How to Run a Successful Marketing Agency W/@AskYvi

Welcome to the social media lab live podcast powered by Agorapulse. I am Scott Ayres the content scientist at the social media lab where we bus amiss the rumors and the stories of social media marketing with science. On this episode of the Social Media Lab live, I’m sharing my interview that I had with my friend Evan Himan, better known as ask Ev, that’s ask why be hi and we talked all about the subject of. Does your agency suck and Evon is matter of fact and blunt, and I love her honesty and we dive into lives a different thing that will let you know how to run an agency. Let you know what tools you need to run an agency and really kind of evaluate if your agency sucks or not, if you want to see and listen to and watch and read, more of our episodes of the social media, lab live podcast go over to social media lab dot live here. Is My interview with my friend. Ask Eb it’s good to have you on the shows. Yeah should tell me before show make sure I don’t pronounce your name wrong and I probably will, but it s Evon himse. I got it right, Eigot it right yeah. If you don’t, if you don’t, I call her ask Ev, and so I makes it easy E. IT’s like. Okay, what’s the whole name, it’s Askeve, but sshe’s a business efficiency code. She helped digital entrepreneurs. You know automake their business, you know so they can dominate their Industri s. He got over ten years experience, organizing and streamlizing. You know businesses ind, the profibility and success and you’re based in in San Diego Right, Yep, moved here in November best decision to best decision. I ever made right before car B. Nineteen. Thank God, I’m not stuck in Succreminto Lihe, now O s. It is that worse, there is at I’m like wait here. We have the heat right now bud. You still have a little brease going. You and San Jigyou just go out to the ocean. If you get the heat wave wigt, but Sacramento had the three digit now for a while and there’s nothing to go. An doy literally just sit in the house and you sweat, O, I don’t say yet mean I live in Texas, so we had we had days a hundred fifteen. Last week you have fun with that. I’m Sanijego spoiled now. I start complaining at ninety yeah, like we. We have a. We have a coolfront right now. It’s like ninety five, a ninety eight this week, so it’s like a cold front for us, so Yoa so tell thus a little bit you you been you’e been doing agency stuff for like ten years like do you have a particular type of client. How did you get into that ha? What’s your background? Maybe like your elevator pitch, you know if you will, Oh, my God, how many holes do we have time that is, that is one of my downfalls trying to concise. All of that, so my lad husband is pretty much how I ended up going into all of this. Initially, that was, oh, my God, wo Thosand, a eight, no twenty! Yes, two thousand and twenty. I don’t even remember by new years. Ten years ago, I started through the need of his clients, with social media realized really fast. I am not a social media manager coming up with the content wit and content, and everything a’d, like I’m only stwruggling with that stuff for myself, not my thing but realized, I’m really great at the technology and we puposing and Evergreen content and making sure I can get the most with the least move more into the the web design peace. I’ve seen a couple of my peeps are in the audience to they know. Theyre short after that came to year of HYEGAS. In my business, where my lad husband got diagnosed with cancer, which brougt up this passion for what I calbla proofing- businesses, meaning whatever life thows Edt you your business should be able to handle. You should be able to step away from Your Business and take care of things or take a vacation. You know if twenty twenty doesn’t happen. At least you can take a vacation if two thouand and twenty happens we’ll deal with that kind of thing. So that’s the short version of my last ten years where I still have the agency. I still have a couple clients that I work with so to make sure, first of all to still stay in the in the area to know. What’s going on to stay up today to play around with all the new tools and like I do the same thing you do where, before I recommend a tool before I recommend an automation or anything we tested, and I can’t test everything just on my own, so I got a couple of my my old standing clients that I still work with that love just playing around with me and testing everything very good and you you move to the US in N, O seven from Simin Germany yeah based on the accdent, so I got the whole. You know I got. The whole system y process is literally just in my blood. It took me a couple years to realize that everybody sees things like I do right like I have that thing, where other people see chaos and I see actually systeme behind it, that’s a good way to put it now. I gotta ask two things: One: where did ask evy come from and it seems you get a small addiction to wonderwoman just a little bit, it’s a little bit. So what’s the correlation through all that, so ask ev came about through a classmade of mine that is now living in Australia and came to visit nine years ago. Something like that and we show her round wive horound and they had so many questions of. Why is this happening and how does this wook and how does that work and IM ONE? I want to know and either way I do know or I went and soached it. It’s like. Let me Google, that for you and by the end of their visit, ind was like you know what you should start a website ask evoncom. The thing was askioncom wasn’t available. It was of real to at that time. I think it’s now available, but you know what my branding is done. So I used my nickname, I used to ask evcom, and initially it was the Web Design Company and with everything, pivoting and changing. It is the consulting business now and the wonder. Woman peace came into this Ad. My latest rebrand, so talk about wewenning, which will feed into our conversation in general. To I used to have this win with like peach and Teal in the Mendalla and Blan. I thought it was te Birst and a friend of mine finally kicked me in the boody and is like th T. that’s not your personality, that’s not you, which then brought in the colors of just like you guys have the orange and the rat in my brand, and that was the first step and then the second step that when I was looking for image, we and everything wonder woman images popped up and I actually ended up finding two stock images that are not from the movie that I can use and then easel and and at McDonald took it to the level where it is now and took the colors and took the log o put the wings on it. And now we have a flowan wonder woman Ghrand, I’m like I love the movie. I love what she stands for. It just evolved naturally into this I’mtrying to find ha button to get me back on there. There we go yeah, very cool yeah. That’s that’s! I always noticed that I okay you’re, even your logo kind of has that wonder, woman getngs on it. So, let’s, let’s so, I want to kind of set all that up. So everybody’s watching you know we’re talking to Evon. I’m inthat are known, is ask Evy we’re going to talk all about agencies because she’s done a lot of work with agency. She has her own agency so kind of want to this. You know like AAll. These interviews, we do will talk about some data or some of just practice, and so so we’re going to kind of pred an that question and you know, does your I can get to the clop up. You know: Does your agency sucking, and so the first question that we that we want to tackle is: Should an agency focus on one industry and eve? What is what is your opinion on that and why might you think one way or the other? So a lot of my designers out there are not going to like my answer, because I believe you should not focus on one industry. Yes, you need to Nitch Down Don, give me Wong because from the granding aspect and really talking to people and optimizing what you put out there, you need to have a Nich the moment. U I decided digital enterproneuce, which is a fairly broaghd nich messaging, became easy work. Flows became easy. It gives you a pathway to optimize your whole marketing. Your whole advertising, your whole conversation, but the problem is when you nit down too much, for example, events, two thousand and twenty have you talked to social media manager and agencies that focus literally just on event, companies or events in itself. They quite had a problem about a month and after covid hit. So what I mean by that is: Yes, you need to nitch down. You need to get your messenging down. You can’t just do digital enterproneuce and then grandma brick and mortal store that don’t even have a facebook account. You want them to match and and fit nicely with each other. So, for example, when you want to work in the event INDUSTR and with event, managers that kind of area that perfectly also matches with Westaurans with music people anything that feed in with that event industry. Yet you don’t completely nich down to just one exact industry, so that means you have a backup. You didn’t put your x all in one basket. You didn’t count on my face being around and bringing in clients. That’s the same thing: fine sister, industres, fine, where things work together well and just build a story around it. It’s like I’m one of those people. I can find you a story and an excuse for pretty much anything as long as you can explain it and it can build a story around it. Your followers are going to get it and understand it and stick around and you can still build your brand around in. You still can tell you story amounded, while I’m not putting all over your eggs an one basket yeah. I think that you hi thinkis great point about the events obecause. We know that people, friends, that there inthat a they did and they mean it’s rough because there’s not events right now, and so I do think having some diver. I know everybody wants to knit Yo ow wher. They always say the riches are in the nitches, but I mean- and it’s to just don’t go too tiny yeah. I think you maybe in maybe amaybe a’ a mix of niches, perhaps that you do th but complement one another. Excuse me. I think that could be a good, a, maybe you’re, a real atorn. You also you work Onrealto Realit, you know relaturs, but you also do roofing companies or Hoota flippas real estate ARBNB. There is so much that works with that real estate, for example with me, and what Social Media Webt design, graphics designer they all metch with each other. The story is the same. So Youre your grand people, your story, people are still going to be happy with you because you are not throwing a plumber in with the marketing agency. They can build the story around you, but you do have diffrenciation in it yeah. I think I think that’s important. So I mean it’s: Would you would you say Wei, so we knon T, we don’t have one industry but shouldsoan agency focus on certain aspects. Only like you know, there’s some a dices that, like you said just to web design, there’s some agencies who just do facebook or just to pr I mean. Should you do everything like your agency? Do everything social media for someone or should you diversify that? How we approached it is I teamed up with people so under the Umbell of Pacific cuest media, we do offer the web design. We do offer the social media. We do, offer the graphics design. We do offer the branding, but I don’t do at all. I come. I combined my efforts with other enterpreneurs that are running their own business that are way better at the whole wrenning piece or creating content, or doing all that. So I can offer it to my clients because client comes to you. They want an easy solution. They don’t just want to talk to ten people and have a part time there for the social media and have a part time, therefor, webdesign and maintenance, and have the branding over there and nobody talks to each other, and nobody knows what the other one does and you just have a huge mess so going putting your aiforts together with other people that are as passionate about their niche, what they do well and I literally just pulled in the people that I’ve been working with for years. I got my it guy. That knows way more about service and speading of websites than IDOA. I got my wrending girl that tickled out of me what my grand is. I just pull it in, make it easy for your client, they pu for a one stop shop and why not upsell them right G. I think that’s important. I know guys who, like just do restaurants Hen. They do a lot of restaurants in biggers, bigger cities, but they don’t do paid at all and I’m like dude you’re missing out. I’m not helping hem out with their pads of at least you know, subcontract it out and take a you know its biff off of that or something like that yeah. So I think there you got a partner up with, even in I I’m in Waco Texas, which is you know, not a big town, but any means two hundred two firty housand people, but you know I know, agencies here that you kn were just doing. There were one stop shop and Tryn to do on their own, and now they combine like two or three agencies together and they used to different things. Wbur they all tern the either their clients only talk to one person, though, and I think that’s probably a you want yeah. You want to have that conversation easy, which feeds into our whole communicat help. Is it Freddy? It Ou whole conversation today where everything about your agency needs to be easy w. It needs to be easy communication. So in this piece you don’t want to throw ten people at them. You want to have one person that talks to the client and then Relaye that information yeah, an that goes right into our our next question here. W WITH EV is you know what processis an workflow shout agencies ass, you kind of just hit on that a little bit, but maybe diving a little bit more of you know. How do you bring on a cln when you bring on a client and kind of on board them? What’s the process and what kind of work flows do you have to get the work done? One one of theu biggest issues at last, as I have seen with myself as well as clients, alwadhy starts with the Leagu management. We get an email in it’s a crazy day. It’s second third Monday of the week right that emo suddenly gets lost. Nobody knows what to do so. Everything starts out with really having elite management system. CRM will dive into that in a little bit, but having that workflow ready of okay client messages you, especially nowadays, when they come through facebook, they come forwith twither message. They come through a potential company association. So, for example, clickup has me as a veded consult and I get emails through them, so they are coming indifferently, I’m getting emails toon my website, I’m getting inquirous here and Youtube and ifwe were even if you do not use the cm or any kind of tool you need to have that work flow down of okay. How are we simplifying this? Where are we sending them? How are we getting them? The easiest into the system from all of these outlets into one? So what I tell my clients when I coach with them it’s like get them into you. Email follow up with an email that says hey this this this, and this is what I offer hee is how you can do the first step and really funnal, no matter where they come from into one line of communication, because that’s just going to make your life easier same thing. I go uphot in Boxo, you get all of your stuff in there the moment they pop in there. You message them back and say: Hey email us at support ad evad, whatever it is, and that one email then can be automated. There can be a whole follow out. What do you need to do remind us? They are already in your inbox. They already reached out. That is a Wi warm league. You do not have to pay any money for it. You already convince them that they do want to work with. You don’t lose that leak and how many have all of us lost one of those leads just by Holy Loly. They messaged us like two weeks ago. Get that moment is that’s gone. That’s now a culpplete so having thet workflow ready to go with reminders and all of that stuff ready to go. That says hey by the way that dude emailed you two days ago. You got to follow up because he didn’t reply to your email, same thing with Clin on boarding, which you just mentioned, where it’s like. Okay, what happens especially with social media? You need this login and that login and that information, and that wending and those images and whed we get stock images. What are we doing? What so much information that goes just for bringing on a new client? Now you can start out as simple as having a damn checklist. Next to you, because the moment you stop that crocess and you have it not written down. I don’t care how many thousand times you have done this. There will be one point: Where did I do that? Didn’t I do that? Where is that stuff? How does that work? We’ve all been there. So, even if you just start with the notebook pen and paper and do the whole thing, I’m like you even can go all branded right, Yeahorposebo have it written down, so you don’t waste the time off. Did I do it didn’t I do it, and the next step, then, is taking that pen and paper and formation and really get it in a digital system. If you are already in a big agency, go digital right away because you team is going to need it. What happens if the the onboarding account manager isn’t there if you are not around who can take over? Who knows what’s going on? This is crucial, no matter which size of your agency you were in. If it’s a one man shop or if you have a hundred and fifty people in there same thing with what’s your marketing plan, if you are not out there, people don’t know about you. If you are not living what you preach, nobody is going to come in. It takes time for people to recognize you. It took me a year to refrain my following from. Oh, she does Web Design to Oh. She actually can teach me how to make things easier. You need to stay out there and last but not least, what are you doing with your existing clients? How are you making their life easy? How can they, when they do their bookkeeping in year and close for the taxes find all of their invoices? You think they save them a not goingto happen. I don’t. How can you automatically build them? If you, Oh, my God, this is a godsent. Ninety five percent of my clients of my retiner clients are on automatic invoicing and even batter they clicked the button and said I don’t care every time. This invoice comes every single month and it’s just that invoyce. So they have to do that for every single invoice. I cannot just invorse them and get the money, but they click. The box. That’ said just take my money. I know this. I know this in voicees coming every month. Just take it here, you go. I don’t want to deal with it. That means you automatically have your retainer coming in evsingnal month, so te doesn’t want Ash Burton yeah. So those are those are the main ones where I’m really like. Okay, we need to get this in now we’ll get to toll some of people. Ask Polt Tol we’re going to talk about tools here, N and AF tag. So well we’re not I’m not ignoring your question there. Sara, but Brad does ask something here. You know: Do you countor blacktime, on certain days to work with leagues, or how do you manage the the time that takes to do that? So do you do something you have specific days or just as they come in you get on thim as fast as you can I’m smoking over here, because I literally had to decide last night to put myself on a one day. Intensive with my business, because I need to clean up my blocking yes, I do time blocking so Thursday’s, for example, is video. I have my life show in the morning. I need to record youtube videos. We girls, I need a feaking hour and a half to be te to ready, so I can’t just put on a wig I, the orange on my head just doesn’t work as well as it works for Youscotd. So I want to optimize everything- and it’s not just the optimization of me needing to get dressed up, because I’m on video and because iw want to take care of myself to and look oot on video. It’s also the brain, your brain likes to stay in a lane, meaning if I know I have a bunch of discovery calld. I need to do my sales creach without doing the sales page. I’m in that I’m in thegoing. It’s all cool. I can do this for a day with multiple cult arsa going into consulting halls. This is a different thinking of I need to prep. For that, I need to make sure I know exactly where my client is and go back into it. There is a followup, that’s happening to all of that. So yes, I completely batch everything as of next week when I updated my batching schedule again Eah and I actually because Bhat is also the calendam pes. I use book like a bassfor example, where I say discoverwy Calt, Ar only available on those those and those dates and a maximum of that many calls now my clients that are intensives. They have two days a week where they can scedule those intensive, because nothing else is going to go on that schedule with those intensive that, like my brain, is friet after one of those same with just discaver we cald or when I talk with companies when I do collaborations- and I already set my schedule up in a way where people can schedule time with me- where I’m like sorry dude Wednesday, you no, my brain is not working in that Welm on Wednesday. We need to do that on the Thursday and really combine those things, but another thing that I also want to throw in there is I tri to set up my tasks matching blainpower and what I mean by that is. When I have a discovery call. I know I’m going to be excited afterwards, because I know that person I was on ta call with is going to leave with at least one AA moment. That means my grain power. My energy level just went up now, there’s other task where it’s like. Oh my God, I don’t want to do thos. I have you know. I schedule those right after because I’m up here, my energy level is going to go down with that task, so I’m either way unneutral Wat, I’m in kind of mood. So I try to Max out my own personal power by natching my task with those energy levels and trying to offset them with each other. That’s great advice, an they all of us have a really hard time, doit, probably that for sure Godi’m like you, I unders y. u now I’m chasing different squirrels all day long that when it comes to your leads coming in like wait if you’re batching them and you’re waiting for a certain day, two things one, I mean I worr d worry like okay I’ms going to be it’s going, Ta be six days before I reply, because that’s my schedule day. I’d worry about that. Maybe, but to do do you send some sort of automated message when they come in? Let them know hey. We will wlllook this over we’ll get back to you on Xyzd, so correct little little thought issue right. There they’re getting information right away, so ilide comes into my email and box. That’s where all funnel them they go into my email, end box and they get a email templet that pretty much says the same. It’s a little bit customized with a first name. If I already have a little bit additional information, I pluck that in there too, and they get told, hey just schedule, a discovery call that’s where everything starts. That’s pretty much the the single culture action! That’s in that email, some additional information schedule, a discovery call. So I do these email on every single day specific times throughout the day, but you get a response for me within twenty four hours. The call itself is where the batching happens, so the batching on the email and response happens daily by times of the day, where morning midday afternoon, before I close everything up or when I just have a wake in between and I’m just playing on my phone again, then the actual daybatching happens by that discovery call schedule because I’m not doing discovery calld on a Monday Mondays are crazy. I don’t want to have any protenas on your pliant in there when the crab is on fire again. So that’s where that happens. You always will hear for me right away and then pretty much the bigger the project goes, the longer the weight is going to be again. Communication always happens. Discovery Calls happen a couple days a week, my retainer coaching clients. They are going throughout theyre, easy to plagin in the in the calendar intensives, which are either away four hours or a total of eight hours so full day session with the client. They are scheduled farther out. Simply because, first of we need to find a full day where the time is in my schedule, and there is a lot of crap that goes into it, but yeah you’re never not going to hear for me within twenty five hours to en good advice, because some people might go. Oh no get scared. So if you’re just happing in we’re talking to ask Ev trying to answer the question, does your agency suck, hopefully by the end of this you’ll, know whether you’re is a self analysis? We’re not going to tell you if yours does or not, but we’re GOINGTO, Lo fom AAs to that to right it sucks right now I have to overhaue my homework flows right so Wev, so we’ve talked about you know: Should you focus on one industry or not? We talked about processes and work flows. The next thin kind of this is an interesting one. I think I think a lot of agees probably struggle with this one. Is You know how does teaching and being active on social help and agency? First off two thousand and twenty? We know everything is crazy. Right now- and we know everybody is on their phones the moment you are not visual. You were out of mind. People are so fast with jumping right now, it’s like look at me. I realized. Yesterday I went out of something. What did I do? I took my phone. I went to Amazon and I didn’t even work the five minutes down the street to go to the store everything happens so fast right now, which means we are inundated with so much information. You know and if you’re working with clients and trying to get in front of trying to get your clients in front of their target market, you know they got to stay out there. The same replies for you and the Nice thing is when you actually are being out there. People keep seeing you people keep engaging with you, you doing the work. You know that it takes time for people to get to know you to trust you to just be like I’ve seen you, you actually know what you’re talking about. You actually are walking the talk, so many people are now coaching coaches. How to coach? You need to walk the talk and show people, this stuff actually works, and suddenly you jump on a discovery, call and they’re like Oh yeah, I followed you for a year. No need to sell me. What’s your package take my money. How can you be that? That’s true, that’s true! Now, how does that Practicaly? Look, let’s say we’re in you know someone lives in Dallas Texas. How does that you know, for you know and they’re, not someone whos speaking at events like big events, like you know, you have and like H, W D, How does that practic ality look? Maybe I someony’s in a different area. It’s a little smaller. I love the approach of Evergreen content. First off teaching teaching is a big thing and don’t believe the whole take money for your teachings, because nobody is Goingto, hire you because you’re already giving them off of free people don’t want to deal with it. Teach them show them how things are done because they going to realize how much work. That is how much time they need to spend an what a pain in the body. It is it’s the perfect way to show them your value and how much you do for them, so teach that go on Youtube, half short little Michel content. Nippids of this is why you need to do this just chop little thirty, sixty second videos and weuse that stuff, as I managed TI’t mention before I hate miting. Yes, I mentioned that before I hate witing to Sol Ma Culton. Now he knows now, I’m like Doyou Really N. can you clean that up for me please, it’s like. I had to write something again. So what what did we decide for me? We starte with a youtube video, because it’s like you get me started talking. I don’t shut up so put me on video, not a problem. We then take that make that in a bloc post make that into small pieces of content, no matter if that’s a video of that Social Meria and run it as ever green. If you were using a goup holes, go set up your tiuls for your own Promo stuff for upcoming events promost off and throw that in there and repeat that stuff. Now, suddenly, you created one big piece of content. You made little pieces of content and you constantly Shar them out there as evergreen. Now it might take two months three months, four months it took a while for me, but right now hm we had a little hiccu behind the scenes this month, which means barely any fresh content, went out in August on my facebook Pagh yet go. Look, there is stuff going through there like. You would not be able to tell that. We had an issue behind the scenes, because I build up those evegreen content cues, where I’m still teaching you how to use tools, I’m still teaching you how we integrated a noopulse, how we are using clickup to do all the things it’s out there, you as a vouer would never able to be te Lov, never able to tell that there was not really any fresh, unique content going out this month. There was just about that much yeah, so on top of Contie, so maybe maybe offer some free courses. Maybe you riht sone blogs, O videos. Would you nmaybe speaking to like chamber events or local events or ar teaching me we’re doingtn doing a clay I’ll do offer a free, thirty minute class? On this I mean. Is that stuff valuable still today it is you just need to test that it’s just like it doesn’t matter if it’s online or if it’s off like there is going to be events where like why that Hec did I do that nothing came out of it and there ‘s going to be good events. So if you were at a level where it’s like, you know what I have way too much time on my hand, I don’t have enough clients, you Goin, to be a little bit less choosy, on which events you are joining once your schedule is full you’re going to be more choosy, but always look at okay. Is this my target market? Is there actually a chance to get in font of people that I want to work with chambers Ar Grat, but chamber isn’t a chamber locally and Sacramento? I did a lot with chambers, but there was one chamber: I’l really love them, but it was an old chamber with a lot of old members that I had to fight off kimes and am facebook account ipdate your people just even sent an email. I had more time to fight with them, pretty much to educate them. Why they should go online because there weren’t an age bracket and in a situation where it’s like yeah. Now we don’t care and then just the town down the road. There was a little bit of bigger Chambur, a younger chamber where the chamber in itself already did the work of educating their members better than that old chamber did just do your research and yes, we t’Sgot. We know it, we love our online. We love our videos, yet nothing beats an inperson conference, the chambers and in person events are the same way. They get to know you. They get to speak with you nowadays to a mask and six foot apart, but still you still can meet people. You still can talk with people, they isn’t energy exchange that you do not have online. So yes, they are totally valid. Just do your job and do your research and put your time where the chances are good, that you’re going to get a returnofhy investment. I think it’s a o good adviceto, but I do think in what you mentioned earlier, though, because you are, if you are going to be a social menmarkin agency, you know it’s kind of you know you saly say they, the cobblers. Kids, don’t have shoes, you get! U, I think, as an agency who does social med, you better have a good social media presence these days, because people are looking at it and they go oh well. That agency’s got like ten people who’ve liked their page and they never poste at that. Doesn’t look good, so you got to make sure you’re, like you, said, you’re walking the talk and I think and then then the numbers need to match. I’m like, for example, before I hired my Youtube Guy, I was doing the search beginning of the year with multiple people, and I looked at one guy where it’s like you have that many followers, but no views chances. Are you bought some of those followers, because if you have that kind of following, but you only have two hundred views on your views, there’s something off sorry the one I’m walking with now might have not had a website might have not had the online presence on facebook or social media, but I looked at his youtube channel and I’m like dude. You know what you’re talking about t you make your own life easier same thing with with any coltures or professional help when I’m hiring I’m sorry. If you are not putting work into your website, you don’t need to know web design. But if you are professional- and I look at your website and it’s a quare space, broken kind of no sorry I’m going to move on, I don’t care how well you might know your area, you are not paying attention to your own public appearance and spend the money to hire somebody to do it right. Sorry, Yeah Yeah, you’ve got. I think it’s like you know. It’s like going t to mechanic. Ho’s got a brok down car. You know you don’t want to do and we all go through seasons. I’m like I am as I am as guilty as anybody else. As I said, it’s like my own work flows, righe now a mess because I changed packages. I changed approach. I literally just need to do it and take a day for it. We all go through seasons. It comes down to the overold picture that you were presenting. You kind of started talking about this, so I kind of want to go and go into this now like how does an agency scale? You’ve mentioned some things there about getting ta good website. All these things, O kind of what some practical ways and agency can canscale their business. The funny thing is for me, scaling is actually an afterthought. It’s a result, and it’s a result of you optimmizing, pretty much anything if it’s the COM, the communication with your clients, if it’s team communications, if it’s your workflos and processes, is it your your toolt and technology and one I actually haven’t wigt here, because I’m working myself through that right now, one thing that can help you get clear on this is this little poppy might hear scale up an amazing we soas, especially when it comes to the communication piece to that, is one of the biggest time sucks. There is no matter if it’s with team or clients not being able to clearly talk with them to have one way of communication where you have to find information and and just collect everything from everywhere, so optimizing, your communication will cut down and time optimizing your workflows, as I talked about before the moment. You start writing work, close and processes down. You will start seeing where bottle necks are where things don’t make sense. Where Scott goes life, he knows he’s going to need the into he’s gone in. Need the image he’s going to need the culture actions. He knows what he’s going to need to do in his head, but that means everything is all over the place because it’s Al I had, let’s be honest. The moment you write it down. You see wait a second! If I do this after that, this is going to flow easier, same thing with client management and talking having a client portal where you can just be like at the end of the year mentioned it earlier. Client is like: Do you have that invoys? Do you know where that information is and you’re like? Here’s, your link to your poo just go heafun optimize, optimize optimize, and for that you need to follow Scott Teaching. You need to test it. You need to run with it. You need to adjust it. It’s a content, it’s a constant corcle of okay. I have an idea. Let’s, let’s look at this workful. Let’s look at this process. Writing it down running with it. Seeing this works, this doesn’t work, you suddenly get the data and with that dayther you can go for it big thing. I work with my with my clients on his time estimate and I’m all over the place right now. I’m wikt there so many hings with Tento one of the big things is again time management and not just time blocking and not just time laying out how often have you been in this situation. Whee. I was like Oh yeah that imerge just takes me five minutes no problem. Those prosts are written in an hour, not a problem and suddenly at six PM and you’re, like whethe hell in the day go eah every day. If you follow me, if you know me, you know I’m a fan on clicker click up as a project management system. That also allows me to say this is the estimated time for this task or for the subtask, which means my work. Frow YouTube YouTube, video to blockpost, to social media content, to evergeen content to an email newsletter, that’s all written out and all of those steps haven’n estimated time next to it. That tells me I believe this takes half an hour cool now me or my va, actually track our time now I can see okay. Why is this specific piece of content two hours over the estimated time? What happened here? Why is that happening, and without those numbers without those tracking, without testing it you’re not going to be able to optimize you not going to be able to scale by optimizing everything you were able to take on more clients, you were able to have your team won it because it’s digital, it’s in a project management. You are using tools why your SSO peace, standurd operating procedures, the end go with all of this. Is You being able to step away if you ere able to step away from Your Business? You are ready to scale it’s that simple, but it’s not simple to get there yeah, that’s kind of what I was thinking I may be. That is a great thought, though. If you, if you can step away, then you can skill. That’s that’s an interesting way. To put it I for an example: I’m like I’m still at the point. My goal is: I want to be able to take a full week, racation without any hicups. That is migeal. I got a call a month ago or something like that. On Monday, I was on a waylest for a selective surgery. Nothing Ma Ja Mogad, but they called me on Monday for the surgeony on Wednesday. Monday was a little crazy because we needed to do all the testing and I needed to tell a client hey. I can’t do our call on Wednesday. We need to move this out, but I was pretty much gone from my business for a week and a half and nothing bount down W. that’s good work in stages. Yes, the Engle is four weeks. The ankle is the stuff running without you, but if you just focus on that you’re going to get overwhelmed, you’re going to be like I’m never going to get there. This is never going to happen. How the hell am I going to know work in stages, focus on one workfloor work focus on one process focus on one issue where okay Viea, why have we been talking for an hour and nothing got done and we have not made any decisions. We need to streamline this conversation piece cool. I just lost the client again because I didn’t see the email. How can we faxe that work on one piece at a time and it will add up, and especially after the first six months of peace by peace, optimizing those pieces, a snowball effect will come into and you suddenly get so much drive and so much momentum with those things thet. It’s worth it because initially doing this, it’s a pain in the bud. You are not seeing anything. This is not a short term fix. This is a longterm planning process. This is not having a glass of pubbly and being buste in five minutes. This is actually working out and starting to drop some pounds in a month or Chil yeah. There’s no quick fixes for your about. I do like your idea of you now figuring out where your problems are at getting those problems fixe and it kind of starts. SNOWBAING and Makitg life gets easier, as you start to figure out and Tweik everything and and kind of with that figuring out and tweaking what what tools shouran agency use or maybe, if you want to kind of keep it simple like what are like the top five tools, maybe that an agency should be using if they’re not now and the peeps in the audience that know me ire going to be like Youta before one big thing is com, because again, if he leaders already there, you don’t want to lose that momentum and that conversation it can be as simple as using clickup, which is another tool and set it up as a CIIAM. I have a video about that on my youtube channel, where it’s like you don’t go full on Com, like company have on Nimble, where you have quote cm tools with it. You can start simple with a click up boardstyr. You know that can ben view where you have Hame. Okay, here is a lead. They go into a discovery. Call there now a client, their maintenance client and you move those Tou and add tasks to them or task templates. That re mind you to do certain things or you go the next step to a Pon cm again like nimble or company Hav thots. On my two favorites, we did talk, click up. That is a big one, really getting your processes and your work flows down. Why I love clickup is because we can first off automate things in there. We can build templace clan on boarding. Is this tome stuff every time we need to get this information? We need to get that. We need to get this. We need to get here. You can build out that workflow and then every time a new client comes in or even in you lead. If you use it as a CI, am you say, cool here’s, a new task, Pollin that template done? You don’t have to write it down you, you don’t have to spend hours of building this stuff. You just pull at in last but not least, is cms. There’s a lot of people that mix up the SM with the CMS C. IM is a client wetention management. It’s the remind me I need T. I have a lad. I need to talk to you. What’s going on or a month later, you want to follow up or with a past. Client you want to follow up in six months. Is CMAS is a client management system. That’s the tool, that’s going to take care of the automated billing or pulling the money. If the client gave me the ocade that gives you a client portal, often enough, there’s even automations in there, where okay, the client signed up, and I can send a bunch of emails off. I need this information and fill out this form and do this and here and there, the one that I use for that is called Dobsado. That is my tool of choice where again whole bunch of tools Hyet, some of those tools cross over some of those tools have feeture way. I’m like stay away from that. Don’t use that use that one over there and last on the least. We all should have a schedule up. This shouldn’t even be a conversation. It’s like nobody should be in the email and forward back emailing five times to set up a fifteen minute call right, Sotha, as o. You said book like a boss. Is that the one you use? That’s the one I use. I like their approach of being able to have the full calendar page I can do coupons. So, for example, perception is everything with clients right. So I have sten alone calls where it’s like to hundred ninety seven or one ond, nine ND and Nety. Seven. Now, if you bok and Retano with me, you get those calls but ad the cheaper rate. So what you can do to make sure your client doesn’t forget about the value and the savings they are getting. You can give them a coupon and you can say, go schedule, your cults, that you are getting with this retainer package and the coupon is Gong to Zo it out or you can run advertising througt. It’s like. I was surprised. I was just working with our lovely Amenda Wobinson, our facebook Adsgale on her schedul and I’m like we can’t do a coupon in there wan. It’s like you, have a nice returning client and you want to give them ten percent off of that call, and you can’t because it doesn’t have the feature. So that’s where I like book, like a boss, another one that I have use in the past. That’s really good to is acuity scheduling, Kyyeah, there’s so many out, like I’m a calenly, you know type Purson, there’s some co oesn’t have coupon COS; no, it doesn’t intheresome limitations on it to I’ve. Seen some cool ones, though I haven’t. I have to check out the book like a byjust like the name of it. It just kind of it kind of sounds cool and obviously we would say you know. I Don’ know what of the tool you recommand, but you know we would recommend you. As for your clients, to use, I don’t know the software CAL TO GORAP pay. Didn’t I seen this is why I get so excited. You know that I love to go up holds especially because of the evergreen scheduling and ass, a social. How did I I sack I officially suck it’s thusand and twenty I’m using two thousand and twenty as an ex cuge. We’ve already talked about it’s an assumption, like you, don’t have to say it right. It’s like you know, especially with your guys as power MEPORTS, which, by the way you guys can see. I just weave youed last week on my channel as a social media manager. I’m like I’ve been preaching about social media manager and agencies using a go up holds because you have that work slow built in from approval, no matter. If it’s between the VA and you or the client, you have the approval process built in you. Have the book scheduling built and you have the reporting building. You have that whole content creation and reporting work for build in. So I’m like how did I I have it on my list, but in the long ode, so I kind of skit that all right, we’ve gone, we’ve gone over an hour now so youshould bring t, we Blay, we blame two thousand and twenty well, we can blame everything on covid. At this point, I think yeah Stubb, my toe blame it on covid all right. So I think hopefully, we’ve covered enough stuff for here, so you can kind of selfanalyze yourself and know if your agency sucks ore, not if people need to go, find you what’s the the best website or place, you would want everybody to kind of go talk to you at or go look more. I’m attached to that thing, so it doesn’t really matter where you go. Just ask Evi and you’ll find me. You find the website. You find facebook you find Instagram, you might even find text Hark, not really active, I’m more the one that suddenly three hours later realizees, I’m still scralling yeah, but yeah you’ll find me everywhere. They is a facebook board active on the page, but I’m still listening into so you can get metherwee. Well, your boy, like bomband love, bomb B for being iapprecate. You A shurtour knowledge. He thanks again for listening to the social media, lab live PODCASTS, be sure to run over to social media lab, do live to listen and watch all of our live. Video shows and the checkout a Gorapulse make sure you subscribe to their podcast wherever in the world you are listening to it. Right now see