit
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  there. It doesn't work. They cut it. So they
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  don't give ads enough time to actually work.
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  There's no methodology or system. So essentially
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  what happens is like... You either get, again,
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  two opposite ends of the spectrum, one person
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  who doesn't know what the hell they're doing.
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  So they cut things really quickly. They don't
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  give things enough time to work. And then the
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  other one that's seen success and they're not
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  even tracking the numbers. They just like throw
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  money out there, just go crazy. So what's the
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  most kind of expensive mistake that you see businesses
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  make? Is it just like throwing money towards
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  ads or? It's actually crazy. Attribution, it's
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  such a fancy word, but basically it's like, do
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  you actually know where your actual sales are
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  coming from? Whether it's e -com or it's a service
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  -based business owner or whatever it is, like
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  high -ticket lead generation, a lot of business
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  owners genuinely don't know where their sales
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  are coming from, from what has actually helped
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  the sales process. I'll give you a really good
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  example. We had a brand recently that... grew
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  from 5 mil to 10 mil. I did a LinkedIn post about
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  it. And I literally sat down with the business
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  owner. He had been operating for 15 years or
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  so. He's gotten to $5 million in turnover. And
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  we started running Facebook ads for them. And
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  in a nine -month period, they went from 5 mil
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  to 10 mil, which is crazy. It's insane. Now,
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  the attribution side of things is, can you pinpoint
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  what actually drove the sales and helped the
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  entire? customer journey. And a lot of business
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  owners usually make the wrong decision. So they
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  come to the wrong conclusion by looking at the
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  platforms or they look at their reporting dashboard
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  and they draw the wrong conclusion and they make
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  the wrong decision, which is they cut what worked
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  for them. So in this case, this business owner
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  actually cut the Facebook ads, said that, oh,
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  doesn't think that it's working. But it was the
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  only channel that was introduced when we came
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  on board. So it was like... We took over the
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  Google ads, kept that going, optimized it, but
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  we introduced one additional channel, independent
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  variable, business growth from 5 mil to 10 mil.
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  It's no coincidence. And they cut the channel.
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  And it was like we kept going back and forth,
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  and I'm like, you're making a really big mistake
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  here because it's so clear to me that this channel
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  is obviously working. And in this case, the business
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  owner, like. again, drew the wrong conclusion
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  and decided to cut the channel. So you generally
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  find that on varying levels of like intensity
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  with every business that I see. So it's like,
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  they might think that an ad is doing more than
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  it actually is, or they might be spending more
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  on Google and it's not even doing anything. It
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  might be spending on branded ads on Google and
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  they're like, oh, it's giving me like a 20 times
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  return. It's like, I'm pretty sure if you just
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  paused it, your revenue would stay the same.
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  You'd actually get back that in. profitability.
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  So it's the wrong decision -making based off
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  of the data, interpreting it. Yeah. And I think
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  this comes down to having data -driven decisions.
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  Something we see a lot is they will make decisions
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  based on opinions and opinions are subjective.
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  I can say, that website looks great and somebody
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  else can say, oh, it looks horrible. It's really
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  hard to navigate. So you need to... be utilizing
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  that correct data to make those decisions. And
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  then that's how you're just going to compound
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  it. Yeah, yeah. It's interesting. Like one thing
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  I really push my team and I get a lot of business
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  owners in the conversations and I'll ask them
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  the one thing. It's like, is that a fact or an
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  opinion? Yeah. And I really keep trying to like
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  go back to that. And you'll hear it a lot of
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  times where business owners are like, oh. the
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  ads suck right now, or they'll say all the leads
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  are crap. They'll make generalizations. And it's
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  like, well, is that a factor of opinion? Let's
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  break down why exactly it is. And we'll go into
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  it and we'll look at, we generate 100 leads.
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  It's like, well, of those leads, how many were
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  qualified? Oh, half of them were qualified. Oh,
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  so they're not all bad. And then why didn't they
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  progress? Oh, our sales guy got back to them
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  after four days. It's like, so are all the leads
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  bad? And then... Essentially what you just find
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  is like these general statements of like opinions.
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  Yes. That are cast upon the entire marketing,
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  then have like a second order consequence of
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  like a decision being made to drastically change
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  the marketing strategy. And then it employs everything.
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  Yeah. Yeah. Simon, who came on, he runs CMO,
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  actually had a really good analogy about. this.
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  And he said that it's almost like you go to a
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  mechanic and you say, there's something wrong
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  with my car. But you don't know what's actually
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  wrong. So that's why you go to the expert so
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  that they can diagnose what's actually wrong.
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  And the same is with marketing. You might say,
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  oh, I need more leads. But do you actually need
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  more leads? Is your sales process broken there?
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  How is that? actually work. You need to kind
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  of look at the whole picture. It's not just a
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  case of, oh, I need more leads. So just chuck
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  two grand at Facebook and your demographic isn't
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  even there. Yeah. I think that it probably comes
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  from a place of just not being educated enough
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  in terms of what levers you can pull to increase
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  your revenue. So for example, it's very common
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  in small businesses where the instant thought
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  is i need more leads or more sales or something
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  like that they they rarely think about throughput
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  in your funnel so the way that i think about
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  it is like every funnel has several stages whether
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  that's traffic whether that's like just eyeballs
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  on your ads and your website etc then there's
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  conversion which is like you know the amount
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  of people that go to your website and then fill
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  in a form that's like your conversion rate yeah
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  and then then after that it's like your sales
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  AOV and lifetime value. And leads is just one
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  way to look at it. You can have more throughput
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  through just changing your offer or tweaking
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  your landing page to increase the number of people
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  that go through. And too many people probably
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  default to spending more money on traffic or
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  generating more leads and not enough look at
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  throughput in terms of conversion rate. And what
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  I always really push is like, Landing page conversion
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  rate is probably one of the biggest levers to
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  pull and it's the cheapest. Yeah. You literally
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  change one headline and it changes your conversion
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  rate from 5 % to 10%. You literally double the
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  throughput of the traffic into leads. So you
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  double your lead volume by changing one thing.
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  Yeah. Rather than spend $5 ,000 a month extra
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  on ads. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, too many business
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  owners really just default to more leads. It's
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  like, you might not even have a lead issue. Actually,
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  like controversial opinion, most small business
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  owners don't actually need more leads. No. Because
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  most small businesses don't have the infrastructure
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  to deal with more lead volume. And I found this
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  really common pattern where we would generate
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  too many leads for a business and their sales
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  would go down because they're... receptionist
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  or the business owner who would take the cause
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  wouldn't have enough time to nurture the leads
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  that they would get. So then all the deals would
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  get lost because it's like, you know, instead
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  of nurturing that one deal that you would normally
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  do, they'd have too many to deal with. Yeah.
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  And then they deal with none. Yeah. Yeah. I seen
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  something you posted on LinkedIn the other day
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  and you said about ad creatives and if it's not
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  working within a week, then, you know, pretty
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  much like, you know. It's not working, so let's
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  scrap it. Yeah. Can we talk a bit more like into
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  that? Yeah, yeah. So I think a lot of people
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  will misunderstand probably what I'm saying there,
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  but there's a process and methodology towards
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  it. So the way that we test creatives is really
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  segmenting the message based on an angle. An
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  angle, a concept, or whatever word you want to
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  use, there's a distinct like. or specific message
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  you're going after. There's a rule that I use,
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  which is like the rule of one, which is every
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  single ad should be talking to one archetype
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  or one type of customer, one message, one call
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  to action. So with businesses in general, what
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  they usually do is like they'll have 20 different
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  features on their business, 20 years in business,
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  premium, all Australian team, I don't know, just
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  whatever these features are, and they'll just
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  add. all of these different things into the one
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  ad. And then they were like, oh, it didn't work.
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  It's like, well, yeah, because you're saying
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  too many different things to too many different
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  people. One person doesn't care about the 20
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  years in business. They care about the outcome
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  or maybe somebody does, right? There's so many
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  reasons why an ad can work or fail. And not enough
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  business owners kind of look at it in a scientific
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  way where you've got independent variables. And
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  you want to look at, does this message actually
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  resonate more than a different message? So what
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  I usually recommend in the way that we test things
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  is figure out one core thing about your business
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  you want to talk about. Let's just say in this
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  case, it's the 20 years experience, even though
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  I don't really think that that really matters.
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  But 20 years, let's just go with that. Your ad
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  should be focused purely on that alone. Because
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  you then group the message in this core angle,
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  you launch it. Then after like a week of testing,
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  you can see if it works or not and if it's resonating.
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  And if that core message does not resonate, you
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  cut it and then you need to change the message
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  entirely. So not enough people cut ads fast enough.
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  Like we audited a brand and they literally ran
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  three ads for an entire year. like $100 ,000,
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  which is insane. And all the ads sounded the
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  same. They literally said the same things. So
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  what I really recommend is you need to group
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  your messages in the rule of one and be very
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  clear in what the ad is talking about so that
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  you can cut it if it's not working. Because you
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  know that that angle, that key concept or feature
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  you're going after is not hitting. And through
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  that process, you will eventually through the
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  process of elimination, get to the main thing
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  that people care about, the pain point or desire
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  or whatever it is. Yeah, yeah. Cool. So with
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  the ad creative, how often would you recommend
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  for like if there's a listener that's watching
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  and they're maybe managing their ads on their
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  own at the moment, how often would you change
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  that ad creative or what would you look at to
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  show that it's failing or it's producing? It's
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  a really great question. There's actually a bit
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  of like a mathematical equation towards it. And
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  the thing to keep in mind is that your ads need
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  to pay for itself to be profitable. Generally
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  speaking, I'm talking like to 99 % of small business
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  owners out there. And the way to reverse engineer
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  it is figure out what profit margin you need
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  to hit in the first place and what your AOV is,
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  et cetera. Let's just say. I'm going to be very
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  terrible and do the napkin math in my head, is
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  to say it's like your price point is $100 and
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  you want to hit a 30 % profit margin. And then
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  you've got overheads and everything else that
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  is into the mix. There's only this buffer that
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  you can allocate profitably to your ads. It might
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  be $20 or $30 in which like if you don't get
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  a sale within $30, you're probably eating into
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  break -even or unprofitable territory. So you
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  know that like there should be a KPI or a number
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  that you've literally like identified as if the
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  ads do not hit these benchmarks, it is not sufficient
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  enough to continue running. Yeah. So let's just
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  say in this case, you figure out you need to
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  get sales or leads at $30. Yeah. Because, you
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  know, sales is a bit easier to think about, but
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  lead generation, it's like, it's a little bit
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  more complicated because. You might generate
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  five leads and close one. So, okay, if it's cost
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  per lead of like $20, $100 is one customer. Yeah.
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  Right? So, you need to figure out what your breakeven
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  cost of your acquisition is. And then what I
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  like to do is whatever the breakeven number is,
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  you add at least two to three X of buffer in
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  terms of spend. Yeah. It sounds a bit complicated.
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  Basically, what I'm trying to say is if you determine
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  $50 is like your cost per lead. threshold or
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  your sale threshold, you can spend $100 or $150
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  on that ad before you need to cut it. So you
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  need to give the ad enough to basically determine
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  it's a bad ad. Because sometimes you just get
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  these weird things where you won't get a sale
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  for a while and then you'll get one or two and
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  then all of a sudden it's a great ad. But at
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  the same time, you need to be quick. Even though
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  there's probably not as much statistical significance
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  of like, oh, it probably needs $1 ,000 or $2
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  ,000 or some arbitrary number, right? It doesn't
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  really matter because if the ad doesn't hit your
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  number, it's not profitable. And you need to
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  be quick enough. If you're running a business
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  and like your average order value is like $10
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  ,000 or $50 ,000 for like a customer, you have
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  a bigger threshold to play with, right? And this
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  matters when there's like lifetime value comes
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  into the equation. And it then changes your growth
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  strategy of like, oh, we can acquire customers
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  at a loss here because we would. They stay for
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  two years or three years. So I can outbid every
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  customer. I can spend $1 ,000 a lead. So this
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  is where the strategy really changes and really
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  informs how you win the deals. But in short...
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  You need to know your numbers. You need to know
• 15:48
  what profitability targets you want to hit. Then
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  that informs the maximum cost that you need to
• 15:53
  hit in your marketing. Then that informs your
• 15:56
  decision -making day -to -day. The break -even
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  point of each ad needs to be determined, and
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  anything that hits excess of that, you cut, and
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  then you put that budget into something else,
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  retest, and find the ads that do hit the actual
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  metrics and continue on that. Have you worked
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  with B2B clients before? In terms of ad creatives,
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  have you seen some winning kind of formats? Yeah,
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  so B2B is so boring. I think it's like we're
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  a B2B company, right? And if you look at who
• 16:34
  does B2B really badly, you want to look at all
• 16:37
  the software companies out there because it's
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  very interesting how they... go about their marketing.
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  It's usually just like a static ad, a stock image
• 16:45
  of like, you know, two people high -fiving in
• 16:48
  a boardroom and then being like, you know. Yeah,
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  it's not very personal. Yeah, it's like talking
• 16:54
  to an entity. You're like, I don't really care.
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  Yeah. And what's working really well is like
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  native relatable content. So I think what more
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  people in B2B need to do is start thinking about
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  like, you're marketing as if you're talking to
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  one person. Yes. And that was the biggest thing
• 17:13
  that really changed my mindset around marketing
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  in that you're not talking to 100 people or your
• 17:18
  core demographic. You're talking to one person.
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  And how would you talk to that person? You'd
• 17:23
  have a conversation. You'd be speaking to them
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  about the things that they would care about or
• 17:28
  you care about, and you would attract that customer.
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  And time and time again, I've spoken to so many
• 17:33
  of these founders of these large... B2B companies,
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  whether it's like software or like finance or
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  whatever, it doesn't really matter. The founder
• 17:41
  would sit across me and say, how do we let our
• 17:44
  clients know that this is what we do? And they'll
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  say all these things about the business and explain
• 17:48
  it to me the way they would normally do. And
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  I'd be like, you explain it exactly the way you
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  just told me. You don't filter it. You don't
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  put a really cool image on it. You say it exactly
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  the way you just told me in a one -on -one conversation
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  and film that. And have the founder literally
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  just saying, this is why we're special. And this
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  is why we started the company. And these are
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  the things that we care about. And the reason
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  why the other companies aren't as good is because
• 18:15
  we saw that issue that they were doing and then
• 18:18
  we did something else to overcome that. Like
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  the story, the things that you talk about in
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  a one -on -one conversation are like the special
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  golden nuggets that should lead the marketing
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  and then be having a bit of personality towards
• 18:31
  that. Personality is like the biggest thing behind
• 18:35
  any brand. People buy from people. They don't
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  buy from businesses. Yeah. They have that personal
• 18:40
  connection. It's like, oh, you know, I'm supporting
• 18:43
  Jason. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not, yeah. Yeah,
• 18:46
  like before this we were talking about Kinso.
• 18:48
  Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And if you really break
• 18:51
  it down. The reason why it's working so well
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  is the relatability or the personality towards
• 18:57
  people. It's not hiding behind some static image
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  and being like, we increase the efficiencies
• 19:05
  and output of B2B companies and everything all
• 19:09
  in one place. That's basically the same tagline
• 19:11
  for every software company out there. Whereas...
• 19:15
  They've personalized it. It's like I'm a founder
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  and I had this issue where I had seven different
• 19:20
  platforms talking to each other and I lost all,
• 19:24
  you know, like context of all my conversations.
• 19:27
  It'd be awesome if there was one place where
• 19:29
  I could actually solve that. So I built Kinso.
• 19:31
  That's like the founder and kind of talk about
• 19:34
  why he built it. That exact message is the same
• 19:37
  way every other founder should be like leading
• 19:42
  their market. Like the founder story or the specific
• 19:45
  challenges and problems that they're trying to
• 19:48
  solve are like the best nuggets that should be
• 19:51
  put in your marketing. Like stories are so powerful
• 19:54
  and I don't think enough B2B companies really
• 19:58
  go down that route. Yeah. You have that relatability.
• 20:01
  It's easy for you to understand what, you know,
• 20:05
  I say, hey, I went through this myself. created
• 20:09
  this because I was seeing this. Now I'm here,
• 20:13
  X, and this is what it's done. You know, those
• 20:16
  people would be like, oh my God, I have that
• 20:18
  same problem. You know, I want to be more efficient
• 20:22
  or I want to not have to go from Facebook ads
• 20:25
  to Google ads to, you know, trying to work out
• 20:29
  meta is like a pain in itself. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 20:32
  Bringing that all in together. It's like, oh
• 20:34
  my God, you know, I need to try this. Yeah, yeah.
• 20:37
  I think that, Especially in B2B, I think it's
• 20:41
  really interesting coming from like a marketing
• 20:43
  perspective is like how do you differentiate
• 20:46
  between every other competitor when every other
• 20:49
  competitor says they're the best? This is so
• 20:51
  funny. We just did a podcast on this. Yeah, I'd
• 20:56
  be keen to hear like what the outcome of that
• 20:58
  was. But like in my mind. Even if you are the
• 21:02
  best, even if you're like 20 % or 30 % better
• 21:05
  than the other person, because everyone's stating
• 21:08
  they're the best, you basically just drown in
• 21:10
  the sea of noise. And it really takes somebody,
• 21:14
  I mean, it's an arbitrary number, but someone
• 21:16
  said like 10 times, like 10x. You really have
• 21:18
  to be so substantially better than the next person
• 21:21
  to really claim that. But it's not even like
• 21:24
  your service or your product. It's like comes
• 21:26
  down to like customer experience and really.
• 21:30
  Understanding, stepping into that customer perspective
• 21:32
  and going, you know, how would I want to be treated
• 21:35
  if I came to my business and working at that
• 21:37
  kind of way. Yeah. Yeah. I think that the way
• 21:41
  that I kind of think about. and how a lot of
• 21:44
  businesses should go about it is you're never
• 21:47
  really playing a fair fight. Like if you think
• 21:49
  about small businesses versus, you know, the
• 21:52
  S &P 500 or just these massive corporations with
• 21:55
  massive budgets, you can't outspend them. You
• 21:58
  can't go after the same features that they are.
• 22:01
  So you have to fight it differently and you have
• 22:03
  to, instead of going up the mountain, you know,
• 22:06
  just... use a different route. And the different
• 22:08
  route is a different message. It's a story. It's
• 22:11
  a different angle. You don't really want to be
• 22:13
  competing on best because you want to be competing
• 22:17
  on different. And I think that different is easier
• 22:20
  to utilize as a marketing strategy to grow because
• 22:26
  it doesn't require more budget. in my mind. The
• 22:30
  way to be different is just a story. I think
• 22:32
  that's like the cheapest thing you could do.
• 22:33
  Yeah, I would agree. When you go to a company,
• 22:36
  this is one thing that we said in the podcast,
• 22:38
  you know, when you go to a company and you're
• 22:40
  like, oh, we'll give you a great service. Like
• 22:42
  they already expect a great service. That shouldn't
• 22:45
  be something that makes you different from the
• 22:47
  next person. You should be constantly giving
• 22:50
  a great service and, you know, expanding on that.
• 22:53
  Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's really interesting.
• 22:56
  It's just like, How I started the business and
• 22:59
  how I really got traction was through the story
• 23:02
  of why we started, right? For those that don't
• 23:05
  know, not to talk about myself too much, but
• 23:07
  in COVID, I was let go from my previous role
• 23:11
  at an agency. And my dad, like many other business
• 23:15
  owners, was struggling because of COVID. They
• 23:16
  were losing customers. And at the time, my dad
• 23:18
  was like the breadwinner for our entire family.
• 23:21
  And I was like, okay, well, like... If he doesn't
• 23:23
  get work, we're probably in some trouble here,
• 23:25
  right? So I essentially took over his marketing,
• 23:30
  built him a website, landing page, ads, launched
• 23:34
  it all, ran it through my own like advertising
• 23:36
  spend, generated him like $20 ,000 within a couple
• 23:39
  of weeks. And he comes over to me and says, look,
• 23:41
  I don't know what you did, but like keep doing
• 23:42
  it because it's like it's working. I was like,
• 23:44
  okay, sick. And word got out and I was just helping
• 23:47
  other people like friends and family. And I was
• 23:49
  like, wow, like. I didn't really intend on building
• 23:52
  a marketing agency, even though I worked at one.
• 23:54
  But I was like, I've got a bit of an obligation
• 23:55
  here. Like there are so many business owners
• 23:57
  that need the help. Yeah. And I really want to
• 24:00
  partner with businesses on their journey. And
• 24:02
  I was like, I really love that word, journey,
• 24:04
  journey. Anyway, start the company and trying
• 24:06
  to figure out names. I couldn't get the rights
• 24:09
  to the word journey. So because somebody else
• 24:12
  in New Zealand already had the word. So I was
• 24:14
  like, God. God dang it, I can't get it. So I
• 24:17
  just kept removing vowels from the word. And
• 24:20
  I was like, oh, journey without a O and a U.
• 24:23
  And then eventually got to J -R -N -Y, digital.
• 24:26
  And I was like, oh, journey. And that's how the
• 24:29
  origin of the business came to be in the name
• 24:31
  in that I wanted to help business owners like
• 24:34
  my dad and partner with them long term and really
• 24:36
  get a return from their marketing. And then that
• 24:40
  informs everything in my business, like the core
• 24:43
  values and the things that we talk about. So
• 24:45
  one thing, for example, is like, because the
• 24:48
  origin of the story that we've articulated and
• 24:51
  my wife was starting it, I've identified that
• 24:54
  we don't do anything that doesn't directly correlate
• 24:57
  with like getting more money back for the business.
• 25:00
  So we don't usually. Not usually, we don't sell
• 25:05
  services that don't actually grow the bottom
• 25:07
  line. So there's been a lot of people that have
• 25:09
  come to me and said, oh, why don't you explore
• 25:11
  this type of avenue and that? It's like, well,
• 25:12
  if you look at the story and why we started,
• 25:14
  it doesn't align. And then that is in its own
• 25:18
  a superpower for our marketing because we don't
• 25:20
  do anything that doesn't get a return for the
• 25:23
  business owner. So I've used that story alone.
• 25:27
  And I've very rarely talked about the features
• 25:30
  and benefits of my company as the leading message.
• 25:33
  It's been more about the origin of the story
• 25:35
  and where it comes from. And yes, there's case
• 25:37
  studies and stuff to back it up. But I think
• 25:40
  more people need to realize that emotion is what
• 25:44
  drives marketing first and then the logic on
• 25:48
  the back end to justify it. Yeah, that's how
• 25:50
  any purchase will go. It'll always be emotional
• 25:53
  and then they will always back it up with logic.
• 25:56
  You said it perfect. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think
• 25:58
  too many people do the opposite. They try to
• 26:01
  be too logical. Yeah. And it's very hard to out
• 26:05
  -logic somebody. to taking out their wallet and
• 26:08
  then spending $50 ,000. Yeah, especially if it's
• 26:11
  a high consideration purchase. They've got to
• 26:14
  go usually, for example, if it's a home, there's
• 26:17
  two people. So if that one person's contacting
• 26:19
  you, they've got to go back and talk to their
• 26:22
  partner and then they have to justify spending
• 26:25
  $50 ,000. And there's a lot of variables there.
• 26:29
  And when someone's coming through as a lead,
• 26:32
  they might not. convert with you straight away
• 26:35
  so that's where you need to nurture because they
• 26:37
  might go to your instagram then go to your website
• 26:40
  then contact you then maybe ghost you for a bit
• 26:43
  and then they come back three months later once
• 26:45
  they've you know decided that they might have
• 26:47
  enough money or they're ready to take the the
• 26:51
  um ready to take the the bit yeah yeah yeah no
• 26:55
  100 and that's exactly it it's like You know,
• 26:59
  I remember listening to like some sort of podcast.
• 27:01
  It was maybe Alex Hormozy or something. I don't
• 27:03
  know. It was like a really old one, but it was
• 27:04
  talking about value. Yeah. In that, you know,
• 27:07
  if the person really saw the value and it was
• 27:10
  so clear and emotionally they were like so compelled,
• 27:14
  it didn't matter if they didn't have the money
• 27:16
  or not. They would find a way. Yeah. If they
• 27:18
  knew that, you know, if they spent this $10 ,000,
• 27:22
  but it was going to make them a million dollars
• 27:24
  and they were so compelled and it's like this
• 27:25
  is the answer. Even if they had $0, they'd probably
• 27:29
  borrow, they'd beg, they'd do whatever they could
• 27:32
  to get that $10 ,000 to move forward. And I think
• 27:36
  that that's the same way I think about things.
• 27:39
  Not that you want to be promising like $10 million
• 27:42
  in return for every client or something like
• 27:44
  that. But you really do need to be understanding
• 27:47
  that it's all emotion. It's about conviction.
• 27:50
  Does the person that you're trying to like...
• 27:52
  closed as a deal or just like market to are they
• 27:55
  convinced are they are they moved emotionally
• 27:58
  do they believe in what you're trying to sell
• 28:00
  and um too many people just have blanket statements
• 28:04
  like oh we're the most trustworthy agency or
• 28:06
  business in australia it's like yeah but like
• 28:09
  a hundred other companies say the same thing
• 28:10
  yeah you just end up in a sea of sameness yeah
• 28:13
  and there's no differentiation there there's
• 28:15
  no why like even when we first bring partners
• 28:19
  on and you know we Really look at the starting
• 28:23
  stuff. So that's going back to like your vision,
• 28:25
  mission, core values. I was saying in my last
• 28:28
  podcast today, a lot of companies don't even
• 28:30
  have, you know, the basics laid out. So it's
• 28:34
  really laying that out. Why did you start? Like
• 28:36
  your journey is to where you are now is, you
• 28:41
  know, amazing. And people are like, wow, wow.
• 28:44
  Like he actually has, you know, a why. He has
• 28:47
  a purpose to what he does. So it makes people
• 28:50
  more engaged with you. Yeah, that's exactly it.
• 28:53
  Like I remember I paid an absorbent amount of
• 28:56
  money for this mentor and that was the takeaway
• 28:58
  of it. Like, oh man, I probably spent like way
• 29:01
  more money than I should have. But the takeaway
• 29:03
  was even though people think it's not that important,
• 29:07
  the mission, vision, core values, because it
• 29:09
  sounds very wishy -washy to the everyday business
• 29:11
  and you're like, I don't have time to think about
• 29:13
  that. But I think what a lot of businesses fail
• 29:16
  to realize, it should inform. Every area of your
• 29:20
  business. It informs the products and services
• 29:23
  you offer. It even informs the people you hire
• 29:25
  and the standards you create. And the best analogy
• 29:29
  someone gave me was like, like Elon Musk, love
• 29:32
  him or hate him, whatever. I don't really want
• 29:34
  to get into that. But like for him, his mission
• 29:37
  is so grandiose and massive that like, it's so
• 29:41
  clear. If you want to work for him, we're trying
• 29:43
  to change the world. We're trying to go to the
• 29:45
  moon or go to Mars or whatever it is. He's made
• 29:48
  it so clear in his culture and his vision that
• 29:51
  we're doing some extreme things here. Does he
• 29:53
  want to find a remote worker who only does six
• 29:57
  hours a day that clocks off and lives in the
• 30:01
  Bahamas. He's like, no, I want the obsessed,
• 30:03
  the crazy, the most talented individual that
• 30:07
  just wants to create some amazing things. That
• 30:10
  actually, the core value itself informs every
• 30:13
  decision in the business. So how you market,
• 30:16
  the message, the people you attract and by, you
• 30:21
  know, Saying no to a lot of these things, you
• 30:23
  then detract people away from you and then you
• 30:25
  attract the right person. Yeah. So in and of
• 30:27
  itself, it allows you to niche and really cut
• 30:29
  through the market. Yeah. Yeah. And helps you
• 30:32
  to attract those high value. customers that you
• 30:36
  know align with you that have a similar vision
• 30:38
  or you know have the same core values it's not
• 30:40
  even just who you hire in the business it's the
• 30:43
  clients that you attract to you as well yeah
• 30:46
  like even those foundational stuff it's like
• 30:48
  it's such a must and usually like you know when
• 30:51
  you're a small business you start business because
• 30:53
  you love what you do and you you want to do it
• 30:55
  yourself or you know you found a pain point that
• 30:58
  maybe you've seen that you want to do differently
• 31:01
  and you know, you're not really thinking about
• 31:04
  all that sort of stuff. It's kind of just firstly,
• 31:06
  just making money so that you can take it to,
• 31:09
  you know, do it as your own business. But once
• 31:11
  you get to that kind of like one to one and a
• 31:13
  half mil, you really need to be thinking about
• 31:16
  that and systemizing things so that you can take
• 31:19
  it to that, you know, 3 million, 5 million, 10
• 31:22
  million area. Yeah. Cause it's like, you know,
• 31:24
  how do you. Especially in service, it's like
• 31:28
  you need to kind of clone yourself or clone systems
• 31:31
  and the personality traits and everything. And
• 31:33
  it's very hard to do that. Like, for example,
• 31:36
  I actually spoke to a business owner recently
• 31:38
  and his thing to me was that I've hired 10 people
• 31:41
  for the same role and they've all been really
• 31:44
  bad. And I was like, look, after like the first
• 31:47
  few, you'd probably start to look inward and
• 31:49
  be like, why are you hiring all these people?
• 31:51
  And it just came down to the fact that he never
• 31:52
  actually articulated why. his company was trying
• 31:56
  to do, the core values and who was trying to
• 31:58
  attract. He was just hiring like mercenaries
• 32:00
  that just had random skills that he thought were
• 32:03
  viable for his company. But it's like, you're
• 32:05
  not really bringing on board people long -term
• 32:07
  that could fit this company, the culture, the
• 32:10
  ethos. So again, it's like for a lot of business
• 32:14
  owners, it seems like something that's not important
• 32:16
  because... I understand it's more like you don't
• 32:19
  see the issue straight away. You see it later
• 32:21
  on. Yeah. The way I think about it is like if
• 32:25
  you articulate that, then it's so easy to craft
• 32:28
  your story and your message. Yeah. That then
• 32:30
  allows you to stand out because every big company
• 32:34
  out there has the same core values. We're an
• 32:37
  all -inclusive company that's trying to change
• 32:40
  the world. It's like everyone's trying to change
• 32:42
  the world and no one's trying to change the world.
• 32:43
  Yeah. What makes you different? Yeah. to everybody
• 32:46
  else? What makes you stand out? Yeah. What makes
• 32:49
  you more compelling than everybody else? Yeah.
• 32:51
  I love the, there was one, it's a local restaurant
• 32:53
  here, Norman Hotel. And I think one of their
• 32:55
  billboards was like, we're the worst vegetarian.
• 32:58
  Yeah. Yeah. I was like, oh, brilliant. Like,
• 33:00
  you know, you're not, you're not saying you're
• 33:02
  the best steakhouse. Yeah. Because everybody
• 33:04
  says that, but they're the worst. vegetarian
• 33:06
  restaurant yeah yeah it's kind of smart so and
• 33:09
  then it makes you think and then it's like oh
• 33:10
  because your steak yeah yeah and we're not for
• 33:13
  vegetarians yeah you know what i mean we're the
• 33:15
  we're the opposite of that detract we don't want
• 33:18
  those people we want people that absolutely love
• 33:21
  steaks yeah and stuff yeah speaking on billboards
• 33:24
  what's your thoughts on billboards yeah billboards
• 33:27
  um i think so many more people There's so much
• 33:31
  wastage in billboards for varying reasons. I
• 33:35
  think a lot more business owners in general have
• 33:38
  been taught to be clever but not clear. So I
• 33:41
  think over time, and I come from a bit of a direct
• 33:45
  response marketing background, so I was a bit
• 33:48
  of a nerd. I used to read like magazines and
• 33:49
  newsletters from like Eugene Swartz and like,
• 33:52
  you know, these really old marketing guys in
• 33:56
  like the 30s and 40s. And back in the day it
• 33:59
  was very like, direct, you know, advertising,
• 34:03
  you know, clear value proposition, get attention,
• 34:06
  but explain exactly what you do and why. And
• 34:09
  then you kind of get sales off of that. And I
• 34:12
  think over time, marketing started to get really
• 34:15
  clever, like really cool ideas. And then people
• 34:19
  started trying to one up each other and get more
• 34:21
  creative, even more and more creative to the
• 34:25
  point where now Some billboard ads are so clever
• 34:28
  and everyone praises it. So what you'll find,
• 34:31
  not even just billboards but social media videos,
• 34:34
  you'll find it a lot where there's like these
• 34:37
  really quirky videos online where there's like
• 34:39
  a transitional video or something like that or
• 34:41
  like there was this trend back in the day where
• 34:44
  there was a lot of like. one to two second hooks
• 34:46
  into a transition where someone would like hit
• 34:49
  a baseball bat and then go into the screen and
• 34:51
  it transitioned to be like a hey like you know
• 34:54
  where are this company we offer this and you
• 34:56
  see it in the comments all the time they're all
• 34:57
  like oh brilliant like you should promote the
• 35:00
  social media manager who yeah it's a lot of praise
• 35:03
  but through literally spending all this money
• 35:06
  on advertising i see the numbers behind the screen
• 35:09
  right and i'm like this is not converting yeah
• 35:11
  like the stuff that's converting is the stuff
• 35:14
  that just Promises a clear outcome. It talks
• 35:16
  about the pain points, the problems, and almost
• 35:19
  like bait and switching people doesn't work as
• 35:22
  well as like just really clear ads to a clear
• 35:26
  demographic or psychographic with a clear outcome
• 35:29
  and an offer. So I think of billboards the same
• 35:32
  way. I think people obsess over being clever.
• 35:36
  Like they want to have the most amazing idea
• 35:39
  and they'll get praise for it. Oh man, that billboard
• 35:41
  looks amazing. And I think I remember a Koala.
• 35:44
  Do you remember that bed brand? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 35:46
  They did this amazing billboard in front of Ikea
• 35:49
  and it was like a no effing idea. And it was
• 35:52
  basically like this Swedish like play on like
• 35:56
  nobody knows how to build Ikea furniture. Yeah.
• 36:00
  And it went viral, super viral. And then they
• 36:02
  stopped doing it. Like they stopped all the billboard
• 36:04
  advertising. You don't really hear about them
• 36:05
  anymore. Yeah. Why? Because it probably wasn't
• 36:08
  profitable. Yeah. And I think that that's the
• 36:09
  same thing, like the same stuff that gets praised
• 36:11
  all the time from advertising agencies and people.
• 36:15
  They're like, wow, that's like such an amazing
• 36:17
  idea. It also doesn't pay the bills. Yeah. So
• 36:20
  I've got like a love -hate relationship with
• 36:24
  billboards. I appreciate the game. Yes. Very
• 36:27
  rarely, though, have I seen people be like, oh,
• 36:29
  we experimented, we put six figures into billboards
• 36:33
  and we saw the uplift in our revenue. Yeah. I
• 36:35
  just don't see it. Yeah, I'm the same. I have
• 36:38
  a bit of like a love -hate relationship with
• 36:41
  billboards because they're very hard to track
• 36:45
  with conversions and stuff like that. Usually
• 36:48
  if somebody sees a billboard, either the person
• 36:51
  and passenger is going to type in your website
• 36:53
  or, you know, it's... There's a gray area with
• 36:57
  that. How efficient they are, I can't really
• 37:01
  speak on. But like you said, some people go crazy
• 37:04
  on billboards. I just think they can be a waste
• 37:08
  of money. I think if you, like for Coca -Cola,
• 37:11
  for example, they've got a $5 .4 billion advertising
• 37:14
  budget that they can just pour into everything,
• 37:18
  and that's why they're number one, right? They
• 37:20
  have that budget to just burn on. But your average,
• 37:25
  you know, person that's maybe doing 1 .5 mil
• 37:28
  or 3 mil or even up to like the 10 mil. Yeah,
• 37:32
  I think like, again, for 99 % of small business
• 37:35
  owners, they need to be justifying marketing,
• 37:37
  you know, anywhere between, I think it's like
• 37:40
  most businesses, correct me if I'm wrong, it's
• 37:42
  like 5 % to 10 % of their revenues. Yeah, 8 to
• 37:45
  12, yeah. Yeah, something like that. So if that's
• 37:47
  the case, you really do need to be deploying
• 37:50
  the marketing. To then justify the revenue backing
• 37:54
  of that. And I think it only makes sense when
• 37:58
  you get to the level where you've genuinely saturated
• 38:01
  a lot of your channels and there's just like
• 38:04
  such a system going where you're getting all
• 38:06
  these results from digital, like mailbox drops,
• 38:10
  just like every channel you could even possibly
• 38:12
  think about. And then you need to like explore
• 38:16
  more avenues for ad recall and brand. Sure, do
• 38:19
  that. But for the cost of the billboard, My argument
• 38:24
  is for the average punter, the average small
• 38:28
  business owner that has only $10 ,000 or $20
• 38:32
  ,000, if you literally ran Facebook ads, you
• 38:35
  would get so much more than a billboard would
• 38:40
  ever do or a radio. Radio is insane. Yeah, we've
• 38:44
  got business owners that I've spoken to. 20 grand,
• 38:48
  100 grand, 200 grand on radio. And then I will
• 38:52
  literally, again, this is me validating based
• 38:54
  off of me managing the ads and the background
• 38:56
  of it all. And I can see the website traffic.
• 38:58
  And there'll be these businesses that run these
• 39:00
  six -figure radio campaigns. And there'll be
• 39:03
  a call to action, go to this website link or
• 39:04
  go to this specific page. And I'll look at the
• 39:07
  stats in the background and I'll see there is
• 39:11
  minimal improvement in actual traffic going to
• 39:15
  that. So I'm just like, Was the additional 10
• 39:19
  clicks worth the $100 ,000? Probably not. Yeah.
• 39:22
  But the problem with both radio and billboards
• 39:26
  is there's so many variables. And we live in
• 39:28
  such a now society where, you know, if I'm driving
• 39:33
  and I see a billboard, even if I recall, oh,
• 39:36
  you know, I need to get a poll and there's a
• 39:38
  poll person. I've probably forgotten by the time
• 39:42
  I get to my destination. So I'm still going to
• 39:43
  go and do, you know, the best pool company in
• 39:47
  Brisbane and search them up and then go from
• 39:49
  there. A Facebook ad comes up. I'll go through
• 39:53
  that. Yeah, yeah. I 100 % agree. I think that
• 39:57
  the only argument you could really possibly say
• 40:00
  that's justifiable is it should improve other
• 40:03
  areas of your marketing and sales department.
• 40:07
  So if there's billboards and radio and you're
• 40:09
  everywhere, once I have the conversation with
• 40:12
  you, then it's easier. Yes. That's probably the
• 40:15
  only way that you could think about, okay, you
• 40:17
  want to look at your marketing efficiency ratio
• 40:19
  of like, overall marketing spend and overall
• 40:23
  turnover. And then see, hey, you know, last year,
• 40:27
  the marketing efficiency ratio was a 10, just
• 40:29
  all marketing spend versus turnover. This year
• 40:32
  with all these different billboards and stuff,
• 40:33
  it's now a 12. So there was some sort of uplift
• 40:36
  somewhere. Yeah. You can't probably identify
• 40:38
  exactly where it's from, but you can kind of
• 40:40
  correlate and be like, hey, look, if it's working,
• 40:42
  it's working. Yeah. Continue down that path.
• 40:44
  And that's probably the extent of which I would
• 40:47
  probably say. Yeah. But yeah, it comes down.
• 40:51
  It's really tricky because. Again, going back
• 40:53
  to my first point when we first started the podcast
• 40:56
  was like a lot of business owners and marketing
• 40:58
  directors, they make the wrong decision as well.
• 41:01
  So as an example, like social media is one of
• 41:05
  those things where it's so intangible. Like does
• 41:07
  me posting 20 times a month and then getting
• 41:10
  all these views translate into sales? It's like,
• 41:12
  oh no, but like nobody directly from the social
• 41:15
  media posts bought. So a lot of directors and
• 41:18
  marketing people be like, oh, cut social. As
• 41:20
  an entire channel, we don't do social media posts.
• 41:23
  It's like, okay, cool. And then like three to
• 41:26
  six months later, they see their revenue is going
• 41:28
  down. And then you're like, what happened? And
• 41:30
  it's like, well, for some reason, like the leads
• 41:32
  started getting more expensive. And what you'll
• 41:34
  find is like all these little activities actually
• 41:37
  improve your ability to acquire a customer cheaper.
• 41:40
  Yeah. So even you doing a social media post that
• 41:44
  gets 500 views will actually make your ads convert
• 41:47
  better. which decreases your customer acquisition
• 41:50
  cost, which means that you can spend more. And
• 41:53
  not enough business owners think about that relationship
• 41:56
  and how it's a flywheel and how all your customers
• 41:59
  need to work together. Yes. And that even comes
• 42:02
  down to the content creation side of blogs. We've
• 42:05
  had some clients that have said, oh, I don't
• 42:08
  need to do blogs. It doesn't matter. But we live
• 42:10
  in such an AI world right now where people are
• 42:15
  now going to... clawed and saying, hey, go and
• 42:18
  answer my question for this way. So you need
• 42:21
  to have all that content that's EEAT written,
• 42:24
  that's written for AI, that's written for SEO
• 42:26
  so that you can share that and people can find
• 42:30
  you better. It's so good for organic. And then
• 42:33
  you repurpose that into video content, into carousel
• 42:37
  content, into long form YouTube content, into
• 42:40
  all these different avenues. Yeah. I think that
• 42:43
  you're exactly right. And I feel like too many
• 42:47
  business owners probably think about marketing
• 42:50
  or a channel in isolation. Yes, yeah. And the
• 42:53
  biggest problem that I see time and time again
• 42:56
  is they actually think about marketing and sales
• 42:59
  in isolation. Yes, yes. It's probably the most
• 43:01
  expensive thing and the main culprit of all the
• 43:05
  marketing that's inefficient is you've got to
• 43:08
  usually, this is like I'll paint the scenario,
• 43:11
  you've got a receptionist in your team that turned.
• 43:15
  social media expert or something because they're
• 43:17
  like, oh, you know marketing. Cool. You do it.
• 43:19
  You do all the ads and everything. So you'll
• 43:21
  get an uninformed marketing person running the
• 43:24
  entire marketing channel and you'll have your
• 43:26
  sales team over here talking to all the customers,
• 43:30
  selling all the deals and everything. And it'll
• 43:32
  be one of two things where the sales team say
• 43:34
  all the leads are bad. Yeah. That's like a very
• 43:36
  common thing. Yeah. All the leads didn't proceed.
• 43:39
  So marketing shit. Yeah. Marketing needs to be
• 43:41
  better. And in the marketing complaints, because
• 43:43
  I'm generating all these leads or I'm doing all
• 43:45
  this stuff, but I'll improve it. I'll do something
• 43:48
  and I'll get more leads. And what tends to happen
• 43:51
  is the conversations as to why deals aren't going
• 43:54
  ahead are not being passed over to the marketing
• 43:57
  team to then run as marketing content. And what
• 44:01
  I always recommend is the founder or the sales
• 44:04
  team, all of those little golden nuggets or objection
• 44:07
  handles or all those things in the sales process
• 44:09
  that you are saying and talking about and the
• 44:12
  commonly asked questions, they should all be
• 44:15
  marketing content. So that's like if every customer
• 44:17
  is asking like, oh, what makes you different
• 44:20
  versus everyone else? It's like, that's not a,
• 44:22
  that's not like a random. occurrence that's every
• 44:26
  customer asking you that yeah you should probably
• 44:28
  educate people in your marketing about what makes
• 44:31
  you different so then people know exactly why
• 44:33
  you're different and more marketing teams and
• 44:37
  sales teams need to be more integrated yep so
• 44:40
  that there's actual like yeah you got a feedback
• 44:43
  loop going on here where marketing actually then
• 44:45
  gets better leads sales is actually informing
• 44:48
  marketing and then it works hand in hand versus
• 44:51
  Marketing and sales in isolation, let alone like
• 44:54
  platforms in isolation. You got marketers doing
• 44:57
  like TikToks over here that has no relevance
• 44:59
  to the advertising or the SEO. And then it just
• 45:03
  becomes disjointed. What is happening? Like,
• 45:05
  it doesn't make any sense. Yeah, and it makes
• 45:07
  the customer experience horrible because if you're
• 45:10
  going through the marketing person or like, for
• 45:13
  example, the receptionist is calling you and
• 45:15
  then they're like, oh, our sales team over here
• 45:18
  will give you a call and then they're giving
• 45:19
  you a call and then you're getting a call from
• 45:21
  somebody and then it's like, oh my God, this
• 45:23
  has just turned into a whirlwind. Like, I do
• 45:26
  not want to be dealing with this. Yeah, super
• 45:28
  complicated. And then it's like this funny thing
• 45:31
  as well where... The founders of the sales team
• 45:33
  were like, oh, we're trying to attract this type
• 45:35
  of customer. You know, they're like an older
• 45:37
  demographic. They're a little bit more savvy.
• 45:40
  And then you'll get an in -house marketing team
• 45:42
  be like, I'll audit their entire marketing funnel.
• 45:44
  And then you look at their TikTok and they're
• 45:46
  doing like really funny trends and going viral.
• 45:49
  And it's all young people in the TikTok. And
• 45:51
  I'm like, you're running like a very Gen Z strategy
• 45:53
  on TikTok that, yes, it's getting views, but
• 45:57
  it doesn't actually speak to the ideal. customer
• 46:00
  that you're trying to attract and this is like
• 46:02
  so sorry to cut you off so important to define
• 46:05
  your icp and all your buyer personas yeah that's
• 46:08
  one thing i think a lot of businesses when you
• 46:10
  go into business like i mentioned earlier you
• 46:11
  go into business just to to solve a problem or
• 46:14
  you know you don't have those defined because
• 46:17
  you're kind of like oh yeah we can help anyone
• 46:19
  or it's all in the founder's head it's actually
• 46:21
  systemized out Yeah. No, no, no. That's exactly
• 46:25
  it. You put it so well because literally without
• 46:28
  that, you're kind of just launching random stuff
• 46:31
  and guessing. Yeah. And when things go wrong,
• 46:33
  you don't really know why it's going wrong or
• 46:36
  what to do moving forward. Yeah. And the other
• 46:39
  thing to also consider is like without these
• 46:42
  things articulated. you will find yourself in
• 46:45
  the trap of optimizing for the cheapest form
• 46:48
  of marketing that isn't the most profitable long
• 46:50
  -term. So without your ICP identified, without
• 46:53
  the clear core values, just everything about
• 46:56
  your business and who you're trying to attract,
• 46:58
  if you don't optimize towards this or articulate
• 47:01
  that in your marketing and your sales, what you'll
• 47:04
  find is every single person in your entire marketing
• 47:06
  and sales department will always optimize immediately
• 47:09
  for efficiency. So they go after the cheap customer,
• 47:14
  the one that converts the easiest, the one that
• 47:17
  spends the most now. But it could actually be
• 47:20
  the one that costs you the most long term. So
• 47:22
  there's a bit of a segue, but I think that the
• 47:25
  reason why a lot of marketing teams or business
• 47:28
  owners fail or agencies fail as well is because
• 47:31
  this stuff isn't articulated in the beginning.
• 47:33
  And what tends to happen... is the business owner
• 47:37
  contracts an agency or a marketing team or whatever
• 47:39
  it is, or they even have an internal marketing
• 47:41
  team, but it's not clear as to what you're optimizing
• 47:43
  for. We want these specific business owners that
• 47:47
  stay for this amount of length in time. These
• 47:49
  are the core values. These are the specific demographics
• 47:52
  and psychographics of who we want. That's not
• 47:55
  articulated. So then the marketing team is just
• 47:56
  like, okay, I'll just get you some leads. Yeah.
• 47:58
  And it's always, oh, we need more leads. We need
• 48:01
  more leads instead of... What's the actual problem?
• 48:04
  Okay, so marketing and sales is disconnected
• 48:06
  here. How can we connect this? How can we stop
• 48:09
  that fragmentation and make the customer experience
• 48:12
  smoother? I'm sending you 100 leads, only 10
• 48:16
  % are converting. Are you calling them back within
• 48:19
  that first? 30 minutes or are you calling them
• 48:23
  back five days later after they've already contacted
• 48:25
  your competitor and your competitor has sent
• 48:27
  them a quote and everything? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 48:29
  There's so many variables to marketing. And I
• 48:33
  think marketing is often seen, Simon put this
• 48:35
  really well, he said that it's seen as the colouring
• 48:39
  in department rather than the growth department,
• 48:41
  you know, growth marketing. Yeah, it's actually
• 48:44
  pretty crazy to me. Not to be biased, I'm an
• 48:47
  agency owner. You get a lot of people in just
• 48:52
  like everyday conversations being like, oh, it's
• 48:55
  so expensive hiring a marketing agency. It's
• 48:58
  like the marketing agency is the growth engine
• 49:00
  for a lot of these businesses. It's designed
• 49:02
  to try and win you business and bring in revenue,
• 49:05
  which is like the lifeblood of your entire company.
• 49:08
  But at the same time, they would also pay like
• 49:11
  a receptionist or a admin person like $6K, $7K
• 49:15
  a month, you know, full -time wage or whatever
• 49:18
  it is, entry level. To be in the business and
• 49:21
  just help with documents and stuff. And it's
• 49:23
  like, you're complaining about, you know, a couple
• 49:26
  grand for some of these agencies. And then also
• 49:30
  they get mad when an agency that only costs like
• 49:32
  $1 ,000 a month or something doesn't perform.
• 49:34
  It's like, it doesn't make sense in the sense
• 49:37
  of like, what has the most impact on your business
• 49:40
  and where you're allocating the resources. Yeah.
• 49:43
  Yeah. Yeah. I've seen that a lot. And it's, I
• 49:46
  don't know, it's... It's a tough one. And something
• 49:49
  we see quite a lot is, oh, we went to an agency
• 49:52
  and we didn't get what we were promised and that
• 49:56
  sort of stuff. It's like a gray area, right?
• 50:00
  Because you might go to an agency for a website.
• 50:04
  They've given you a website. Now, that website...
• 50:07
  It's not going to magically generate you leads,
• 50:09
  you know, just because it's up there. You know,
• 50:12
  you need to be driving traffic to it. So whether
• 50:13
  that's Google ads, Facebook ads, LinkedIn ads,
• 50:16
  are you doing blog articles? There's a lot more
• 50:18
  than just a website. And I'm sure, like, the
• 50:21
  agency probably would have explained that to
• 50:23
  the client. But, yeah, it's an industry that's
• 50:27
  – I think the problem is, you know, you can learn
• 50:31
  marketing on Udemy. You can learn marketing on
• 50:34
  YouTube. It's an industry that's very, you know,
• 50:40
  there's no set rules. There's no set learning.
• 50:44
  There's no, you know, you don't have to go to
• 50:45
  uni to necessarily do marketing. Probably a lack
• 50:49
  of regulation. Yes. Yeah, like licensing or certification,
• 50:53
  whatever you want to call it. And, yeah, I don't
• 50:55
  want this. to be misunderstood as like a scapegoat
• 50:58
  for the bad agencies and like the cowboys out
• 51:01
  there because there are. There are just a lot
• 51:03
  of them. You get that in a lot of different industries
• 51:05
  though. But specifically in this one, if you
• 51:08
  ignore the cowboys and the people who have no
• 51:12
  idea what they're doing and you also just look
• 51:14
  at agencies in general and sometimes they don't
• 51:18
  perform well for a business, I genuinely think
• 51:20
  it just comes down to the fact that it's not
• 51:23
  clear in terms of the brief. what you're actually
• 51:26
  optimizing for. Yeah. That whole piece, it's
• 51:29
  literally a full circle thing because if you
• 51:32
  hire an agency and all you do is say, hey, get
• 51:35
  me more leads. Yeah. It's like a lot of business
• 51:38
  owners think that that's clear. But again, what
• 51:41
  we've had in the discussion is like that in and
• 51:44
  of itself. causes problems. If the person in
• 51:47
  the agency doesn't have any other context, they
• 51:50
  will drive more leads. You didn't say the type
• 51:53
  of lead. You didn't say the specific archetype.
• 51:57
  Yes, we have messaging, but you said you wanted
• 52:00
  more leads. I gave you more leads. And it's a
• 52:03
  multi -factor problem where it's like, you might
• 52:07
  generate too many leads and then the close rates
• 52:09
  go down because the speed to lead goes down.
• 52:12
  So then it's like, well, The agency thinks they
• 52:15
  hit the brief, but the business owner at the
• 52:17
  end of the day looks at his P &L and is like,
• 52:19
  I'm not getting more sales here, so the agency
• 52:22
  sucks. And it's like this vicious cycle where
• 52:24
  it's like, hold on, again, let's look at facts,
• 52:27
  not opinions. Was the agency actually bad? And
• 52:30
  sometimes when I do audit these brands, I'll
• 52:33
  jump into the ad account and I'll look at some
• 52:35
  of the agency's work and I'll say, look, they
• 52:38
  actually didn't under deliver. Now, it wasn't
• 52:40
  clear. Your bottom line wasn't improving, sure.
• 52:43
  Would I say that this agency is actually negligent
• 52:48
  and did bad work? No. But you do need clarity.
• 52:52
  You do need a marketing strategist in your company
• 52:55
  to make sure the agency knows exactly what to
• 52:57
  do. So what we find a lot of times and the clients
• 53:00
  we work with is like, yes, we do advertising
• 53:03
  and SEO and all these things that we normally
• 53:06
  would do. But the role that we play with a lot
• 53:08
  of the brands is actually being that integrator.
• 53:11
  and we look at the sales department and the results
• 53:14
  and we look at what's converting what isn't and
• 53:16
  then what needs to happen in the marketing to
• 53:18
  then drive more of that and trying to shift the
• 53:20
  conversation around just more traffic and activity
• 53:23
  we actually want more acquisition and like revenue
• 53:27
  generated you know bottom line and that is what's
• 53:30
  missing a lot of the time now that that doesn't
• 53:32
  excuse again the bad players in the in the industry
• 53:35
  yeah but i i would say Without understanding
• 53:39
  that context, it's why a lot of agencies do fail
• 53:43
  in that relationship with the small business.
• 53:45
  Because a small business, the founder's too busy
• 53:47
  to articulate these things. They're like, just
• 53:49
  get me more leads. It's like, yes, they did,
• 53:52
  but you still failed. And it's not because they
• 53:55
  didn't generate you enough leads. They probably
• 53:57
  generated you the wrong leads or maybe too many
• 54:00
  or they didn't qualify enough or whatever it
• 54:02
  is, which, again, it's probably your job to articulate.
• 54:06
  Yeah. Yeah. And that's exactly like we've just
• 54:09
  rebranded from an agency model to a partner model
• 54:11
  because we look after like pretty much the whole
• 54:16
  ecosystem for our clients. So like, you know,
• 54:20
  it's not just a fact of because, you know, let
• 54:23
  me put this in simple terms. You know, you can
• 54:25
  create a website for somebody, but it's not going
• 54:26
  to drive leads. You can do ads with a website,
• 54:29
  but, you know, the ads might not convert because.
• 54:32
  What's on your ads compared to what's on your
• 54:34
  website might be two different promises. You
• 54:36
  need to have the same promise. So we've found
• 54:39
  that just doing a bit of this and a bit of that
• 54:42
  for clients hasn't worked. So that's why we've
• 54:45
  really went to the whole ecosystem to looking
• 54:47
  at the sales process and to looking, how does
• 54:50
  that look after? Are your customers satisfied?
• 54:53
  Are they not? Okay, so why are they not? Are
• 54:55
  the ads resonating with you? Is the website conversion
• 54:59
  rate optimized? There's just too many variables.
• 55:02
  And one thing we found as well with some agencies
• 55:05
  is the bad ones can be quite, protective you
• 55:09
  know for example if i was an agency and you were
• 55:13
  running ads for my client and you needed um access
• 55:17
  to admin so you can you know sort out tracking
• 55:19
  and all that it takes like three million years
• 55:23
  to get access to admin and you know you're sitting
• 55:26
  there and then you know it looks bad on you because
• 55:28
  you're like oh well i can't do my work until
• 55:30
  i've got the tracking or the numbers are going
• 55:32
  to look like shit you know and just to try get
• 55:35
  anything from an agency back is It's so hard,
• 55:39
  hey? Yeah. Protective kind of. Yeah. It's such
• 55:44
  an interesting situation and it probably comes
• 55:46
  down to like also the size of the business that
• 55:50
  you're working with as well. I see this a lot
• 55:52
  and it comes back down to like the scarcity mindset,
• 55:57
  I would say. A lot of agencies are protective
• 56:00
  like that that I've found because. they're scared
• 56:03
  they're going to get fired or the IP gets taken
• 56:06
  away or whatever it is. And there's like this
• 56:09
  really bad culture in the entire agency industry
• 56:13
  where we all like to bash on each other. Yeah.
• 56:15
  And you literally take 10 marketing strategists
• 56:18
  into a room and you pose the same problem and
• 56:21
  10 people have different opinions on the same
• 56:23
  thing. Yeah. And the way that I kind of think
• 56:26
  about marketing in general is like rarely are
• 56:29
  there like... super wrong answers. There's just
• 56:32
  more correct answers. So a lot of marketers have
• 56:35
  great ideas. Ideas are one thing, but there might
• 56:39
  just be a better idea or a better way to solve
• 56:42
  the same problem. And the problem is that anytime
• 56:45
  a business owner is somewhat struggling and they'll
• 56:48
  get somebody in for independent advice, it almost
• 56:51
  always validates the feeling. And again, this
• 56:53
  goes back to everything that we spoke about,
• 56:55
  where it's like people act on feeling and then
• 56:56
  justify emotion. A lot of these people that get
• 56:59
  an order say, oh, I feel like the marketing isn't
• 57:02
  performing as well as it should be. Come and
• 57:05
  have a look. And then the person will come in
• 57:08
  and say, your feelings are justified because
• 57:10
  this is broken. Oh, I thought so. I thought so.
• 57:12
  Yeah, yeah. All right, see you later. Gone, fired.
• 57:15
  Next one. And then eventually the companies work
• 57:18
  with like five different agencies and they're
• 57:20
  like, how come everyone fails? It's like, hold
• 57:22
  on. You're missing so much context here. And
• 57:26
  there's much more to play with in the sense of
• 57:28
  understanding the context of why things were
• 57:31
  done the way it was, what you actually need,
• 57:33
  et cetera, et cetera. So yeah, how to overcome
• 57:36
  it? I don't really know. I think that it is what
• 57:39
  it is. I've more taken the stance of, we've been
• 57:43
  running this company for six and a half years
• 57:45
  now. And I think that I've more taken the stance
• 57:48
  of, look, I'm... looking to partner with business
• 57:50
  owners long -term. And if some business owners
• 57:53
  don't see the value in partnering with a business
• 57:56
  long -term and growing together, you experience
• 58:01
  every type of client you ever work with, right?
• 58:03
  Like some of the ones that don't see value and
• 58:05
  they want to cut you. I think it's good to let
• 58:07
  them go immediately. But like, hey, you don't
• 58:09
  see the value, even though in my mind, like I've,
• 58:13
  I come from a mindset of like, our service is
• 58:18
  more like a kind of like a doctor in the sense
• 58:21
  where it's like I'm diagnosing you and prescribing
• 58:23
  you the right solutions. I'm not trying to sell
• 58:25
  you on anything. So when I say things that's
• 58:27
  purely objective, this antidote is going to help
• 58:30
  you. And if they say no, I don't believe it,
• 58:33
  it's like that's all good. It doesn't really
• 58:35
  change the answer. If you want it, you can have
• 58:37
  it. But if you don't, that's all good. Go to
• 58:39
  the other person. I will find somebody else that
• 58:43
  does want this solution and does believe in.
• 58:47
  The actual methodology and the product, yeah.
• 58:49
  But I think that's the best way to think about
• 58:50
  it because you attract the right clients, you
• 58:53
  know, the clients that trust you, the clients
• 58:55
  that stay with you long -term, the clients that
• 58:57
  just let you do what you do. So, you know, you're
• 59:00
  not arguing with clients over them paying an
• 59:02
  $80 a month hosting bill, you know? Yes. You
• 59:06
  don't want to be having to say, it's $200 because,
• 59:10
  you know, it has this, this, this, and this.
• 59:13
  Yeah. Something that I found really interesting
• 59:15
  in services is like I've gone through so many
• 59:19
  different learnings and experiences where I've
• 59:22
  begged and tried to justify my worth to the lowest
• 59:27
  tier client. And it doesn't matter. Like I've
• 59:29
  had people literally be like, oh, you know, your
• 59:31
  20 hours that you've spent on this campaign a
• 59:34
  month, I was charging someone else like 200 bucks
• 59:37
  a month. So I feel like I shouldn't be paying
• 59:38
  my mom. Like you're valuing my time at like.
• 59:41
  two bucks an hour or something. It's like, this
• 59:43
  doesn't make any sense. Pairing apples to pears.
• 59:46
  Yeah. And it's like, you can go down the route
• 59:50
  of arguing with someone who literally doesn't
• 59:51
  see the value, or you can find someone without
• 59:54
  changing the work, by the way, like the work
• 59:57
  is the same. The methodology is the same, but
• 59:59
  the value is way greater for another archetype.
• 1:00:02
  And they are happy to pay, you know, 10 grand
• 1:00:05
  a month, 20 grand a month or whatever it is.
• 1:00:07
  And it's just like, well, hold on. I didn't change
• 1:00:10
  in the sense of like the work itself. It's a
• 1:00:14
  different industry, a different type of archetype
• 1:00:16
  of customer, but they value me more. And I don't
• 1:00:19
  have to convince them of my worth versus some
• 1:00:22
  of the other clients. The smallest tier client
• 1:00:26
  is like, oh, you're not worth like $10 an hour.
• 1:00:28
  It's like, what the hell? Again, this was like
• 1:00:30
  back when I first started and it was just like
• 1:00:33
  you could fall into the trap of just begging
• 1:00:36
  people to like justify your own worth. But it's
• 1:00:40
  way easier, again, as well. The core values and
• 1:00:42
  articulating who you want to serve is really
• 1:00:45
  important because if you don't do that, you will
• 1:00:48
  be begging for pennies and, you know, just jumping
• 1:00:53
  for dollars around and dancing kind of thing,
• 1:00:56
  yeah. And we've done a podcast on this as well,
• 1:00:59
  but it's so easy to just say yes to anyone, especially
• 1:01:03
  when you're first starting because you're like,
• 1:01:04
  I need money and, you know, oh, my God, so exciting,
• 1:01:07
  like someone wants to work with me. But it is
• 1:01:09
  what will bone your business the quickest because,
• 1:01:12
  you know, you'll have people come to you and
• 1:01:14
  then they'll be price sensitive and they'll be
• 1:01:15
  like, oh, well, why is it $200 a month? Like,
• 1:01:18
  I don't want to pay $200 a month. And it's like,
• 1:01:20
  okay, well, that's the price. You know, you can
• 1:01:22
  go to... Your mate down the road that does it
• 1:01:24
  for 80, that's fine. And then, yeah, you just
• 1:01:26
  end up in that vicious cycle where you're having
• 1:01:29
  to justify your work and prove yourself almost
• 1:01:33
  rather than having a defined ICP and having those
• 1:01:37
  ideal customers come to you. And then they're
• 1:01:39
  just like, yep, here's the money. You do what
• 1:01:41
  you need to do. I trust you. I need to focus
• 1:01:43
  on my business. That is the best type of client
• 1:01:45
  to have. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I feel like not
• 1:01:48
  many business owners or entrepreneurs or whatever
• 1:01:50
  you want to call it, Not many people factor in
• 1:01:54
  one thing that isn't talked about enough, which
• 1:01:56
  is conviction and belief. And what I tend to
• 1:02:00
  find is the longer you run a business and when
• 1:02:04
  you deal with customers that don't believe in
• 1:02:06
  your value, it could really knock you off course.
• 1:02:09
  It could really make you self -doubt and not
• 1:02:12
  believe in the value that you provide. And I've
• 1:02:15
  caught myself in times where throughout the years
• 1:02:18
  of me running the agency and the business, I've
• 1:02:20
  dealt with my fair share of a client that didn't
• 1:02:23
  believe in what we were doing or just didn't
• 1:02:25
  see the value. And it really made me question,
• 1:02:29
  hold on, am I good enough? Is my company doing
• 1:02:33
  great things? Why do we even exist? And you get
• 1:02:35
  caught in this vicious cycle of when you deal
• 1:02:38
  with the customer that doesn't believe in what
• 1:02:40
  you do, you then doubt everything else. And then
• 1:02:44
  you have to remind yourself of all the good that
• 1:02:46
  you've done to then get you back on that track.
• 1:02:49
  As the leader of an organization or the owner,
• 1:02:53
  it's your job to really lead that vision and
• 1:02:55
  transfer that conviction and belief to the rest
• 1:02:58
  of your team and your marketing and your sales.
• 1:03:00
  And it's really interesting. I find that like,
• 1:03:02
  I think it's a statistic. It's like most salespeople
• 1:03:05
  generate like most of their results in the first
• 1:03:08
  few months of them like running or like joining
• 1:03:12
  a company, but their performance decreases over
• 1:03:14
  time a lot because they stop believing. in the
• 1:03:18
  company and like the delivery or something like
• 1:03:21
  that. So their performance goes down like this.
• 1:03:23
  So what I take away from that is you really need
• 1:03:27
  to protect the belief and conviction of everything,
• 1:03:31
  your product, the marketing, the sales. And the
• 1:03:34
  way you do that is you say no to the people you're
• 1:03:37
  not supposed to serve. Yes. Because it can take
• 1:03:40
  a few customers that you weren't supposed to
• 1:03:43
  serve that, you know. give you a bad review or,
• 1:03:46
  you know, bad mouth you to the rest of the team,
• 1:03:49
  et cetera, right? And it could really change
• 1:03:52
  the entire trajectory of your company. You can
• 1:03:54
  maybe think, oh, you know, we shouldn't do this
• 1:03:56
  anymore or we want to cut this channel. It's
• 1:03:58
  like, well, no, hold on. Like, we're doing some
• 1:04:00
  great things here. Yeah. You know, we've defined
• 1:04:03
  our ICP. We've defined the core values, the value
• 1:04:05
  proposition. We serve a very clear market and
• 1:04:08
  nothing will stop us from achieving our mission.
• 1:04:12
  Yeah. You know, and by... Not protecting that,
• 1:04:16
  it then bleeds into every other area. The content
• 1:04:19
  that you were posting that was working, you stopped
• 1:04:21
  doing because I hate it, I said something. Or
• 1:04:23
  those channels that were working in the past,
• 1:04:26
  you're like, oh, I don't want to spend much money
• 1:04:28
  on it. I heard someone say this, this and that.
• 1:04:30
  It's like, but it was working. And we found our
• 1:04:33
  best customers through this channel. So yeah,
• 1:04:35
  it's like an intangible thing not many people
• 1:04:37
  talk about. I think it's so, so important. Yeah,
• 1:04:40
  you said it perfectly. I can't even add to it.
• 1:04:44
  Awesome. Amazing. So before we wrap up this podcast.
• 1:04:48
  If there's a business owner out there that might
• 1:04:51
  be struggling with their business or they're
• 1:04:54
  in a bit of a rut or, you know, their Facebook
• 1:04:56
  ads, Google ads aren't performing as well as
• 1:04:58
  they want to, what's your one piece advice to
• 1:05:01
  them? It's a bit of a loaded answer. Yeah, yeah,
• 1:05:06
  yeah. My question, sorry. Get in touch with Journey,
• 1:05:08
  dude. I really think. More business owners. Obviously,
• 1:05:15
  the traditional answer is go see an expert. Obviously,
• 1:05:20
  speak to a bunch of different people, get independent
• 1:05:22
  advice, but triangulate. Don't just take any
• 1:05:26
  person's advice for why this is a problem. Speak
• 1:05:29
  to many different people, get a bunch of advice,
• 1:05:31
  triangulate. And then if there's a common theme,
• 1:05:34
  that's probably the issue. I always recommend
• 1:05:36
  most business owners just get in touch with a
• 1:05:38
  bunch of agencies. This is weird coming from
• 1:05:41
  an agency owner. It doesn't really, you don't
• 1:05:45
  lose anything from getting free advice from a
• 1:05:48
  bunch of different people that are trying to
• 1:05:49
  win your work because they will literally put
• 1:05:51
  their best foot forward and give you strategy
• 1:05:53
  advice. Just contact five different agencies
• 1:05:56
  if we're talking about like the specific problem
• 1:05:58
  and just get everyone to give you advice. Yeah.
• 1:06:01
  And then be like, oh, this is interesting. This
• 1:06:03
  is, I don't believe in this, whatever it is,
• 1:06:05
  right? That's like a free hack that you should
• 1:06:07
  do for sure. But, like, obviously, if you're
• 1:06:11
  going to touch with us, please respond and come
• 1:06:13
  up with us. But, like, it's a free thing you
• 1:06:15
  could always do. But the one thing I was going
• 1:06:18
  to say is you really need to, like, actually
• 1:06:22
  pinpoint what the problem is and really know
• 1:06:24
  what the problem is. So a lot of people incorrectly
• 1:06:28
  assume that the strategy is the issue and not
• 1:06:31
  the execution. They look at Facebook ads or Google
• 1:06:35
  and they'll make a general statement and say,
• 1:06:37
  this whole thing didn't work for me. So I'm just
• 1:06:40
  not going to do it. But it's such a limiting
• 1:06:42
  belief because there's a competitor out there
• 1:06:44
  or somebody in your industry that has cracked
• 1:06:46
  it and is working right now. So unless genuinely,
• 1:06:49
  like there's some instances where there's like
• 1:06:51
  regulation and nobody's doing it in your entire
• 1:06:54
  industry, but for 90 % of the businesses out
• 1:06:57
  there, if there's a competitor running ads in
• 1:07:00
  your industry on that channel and you haven't
• 1:07:02
  cracked it, it's most likely an execution issue.
• 1:07:05
  And if that's the case, you do need to take a
• 1:07:07
  cold hard look in the mirror and be like, why
• 1:07:10
  is it not working? Did you set it up? Did you
• 1:07:12
  use a vendor that has no idea what they're doing?
• 1:07:15
  Do you actually need to pay an expert to come
• 1:07:18
  in and give you independent advice and give you
• 1:07:21
  a clear diagnosis? There's so many ways to do
• 1:07:24
  it. If you want to do it yourself, sure. Then
• 1:07:26
  pay an expert to teach you how to do it. If you
• 1:07:29
  want an agency to do it, then pay the most capable
• 1:07:32
  agency to run it for you. Don't just go cheapest.
• 1:07:35
  Yeah, exactly. And if that's the case, like if
• 1:07:38
  you are using the cheapest, like look yourself
• 1:07:40
  in the mirror. And if it's not working, genuinely
• 1:07:42
  like face the facts. Is it not working because
• 1:07:46
  you didn't bring on board the best talent to
• 1:07:49
  manage your ads or your marketing? And if that's
• 1:07:51
  the case, just accept it. Like, you know, it's
• 1:07:54
  not performing because we didn't hire someone
• 1:07:56
  that was actually. like charge on what they're
• 1:07:59
  worth. We may have hired someone inexperienced
• 1:08:01
  to run this for us. It is what it is. Yeah. Amazing.
• 1:08:06
  Well, thank you very much for coming on the podcast.
• 1:08:08
  Thanks for having me. And if you enjoyed the
• 1:08:10
  podcast, make sure you subscribe down below because
• 1:08:12
  we release conversations like this every single
• 1:08:14
  week.