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The Relentless Entrepreneurial Spirit: Risk, Grit, and the Reality of Pivoting with Chans Weber
92 Plays1 year ago
In this episode of The Better Contractor Podcast, hosts Brent Oberlink and Travis May discuss the essence of entrepreneurship with guest Chans Weber, where risk and grit play pivotal roles in shaping success. Our guests share their unfiltered experiences, from navigating toxic business partnerships to understanding the importance of data-driven decisions in marketing. They discuss the hard truths about entrepreneurship—it's not for everyone, and it requires an unwavering commitment to push through the challenges. Whether you're young and scrappy or finding yourself questioning a corporate path later in life, this conversation will resonate with anyone who's ever contemplated taking the leap into entrepreneurship. Discover the importance of knowing who you are, the value of mental toughness, and why it’s never too late to pivot if you have the guts to do it.
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Transcript
Introduction to Elevate Delegate Framework
00:00:00
Speaker
It's called Elevate Delegate. I don't know if either one of you guys have ever heard of this. I absolutely love it. If you can just visualize real quickly, it's four quadrants. um Basically, it's things that you're good at, things that you're not good at on the top. And I believe on the side, it's things that you like to do and things that you don't like to do. So the thought process and the logic is when you have things that you suck at and you hate doing them, you have got to get them off your desk.
00:00:28
Speaker
Now, if you're a startup and you're a one-man show.
00:00:40
Speaker
All
Podcast Welcome and Introductions
00:00:43
Speaker
right, guys. Well, welcome back to another edition of The Better Contractor. Today, I'm joined with my normal co-host, the professor, Travis. Travis, what's up, man? Good to see you. Where's your scar or your ah fight? I did bring you the prop. but Yeah, this thing hasn't been smoked in maybe like five years. So, ah it's legitimately just a prop at this point. but Next podcast is no longer a prop. Add to the persona. I like it. I like it. um And we're joined by Chance with Agile, one of the marketing firms I trust, use personally and respect. Chance, welcome. Thank you, man. Thank you for having me. Appreciate it. Yeah, yeah absolutely.
Chance's Journey into Digital Marketing
00:01:25
Speaker
So we'll get kicked off.
00:01:27
Speaker
Chase, tell me a little bit about yourself, agile, and a question I always kind of like to know is how you got started. So take us back to the beginning of your journey and what what made agile? what Why'd you start it and kind of just give us a little brief background of it? Yeah, absolutely. um You know, I did what every, I'll say not every, but most people that are my age, I think in in society for us that are around 40, 45 years old, it was like when you graduate high school, if you don't go to college, you're a loser.
00:01:56
Speaker
um So I went and did the college thing just like everybody else. I think I was on academic probation like three times, maybe five, ah doesn't matter. um Found out just I just hated school. I'll be honest with you, I really don't think there's ever been a college class that I have taken that I could not get an A in. I just hated school. I hated learning about shit that I didn't want to learn about and having things forced down my throat that weren't interesting to me and just cared more about you know bar life and partying than I did in school. But that hits you hard after school, right?
Leaving Corporate for Entrepreneurship
00:02:29
Speaker
So I took a financial advisor job right out of of college and I was actually pretty successful in it. I was i was in Chicago at that time.
00:02:39
Speaker
I was actually the number one producing agent in the entire country for at that time was the second largest insurance company in the world in my in my class and like the entry-level class So I was successful at it, but I just I absolutely hated it There was something that always felt weird about being a 24 25 year old kid asking a 65 year old to roll over their entire Retirement account because I'm the best person to handle that um So didn't didn't like the job From there I took a job another another corporate job ah recruiting in financial services because I knew the ropes of that industry in that world. Wasn't nearly as successful there never really got my feet underneath of me and just found myself lost you know I fit that time I was.
00:03:21
Speaker
We'll say when this process started, 28, 29 years old, um and just and just had no sense of purpose. It's like I would make money, but which is like what society tells us we need to do, right, is like go to college, go go get a job and make money. It's like I was making money. I had a six-figure job, but I was just miserable. Like every day of my life, I was miserable.
Starting Agile: Challenges and Triumphs
00:03:43
Speaker
So I ended up having an acquaintance from college. A guy I didn't really know who had started a digital marketing firm. And he recruited me to to come work for him, essentially. He's like, hey, man, would you like to do sales? And I'm like, well, I mean, that's naturally just what I've always done. So we got to talking about it. And I went down this road. And I went through some tough times, even making $70,000 to $100,000 in Chicago, back then even, was like welfare in that city. I mean, how my portion of the rent with two roommates back then was almost $2,000 a month.
00:04:17
Speaker
which is hard It's just hard to comprehend, you know. um But I went through some financial troubles and problems, made some piss-poor decisions if I'm being honest, had a car repossessed, had a girlfriend that wasn't going anywhere. And it just felt like I was going on 30 years old at this just kind of rock bottom point in life. But this digital marketing stuff really interested me.
00:04:38
Speaker
So the truth is the actual, the first book I ever read about it was digital marketing for dummies. And then I read SEO for dummies. And again, you're talking, this was 13 plus years ago now, um just to try to learn what the hell this stuff was. And the more I read about it, it was just like this light bulb moment. Like i I was intrigued and I was interested in, like it got my juices flowing like nothing I'd ever been around had before. So I kind of hit this point where I was like,
00:05:05
Speaker
Why the hell would I go work for this guy? I really don't have anything to lose. This relationship I'm in with this girlfriend's not going anywhere. My job sucks. I had a car repossessed six months before that. um I owed my parents money. And I just was just like, what what do I have to lose? If I go do this and I lose everything right now, what do I have to lose? And the answer was truly nothing other than some money and time. So I decided I was going to go for it and start my own company. So I moved to St. Louis to do that. I initially had a business partner the first few years in the business, which I bought out, which was an absolute nightmare.
00:05:41
Speaker
Another story for another day. um Didn't think I could do it on my own. So teamed up with somebody who did have some business experience, though it wasn't necessarily successful, and started the company. And in our first full year of business, we did a million dollars in revenue, which was you know really hard for me to comprehend. you know i was um I was literally making you know more money by the end of that year than I was ever up to that point.
00:06:06
Speaker
Um, but I had a lot of things go in my favor. I had my, my, my boss in the job that I left. He knew what I was doing. We were, had a great relationship. So he let me file for unemployment. So I strung that checkout for a little while just to make ends meet and was paying myself like a thousand dollars a month out of the business in the beginning ah to get to that point. But we grew exceptionally fast.
00:06:28
Speaker
and just had a lot of success from there.
Entrepreneurial Challenges and Grit
00:06:30
Speaker
And you know now I have other companies that I own, I invest in real estate and and things of that nature, but but this is my my life and i I am an entrepreneur for life. i mean if i I could honestly say if I lost everything today, like for some odd reason, I lost everything today.
00:06:47
Speaker
Tomorrow, I would wake up and figure out what my plan of attack is to start another business. There is no way in hell I would ever go back to working for anybody. um This is what I was put on earth to do, and there's not a lot of us that can do this and handle this grind and be successful with it because it's it's hard.
00:07:04
Speaker
um The failure rates are through the roof, but um but yeah, that's that's my story in a nutshell and I'm happier than I've ever been in my life I've i've got a great wife two beautiful healthy kids and a business that is has grown rapidly over the years and um You know this this was God's path for me. No questions asked Yeah, I love that entrepreneurial spirit, obviously. Yeah. And in your comment about the very beginning that resonates too, because I started this company fairly young, my wife and I did. And that was kind of my mindset too, was what what do I have to lose? I literally, I don't own anything. I don't own a house or a truck. And that was it. So if you want to take my truck, then so be it. But it was that mindset of let's just do it. Let's just see what happens. But yeah, I totally get that.
00:07:50
Speaker
and You know, it's easy to, it's easy to keep your head down and moving forward when there's really nothing to lose. You know what I mean? Like I can't, it would be so much harder to do it now. You know, even if I strip out my lifestyle, my lake house, you know, million dollar boat, all these vehicles, all house, my kids going to private school, even if I had to like give it all, that would be really hard to give up right now. You know what I mean? To start over, it would be brutal. But,
00:08:16
Speaker
I know it can be done. And if I made it in the circumstances that I made it in, dumb as a box of rocks, no experience, all I had was grit and grind. Well, I still have that. So even if I had to let everything go, I'm confident that I would find my way in whatever my next journey would be if it came down to it. If you're wired this way, you're wired this way. Yeah.
00:08:36
Speaker
Yeah, no, I totally, totally agree. One thing about Agile that stood out in the beginning to me was you guys are different. I think you'll know kind of where I'm going with this. You guys are different than other marketing firms that like we've used or that we've had, you know, quote the work or whatever. You guys are a lot more data driven. I wanted to see if you would elaborate just a little bit on kind of, and I think that probably is part of your growth. Can you tell me just a little bit more about that? Yeah. i mind so Yeah. I mean, in general, like,
00:09:03
Speaker
Data never lies, and that's where so many people get so construed in the marketing world. I see way too many businesses, especially in their early days. The website has to be perfect. The logo has to be this perfect logo. They have to have this amazing business plan outlined, and they have to have this perfect marketing plan that they're gonna go execute. Well, hate to break it to you, but 90% of that shit is not gonna go as planned. That's just owning a business, and it's no different within marketing.
00:09:31
Speaker
So our approach has always been very black and white. like You can sit there and spend thousands of dollars making this amazing video for this ad, or you can record one with your phone. Believe it or not, what I have seen over 12 plus years of experiences, the damn things that are recorded with the phone tend to do better. The best performing ads in the history of Facebook and YouTube were actually recorded on iPhones, believe it or not. Like the highest performers ever. So it's one of those things that I think a lot of people overthink it and they, you know, I'm not saying you don't want things to look good and professional and clean and so on. Like I get that.
00:10:07
Speaker
But I think now more than ever, people want to do business with people. They don't want to do business with advertisements. And the more real that you can be and authentic that you can be, and then use that data to your advantage to push ah more of those messages out that actually perform, the better off you're going to be. But we don't play the guessing game here.
00:10:29
Speaker
Do we roll out new strategies and initiatives that we
Corporate vs. Entrepreneurial Paths
00:10:32
Speaker
don't know are going to work and test those waters? Yes, of course. If we're not doing that, we're not doing our job. But just as much as you might think you have a great idea, you've got to be just as willing to pull the plug if it's not working and performing.
00:10:44
Speaker
So everything that we do is about data because again, it does not lie. This is why having tracking systems, CRMs, all the different things, depending on what your business is and how it functions is so vital because it does not lie. So that is our approach to everything. That's how we make ah campaign decisions. That's how we make proposal decisions. It's all based off of what we have access to and what we're looking at in real live time as to what is working and what is not, for that matter.
00:11:13
Speaker
Yeah, no, that's perfect. I know it's it's been a little bit of an eye-opener for me as far as like from the marketing realm of, you know, being on one side and kind of being told one thing. And then I remember the first time you and I spoke, I'm like, ah, I love this data approach because it's a little bit different than what I've always been, you know, doing or whatever. Yeah. Most most marketing agencies agencies, man, they're so fluffy. It actually like pisses me off. It's like, yeah at the end of the day, how's it working? You know, the fluff stuff can be great. But at the end of the day, is it performing or not? It's that simple. It's really that simple. And again, that data doesn't lie.
00:11:50
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Let's back up just a second. I'm putting myself in a young entrepreneur's shoes. What is something you think, so if if you were back to a young contractor just getting started, you're 25 or 30 years old, yeah or another young entrepreneur, what is something you would tell that person?
00:12:08
Speaker
Man, that's a great question. um You're not ready, and that's okay. I mean, no nobody is ready for this. um you know Hell, I've learned things in the last six months that I haven't dealt with prior to this point, like hard shit that I had to go through.
00:12:24
Speaker
um scary shit, scary times, people issues. um I don't wanna say I had a cash flu issue but a cash flow issue, sorry, but even with this economy, like we've had some turnover. I have clients now coming back that let us go four months ago because they were freaking out. um So it's been it's been tough, but you're you're never prepared. As a young entrepreneur, you're never prepared. And if you can just embrace the fact that you're gonna be in over your head forever,
00:12:52
Speaker
and just embrace that and embrace adversity and truly get the mindset and the attitude of, I am going to get kicked in the teeth every single day, week, month, quarter, year, whatever, however you want to look at it. But I have to learn something from every single mistake that I make and lesson that I learn. That's the biggest thing is you have to learn. Like I have time periods now where when I go through something,
00:13:16
Speaker
And ever something's on fire, whatever it is, because there's always something, I truly like make myself take a step back. I get a alone somewhere, preferably on a tailgate in my truck in the country where I can just look at the sun. And I just breathe. And I'm like, what was the lesson here? What did I learn? What am I going to do to make sure this doesn't happen again? Because the mistakes and the adversity is what sinks most small businesses.
00:13:41
Speaker
It's not just about the grit. It's the fact that they don't learn and they make those mistakes again. So to me, that is the biggest thing that I would tell a young entrepreneur is you're you're never prepared. It's always going to have be ugly. You're going to have amazing days, but you're going to have way more shitty days and you're going to have way more days where you feel like you're running in mud than you're like accelerating like a roller coaster.
00:14:03
Speaker
It's just part of
Lessons from Business Partnerships
00:14:04
Speaker
it. But the if you can get your mindset to just embrace that suck and just embrace that it's it's always going to be hard and find ways to like enjoy that process and know that every time that you're getting drugged through the mud, something great is on the other side. ah brett I'm sure you would agree with me, man. If the worst, the worst shit that you've ever been through in your entire business, was there not something great on the other side? Yeah, every time. and Every single time.
00:14:32
Speaker
yeah Yeah. And I think you would probably agree, too, as you've gotten bigger, the problems have also gotten bigger. Absolutely. But in the beginning, all those little problems kind of got you set up and prepared for now, though. Yep, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that that is that is one thing that that Andy Fercilas said to me, having a beer however many years ago. I know you and I were in Arate at the beginning, but him and I were hanging out, and I was going through some stuff, and we were talking about it. And he's like, look, man, you just need to understand right now,
00:15:00
Speaker
Like, as you get bigger, your problems are going to get bigger. They're never going away. And that's the thing with entrepreneurship. Your problems are never, ever, ever going to go away. They're actually just going to grow in magnitude. And something that was $30,000 in your first or second year is now $300,000. So it hurts more, and it's harder. But again, I love what you said. you know The further you get along, I call it scar tissue.
00:15:27
Speaker
right? The more of these injuries that you take, the more scar tissue that you build, the more ready that you are to handle them. But it still doesn't mean you're not going to get knocked in the teeth harder than ever before and have to pick yourself up off the floor. It's just part of it. But like I said, I think in summary, not to sound so repetitive, but man, I think that people just need to learn in business that your problems are never going to stop. And if you can just accept that,
00:15:50
Speaker
and accept your attitude and how you're going to attack them as they come, that's just it's a game changer because it's never going to end. So you might as well embrace it and learn how to handle it. Yeah. Yeah. Just curious as we're on entrepreneurship, what do you think about like entrepreneurs ability to act quickly, like to to make a decision to just move forward, even if like, Hey, you know, most people would have gotten scared in that moment or like, yeah, that's not really worth it. Whatever the case may be. It seems like most entrepreneurs that are successful are able to make a decision, move forward,
00:16:23
Speaker
Correct that decision later if needed, but they at least had the ability and stuff to act like they acted immediately. You got to act quick, man. i I think that's a key. You know, I always say i I live and die with my gut instincts. And fortunately, knock on wood, you know, that they've they've been right way more than they've been wrong. Have they been wrong? Yeah, they've been wrong, but they've been right way more than they've been wrong. And that's why I think successful entrepreneurs, I think they're just wider different. Like they have a mentality of of aggressiveness. They have a mentality of grit and that, you know, they're not gonna get beat down. No matter what they do, they're gonna get back up and they're never ever going to stop. Like stopping or quitting has never been an option for me from day one ever.
00:17:08
Speaker
And, but I do think that there, there is a huge thing in making decisions, being able to make decisions. You know, it's kind of like we talked about, like the perfect logo, the perfect website. People worry about all this shit. It's like, man, you're not selling anything. You need to go sell before you're worrying about a whole bunch of ancillary things that are actually moving the needle. A lot of that is lack of decision-making. You know, dude, you can get a new logo.
00:17:31
Speaker
You can revamp your website. You can pivot your marketing plan. Like these things don't have to be perfect out of the gate because again, most of that, man, I don't even, I couldn't even tell you where the business plan that I wrote was when I started this company. I don't even know where it's at.
00:17:46
Speaker
Like, it is so gone, lost, our model's completely different, our services aren't the same, where we thought we were gonna go, we didn't, like, it just, it's it's gone, you know, so. Same, same, we actually didn't have one even. So, and it's a totally different business name now, too, so. Well, I feel like it's, you know, it's something the MBA students wanna write. It's like, man, the best thing you can do is just get your damn hands during a go. Like, yeah that's the best thing you can do.
00:18:11
Speaker
Oh, yeah, no, I agree. Travis, you've been oddly quiet. Your your turn to ask a question. So choosing one of the data and then the path chosen. ah I'll come back to the data. So the the path chosen, ab it's going to be hard either the way. I mean, I heard somebody, there was a book or someone I was talking about the path that we we choose in life, whether it's entrepreneurship or it's going to work for somebody.
00:18:39
Speaker
it's going to be hard either way. It's just you you're going to choose what type of crap you deal with and the level of it. So if you choose the corporate route, um you can see you can see success success there, you're going to deal with different levels that are probably just as hard as if you went through the entrepreneur route in the sense that but you you can hit walls, whether it's the bureaucracy or lack of freedom of movement or lack of financial rewards
00:19:10
Speaker
rewards, your lack of ability to maneuver and position your life in the direction that you want it to be, the time with your family. You're going to be dictated to as an employee, which are going to have different levels of things that make your life hard. It's going to be hard either way. um Just that at the end, one of that, that maybe the outlets is going through the entrepreneurial path.
00:19:36
Speaker
um
00:19:39
Speaker
if you're willing to go through the crap and the level of crap, you get the rewards at the end. In the corporate or employee world, that's not necessarily the case. You're going to have a boss, and you're ultimately working to make their business successful. And then there are some people that are just built for one or the other. But with what you were saying with You just felt like you weren't in the right place. Coming out ah of college, you did what society tends to tell us to do that any other option, you're just going to live a life of destitution and poverty and scrape to get by if you don't go down the go to college, go work for somebody route. And then any that there's probably people that chose the careers that you passed on that love it, that are thriving.
00:20:26
Speaker
um So it's not necessarily the industry, you just knew it wasn't right for you. um And luckily, yeah with your story young enough to pivot and being willing to pivot without because that's ah another common theme that people later on in life bring back is if you're young, that's your time to experiment because as you were talking, it just gets harder. yeah You have more dependencies, you have more things that If you pivot later on in life, youre you you do pivot regardless, there's going to be a time that you're figuring things out and it's not going to all go as planned. And so when you're pivoting later on in life, you have less years that if that falls on its face for you to pivot again, it may pick yourself up and you have maybe other dependencies. There's more of the younger generations that have started to realize, one, we had kind of our parents' generation
00:21:22
Speaker
was maybe a physical example of yeah the old story, you go to school, you get a degree, you go work for a company for 20, 30 years, and then you've retired your golden sunset years and they give you a watch and you're your set. it was It was our parents that went through the turbulent corporate times where the mass layoffs and saw that that that system was broken with them in that there wasn't that loyalty necessarily. And I think that started to resonate within some of our generation and below. And that continues to happen. And that's not necessarily the model. We see it with our own eyes. But that mantra of if you're going to be successful, you have to go get a degree and then go work for somebody still gets propagated. But I think less and less are buying into it now. And at least just seeing that there's other options, opening their eyes that if there's not a just a fixed path, ah that there are other options. And we can give you the education system to
00:22:21
Speaker
was geared and shifted around the First Industrial Revolution and the Prussian education, which is socialist, communist, Marxist came over about the same time to you and geared the education system to train people to go work in organizations. Fortunately, I think with technology and access to information, some of that stuff isn't broken. The younger generations aren't just so willing to just accept it, but are willing to maybe explore and go see what options are available. For the marketing piece, so pivoting quickly to to the... So to to tie that one up is the the pivoting early. you know i Here's a question, but I want to come back later to to the data piece because that that resonates with marketing gimmicks versus ROI. How do you know the difference? And where data has allowed us to shed light and do different things to the marketing realm.
00:23:17
Speaker
that actually justify putting effort into it. But the pivoting while you're young and being able to fail, that's kind of a or fail and and not suffer the consequences as badly. So now that we do have a few generations that have bought into the, well, I'm going to go work for a corporate job, I've got degrees or whatever, and now I find myself in my 30s or 40s,
00:23:45
Speaker
And I've known for the last 10 years or when that this is not the place I want to be. how did But now they've got dependencies. now they So they realized a little bit later the same thing that you did, Chance and Brent, early on of, I know that this route's maybe not for me, um but I've been told this is the path I have to take. And so they went down that path further.
00:24:15
Speaker
into their 30s, maybe they started a family, maybe they don't. Maybe they got a house and a mortgage, and now they've got a decade's worth of career as an employee. Is it too late for them to pivot? um It's definitely gonna be tougher. So for for any of those that are maybe listening to this that aren't young and scrappy coming out in their teens and their 20s, but maybe they just went down the wrong path a little bit longer and wanna escape and pivot, what advice would you have for them?
00:24:46
Speaker
I mean, I think you have to know who you are. I think that's the key, you know, and, and, you know, I don't, it's easier said than done because I don't feel like, I mean, I think we all grow and evolve as people, right? We all find out who we are more over time and what we can and can't handle. But I think that you really have to look in the mirror and ask yourself, like, am I willing to take this risk? Because there is not a successful entrepreneur on earth that hasn't taken risks.
Legal and Tax Strategies for Business Growth
00:25:13
Speaker
The corporate job is safe. And look, i'm not there's it's nothing bad about corporate jobs. To your point, I have employees. We need somebody at McDonald's to flip burgers. I'm not hating on employees. It has nothing to do with that. I'm just saying that it takes a special wired person to be a successful entrepreneur.
00:25:31
Speaker
I think a lot of people want to be entrepreneurs, but they can't do it because they're not willing to take the risks that need to be taken and they don't have the grit and grind to do it. It doesn't make them a lesser person. It doesn't make them anything. It's just, we're not the same. Everybody is different. We're not all the same people. And it's ah it's a small percentage of people that can do this thing and be successful at it because of how hard that it is.
00:25:56
Speaker
And it takes mental strength and and grit that's really, really hard. And I just think that's a fact of it. But you know to answer your question, somebody that's maybe past that turning point that does have things to lose, um you know I think it just comes down to, do you have the guts to do it? And if you've got the guts to do it, then you probably can do it. If you don't, that's OK. You're probably not that person.
00:26:20
Speaker
but it's really just about looking in the mirror and saying, can I do this? Am I willing to have a, I will never quit attitude and I'm gonna put, whatever, my marriage, my family, whatever it is on my back, and I am not going to stop until I win. Can you be that person that can live outside of that fear box of just letting the fear of the unknown consume you every day and stay in the lane that you need to be on, which is focused on growing your business? Do you think you're that person or not? To me, it's really that simple.
00:26:52
Speaker
Yeah, no, I think that's good. And on the like mental toughness part, one question I did have for you, what was a major challenge? I like asking business owners this as well. What was the major challenge that you've had over the years where like it obviously every day is a challenge or stuff up all the time. What was something major that happened and how did you guys work through as a team? Yeah. Um, hell I've had a lot of them. I would say the biggest challenge that I had was having a business partner. Um, a business partner that,
00:27:22
Speaker
Did not hold his weight, a business partner that came to work at noon and left at four. A business partner that was a shitty person that treated my team like crap and getting rid of that. you know I haven't been through a marital divorce. I hope I never go through one, but I'm not really sure what the difference be would be between that and a business divorce. They are brutal. um This was so bad and confrontational that at the actual closing, I had to be physically restrained from killing him.
00:27:51
Speaker
um it It was not pretty and it aged me It took years off my life because at that point this kind of ties into what Travis just asked at that point I was not 29 at that point I was married at that point I had a baby on the way and I was going through all that and it was like holy shit like if this doesn't go well if this doesn't end up in my hands if I can't buy him out if I can't control this business in these circumstances and What am I going to do with my family? And it it was really, really, really hard. I learned a ton of lessons through that. A couple of quick takeaways for anybody that is on this call. These things all worked out to my advantage, but they wouldn't have if it would have been differently. If you have a business partner, you need to have a buy-sell agreement.
00:28:40
Speaker
I don't give a shit if you go print one off of Google and use it. You have to have something in place. Is it better to get an attorney to do it? Yes, it is. But you have got to have a buy-sell agreement. You have got to have an operating agreement when you get in bed with other people. Business partners can be the greatest thing ever. I've seen it work. When you have business partners that have different skill sets that complement each other, it can be a beautiful thing.
00:29:04
Speaker
But when it's not, it is absolutely brutal. And I have mentored people that have went through this. I've been a shoulder for people to complain to, cry to. I've heard it from everybody because I went through it. And I've helped a lot of people through it because I know how damn hard it is. But you guys, if you are getting into business, I don't care if you don't feel like you can afford the document. You need to find a way to afford the document. You have got to protect yourself and the business.
00:29:32
Speaker
Get those documents in place. In my circumstances, we didn't have a single client that even knew who the hell my business partner was. And we did not have a buy-sell agreement. So my options for him were pretty simple. You can either get nothing, or I'm going to leave this business, or I'm sorry, you can either take my check, my offer, or I'm going to leave this business and take every single client with me because they know me. And you know I'm sure he doesn't agree with that or like it to this day all these years later. I don't give a shit.
00:30:01
Speaker
But ah it worked out for me, but it it could not have. So everybody, you have to have those documents in place. If you have business partners, it might seem like they're the best family member, the best friend. Oh, that would never happen to me. This guy was a friend of 15 years and we've never spoke again since. So just saying it's vital. Yeah.
00:30:21
Speaker
I think that goes back to, you know, I think back to like our beginning and the ones, there was a few things, even though we didn't have money and we really probably, most people would not have done it. We did hire a decent attorney in the beginning to get some basic documents like you you just talked about in place. We did find a good and a good accountant right off the bat because I didn't know anything about tax law.
00:30:44
Speaker
and our business was working in other states fairly early on, and I didn't know anything about their tax law. So, you know, going in and finding that trusted resource for that. And marketing, like we wasn't agile, it was a different company way back then. We hired a company that knew way more about marketing than I did. Just to have our, those things kind of covered in a professional way. And again, like you said earlier, Chance, it doesn't have to be perfect. And it still wasn't perfect. But at least, you know, you young entrepreneurs get the started.
00:31:13
Speaker
don't not spend any money to try to save it because they usually that will end up saving you in the long run eventually, you know, at that point there. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, it's it's all it's all important. And look, these are all business decisions, right? You've got to figure figure out the battles you're going to pick and choose. But to me, like having your legal documents is not it's not a decision. You need to do it. Period.
00:31:37
Speaker
Like it's really not subjective. If you can't come up with the money to pay an attorney to get the documents, you don't you shouldn't start the business. yeah It's just that simple. but Legal and taxable for that way. Yeah. but done right Absolutely. You know, I haven't had any accountants that have like hurt me or screwed me over per se, but I'm on my fifth accountant in 12 years.
00:31:58
Speaker
And let me tell you, I was playing in the minor leagues and now I'm in the big leagues. Like I have somebody that looks at every single loophole. I'm not committing tax fraud. I don't have offshore slush funds. But if you're not taking advantage of taxes with a badass CPA, you're literally losing. I mean, I've lost well over a million dollars from previous accountants easily.
00:32:18
Speaker
and taxes that I paid that I shouldn't have, because I didn't have a tax strategist. There's a big difference between having a badass tax strategist slash CPA and having a bookkeeper. They are not the same. Keeping your books is one thing. It's a whole other thing to look at you know the multiple properties that I own and different assets. And I mean, hell, Brandon, you're like 100x me just because of assets and equipment and things. like you know My mind's much more simple from that perspective. But man, if you don't have somebody that can help you work through those loopholes,
00:32:47
Speaker
You will get eaten alive by taxes. You will. There's a dichotomy in all of this in that and and it's something that comes up too with entrepreneurs in general of I think it was like Mark Cuban or something like on the shark tank or or it might have been Robert had said that had I known everything that I know now about starting a business, running a business, I would have never even started.
00:33:14
Speaker
And, and that was kind of like a superpower in the beginning, like, I didn't know everything, all the, all the crap that I got to go through all the pitfalls. And we just kind of worked through it. So on one hand, you get like, Hey, you've got it. So we've we've talked a little bit about this with safety and with marketing and doing things correctly in certain industries from the very beginning and like having a really good safety strategy. So Mark should be the same. So on one hand, and there's a balance between.
00:33:43
Speaker
Well, I've got to go out and generate revenue. And that's most important. We said at the top of this podcast, like you need to get out there and get your hands dirty. That's the most important thing. It doesn't have to be perfect. But then the dichotomy is is we've got things that have been learned like with what you you both just mentioned, legal and taxes.
Adapting Financial Strategies and Teams
00:34:03
Speaker
yeah like Those are critical maybe in the beginning to get right, which might, especially, while Brent, you said,
00:34:12
Speaker
you did it right from the beginning. Like those would be if they were not perfect, just better than what i something started in those realms going in the right direction. but But those do need to be focused on. So so if those are critical components that need to be paid attention to even at the very beginning, when they're just trying to go knock on doors and get sales, how do you find a chance you're saying having the badass CPA um and then the lawyers too, but if somebody was going out now, they just started or maybe they got the business, sort of how do they go find those? what What were the strategies? What should they be looking for, for making sure that they've got somebody who's going to have their back? And it's forward thinking versus just reactionary. Yeah, it's it's a great question. And one thing that I was just churning through my mind over and over and over again, as you were saying, everything you just said is,
00:35:06
Speaker
You know, I think Brent hit the nail on the head. It's, it's not about having it perfect. It's just about starting somewhere. So like when I look at the, on my fifth CPA, when I look at that, the first CPA that I had, if I was still with him right now, I'd be the biggest client that he has no questions asked. My point is, is that he was fine then, but I outgrew him. Okay. And then I had a couple others in there. Actually, I think I lied. I think I'm only on my fourth CPA.
00:35:33
Speaker
But the other two that I had in there, I think they like serve purposes for having you know a two, a three, a $4 million dollar company getting to those types of revenue dollars, but they still weren't perfect. And again, they were CPA. So I actually have a money team right now, the same guy that handles my investments, um my life insurance policies. He's also a business and tax strategist. So he looks at my trust. I don't meet with my CPA without him.
00:36:02
Speaker
Him and my CPA literally get on calls and they fight about what we can do and how we can do it to stay above water, make sure we're legal, but we're taking advantage of everything that we possibly can. So now it's like I have a quote unquote team of people. But where I'm going with this is is that I'm not sure that I have advice on like how to go pick the right CPA for you.
00:36:21
Speaker
I think the better advice for me is is, as Brent said, you got to start somewhere. But I think you've got to be very proactive in reevaluating the team that you have, especially as you grow. Like right now, again, my initial CPA, like the things that I do with my taxes now and the way I move money around and show losses in one business to benefit another one and turn real estate into rentals. And even though I don't rent it, um my bit one business rents it from the other business.
00:36:51
Speaker
You know, just things of that nature like higher level tax strategy, you know, do you need that when you have a $500,000 a year company? No, you probably don't. Unless you inherited some assets or money or something, you you don't need that. So to me, it's not about like picking the perfect person out of the gate. It's about evolving and understanding like I'm outgrowing this person.
00:37:12
Speaker
and constantly looking at your numbers and getting opinions from other people. It doesn't make you unloyal. It doesn't make you a a shitty client for them. You're doing what's best for your business. So to me, it's more so about how you grow and evolve and level up your team as you grow than it is about finding the perfect person out of the gate. Because more than likely, the person that will take you on as a client now is not the perfect person that would take you on as a client at $10 million dollars in revenue, for example. just They're different different levels of the game.
00:37:40
Speaker
That's a good point, and i'll I'll kind of back you up on that chance. you know So we're on our fourth you know accounting firm as well, third law firm and third bank. you know Because each one of them, we either outgrew or you know went outside their area of expertise. you know So that's a good point. you know As you grow, that is going to cause you to need someone different or and maybe more of a specialist in a certain area. So that's a good point. Yeah. I mean, I think it's just part of the evolution of a growing business.
00:38:09
Speaker
You know, to think, to think that like Apple, when it was started out of whoever the hell's garage it was, can have the same people that they have now. I mean, it's, it's no different for a small business. You know what I mean? Like I get it. I guess it is different, but you get, you get the point, right? At the, at one time that business was worth nothing and they just needed a CPA to, to, you know, do their bookkeeping and and file taxes. That's not the game now. You know, they probably have 200 CPAs on their staff.
00:38:38
Speaker
to to do what they have to do. So, you know, it it just changes. And it's about, again, it's it's about awareness. To me, I've always said in entrepreneurship, awareness is a superpower. You've got to have awareness. Like, okay, look, I hired this guy when we were a startup.
Using the Elevate Delegate Exercise
00:38:52
Speaker
Now we're doing a million dollars and in revenue. Is this still the right guy? Now we're doing $2 million dollars in revenue. Is this still the right guy? And I would say, push yourself to go get an opinion from another CPA. It costs you $0.
00:39:03
Speaker
Get them your books, get them your shit, and if they don't bring anything to you that sells you or makes you realize or feel like you're leaving money on the table, then you're probably still with the right guy. If they bring a bunch of things to you about how to move money around and different assets to buy and where you should move money, like my money guy now, like just as an example, he literally just sent me a text message last week. He's like, Chance, what is this $250,000 sitting in this savings account?
00:39:28
Speaker
And I'm like, it's just sitting it's capital, man. like That's like backup money. or what He's like, that's fine. It's making 2%. We can move it right here and make five and a half right now with zero risk. well Shit, on 250 grand, that adds up pretty quickly. like I need people like that on my team because I don't have time to do that. It's not my superpower. It's not what I want to do. So now I have people that are constantly looking at bank accounts and leverages that I can use and assets. And now he's coming to me saying, move this over here, man. It's just free money. It doesn't it doesn't cost anything. Just wire it. So i I wired it. But I want somebody like that that is looking out for me consistently to help me make the right moves, to make me as much money as possible. And it's it's probably a great segue. So yeah I just bring up the data piece earlier that that I wanted to to bring to the question. So data has really, it hasn't always been available to us. Marketing, what you were saying, a lot of the marketing agencies out there that that are kind of in this fluffy world. And I think a lot of times marketing does get, and especially historically, it was gut feeling, the Mad Men ad
00:40:36
Speaker
type environment where they've just been in the industry and they know how human behavior and psychology works. You throw up a billboard and you drive consumer behavior in a certain direction. um It was smoke and mirrors and alchemy, if you will, to get marketing right. And then just people trying to copy what other people would do. And the industry devolved into, and there's other industries that are similar to it, like learning development has struggles with this too, but validating what they're doing is actually what they should be doing and it's actually benefiting the company. So I'm going to buy ads, I'm going to go sponsor the Grammys, I'm going to go do these crazy things and it's going to give us attention and it's going to drive traffic. You're like, okay, how? Show show me how that did. well I can't. I mean, just look at the bottom line. Well, there's any number of factors that could have potentially led to the revenue growth, not just your ad placement at the World Cup. And so
00:41:34
Speaker
That's where I think in the last, especially decade or so where we've had now access to data and systems and things that can give us insights. It's not that the institutional knowledge or the experience is now scrapped. and It's not useful. It's just now you can augment that with actual data. You can actually look at, i look, i I was right there. Or, you know, maybe I was a little bit off here.
00:42:00
Speaker
And you can manage so that there is an adage. You can't manage what you don't measure. And with opening up data and looking at things differently and then being professional in there, so you couple both human performance with technology for one unified, ah I guess, thrust effort and and initiative. All that was like, what what you you both were just saying about like CPA's and lawyers and,
00:42:27
Speaker
the different levels and especially as you were just ending there with, there's somebody who that's their entire job. That's what they do. This is what they live, breed East. Maybe they went to the same process of a bunch of different jobs. And they landed it here because they frickin love it. And this is what they do and they do it well. ah You could have probably taught yourself finances. You could have probably figured out like there's different places I could put my money and maybe the 5% thing. But this goes back back to to Brent too earlier on ah with taking on a marketing firm. Like there's definitely routes routes or paths that people could take where they do their own marketing and are probably successful at it. So like Brent, why why did you choose to go with a marketing agency? And then I'd be curious to like change your perspective on this.
00:43:23
Speaker
So the reason we did it, so law, the lawyer part, so my wife was going through law school while we started the business. So she was in my ear constantly. Did you know this? Did you know that? You could be sued for this, all these different things. So anyway, so it was a pretty logical thing to do at the time. Uh, the accounting, it was my least favorite subject in school and college. I absolutely hated it. I did not want to do anything with it. I knew I was not the expert. We were already starting to work in other States.
00:43:48
Speaker
And like some states, you know, what we do is a taxable service. Some states is not. I didn't want to research all that, pay it, submit it, do all that stuff. So those two are pretty logical. The marketing for us, so we deal with mainly oil and gas customers. So big customers, not small ones. And they typically at that point in time, especially did not necessarily like to do business with a small business, a tiny brand new startup with a 24 year old, 25 year old person.
00:44:13
Speaker
So I knew at that point I had to market myself to appear bigger than just a brand new startup. So we had to put some funds over there because that's how they were going to research, especially in that timeframe. So we did that to kind of help our sales process. Hey, you know, when people go to our website, Oh, well they appear to be at least a medium sized company. I'm not afraid to do business with them. It wasn't a dishonest thing. It was still honest. Like we did portray ourselves differently. We were, but we did not look like a brand new entity just started up a year or two.
00:44:43
Speaker
So that's the reason we put a lot into it in the beginning. Obviously that need has evolved with time. You know, you know, that's why we, we switched from the current place we're at to, to, to agile. So like Jan said earlier, you, you move as you need to, as you grow and expand and you know, you find places that fit what you're needing at that time. So, but anyway, that's kind of my story with it.
00:45:03
Speaker
There's a great exercise that people that are listening can take away from this that I do personally and I have every member on my team do twice a year. It's called Elevate Delegate. I don't know if either one of you guys have ever heard of this. I absolutely love it. If you can just visualize real quickly, it's four quadrants. um Basically, it's things that you're good at, things that you're not good at on the top. And I believe on the side, it's things that you like to do and things that you don't like to do.
00:45:33
Speaker
So the thought process and the logic is when you have things that you suck at and you hate doing them, you have got to get them off your desk. Now, if you're a startup and you're a one man show, you're going to have to do everything, right? But maybe you can go afford that CPA to do your bookkeeping. But what I do is I look at this objectively all the time because those things in the quadrant that you suck at and you hate doing, they're eating you alive. So the faster, you know, like Brent, you're like, I hate, I hated numbers. I hate numbers.
00:46:02
Speaker
That would have fallen in that quadrant from you at that time. This also evolves. This is why I have my team do it a couple of times a year. If I have a te member on my team that has something in the bucket that they hate to do and they suck at, and that same task is somebody else's bucket that they love to do, that they're great at, I'm moving that. It makes everybody happier. It makes my team more productive. So I think when you look at these things,
00:46:26
Speaker
You can do that, whether it's marketing, taxes, um, whatever, legal work, whatever, you know, like, I think you have to look at not only those things, but what you're doing in the operations of your business every day. But it's a, it's an awesome exercise. If anybody that's listening, hasn't done it or hasn't heard of it, it's fantastic to do. The key is, is you've got to religiously do it at least like once a year, because your business is going to evolve. Your team's going to evolve. Those duties are going to change.
00:46:51
Speaker
Right. So it's an ongoing thing. But but yeah you know i I deal with this a lot in the in the agency world where I talk to small startup businesses that are debating on whether or not they should hire an agency you know or they should do it on their own.
00:47:04
Speaker
And look, um' i I get the grind. you know At some stages in the game, you know Brent, you made the decision to go hire a marketing firm. A lot of people might not have any funds to even do that or access to a loan that can allow them to do that. So sometimes you do have to bootstrap things. That's just part of starting a business. But the way I always try to talk to young entrepreneurs about whether or not you should hire an agency is is you've got to look at your time. And again, go back to this elevate, delegate operation here.
00:47:35
Speaker
Where is your time best spent to grow your business? And if it's running a Google Ads campaign because you've self-taught yourself and you feel like you're great at it and you enjoy doing it, then go run your Google Ads campaign. But if it's something that you're not going to educate yourself on and you're not going to spend time on every day, you need to find somebody that can because you're going to end up blowing your money.
00:47:57
Speaker
You need to find a professional, right? So I think that you you know this is an ongoing conversation I have with young entrepreneurs and startups all the time. It's just like, hey, look, like you can do this on your own, or I can even give you like some training wheels and help guide you to do this on your own. But is this the best utilization of your time to go run this? Is this what you should be doing to ensure that your company is growing at the bat the best, fastest, yet most responsible rate possible? Is this what you want to do or should be doing?
00:48:27
Speaker
And that answer to that question is very rarely yes, you know, especially with contractors, man. Now these guys don't want to go learn how to run a Google ads account. All they've done is use their hands and work in the field. And now they're trying to start something on their own to build a team and so on. You think these guys on average want to go learn how to run Google ads?
00:48:43
Speaker
I mean, the answer is no. It's going to be no 99 out of 100 times. So you just got to be able to take that step back and ask yourself, is this the best utilization of my time? Is to learn this and
Building a Passionate Team and Company Culture
00:48:57
Speaker
do this? And again, more often than not, it's not. Yeah, I think to that point, and I've seen this as we've gotten bigger. So in the beginning, I didn't have the funds to hire the best of for every different thing.
00:49:10
Speaker
As we've gotten bigger, we have tried to hire the best or one of the best. And it is interesting and fun to watch how much better certain things have gotten though. Like when you put the right person in the right position and or you hire the right law firm or you hire whatever, you put them where they belong. It's amazing how much easier like my life is. i have those Yeah, it's crazy how much better. ah so yeah Yeah. One thing I wanted to briefly ask you about, it's a little bit outside the marketing, but it's still about team building.
00:49:40
Speaker
So obviously we've worked with Jackie and Amber a lot in your office. And the one thing I'm impressed with is the level of like passion. So that speaks to like the culture you've created. Obviously you're also passionate. Is there any tips or thoughts or something that you have around like culture building to build your own internal team up to like that level? of To me, it's all about passion. If you don't have that, yeah even if you're good,
00:50:06
Speaker
You're still not that, you're you're still not great because you're lacking passion. But anyway, yeah talk to me just a little bit about culture, Chance. Man, I hire people, not paper. I've said that from day one. I hire people, not paper. Jackie was a teacher for a decade before I hired her. She had zero marketing experience. Zero.
00:50:26
Speaker
in her younger 30s. I hired her because of the person that she was, the attributes that she had, the communication skills that she had, the communication that we could sit down and have conversations. I can teach somebody how to become a digital marketer. I can't teach somebody passion.
00:50:43
Speaker
or love or happiness or all these things that you want in a partner in a business like this, right? Meaning a partner for you guys to us. So I hire people, not paper. I also have a very stringent interview process that I'll share quickly. Number one, I post on the same, if I can't find a referral, I post on the same job board as anybody else does.
00:51:04
Speaker
but I put spelling and grammar errors in that entire application. And I say at the bottom of it, do not submit your resume through this job board. However, please send your resume and cover letter to careers at agile and co.com and please list out every spelling and grammar error within this job application.
00:51:24
Speaker
You guys would be amazed. 95% of people can't follow that simple direction. So my filter of people that have attention to detail, which is vital in what I do, I mean, hell, you put in a thousand dollars instead of a hundred on one campaign. Boom. And I've done it. I lost $40,000 in a weekend once, like six years ago from an employee that had an extra zero. I had to refund the client.
00:51:46
Speaker
wasn't pretty. um But that attention to detail and what I do is vital. So I have that as a filter on the front end. So I'm only taking five out of 100 people just by default. I actually have the the applications that come from the job boards just filtered to go directly to the trash in that email account.
00:52:02
Speaker
So not even in the inbox. I don't even see them. On paper, it could be the best candidate ever. But if you're that ignorant and you care that your care is that minimal, that you can't even read till the end and follow one direction, you're not for me. So that's my filter. Then when I bring them in, most of my interview process is simply based around situational questions. If you were doing this and this happened, what would you do?
00:52:24
Speaker
I'm a big situational guy, okay? Because a lot of what we do are situations. Oh, this we launched this campaign for for, let's just say, you guys. It's plummeting. It's falling flat on its face. You guys are pissed. You need answers. What are you gonna do? How are you gonna handle that? So I build a lot of situations in my interview process because to me, that's how I can really tell who somebody is, is how they handle adversity. And it makes people uncomfortable as shit.
00:52:52
Speaker
right? But the ones that can handle it on the fly, and like, I would take a step back, I would go ask this person, I would do this, handle it this way. I would, and then I would, oh, when I love it, when people are like, and then after that, I'd build a system. I'm like, yes, like, tell me the number, I'm ready to write the check. But that, that's what I have done. But I think in a nutshell, you know,
00:53:12
Speaker
It's all about people over paper. I really do not care. Do I do i love it when somebody has some experience? Well, hell yeah, that's less training and and stuff that I have to do. But also in my industry, guys, my rule of thumb is 19 out of 20 digital marketing agencies are absolute shit.
00:53:28
Speaker
So sometimes having experience is I'd rather train somebody from scratch and train them the right way the way that we do things. So it's not always about that experience. But yeah, um I'm a bit of a tangent. But the bottom line is is, is people over paper, I don't really care about resumes. I've never read a cover letter in my life performance over pedigree.
Data-Driven Marketing Tips
00:53:46
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. so what What was your what was your degree in? Oh, I don't have one. I failed out of college. Okay.
00:53:52
Speaker
Most people don't work in the field that they started or they got their degrees in or they got their certifications in, but we we have a tendency to pigeonhole people into whatever their career was and define them based off of, well, you're an accountant, but you know what they might have an amazing woodworking background or they might be stellar in like three other areas, but we always view them through the lens of, well, what job did you last do or what job did you do?
00:54:19
Speaker
and we I think it's changing now, but so because partially because of the job market, but starting to realize that we need to hire skills, we need to hire people, we need to hire performance. because And it was Google, his Laszlo block, um when he was the head of HR, so this was like 15 years ago or more, he did an interview and he said they stopped looking at at ah degrees but for hiring people because it was no longer the benchmark that this person's willing to put an effort in training and studying.
00:54:49
Speaker
is They've got a stellar degree, but they're horrible at team performance or dynamics or grit or like all these other factors that make them. But then also with what you were saying earlier, things that you you hate doing, to find somebody in the organization that has a talent that loves to do that, give it to them. That that ah traditional thinking, you were like well, that's not their job. That's not what they were hired for. They're a front office staff. How do you have them doing something else? um But having that creativity, I think more people are waking up that are leading organizations that that black and white and maybe that methodology that we've been subscribing to that was neat to fit people into a neat little box and is broken. It doesn't work. And you have to get more creative. You have to think outside of the box ah in the sense that but looking at true talent, performance over pedigree, people over papers. so I love the additional play on words there.
00:55:47
Speaker
So guys, as we kind of wrap this up a little bit, we're getting to that hour mark. James, I want to put it back in your court just a little bit. Is there a couple of just marketing tips that you would have for like a, not necessarily a brand new entrepreneur, but someone getting started, getting their feet wet, maybe they're at that one, $2 million dollars marketing business, kind of that beginning stage. What's a couple of just tips that you would give them? Yeah, I love that question. I would say a couple of things. You know, number one would be learn your numbers. You know, so we've spent a lot of time talking about um data, data, data, data, data, and we have this access to data. I think that every entrepreneur has some level of responsibility to understand what the metrics that matter are. Do you need to understand what click-through rate is? Probably not. But you do need to probably understand what your cost per lead is and what your cost per acquisition or sale is. You probably need to understand you know some 30,000 foot
00:56:41
Speaker
you know, high level metrics and numbers to set some benchmarks and figure out how you can improve and improve on those in general. So I think that, you know, a lot of entrepreneurs, especially contractors, they just want to like hand it off and not know anything about anything and just pay somebody to do it. And while I think that that's fine, and I appreciate and respect that,
00:57:00
Speaker
I do think it's also your obligation as an entrepreneur to be able to look at some metrics and understand what those are. you know like We love the clients that just trust us unconditionally because we are always going to do what's right. But in the same respect, it's better to have higher level education. And when you can wrap your arms around these metrics as an entrepreneur, you can come back and say, hey, look, I have this idea. What do you guys think about it? And we we get in more of a team relationship than a vendor relationship.
00:57:28
Speaker
these These circumstances, they work a lot better. The relationship works a lot better. There's more ideas. There's more campaigns. There's more concepts to try. Some of them will work. Some of them won't. But again, if you're just sitting on your hands, doing monotonous shit every month, you're not going anywhere anyway. So I think that understanding basic common sense numbers, and look, this isn't rocket science. Google has every one of them for you, okay? You can literally just Google them.
00:57:51
Speaker
But I think that's a big one. And then the other big thing that I would say is is attribution, especially for contractors that do high volume. So let's take like an HVAC company. okay Service calls, service calls, service calls, service calls. It's what they do. um A lot of these service-based contractors that have high volume, having attribution is so important for that. And the reason is, if for those of you that don't understand what attribution is, you're attributing a lead or a sale back to the marketing source. So if you ran a Google ad and Joe Schmo clicked on your Google ad, went to a landing page and said, hey, I'm Joe Schmo. um My air conditioner stopped working today. It's 105 heat index. Can somebody please get out? And then you take that lead and you turn Joe Schmo into a sale. We want to be able to attribute that sale back to that Google ad.
00:58:46
Speaker
So a CRM does this, a decent CRM does this for people, or it can be manually done with spreadsheets. But specifically, any high volume service-based business having attribution set up makes your marketing team so much more powerful. Because as a marketing team, we don't know your sales.
00:59:07
Speaker
We don't know a good lead from a bad lead unless this is documented somewhere, right? So ah again, this comes it comes really into play with higher volume guys especially, but instead of us optimizing off of leads, I tell people this all the time, I can drive you 100,000 leads. If you don't make a single sale, are you going to be pumped about the 100,000 hour leads?
00:59:27
Speaker
or the 100,000 leads? No, you're not. If I can drive you endless leads but you never make a sale, who gives a shit about the leads? But when we have proper attribution channel set up, okay, and the client, or in this case, the contractor, the entrepreneur, actually notes that Joe Schmo turned into a new $5,000 air conditioning unit Well, now I know instead of optimizing off of leads, I'm optimizing off that sale. So I'm making marketing decisions based off of what actually matters, which is sales and money rather than leads, which doesn't always tell the true story or the whole story, I should say.
01:00:01
Speaker
Right? So those would be the two things. Understand your high level numbers, be able to have an educated conversation with your partner, agency, or maybe it's even an internal marketing manager, whatever the case is. And number two is attribution, attribution, attribution. Again, especially for high volume contractors.
01:00:19
Speaker
knowing that what turned into sales is so important to make sure we are optimizing your money and making sure it's going as far as it possibly can based off of what's making you money, not leads. So those are the two biggest things.
Final Thoughts on Entrepreneurship
01:00:33
Speaker
Yeah, those are perfect. I have one final question just as you were talking, it made me wonder it. Yeah. And you're the expert, so I ask you.
01:00:40
Speaker
Is it fair to say that like Meta and Google are pretty much pay to play now? Obviously, the quality of your content and video and all that stuff matters. But for those that are listening to think, hey, I can just throw this up out there and disengage, it'll grow my audience. It's pretty pay to play now, correct? Or am I wrong? I mean, how do they make money? Do they make money off your organic posts or do they make money off you running an ad?
01:01:04
Speaker
Yeah. So if you own, if you own one, either one of those companies, what would you do? You know what I mean? Like like do people lose, people lose that train of thought where they think that, you know, like these are publicly traded monstrous companies. Like they, this is how they make money is by businesses running ads.
01:01:23
Speaker
They don't make a dollar off of your organic posting. So if you take any preconceived notions or what you think or what you don't think or whatever, they have to make money. And they make money by you running ads. So to me, when you talk about both those platforms, you have the organic side, and which would be just putting up an organic post on Facebook or SEO on Google, right where you're optimizing your website or writing a blog to make it show up in the search results organically down below the ads. So in both of them, you have the organic.
01:01:52
Speaker
bucket. Those buckets only cost, as you said, your time, content, effort, resources to produce or write that content and put it up, okay? um When it comes to paying, that's a whole different animal and it puts you in a position where you're able to reach specifically on the social side people that you never would without it.
01:02:14
Speaker
right If somebody doesn't follow you, Brent, on your personal page, or you're not, quote unquote, friends with them on Facebook, and you put up a post that could be the most valuable piece of information for a young contractor, entrepreneur, whatever, nobody's gonna see it other than the people that actually are friends with you. And even that, depending on what what study you look at, the average is about 7%. So if you have 100 young contractors that would get value from your organic post on Facebook, seven are actually going to see it.
01:02:42
Speaker
Now, obviously, the more interaction you get from people and things of that nature, which is why good content's important, the more people you're going to reach and get to. um But you know to directly answer your question, they are pay to play. um Really, anything when it comes down to marketing is pay to play. But I could also make an argument that you know your organic content on social media, are you paying to get that produced? Are you putting your time in to get that produced?
01:03:09
Speaker
well that costs you money too, right? Same thing on Google, if you're doing SEO, are you paying somebody to build backlinks? Are you paying somebody to write that content? Are you paying somebody to optimize those pages? Yeah, you are. But yes, I think at the end of the day, when you look at any marketing channel period online, it is pay to play in today's world more than ever. Yeah, no, that's kind of where I figured. It was a good good analysis of it. And I think guys that are listening, you know, take away from this podcast. If you don't know how to do it, hire someone to help do it. Number one. Number two, on on the entrepreneurial side, if you're a little bit afraid to get started, realize you're not going to start on the perfect foundation. You just need to get started. yeah um I think Chance, to kind of wrap this up, you're someone I've always loved talking to, you know, your your heart for entrepreneurship,
01:04:02
Speaker
Your passion, the way you explain it, all that I think is spot on with the mindset that people need to have. You know, the entrepreneurship game is really a chess game. It's a life chess game. It's not just the in the beginning. It's not a make a bunch of money and then sit back and just enjoy the fruits of that labor later with no with no stress and no nothing else. um It is a fun game for those who are built for it.
01:04:23
Speaker
Like I love it. I couldn't imagine it any any other way. You know, when the stress comes, you know, to me, it's all about like even self-improvement, really. Yeah. To me, all the different stresses and all the different things that get thrown at you. I'm a better person today than I was 10 years ago because of those things. and But I've chosen to learn from them. I've chosen to lean into them.
01:04:44
Speaker
but I'm a better person today than I was then. But Chance, always a pleasure to have you, talk to you. We'd love to have you on again. Those of you guys listening, if you love the podcast, please do share it. Professor, thank you. Next time, yes, next time, that's lit.
01:05:04
Speaker
Emily, ah my wife wouldn't appreciate that. but yeah You got two littles in the house, so. Yeah. But Chance. Yeah, no, thank you guys for having me, man. I appreciate it. love Love these conversations and always willing to jump back on with you guys. These are these are these are fun for me, so I enjoy them. Awesome. Well, thank you, Chance. Appreciate it. Travis, appreciate it. You guys be good. See you.