Latest / Agency Advantage / She Started With a Newcomer Guide. Now She Runs a National HVAC Agency. | Pam Mashburn

Transcript

She Started With a Newcomer Guide. Now She Runs a National HVAC Agency. | Pam Mashburn · Agency Advantage

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yupers, you know how it goes.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: More bad, more pressure, more popping off.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: Agency advantage.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: Rad starts breaking it down.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: Better people, better systems, better moves all around.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: Leadership, leverage, profit, and scale.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: Real world lessons from the winds that fail.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: Build it smart to lead the team.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: Take your freedom back.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: Agency advantage.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: Now you're on the right track.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, what's going on everybody?
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome back to Agency Advantage.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_01: Today I've got Pam Mashburn.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_01: Pam began Explore Media in Montgomery, Alabama, 20 years ago.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_01: And in late 2023, she launched Explore HVAC and Home Services, a national agency for HVAC and home service companies.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_01: Here's why I wanted Pam on.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: She's 20 years into this.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_01: She's gone from publications to digital marketing for everyone to running a niche agency.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_01: She's and she's also been building out a team that reaches well beyond Alabama.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_01: Pam, welcome on.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, thanks so much for having me, Brad.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_01: So I mentioned in the intro, you're you're in Alabama, mentioned you launched your agency 20 years ago.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: But from, you know, what my team's prepared me for the notes here is your your agency didn't begin as a marketing agency, if that's correct.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_01: It more so began as a as a company for like the publications and like people coming to the area.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_01: So I'll just kind of walk us through how that began, what like how did that idea even came to you?
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_03: Well, yeah.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_03: So I was an engineer by degree, worked with Cummins Engine Company, built diesel engines, lived overseas, all kinds of different places with them.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_03: And uh my husband and I in the automotive industry moved to Montgomery, Alabama because Hyundai opened up a factory here.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_03: So my husband was a tier one supplier, and I found out that my company wasn't here and I was gonna be a full-time stay-at-home mom, which loved it.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_03: It was really a privilege to be able to stay home with my kids.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_03: But what I learned is that God created me to work.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_03: I really get a lot of joy out of working.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_03: I love looking at data.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_03: I love figuring out problems and I love helping people.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_03: And so when I first moved here, one of the things that I realized about Montgomery is that this was a small town that was very hard to figure out because there were 42 private schools.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_03: And so I started a newcomer guide to help all the military, because Maxwell Gunner, Air Force Base is here to help other newcomers and help help local businesses connect with those folks.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_03: We actually still have that publication.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_03: We still publish it.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_03: So that was like our flag, you know, that was like our flagship product.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_03: We actually have three or three other publications.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_03: I have a person that is in charge of that part of the business and she runs that.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_03: And then we started a digital agency in 2019.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_03: So really truly full service marketing.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_03: And we decided we we help a lot of clients here in the Montgomery area, but um, Montgomery, again, is a small, small town.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_03: And so we wanted to reach outside of our geographic area and decided that the people that we really enjoy working with is HVAC and home services.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_03: They need help because it's such a competitive industry.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_03: They um recognize the need for advertising and marketing, and uh they're people that work as hard as we do.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_03: And so I have a heart for them, just you know, because I'm a small business owner as well.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_03: So yeah, that's how we got into it.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_03: We absolutely love it.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_01: Awesome, awesome.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, my my wife's at home with the kids, and so I know what you talked about.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: There's oftentimes where even just yesterday, like I was home for like two hours after work, and I was like, are you sure you don't want to go back to work?
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_01: Like I I I could, I couldn't handle this.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_01: Now we have two kids under two.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_01: I mentioned that as we were coming on board here, and I've been told we're psychotic for uh for doing that, which I would agree.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_01: But uh it's you know, it's a great opportunity for a lot of people.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_01: But I'm I'm sure you're uh you you love the time of loving what you're doing, of what you're doing now.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_03: Well, and that's why I started a that's why I didn't go back into a career.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_03: I said, you know, I'm gonna start something of my own.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_03: And then it just kept growing and growing and growing.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_03: And so when you see a need, you try to fill the need, right?
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_01: So Yeah, absolutely.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_01: And am I correct in the sense that, like, in a way, like, yes, this newcomer guide for where you live was like your first official time doing this.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_01: But when you were overseas, you kind of also did this in a roundabout way as well.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_03: Not really.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_03: I was an international purchasing manager for Cummins.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_03: And so I worked with uh all of their German suppliers.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, no, I I did all kinds of different things and I worked for Cummins Engine Company.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_03: I'm an industrial engineer by degree, but it all had to do with people and processes.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, like the the Dodge RAM diesel engine that's a Cummins engine.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_03: I actually helped set up the whole assembly line for that.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_03: Ordered the tools, came up with the processes on and how many the torque patterns and all the different things.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_03: So yeah, I used to work in as a team manager and did all of those kind of things.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_01: That is why you can't trust AI, because my AI had a note in here for my team that uh that you did something like this when you're overseas too.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, I don't think that's right.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm gonna ask if I don't think so.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm glad I clarified it.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_03: No, no, what I did do when I was overseas is I helped other probably what AI got is that when I was there, I was a part of the American Women's Club and I would help other people figure out how to navigate Germany because if you're not military, back in the day when I was there, you didn't have smartphones.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_03: You had phones, but you didn't have smartphones, and you're like, I've got this dictionary and I don't know how to read anything on the back of this frozen package.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_03: How do I make this?
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_03: Cooking terms weren't in the weren't in the dictionary.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_03: So yeah.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_01: That's uh that's exactly what I was talking about.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: So it's it's crazy what AI can pick up and uh form its own uh own opinion on and all that stuff.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_01: So you you you launch this guide and you mentioned, you know, you guys launch the agency, focus on your local area, and then decide HVAC.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_01: What at that point?
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we have a lot of people who come on this podcast from the seven-figure agency community.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_01: So a lot of it's like, hey, we joined this community and they're just like, you have to niche down.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_01: So we chose a niche.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_01: But what got you guys to decide, like, we're at a position now where we need to niche down and we're not just going to service anybody and everybody.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_03: Well, that was that's a hard one because we still do service a lot of people.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_03: But we've kind of segregated, we have three pillars within our organization.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_03: And we decided to add this other pillar, which is HVAC.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_03: And so the people that are involved in that part of the business, they have niche down, and that is where their focus is.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_03: And uh, to be honest, it's one of the hardest things we've had to do because there are a lot of things that are constantly changing.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_03: This isn't about branding, it's about getting leads, it's about getting conversions.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_03: And the digital space changes all the time.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_03: Well, AI has come in, social media has changed.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_03: And honestly, I think we're kind of starting to get back to our own roots of true marketing and not just figuring out a formula and say, okay, let's do a Google ad, right?
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, you've got to if you want to do well in this space, you have to be smart.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_03: That's what I've decided.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_03: And I only hire smart people, but you have to be smart and and and and willing to change and willing to see this works, this used to work, this doesn't work anymore.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_03: This is what's going on.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_03: And consumers are fickle, right?
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_03: They're fickle, they're uh, and I blame all of that on social media because the trends are changing on a daily basis.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_03: And so their tastes change.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_03: So the way that you need to appeal to them has to change.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_03: Um the good news for people like us is that these business owners need us because they're trying to run a business.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_03: And they know that they don't they can't be experts at Google, they can't be experts at Meta.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_03: Even even I can't be an expert in those things.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_03: That's why I hire people to help me do that.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: Even whenever I had my agency, I was talking with somebody the other day, he was like, hey, whenever you run meta ads, I'm like, dude, I never ran meta ads in my life.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: That wasn't my zone of genius.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: I open up my agency because I was building websites.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_01: That's where I began.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_01: And then I self-taught SEO and Google Ads about meta-ads.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_01: It was like, I'm gonna leave that to the experts and someone else is gonna do that because we can't be the expert in every single lane of what we're doing.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: So as you you you have these three pillars, a lot of people you you mentioned, like it's the hardest thing to do is the niche down.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_01: And so you choose this niche as like this third pillar in your first year of going all in on this niche for that pillar.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_01: What did you guys do wrong?
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_01: That like looking back, you're like, I wish I would have done this differently.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_03: That is a great question.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_03: What would I have done differently?
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_03: I think I would have hired more people initially.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_03: This it because I think my people got run a little ragged.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_03: Because we were trying to be, I've always run my business very conservatively.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_03: We don't have any debt in the business.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, I never wanted anybody to worry about what were they gonna what am I gonna be able to pay their paycheck, right?
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_03: So uh I had people that worked a lot of late hours and a lot of weekends initially, mainly because they were trying to figure it out, they're trying to answer we we also didn't have CSS, we didn't have people to help.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_03: Once the salesperson sold it to handle like customer accounts, that was another thing that we were slow to adopt.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_03: Because in the past, I've always had my salespeople be the account reps because they formed that relationship.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_03: Well, it's not it's not advisable.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_03: You need somebody that is working with the team.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_03: And as my team has grown, there's just a lot more communication going back and forth.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_03: When I had a team of six people, we're all nearby, we can hear each other yelling down the hall.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_03: Now there's 25 of us.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_03: And so you've got to be a lot more disciplined, having a good project management system.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_03: So those are some things that I learned pretty quickly in the first year.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_01: And and so it sounds like one, just making sure that you're you you've would have had a bigger team, probably also people who were like experts in their field, right?
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_01: Because oftentimes we're just trying to figure it out.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_01: I I am jumping around a little bit back here, but one of the things I'm looking through on my notes here is it looks like back in like 2008, you had a little bit of a health scare that you went through.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_01: And so I imagine a lot of this is also like you had to build this in the way of like this company can't run just dependent on Pam.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_01: And so are you able to kind of touch like what was going on then and uh kind of what that journey was like and how it shaped what your agency is now?
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_03: So in 2008, I actually was diagnosed with breast cancer and I was only four years old.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_03: And so I had three little guys, and I remember like one of them was in fourth grade.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_03: He didn't even and this was a funny story, but he was in a Christian private uh Christian school, and uh, you know, he didn't want to put it in as a prayer request because it was breast cancer.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_03: And, you know, didn't know if he was allowed to say that.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_03: Which was really cute.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_03: But anyway, but uh yeah, that was uh really interesting to me because and that was also around that whole recession when the when the bubble burst.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_03: And at the time, it was really just me and some contractors.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_03: So I didn't really have any staff, I really didn't have any staff until about let's see, probably in a few years later.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_03: But one of the things that I realized is that the business can't just run with me because then it's not a business.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_03: So if you've ever read that book, The E-Myth, that's that's what I had.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_03: I had a side hustle.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_03: It really wasn't a business.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_03: It was a side hustle.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_03: And I was helping pay for people to send their kids to college and things like that, but it was a side hustle.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_03: And uh that was right about the time when my husband said, Is this a hobby, you know, or is this a real business?
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_03: And I said, This is a real business.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_03: And so we started turning things around and I started hiring.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_03: I remember hiring my first employee, and that was monumental.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_03: I remember getting an office.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_03: And one of the things that I also took on was this system called EOS.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_03: And I know you're you're aware of it, Brad, but the entrepreneurial operating system.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_03: And um, God truly blessed me with a great um facilitator coach.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_03: And I was really, as a business, I was really not qualified for EOS because we were we were really ahead of it as far as um we we weren't earning enough income to really be in their sweet spot.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_03: But we learned all those concepts.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_03: God blessed us with more businesses and we started running an EOS.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_03: And I actually had a more significant health scare later.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_03: About, let's see, when would that have been?
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_03: About eight years later, I ended up having an accident where I had to stay at my house for three weeks because I like had to have a hip replacement.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_03: It was like the weirdest thing.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_03: Fell, had to have an emergency hip replacement.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_03: I felt like an old person.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_03: It was horrible.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_03: And but that like started a midlife crisis that's still going on to this day.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_03: And but what I but though, and it was the weirdest thing, and I didn't know anybody that ever had this done, but it had me stuck in my house for three weeks because I couldn't do stairs and stuff.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_03: And so that is when I realized thank goodness I had EOS.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_03: Thank goodness I had people back at the office that were taking care of stuff.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_03: And the bit and it was like I realized it didn't have to be the Pam show.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_03: This was truly a business that could run on its own.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_03: Now, um, there's a lot of times when Pam gets too involved and I'm trying to become more of a shareholder.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_03: However, I don't know that that's ever gonna happen because I still do sales, I still have clients, I still get in fulfillment.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_03: And I feel like as an owner, I think every owner wants to know that everything is running well.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_03: And I'll I'll equate it to what I did when I was on the shop floor.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_03: We had a rule, we had a rule that uh the union guys um made an exception that if somebody was on vacation, they could pull an engineer out of the office to work a station.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_03: Because, you know, it would like everybody, everybody had to do their stuff and then the the engine would move.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_03: And so you always had to have somebody there.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_03: So they would put me on the hardest stations.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_03: And I can remember them saying, saying, I don't like this because blah, blah, blah.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm like, oh, there's such crybabies.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_03: And I and then I would go out there and I'd be doing all the stuff and running all that.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_03: I'm like, you know what, you guys, you're right.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_03: This sucks.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_03: And then I would fix it.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_03: And so I take the same approach in my business.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_03: If somebody's complaining about something, then I go, what why are they complaining about that?
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_03: And if I dig in and if I'm also doing some account services, if I'm also doing some sales and I realize where the problem is, I'm like, you're right, this is a problem.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_03: How do we fix this?
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_03: So Yeah.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_01: So it and it it sounds like looking back, you're like, I'm I'm glad I did at EOS.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_01: I'm glad I have the team.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_01: But in the moment, you in the moment, you probably didn't realize how valuable that was to you in the sense of having a team that can run and do everything for you.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's it's this catch 22.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_01: You people say, like, hey, you should be as the I was actually just interviewed uh Brad Ferris on the podcast an hour before you and I hopped on here.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_01: And he's like, Okay, and he's like, I wanna be like, you know, like I'm like the chairman of the board, right?
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_01: Like I want to go be in my garden and things like be taken care of, versus you're like, hey, I want to be more in the business, not like where everything depends on me, but I should be able to like, you know, pinpoint certain things.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think, you know, everybody just has to determine what's their best, like what do they feel is best.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, what yeah, uh, yeah, exactly.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_03: I I like, I think it's because I'm an industrial engineer.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_03: You know, I'm always trying to fix processes and systems.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_03: And I really love problem solving.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_03: So that's just that's the thing I like to do.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_03: Now, I would prefer to not have any problems.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_03: But but I do enjoy it.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_03: And I enjoy working with all the people that I have.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_03: Like they're a delight to work with.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I think for people listening, we're all different phases of the agency game.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_01: Some people they're just getting going.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_01: Some people are where you're at, Pam, some people are further along.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_01: But like you can afford to be in different and like tinker with different areas of the business because you have somebody who's focused on marketing, somebody's focused on sales, somebody's focused on fulfillment.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_01: So if you take some time to focus on one area of the business, the rest of the business doesn't sacrifice because Pam was the only person dependent on that, right?
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think for those listening, like that's a key difference here is like you're in a position where you can afford to be able to do that.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_01: When when you're going through, you know, the the hip aspect, and is there are there things looking back that you're like during that time, there was things that were dependent on you that you were like, I should have handed this off like a long time ago and I just didn't because, you know, it wasn't a priority.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_01: But then in that moment it was.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_03: Ooh, that's a good question.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_03: The only thing that I have not handed off in my business that I can take it back, and there's some things that I still lead, but when I'm on vacation or something, I can give to people.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_03: The only thing I have not handed off is payroll.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_03: And I actually just hired a CFO.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_03: And so now I have been able to hand off hand that off.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_03: But that was something that was like the last thing that I was willing to let go of.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_01: How does that feel?
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_01: Good?
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_03: It's good.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_03: It's good.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_03: It's good to know that, and I will say this now that we are I don't want to say overstaffed, but we have every person, every critical process has a backup.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_03: Like I've got I've got multiple people that can do this work.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_03: So the company doesn't isn't going to perish because one person quit.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_03: You know, the company isn't gonna not be able to deliver for a client because so and so's sick.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_03: So in that same realm, it's the same with me.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_03: You know, I think's gonna happen.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_03: I was talking you know, I was just talking to an a uh an HVAC owner, and uh he said, Yeah, my my office manager who answers the phone, does all the AR, does all this stuff.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_03: He said, She went in for this procedure on Thursday, she was gonna be back on Monday, and she died.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_03: He goes, it was the crazy it was the craziest thing.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_03: It we've we've all been in mourning.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_03: He said it was awful.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_03: And he said, and now what's left over is she didn't write anything down.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_03: And now I am doing her job and don't know how to do it, don't know where anything is.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_03: And so I would much rather not be in that position.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_03: So I'm really thankful that that uh it is a chicken and egg piece because you said before, until you have enough volume, you can't hire the people.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_03: But I do see people, I do see other business owners that are like, they're worried about bringing people on because let's face it, more people, more problems.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_03: And so it it is daunting to bring people on, not just from a financial, but you also have to manage them and you also have to make their sure they're doing stuff, make sure they're being doing things the right way.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_03: So it is a lot of work.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 18:32
  unknown: Yeah.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_03: Go ahead No, you go ahead.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_01: I was gonna say, like, depending on on your on your weaknesses, right?
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_01: Like sometimes even like managing people isn't something that you you're you're good at.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_01: And so you bring people on and then it's like, well, I have to manage these people, I have to do one-on-ones, I have to, you know, all these things.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_01: And that can be a whole other basket of issues as well that you're having to manage it as you grow the company as well.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_03: Uh we actually, it's been interesting.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_03: There's a new test out called Working Genius.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_03: Have you heard of it?
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_03: I've not no.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_03: It's and so we took our whole team through it.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_03: Um, we've got some new team members we probably need to take through.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_03: But it basically says there is different ways that people work with other people.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_03: And sometimes, and so you're working genius of the six, there's two that you'll be really good at, and there'll be two that you're really bad at.
• 19:20
  unknown: Okay.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_03: And you may have to do the really bad ones, like managing people or having one-on-ones.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_03: But if you recognize that that's something that saps your energy and it's not where you really want to work, then you make sure that you have somebody else that can do that.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_03: So looking at your team of right people, you just say, she's gonna be better at doing that.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_03: And so actually, my integrator, I've like transitioned some of that stuff to her and I've transitioned some of the stuff that she does to me.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_03: So if you can afford to do that, it's really beneficial.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_01: And so it it for a lot of companies, team is everything.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_01: It sounds like for you, team is the core.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_01: Your culture, everything depends on your team that you have.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_01: And over the years, you guys have probably gone through some evolutions in your team, but also what you've asked of your team.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_01: And so we were briefly talking about the niching down aspect.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_01: And so I'm sure there's people who like you had to have, I'm gonna call it this come to Jesus moment with your team of like, hey, we should niche down and we should have this third pillar.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_01: You probably had to get them on board to be able to do that.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, it's like for someone who's listening and like they have this agency that's not niche down, they have this team that's like on the edge of do we niche down, do we not?
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_01: You know, are we gonna lose clients?
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_01: All the fears and thoughts that go into it.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_01: What what would you be saying to them as they're having this conversation with their team?
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_03: I think that as the as the leader of the organization, you have to cast the vision of what's in it for them, what's in it for the business, what's in it for the clients.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_03: But yeah, we did get pushback on it.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_03: It also meant we did say no to a lot of generalist clients.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_03: Like they have to fit a certain spending, you know, amount or whatever to keep those guys.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_03: And so we had to say, you're not gonna, we're not going after those clients anymore.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_03: We're going after this HVAC niche.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_03: Um I one of the things that we have done is we're associated with the Seven Figure Agency and we utilize a lot of their videos and training.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_03: And I took my whole leadership team, we went to the intensive that they had so that they could drink the Kool-Aid just like I had.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but then we cast the vision and we uh talked about it a lot and we watched those videos.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_03: And, you know, I think my people are all in on it.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_03: I'll tell you what, I'll tell you where we really struggled, is the first time we made a big change on this was when we went from being a publications company to a digital agency.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_03: That was I lost people.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_03: Okay I had somebody say, I bet we are not a digital agency.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_03: We are a publication, we're a publishing company.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_03: And I said, Oh no, we're not.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_03: We are a company that's gonna survive and thrive.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_03: We are not gonna go the way of the horse and buggy.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_03: If our clients are talking to us about doing digital, then we need to know about digital because we need to solve that for their clients because we are really a customer relations company that just happens to do marketing.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_03: And we used to do it with we do it with publications, we do it with digital, we do it with traditional.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_03: And so I think I think that sometimes when you make a new change like that, people are going to like and that's okay.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_01: Now I I want to come back to the team as I could something you just said made me think of this.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_01: So like there's the aspect of going from publications to digital marketing, right?
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_01: That that was a change in the market.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_01: And we're seeing this now with AI, right?
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_01: And so are you guys having some of those same like conversations internally of like we made this big pivot in the business from publications to digital marketing.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_01: Now it's like yes there's it was marketing but there's this whole other realm of AI.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_01: Is that a conversation that's that's going on?
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_01: Gosh yes.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_03: In fact we have just um we're about to roll it out next week but we have spent the over a month working through what is going to bring results for our clients because AI is exploding.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_03: And um you know it used to be SEO and Google and that was like kind of our core package and now we have changed what our core package looks like.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_03: We're not going to stress SEO for a small business owner anymore because if you think of SEO like Taladega, 500 laps you you're joining out on the SEO um raceway and they're already got you lap by 400.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_03: You're never catching up.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_03: You're never catching up so we have started using the Wayne Gretzky you know that the way to success is not to go where the puck is but to go where the puck is going.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_03: So we are all about AI visibility and AI authority and we've set up our packages to reflect that.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_03: And then also if you think about the triangle of known, trusted, you've got to be known you've got to be trusted and then you have to be found.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_03: If we can do those things for you and part of that the be found on AI, be found on Google, be found in your community, we can help you with the other pieces so that you can be found.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_03: So we have re we've redone our packages with that in mind.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_03: But but we'd had the same packages for two years.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_03: But what worked two years ago just doesn't work as well anymore.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_01: And and and probably what you guys are going to roll out next week won't work six months for now won't work 12 months for an hour or whatever.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_01: Because it's changing so fast and there's this constant evolution of uh of the way that we're evolving.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_01: Even us like with talent feels like we we we hire people right and but it's like I have people come to me and they're like well like nobody's going to be hiring talent.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_01: Nobody's going to be hiring VAs blah blah blah like because AI is going to take over and I'm like no no no like that's that's wrong.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_01: People are going to be more focused on how can I hire a human that is AI and A right that knows how to really enhance their their productivity using AI because that's where things are going.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's like going where that that that puck is going on there.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_03: On the concept I think that I think the people are going to become more important.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_03: I think it's going to become more and more important.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_03: Mm-hmm yeah and it and Yeah go ahead.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_03: Well I was just going to say my if I were to tell my clients that they were going to talk to an AI person on my like an AI virtual they would fire me in a heartbeat.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_01: Mm-hmm.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_01: You know or if you told them that you had AI that was doing all of your fulfillment they're going to be like what?
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_03: Like because it's dumb AI is AI can increase productivity but it's dumb and it has to be checked.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_03: Like we were asking it about something that was going on with Google and I was like and it told me that there was a new algorithm that had been announced and it that was because this new algorithm and I said what I said give me you know give me sources tell me tell me when that was produced where is that at and it came back and it said oh I'm sorry it that didn't really happen.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_03: Like you have got to check it and you've got to have people smart enough that know what questions to ask it.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_01: Mm-hmm.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_01: Well and it's it's one of those things uh there's there's times I've sat there and I've asked it are you sure?
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_01: Are you sure can you make sure you're correct in this and it will continue to correct itself because it never wants to be wrong.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_01: And so there's times where I'm like I know like 20 questions ago when I asked you if you were sure 20 questions ago that like this was a good enough answer.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_01: But I wanted to see like how far it was going to go because it's it's just it's unsure.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_01: When on on the people aspect, one of the other evolutions I see teams go through and I believe you guys have gone through this as well where you had, hey, my team is just here in the US, it's just here in Alabama to now we're going to have this remote team, but sometimes also this global team as well.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes it's hard to like get your US team around that, right?
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_01: Of this like, hey, I'm going to be able to expand beyond like our team in the office, right?
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_01: You build this culture, we're all in person, you can go open somebody's door and say, hey, how is your day?
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_01: Now we're going to bring in team members who are not here in our office.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_01: Have you guys gone through that inside of your agency and what was that like for your team going through that change?
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_03: We have.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_03: And for us, I'm originally from Atlanta.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_03: So there's a huge labor pool there.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_03: But in Montgomery Alabama, not so much.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_03: And so um I think the explanation of that uh the reasoning for it that we're trying to find the best talent not just local talent.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_03: We're trying to find the best talent made it really easy to explain why we needed people remotely.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_03: So but I but I will say that that was a that took some getting used to understanding how to communicate how to do that effectively.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_03: And so we've done some really neat things with our group that's remote and I feel like we we use clickup and man that has been a game changer but it took a long time like we put it in place and they were like oh we're doing this all wrong we had to redo it.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_03: Uh-huh but we're finally I think finally got our vibe going with that you know so that the rhythm is good.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_01: What is it you guys had to do to like kind of like keep the culture going, right?
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_01: Like you you almost don't want these two separate cultures like where you have like your US based team culture and you have your international team culture, which will happen, but how have you been able to cohesively make them blend?
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_01: Well that's a good question.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_03: We do so there's a c there's we have a daily meeting every morning.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_03: I think everybody does like an all hands on deck kind of meeting.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_03: But then on Wednesdays um we also have added on like an informational session.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_03: So like one of our guys uh Esteban he had come up with um a new reporting system for like our text messages.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_03: So he was showing everybody about that.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_03: They were asking questions and then and so we we have different people talking about it.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_03: So they get to know each other.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_03: But then we also have like really fun team building activities and we just had one yesterday in in in the style of EOS we were about to do our state of the state the next day and so Angie who we call our chief fund officer she was leading it and she said everybody put in here your in the chat your best professional best personal and while they were putting that in she said I have been recording things that people have said over the past few months and I want y'all to guess who said them.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_03: And so it was really cute.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_03: And she had had like different things that people had said about different things and when she was going through it she was like each person was kind of talking about either something professional they did or something personal.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_03: And it was really engaging and it was really fun.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_03: So yeah I and I think people really look forward to those.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_03: And then our third thing that we do is um because we're real committed to training is we do a lunch and learn each month where we provide lunch and we all get on and if we're watching like a video we'll stop it we'll talk we have an exercise afterwards.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_03: But lately what we've been doing is taking a different team like for instance my marketing sales team presented how they do a competitor analysis like how they put it together how they talk to the client about it.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_03: And that was really interesting because my fulfillment team said we we have this other tool that you guys should be thinking about using.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_03: So that was really cool and it just really empowers the team to talk and share knowledge and information.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah that's awesome and it's some of the things we see some of our clients too is like we have one client who has a bunch of team members in the Philippines and they got I think for Christmas they're getting an Airbnb together for them to all travel and paying for their travel for them all to come together.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_01: So different things like that.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_01: My entire team just the nature of our business is all international.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't know how if you could do this where you're located but I'm in St.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_01: Louis so like there's all types of food from different cultures here.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_01: And so like I've gone and gotten food from an authentic restaurant from the Philippines from Columbia and I've had that food because I'm the only one here in the US with my team and so then my team thinks it's awesome because I'm trying their food and they're like recommending what food to go buy and everything like that.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_01: So that uh that might be something with your US based team that is a great idea.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_01: I do think that's a great idea.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_01: So well Pam as we're as we're wrapping up here one of the things that uh I always ask people is like as you are talking to someone who has gone through the evolutions that you've gone through to get your agency to where it's at looking back what is one of the things that you would recommend to them or say to that person like as they're going through that?
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_03: Don't give up.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_03: Keep grinding even though it doesn't seem like you're getting anywhere.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_03: I've decided that in any business, any sales, you know, there are going to be ups and downs and ups and downs.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_03: And then the more you do it like the longer we've been in HVAC it feels like now they're smoothing out.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_03: Like we're still having the ups and downs but they're not as big a swings as they were because it's those big swings that get you discouraged.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_03: But hang in there.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely well Pam thanks again for for hopping on those who are listening or watching please don't forget to like and subscribe and share this episode so we can share what Pam and her team at Export HVAC are doing.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_01: But until next time this is the agency advantage