SPEAKER_01 0:00

We've got to make a case for where you're going to buy this product. You can't tell someone it's great. You can't say it is amazing. Look at all the testimonials I've got, look at the credibility I've got. They just won't believe you. I set up my business to help people with public speaking fears. So I tried to get as much business as I could. Nothing was working. I was like newbie marketer 101, didn't know what I was doing.

SPEAKER_03 0:17

You've managed to spend up to $140,000 on YouTube ads for one single client.

SPEAKER_01 0:23

Per day.

SPEAKER_03 0:23

Per day. Yeah, yeah. Your three values are profit, pioneering, and uh partnership. Could you elaborate on what those values mean to you as a business?

SPEAKER_01 0:31

We have a guiding three point of view.

SPEAKER_03 0:34

You want to make sure that you're staying on top of it as well.

SPEAKER_01 0:36

That's a pretty bold claim, right? I get that. If there's like a 90-day window from the point where someone becomes a lead to then become a sale, you're already in difficult territory. People just want to buy from people. I didn't want more clients, I just wanted to stick with the small number of clients I had and just helped them keep on scaling. As bold as to say every business that wants to market their business should have a cornerstone video.

SPEAKER_03 0:56

Is this like a founder story framework?

SPEAKER_01 0:57

Well, let me let me unpack it for you and then you can see what how you want to think about.

SPEAKER_03 1:04

Welcome to Agency Giants.

SPEAKER_01 1:06

Thank you for having me. Good to be here.

SPEAKER_03 1:08

Glad to have you. So you've managed to spend up to $140,000 on YouTube ads for one single client. Per day. Per day. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Per month. Yeah, exactly. Per day, which is crazy. What does it take to get an account to that level?

SPEAKER_01 1:25

Oh, good question. Good starting question as well. So a lot, really. We tend to look at like five A's for any successful campaign. And we've got to have like those five things dialed in, basically. So the first thing to think about when it comes to YouTube in particular, because w when we did that spend and when when we're doing that spend, we're looking at kind of YouTube as well as Google, because it kind of have merged a little bit more these days. So it's kind of you're not so exclusive just to one video, you might have other uh platforms happening at the same time. But um essentially you need to make sure that you've got a really strong offer um that is fit for YouTube. So if you if you're gonna get to that level of spend, you're probably gonna have to do B2C. You have to kind of find you're going out to a consumer-based audience, not a business-based audience. Because you just if you spend that much, you'd just be wasting quite a lot of spend. Um all that spend was actually in the UK um per day. So it's that's like normally if you're in the US, that would be a lot easier because it's like what the audience is 10 times the size. Um but um you want to make sure you've got something where it's a kind of a B2C audience and uh a very um kind of like higher value per lead or per client. We were going for this is like lead gen uh that we're going for in this one. And that's kind of the first thing, and make sure that your kind of that your acquisition process is really slick, really smooth. There's a lot of optimization to be had typically on the landing page in particular. Uh but any funnel-based kind of system, it has to be really slick through that process so your conversion rates are nice and high. That's like number one. Um, but it has to be appealing to that broad audience. Like that's probably the most important thing uh with YouTube and just generally. You've got to make sure your offer is designed for the platform. Um I can go into more detail if you want on that as well.

SPEAKER_03 3:10

Yeah, I'd I'd love to. Are we talking high front-end sales or low-ticket front-end sales and large back end? Like, what's the ideal situation?

SPEAKER_01 3:20

It'll depend on like a normal client. Um, and 140k a day is not our normal client, by the way, just to heads up. Um, I wish it was. But the um with a lot of our clients, we'll kind of look at it and say, look, if if if you've got deep pockets, you're gonna want to try and go for a sale right out the gate. Because if you can get your account to dial in for sales, you've just got quality coming through the door constantly, and your whole account is gonna dial in for that. And that's gonna make your life so much easier long term. If you haven't got deep pockets, you just can't afford to spend that much money to work it out, typically. So if you, let's say, for example, you had a cost per acquisition that was, I don't know, let's say $100 per cost per acquisition. I don't know, going for application or might sort of like whatever product or whatever it might be. If you're going for that sort of level of optimization, then you're gonna have to have probably about $500 a day per spend per campaign. And then you're gonna want to set up at least three campaigns. So you're in a $1,500 a day minimum whilst you're still figuring it out. And that's a lot, that's gonna wipe a lot of people out straight away, you know. Um so you're gonna want to then look at YouTube slightly differently and think, right, well, if I was to then approach this slightly differently, I want to make sure that my cost per acquisition is a lot lot lower. So you might go for Legion to start with and dial in there, because then you can say, right, well, if I have to have 5X, my CPA for my um my campaign, then you might say, right, well, I'm happy to pay $20. And then if you do 5X, that's gonna be $100 uh per day per campaign. And if you have five of those or something, you're in for $500 a day. So you kind of it but it can stack up really quickly if you need to get data through the door quickly. You've just got a quality issue then with leads, so you've got to want to qualify them as quickly as possible.

SPEAKER_03 4:58

Um is it much harder for for an account of that size? Is it much harder to scale up over a slow time period of let's say starting off if someone wanted to conservatively spend 2K a month on YouTube? Um what does the path look like to get off to 2K a month?

SPEAKER_01 5:20

That's really tough, yeah. If you if your budgets are low, um so so we're a performance-based agency, right? So like whenever we look at an offer, um we look to see like, right, how do we get money back in the client's pocket as quickly as possible? Um and what's the best route for doing that? Um if there's like a 90-day window from the point where someone becomes a lead to then become a sale, you're already in difficult territory because you're gonna generate a load of leads. And they might say, these are great. Like I love getting more leads. But then if the first purchase is in 90 days, you've got to have deep pockets to like weather that storm, so to speak, for 90 days before you start recouping some of that cash. So like that's one thing is like making sure that you've got speed of uh of your funnel. But if you're gonna start with 2K, I uh it's it's such a difficult thing to do unless you're kind of generating sales uh the same day or like within the first three days, because then you can say, great, that money we spent here turned into sales and now we can start scaling again. Um but yeah, you gotta want to make sure that the ideal situation obviously is go for cost per sale, but if you can't do that, go to cost per lead. And then you're gonna try and get those leads in for as low as possible. But yeah, if you're looking at two grand a day, what that's like $60 a day, something like that. I don't know if our mass is quick enough. But um $60 a day, then you're gonna be really, really, really relying on one campaign to try and do it all. Because if you try and split that amount up, then all of a sudden your campaigns don't have enough activity, don't have enough data, and the algorithm won't help you dial in. You're just gonna fall apart at that point. So it's um yeah, you've got to reserve a little bit of cash to explore and try and make things work, unfortunately. I think two grand a month is gonna struggle, you're gonna struggle to dial that in quickly, unfortunately.

SPEAKER_03 6:59

Yeah, which for which rules most businesses out. And so I mean you've been in this space now for over ten years. You've uh if you don't mind me saying, spent over a hundred million in ad spend for clients. So you've got a wealth of experience in YouTube Adam, I think that's very clear from your answers off the the get-go. But obviously you didn't start off, presumably, with those kind of clients. And so what did the early stages of the agency look like? I mean, I don't actually even know what brought you up to the point of starting the agency in the first place. So I'd love to unpack that.

SPEAKER_01 7:27

Yeah, so the when we got started on YouTube, the it was a lot lot easier. Um but if I rewind back to like how I got into the point where I was running YouTube ads, um I was doing psychology at university, did my master's, absolutely fell in love with it. I was one of the students that like loved going to university, was I still like going out for a beer every now and again, but like all mates were like, oh God, don't you hate university? I was like, I actually quite like it. Um just a bit of a geek like that, I suppose. But then um, straight after I finished my master's, I was like, right, I was in London and I was thinking I've got to get a job doing something or gotta make some income. But I just didn't want to go down the route of like getting a corporate job or anything like that. So um I set up my business to like help people with public speaking fears. And I was good at that because I'd kind of studied a little bit about NLP and hypnotherapy and timeline therapy and these types of things. And so I knew that cool, if someone comes with like a fear of public speaking, they're still gonna go and do their presentation. It's just can I feel better about it? I was like, okay, I can definitely help with that. And so I tried to get as much business as I could, nothing was working. I was like newbie marketer 101, didn't know what I was doing. Um, and then um I tried yellow pages, that didn't work. I got some great PR, that didn't work. Literally, the phone, because I had a literal like landline phone that was uh pretty showing my age a little bit, but I was just waiting for that to ring, right? And nothing was happening. And then Google sent me through because I think as soon as you start up a new business, it was like, you should do Google Ads, and here's 30 pounds credit. And I was like, well, okay, that's 30 pounds of what else am I gonna be doing? That's all I've got to play with. So um plugged in the code, got 30 pound credit into my account, and it just walks you through how to set up your ads. And at that time, it was purely just text ads. So you just hope in, got a fair public speaking question mark. Here's my number, call me, type thing. Um, and I did that, and uh, I don't know what the copy was, but it probably wasn't great. But the I was right at the top of Google, I could see it myself. I was like, okay, cool, I'm in London, right at the top of Google for public speaking fears. And then um, so it just triggered off any keywords I put in. And that day, the same day, I got two phone calls and I closed two bits of business, and it was I did these what's called breakthrough sessions. So I'd spend it like at the start, it was about 240 pounds, I remember, being like, come and see me for 240 quid, I'll help you sort your public speaking fears out. And um, so I made like 480 pounds in a day from 30 pounds spend. I was like, wow, that that was actually pretty cool. I didn't even spend the full 30 dollars or 30 pounds. So then um the next day I was like, well, I'll put some of that money like I could so I took a deposit over the phone, I was like, put some of that money back in, and it was just the same thing, just getting like really high quality leads, calling me immediately, or leaving a message on my website, and then I just called them back and just close the business. Um, it's so funny because the internet went a completely different way where everything was online, and it feels like more recently everything's come back to getting people down on a phone call again. Um, but the that works really well for me. So I filled up my diary. I was probably the most busiest therapist, so to speak, in London at that time because I knew I just cracked how to run ads essentially. Um, and then I had a business model whereby I'd see people one-to-one, and it was successful, I was making good money at that time. I was kind of quite happy with the setup I had, but I just got burnt out pretty quick because there's only been certain time, so many times you can sit in a room for four hours with another individual and help them kind of cure their public speaking fears. And um, so in the end, I was like, well, I had no experience of recruitment or working out. I can actually get other people to do this as well. Uh so I didn't do that, didn't get receptionist, didn't get um anything like that. I was like, it has to just be me all the time. I don't know why. Just that was my brain at that time. And then um the so I thought I'd do is I said, I'll take all those leads and I'll get back in touch with them and do like a workshop. So I tried to sell this workshop and say, let's get lots of people to this workshop. And it didn't sell that well because people had a fear of public speaking, they don't want to be in groups. That's like you're kind of flawed from the outset. But the I got people, um, about 20 people into a room, uh, people that I worked with before, and the way I did it is I actually put a video on my website. So I joined I had joined a marketing group at this point. They said, Hey, look, you should try and get an audio on your website. That's the cool new thing to do. This is before podcasts as well. So it was like literally an MP3 recording that people can press play and listen to it. Um, and then um so I went one stage further, recorded this video, and I didn't realize at the time as well that you could edit video. So um I had this camcorder from home, pressed record, ran around and like started talking essentially. Did it I my sp my speech was like seven minutes long um on my website and it was terrible, lit so badly, audio terrible. But my conversion rate on my website went from 7% to 22% uh by doing that, and then I sold out this workshop as well. Um, and that was then when we're at the workshop, there's a couple of business owners there who said, How did you do that video thing, by the way? Um and so I kind of showed them, and then what I was like during a lunch uh period, and then loads of other people were just really interested in the video thing. And so I started showing them and I was like, Look, I can do another workshop if you want, um, and I can show you how to be good on camera. And everyone pretty much wanted to buy that. So then I had these videos of people, they put it on their websites, they were getting great results. And it just slowly started to see this like offshoot of my business, which was just focusing on helping people create videos for their websites. Uh, so I'd be like the cameraman, the lighting guy, the audio guy, um, as well as then um I'd take those videos and put them on YouTube and I'd show them how they can use email marketing to get more people to the videos and then show how to kind of get the videos ranked on YouTube. I partnered with a guy that was like an SEO guy, and he got videos ranked ranked on YouTube. And then I realized probably about six months later, there were like a few team members that we had running like all the SEO stuff that I didn't really understand fully. And then I had um I was doing a lot more production work and script writing and that type of thing. Um, and the we had a few clients. I literally woke up one day, I was like, oh my god, I've actually got an agency. That was never the plan. I was almost like one man-band guy for the longest time. But through through my business partner at that time, he was kind of like just helping grow the company a little bit. And then SEO just over the space of about a year just died away really quickly. This is when like there's all the panda updates and penguin updates and hummingbird updates, all these like different animals that Google would choose. And essentially all these websites started getting uh problems, but then six months later, all the videos just came off the front pages of Google and YouTube. Um, and we struggled because we had some amazing rankings for clients. They were getting all these leads coming through. And then um one of my clients, who's still a client today, actually, um, we work with them in a consultancy back um consultancy um way now. But he he came to me and said, Look, I know that rankings are dropping, but um, what can we do about it? And I was like, Well, look, let me try and run some ads for you. And but I felt bad because his rankings were dropping. I was still billing him. I was like, I'm just gonna use my own money to do this. So I set up an ad account that I kind of knew how to do because I'd already done my own ad um ad account. And I took, he had done a video, so I took that video and I ran it as a YouTube ad. And it was probably one of the first YouTube ads in the UK to run, really, because it was super early days. Ran it, spent my own money. I was freaked out because I was like, I don't know if this is working or not. Um had a bit of tracking in place, but nothing crazy. And so then I talked to him, I said, look, um, I sent you a lot of leads from ads, I think. Are they any good? And he was like, mate, this is yeah, this is buying my stuff. And I was like, Cool, that's good. And I was like, All right, so I'm obviously spending some money on ads and you're getting some, you're recouping that cash. What sort of deal should we do here? And he said, Well, why don't I just pay you like £10 a lead? And I looked at it and I was like, Yeah, that would work. And it cost me about a pound to two pounds per lead. Um so I was spending one or two pounds per lead, he was paying me £10. Nice. And I know that he was probably ripping me off anyway. He was probably gonna get £100 a lead or whatever in profit. I was like, that's cool, I'm happy with this deal. So that was the long, we had that deal for the longest time. And um over the time the CPA payout that he would pay uh would increase a little bit as we kind of started scaling. But it was like just fresh kind of opportunity. It was one of those new platforms that no one was really going after. I was like, oh my god, I'm cleaning up on this platform. And I just scaled like crazy. Um, and then we had about four or five other clients just move their SEO work into ads work. It didn't work for everybody, but we got some big clients. But now I was funding all the ads and just recouping results from clients. And that's how the agency really grew because that's when um I didn't want more clients, I just wanted to stick with the smaller number of clients I had and just help them keep on scaling. Um, and yeah, so then we started getting to like some US clients. We got like a really lucky break into the US where we got asked to come and speak at an event, and I kind of just talked about YouTube ads, no one was doing it. Um, and um, and just so happened we just kind of ended up closing loads of business in the US as well. So that kind of just helped us really grow that side of the business. And then running ads in the US was a little bit more competitive, but still like blue ocean type stuff. And then um, we had some clients in different industries that just had pretty much like endless spend. And um, so I just racked up the most amount of air miles I've ever gathered because I put my Amex down, spent all the money on the ads, and they're just recoup and uh and we've had some massive wins in like the trading space, golf space, kind of um personal development. And then over time it's grown to the point where we've worked with like big corporates. Not that that's always the best route for us, but like some of the kind of names like HelloFresh, like during COVID and things, that was massive. Um, and yeah, like Mind Valley was a big one as well, and lots of other brands that probably wouldn't be as well known, but really have grown massively. Um, and so yeah, so we've had quite a cool, like we've kind of followed our path of success, so to speak, and just dived fully into that as we've gone.

SPEAKER_03 17:02

Sounds like a real natural progression. And it also sounds like you're you're you claim to have invented the web-based VSL as well. Yeah, exactly. We put that on the on the LinkedIn row. Invented the VSL.

SPEAKER_01 17:13

Yeah, but the Marx Romney would be like, yeah, definitely invented it. The lawyer may be like, you can't say that.

SPEAKER_03 17:20

Amazing. Um what would us what would be some of the biggest lessons that you learn in transitioning from I mean you're two completely polarizing industries, but actually when you think about how symbiotic that relationship is between the clients that you were serving at public speakers and because you're only public speaking if you've got something to talk about, right? And so normally if you've got something to talk about, many of those people have businesses. And so um, but that transition from being essentially a therapist to being an agency owner is probably quite a harsh transition, right? And what so what are some of the biggest lessons that you've taken from transitioning into being an actual agency owner? It sounds like you kind of just looked back one day and were like, oh shit, I've actually got an agency business now.

SPEAKER_01 18:02

Definitely felt like that. I feel like um there's a lot of lessons I've probably learnt in hindsight. So when I look back and like, oh yeah, I know that skill because I've kind of been trained in that. So one thing I feel I'm good at is understanding the client's perspective. You know, so I I see a lot of agency owners that kind of feel like their job is purely just to run an ad management account and get a number to look a certain way and tell the client we've done that result. Then when they talk to the client, they can't understand why the client's not happy, you know. And there's normally a much bigger kind of piece at play, especially since COVID. So um post-COVID, like especially during COVID, people scaled and went crazy because advertising became a lot cheaper for most people, and there was a lot more scale potential. And then they teamed up, you know, everyone kind of like thought, oh my well, we're scaling really quickly, we need more members of staff. And then as COVID kind of came back to normal again and the markets adjusted back to where they should be, everyone was kind of overstaffed at that point. We saw that a lot. And the a lot of times clients would come to us and say, we need a 4x, 5x return on this product because we've got such high operational costs. Um, and we were like, Well, why don't you just sort out the business part first and then you can really open this up a little bit more? And for whatever reason, they would struggle to do that sometimes. And but that's not officially my job as an agency owner, you know, to be like, hey, by the way, like we can get these results or hopefully get these results, but the real bigger thing is this massive operational cost you've got where it doesn't need to be that high. And and that would be uh really allow you to kind of like scale a lot further. And so there's like understanding clients and listening to them and and probing and not just taking their word or what they say is like that's fact, and just like challenging them in a polite way, but going a little bit further and realizing that the job doesn't stop at just the numbers, it stops at making sure the client's happy with the results they're getting, and just that empathy, I think, is such a key part of it because clients won't always express to you what they're actually going through. They'll tell you, like, you need to get this result, but then if you unpick it a little bit, you can see a lot more of what's actually going on and be aware of that so you can deliver a better result for clients.

SPEAKER_03 20:14

That makes sense. I saw I saw on your website that your three values are profit, pioneering, and uh partnership.

SPEAKER_01 20:27

Yeah, so we have a guiding three principles, as you say. So like the three values to us. And it kind of is my personal values, but I suppose it's my agency. So it kind of fits in with that. Um one thing is is okay, so profit sounds obvious, right? It's like, okay, cool, we're here to make a profit, great. Um, but that's kind of just our guiding star, you know, like our guiding, like if you have to make a decision that's tough to make, you're gonna favor profit first. Like make sure that whatever that decision is gonna be made is gonna be like, cool, do I buy this or do I buy this? If you can't make a decision, just go with whatever one is gonna drive most profit. Um and it doesn't have to be necessarily the most cost effect, it doesn't have to be like cost-effective, it's just more like what's gonna be the best return on investment of that activity. So that helps me, but also it helps all of my team know how to make better decisions without having to come to me. So they can make that decision based on that principle. And it means that like then I know that they are trusted to make those decisions. Um, they're not gonna always get them right, but it's a guiding principle essentially. So that one's relatively easy, but that's also down to like which clients we work with, who we say yes to, who we say no to, and those type of things as well. The the partnership thing is really important to us. So partnership is essentially making sure that when we wake up in the morning, we want to work with the clients we've got. And we want to make sure that we actually will do the extra work if needed and not get paid officially for that time you're spending on things. To say, we we want to do it because we genuinely believe in that client, but we're getting paid in the same way. And it's a we're not doing a job for a client, we're working with the client to get the result. And it just changes. Things very differently, like because now you're willing to stay a little bit later and work a little bit harder till the job's done, essentially, to say, right, let's get the job done properly. And that's that's really important. But also the way we set things up on a financial uh setup with most of our clients, it's gonna be um a partnership uh type deal as well. So we don't have any clients that pay us a monthly fee for a job to be done, so to speak. There are there's probably a couple where we have like a very like um some services we do that, I don't want to kind of like overstate it, but essentially for the vast majority of our clients, we get paid on results. Um we get like we do a lot of um CPA deals, so that means we fund the ads and then clients pay for results. We do some like RevShare or profit share type deals with clients as well, all got their pros and cons, but we don't really subscribe to the monthly fee, we'll do this work for you. We kind of want to feel like the more effort we put in, the more we get um paid for doing so. And we scale up with a client and it's a fun journey to do together. So that kind of um partnership piece is really important to us. And then the um the other P is the what the pioneering one. That's a something that kind of I wouldn't go to work every day and be excited by work if I wasn't able to like test a few things and muck around and see what like see what works, see what doesn't work. So it's probably just part of me, I don't know. But I I want to know what will happen if we shot this video in a slightly different way, or ran the ad account in a slightly different way, or tweaked the offer a little bit and and test it and then see what those outcomes are. Not just the test, like, oh, let's just do an A-B split test, but like a deeper test of saying, well, would males prefer a different landing page than females, perhaps, because we can cater a little differently and look at the psychology behind it and say, well, actually, hang on a second, this audience should probably go to this page. This and for these reasons, let's test that. So it's not just like which page works best, but try and get an understanding of why and what those hypotheses are, essentially. Um, and that kind of fills us with like a purpose every day to kind of be learning more and discovering what actually works and why it works. And that's probably from my psychology background, but I kind of have a deep passion for like behavioral economics as well, to understand um how you can have massive improvements by not actually having to spend more money on things and have a better reaction with people. And um, like we've worked out that if you do a what's called a thank you campaign by just literally running some ads to say thank you to certain clients for purchasing your product, it goes a really long way. Like people love it, and they're like, Oh, you there's an ad that I don't have to click on anything, you're just literally saying thank you to me. That's it's a it's a really nice little ad like that that doesn't cost you much, but has such a profound impact on your current customers. Um, and especially with some businesses that are dependent on um higher average order values or recurring fees, and um, that sort of thing can go a long way, you know, to really improve things. So I love doing those sorts of tests and seeing like what impact would something like that have and be constantly looking at those sorts of things. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 24:58

I mean it's probably coming from being one of the first in the YouTube space that you you want to make sure that you're staying on top of it as well, and there's not new kids on the plot coming in and there's plenty of crowns staying on there.

SPEAKER_00 25:09

Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 25:11

Um how's client acquisition been for you generally? Have you had to outbound and and had to and reach out to clients? Has it all been inbound? What does that look like?

SPEAKER_01 25:20

We're mainly in inbound right now. So we'll do I get to I'm lucky enough to be asked to speak at events um and um do podcasts and those types of things. So we do get a lot of inbound leads. We find it very difficult to do outbound. Um partly because um there's so if we let's say, for example, we speak at an event, we'll probably have let's say 50 leads that might come from a big audience or something like that, uh, over time, over the space of like three months, let's say. And then of those leads, um, we might look through them and be like, maybe one of them is one that we'd want to actually work with. So it's quite a lot of kind of time to find a right client. Like when we find one, we're like, oh my god, well, this client might be with us for years, it's most likely the case. And we will scale up with them, we'll grow with them, but we've got to find the right people. And so if we try and go outbound for that, we just spend, we just chew up our operations essentially. We don't have uh a really slick strategy to be like, cool, we got 20 leads, but then we have to go through all those 20 leads, and one of them is good. It's like, and then I don't know, it's it's a tough process to go through. We haven't figured that piece out as an agency, so we have other other ways of doing the outbound that we're working on. Um, but yeah, so we just mainly have inbound um for for that. So I suppose our outbound strategy to get inbound leads would be kind of um making sure we're appearing on podcasts and getting speaking gigs, um and doing a lot more like content online because people do say, Oh, I heard you on this podcast, loved it, um, can we work together? But someone who has consumed quite a lot of the content already is already an easy close for us, typically, especially when we're a performance model. It's quite simple to say, hey, look, pay on results. It's kind of not the hardest pitch to say, but we just got to be really careful who we say yes to. Um, so we've developed some software that um this is like our inbound strategy is like we've developed some software now to um analyze YouTube channels, which can be a useful way of attracting leads coming through. That's been really good for us. Um, and then also we're doing um we're building some AI systems and some trainings whereby um we just basically give out some of our best stuff away on YouTube, promote that as well. And then from that, um you're gonna have a lot more leads that come through for workshops, teach them a few things, um, and then off that we're hoping that some of those good leads come through as well. But um that's to be built um right now.

SPEAKER_03 27:38

It's interesting the the whole speaking to uh client acquisition kind of funnel. Um is something I I've observed in the in yourself and in others from afar. When I've been in rooms of certain events and so on, I'm like, hmm, I can see how this would be such a great client acquisition strategy for many businesses. Is is just because that transfer of authority when you're speaking is just like unrivaled when you go into a room and you are the person for that topic. Um and it's just like there's just that tunnel vision on you. Um obviously this is something obviously you've done in the past, and I'm interested to unpack because I I preach about this quite a lot to people who are existing agency owners. I speak quite a lot about building up um the present to be able to speak on stage and getting opportunity and so on. I but it is something that uh intimidates a lot of people, and this is a world that you've you've ran away from now. But I would love for you to unpack, if you can, some of the core maybe frameworks or teachings that you used to give to people that were afraid of getting on stage. Because I truly believe, especially for agency owners, it is one of the most valuable ways to for client to acquire client and to stand out because everyone's hidden behind their computers and there's a thousand Facebook ad agencies out there, a thousand email agencies. But differentiating is so difficult in this industry. And like you said earlier, we're now coming full circle where like digital was the main thing, but now people just want to see people again and they just want to buy from people. And so that digital, that physical presence is becoming more important than ever. So, yeah, what how can someone overcome that fear? And then and then after that, I'd like to kind of explore if someone then was like, right, I'm gonna do this, what would be the first steps they would take to get their first speaking gig?

SPEAKER_01 29:13

Okay, cool. I can unpack both those things. So so when I used to do the fear of public speaking um one-to-one coaching that I did, there were like um three main strategies that I would use um that would give someone so much more confidence. And to be honest, with public speaking, and you've probably had it yourself as well, when you first do your first one, it's nervous, right? Like everyone's gonna and the bigger they get, the more nervous some people sometimes people feel. But once you're first through that first minute, you're like, hang on a second, I'm feeling pretty good now. And then by the end of it, you're like, you can't get you off stage type thing. It's like it's a it's a nice feeling. And then you're like, so I remember I gave a presentation in San Diego, and it was like a it was about a thousand to two thousand people in the room. I couldn't see because it's all like bright lights, and you don't know how many people are actually in the seats. Um, but I came off stage, I was like, oh my word, I'm gonna have this video of me. And they gave me the video, I was like, Oh my god, this is so cool. I got home, and then um as soon as I got home, um my wife was like, Can you take the pins out? Is that right?

SPEAKER_00 30:04

I was like, ah, the crash. The crash to have that turns worth. Um, but the yeah, it's like the first thing as soon as I got home.

SPEAKER_01 30:12

But the um so yeah, so when I used to work with public uh people with public speaking fears, the the one thing I do is obviously listen to everything, but it would normally come down to a couple of things, and it would be um there there's literally two parts of people when they come in lots of different things, but um there's a there's a technique called parts integration, and that's the first thing that needs to kind of happen, which is essentially acknowledging that you have the fear and then um owning up to it and understanding it. So most people have the fear and think, I'm never gonna get over this. This is always gonna be part of me, and I just can't get rid of it, and I I hate it. And then it's a self-perpetuating cycle because then you hear your voice get a bit shaky or something, and then all of a sudden, oh, here it comes, and then the nervous picks up, and then if people even think about it, they're like, no. So we used to have people that would come to me and say, Um, I've literally called in sick five times in a row for whenever I have a public speaking thing. Um and I was like, Yeah, you probably need to sort that because that's really gonna hold you back. And also one good presentation can massively improve a career. Um so the so the first thing you do is like you essentially say, look, right, you put your two hands out like this, and you say, right, one part of you wants to do the public speaking, wants to be good, and you know you have the physical attributes, and you know you can stand up, um, and you know you can speak, and you know you've got the like those are the core skills, right? It's not that hard to do the actual skill. It's not like asking you to climb Everest or something. It's like you've got the skills to do what you need to do. It's just that you, there's another part of you, and that part of you, um, and we get we I literally get people to visualize a new element of themselves. And I do this with my kids all the time as well. Um, and this goes for lots of different things, not just for public speaking, but you literally get them to really focus on the on that part of their hand, like another part of their hand, which is like the other part of them, and says, right, play that out for me. What's going on in that hand? And I normally tell you like a movie or there'd be like a blob of blackness because they feel like anxious or whatever it is, and you get them to visualize it, you get to feel it, and then you just start talking to it. So what it normally comes down to is that the the fear that someone has is it's coming the behavior or the feeling is fear, but the intent behind it is protection. It's like I don't want you to muck it up like you did last time. I don't want you to, um, and so I'm gonna protect you from doing that. And then then it reframes in someone's brain all of a sudden, because now it's not anxiety, it's or fear. It's actually a level of protection, but it's fighting you because you're not listening to it. If you if you're if someone's like, I need to protect you and you're not listening, they're like, Well, I'm gonna give you a load of fear then, and then you're like, Oh, actually, I can't do the thing I want to do now. So, what you do is you get your um you get the two hands like working together and talking to each other, and then it's a great visual exercise, but you get both hands to like merge into one, and then there's a kind of a bit of a hypnosis thing where you kind of like let people to feel that go over their whole body. But until you do that to start with, you can't ever get to the point where you can feel comfortable because you're always gonna have this one hand fighting you. So you've got to get it coming together and know that, like, okay, cool. Today I'm gonna allow these two to speak together and form a new version of myself, essentially. So you that would open up the opportunity to then start working on it. And then what you can do is what's um and timeline therapy uh by a guy called Tad James, I think it was, um, it's a great technique. It's and I use it a lot. Um, I was about to say daily, I don't use it daily, but I use it a lot, um, which is kind of like a bit of a meditation thing. But you imagine your whole line of your whole life. Um, so from the moment you're born, if you believe it can start before that as well and go on beyond the end of your death, so to speak, um, depending on your beliefs. But essentially you've got a line and it and on that line is the whole everything, and you might be sat in the middle of it because you've got your future to come, right? And then you look back over the past and you just you're not looking for like, oh, here's a moment that created this anxiety to start with, or this or this fear to start with. You're just looking back and saying, what does the brain want to give you? There's probably a notch on there, on that line. It's not it's changed colour, it's got a bit of a break in it, it's got a bit of a dip in it, or whatever it might be. There's something on that line somewhere that your brain will want to signal to you. And you just basically you you fly, it's all a visualization technique, but you fly back over it, you look down, so you're dissociated from the actual line, so you're not feeling anything, you're just looking at that version of yourself when you were seven years old, let's say, or whatever. You look at it and you just look at the event of what happened, and you and you kind of look through all of it and try and understand it as an adult now. Not because you've coded that memory as a seven-year-old, and you won't know um why you feel certain way about it. But if you go back as an adult, you're like, oh my god, yeah, I don't need to feel that way. That's a bit crazy. I've locked that in and I don't need to lock that in. So you learn from it, and then you you have to learn that like it's fine, and that that happened. We're not going to ignore it, but we're just gonna say we don't need the emotion any longer. We can drop that because you've you're an adult now, you're not a seven-year-old any longer. And so you go back before that with that learning, you need to learn something about that um time, and then you walk through up the line and you basically unhook it's a visualization technique. You unhook all those bad emotions that you don't want, or unwanted emotions that you don't need, and you clean up the line essentially. So you and then if you can't clean it up, if the brain's stopping you from doing it, you just keep on going back and back and back until you do find that learning that allows you to unhook all these crappy feelings around that time. And you just go back over, look at it again, make sure it's all cleaned up, and then you go zoom all that learning back up to the top of the line again. And then you might come away again, see if there's any another hooks or every notches in the line that you need to clear up again, and you go do that whole process a few times. So it can take a long time, but if you go back and find these little moments, you can unhook them. And I tell you what, the once you come to the end of that and you've worked on this parts integration, and then you've worked on the line as well, you're all of a sudden like, okay, cool. It's really difficult to access fear at that point. It's really difficult to like think about public speaking and have the associated fear. So I had a, I wouldn't say irrational, but I did have an irrational uh fear of flying for about a year. And it's just because I had like about five terrible flights in a row, and I was just like, okay, I just don't like flying at the moment. Um and I did this process and it was like so much easier. Um but the um but so like it's it happens to all of us, and I was like, oh my god, I'm the therapist with the anxiety, and like that's other thing. Um but the but then once you've got to that place, then all you need is a framework to speak. You need like a how am I gonna deliver my presentation? And really, then you just focus on the first two minutes um of your presentation. So you plan out the whole presentation, and then there's there's a thing called format, uh, which is by Bernice McCarthy. And um what they did, they they they went and um understood how kids learn. And there's four types of learning styles. So you've got most kids that ask why all the time. Why is that important? Why do I need to learn this? Then you have some kids like, what do I need to understand? What's the information? Give me that information. Some kids are like, well, how does this all play out? Like, how do I integrate or how do I make this happen? Um, I need to be like, see this come to life and apply myself. And then you've got some kids like, well, what if I do this and what if I don't? What are the consequences? And those four pieces, the why, what, how, what if, are if you can start a presentation and say, right, the reason we're here, the why, what I'm gonna cover today is this, how I'm gonna do it is gonna go through this agenda, and then what that'll mean for you by the end of this presentation is this. If you can get that out in the first two minutes and get everyone's buy-in from the room, all of a sudden you feel like, okay, it's that first bit's done, everyone's listening, I feel comfortable, and then then it's self-uh fulfilling that you've got through that first two minutes, you feel good, and all that kind of stuff you've done around the parts integration, the timeline therapy just all knits together and kind of say goodbye to the fear forever.

SPEAKER_03 37:35

That's amazing, man. That's fascinating with the I'd I love those visualization techniques as well. Yeah. That's amazing. And so Okay, you've fired someone up. They're watching this and they're like, okay, I'm ready for it. I can do this. They've done the little timeline. They're like, I've seen their hands. In that little glimmer, in that little moment, fixed. Okay, then done.

SPEAKER_00 37:55

Okay, cool.

SPEAKER_03 37:56

I want to go public speaking. How where do I even start? And where do I where do I get my first gig? How can I work my way up?

SPEAKER_01 38:02

Um, so one thing is that you can't just go and ask for it. Obviously. Well, you can, but I don't know what the success rate of that is. So but what you can do is work out the people that are likely to consider you for your big conference, and those are the ones you want to kind of try and do. A lot of the bigger uh marketing conferences will have I'm talking about marketing or advertising just because we're in that space, but if you want to go and speak at one of those events, they'll likely have um some sort of blog um or a podcast, but blogs are easier. So what you can do is say, I've written this blog post, it all goes into depth about this subject matter. And I know you've covered that a year ago, but haven't touched it again. Um I'd love for you to have a look at it, and this is your content. Um, just put my name on it, so to speak, or just introduce me if you want to. And you submit your blog post. And most of the time it's going to get through to someone, and someone says, That's so cool. If it's got case studies and how-tos and everything, you can say, I just want to submit my kind of my guest blog post um information. And I tell you what, the number of times that gets through quite a lot of people to the person that's like, whoever the editor is, is like, yeah, this is cool, this is really good. You've written it in our style, um, and you've written it in a way that's really useful. And it's not nowadays, it's not ChatGPT either. It's got a bit of flair to it, it's got a bit of something about um, it's got a lot of experience in there as well, case studies, um, and everything that's like feels like their readership would love to see that blog post go out, essentially. So you just give them what they need. Um, and that will do wonders for you anyway. So I did this with Digital Marketer, um, a big one in the States. And um, I wrote a blog post, um, it went down really well. Um, and then then um the it went really quickly for me. So soon after they said, Can you come on our podcast and talk about some of what you just wrote? And I was like, Yeah, of course, let's do that. So then I had a virtual podcast um episode. Um, and the great thing about podcasts is it gets through to the person that's um normally quite a high-level decision maker. Um and so you're having a conversation with them for an hour or something. You get to know, you get like build that rapport with them. And then once you hang, like once you're about to hang up, you uh essentially you have that chat with them. And then you might say, Oh, yeah, your conference is coming up. You know what I should do? I should probably come and speak about this on stage, and it asked for like a cheeky ask, um, unless they kind of approach you for it to begin with. But that has got me so many speaking gigs is to submit information, normally get on the podcast because the information is good. And then once you build that relationship, then go and up, like literally just ask and say, like, I'd love to come and share this from us from stage. And most of the time they're looking for fresh speakers they haven't had before, you know. Like nowadays I've spoken on most stages in the US that um a lot of them are like, Oh, haven't you spoken here before? And they're like, Oh yeah, we want someone kind of fresh and new. Um, I'm like, oh, okay, I have to not that my content's like not good, it's just like um uh I hope it's good. But the um it that that happens quite a lot. So it's not like the there's one speaker that gets all the speaking kicks and they'll they'll have that forever. Um, they want to freshen up all the time. So um yeah, it it there's always opportunities for everybody, no matter where you are, as long but have like a thing, have something that you are known for and um gets really good results and you can unpack it for people and it's it's um it's like a technique or a method or something. So like whenever I do a blog post, I'll talk about our video structure or something. So it's like that'll be really appealing to lots and lots of people. And they're like, oh my god, yeah, I can see that coming to life. That's really cool. So it's it's a it's a nice um uh and it's a it's a piece of content that is um concrete and finishes and and means that people can go away uh with really good value in something they can implement immediately. If you can put that sort of content together um and get known for it, it's it's really good. So it's not just email marketing generally, it's a certain methodology that you've got that you want to push.

SPEAKER_03 41:41

Um quick file, how many talks have you done over the years?

SPEAKER_01 41:46

Probably up to about 40 or something.

SPEAKER_03 41:48

Fine. So a lot. And um it's one thing I've noticed, and I've noticed in this when you when you're speaking before, um, we've we've spoken on and shared the same stage before. And I've uh you've always you always have a framework or a methodology for the thing that you're teaching. It's actually something that that I took from you um when I when I heard you speak, and I was like, huh, that's it's interesting because it's really the only way that you can in a world that has so much information and and in in many cases we're talking about things that have been spoken about a thousand times over, but we're trying to well, we are introducing our own individual spin. Um by creating a framework and a methodology, it it it ties that knowledge to you as an individual. Um do you have a process that you take when it comes to creating a framework? Do you do you try and create frameworks for for everything that you're talking about? Is it only certain key pieces of information? I I can only presume in the business if you have too many different methodologies, then it can get quite diluted and look like a marketing strategy. So yeah, what's your ideology around creating frameworks?

SPEAKER_01 42:51

So how how do I have a framework to create frameworks? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, a framework squared. Um the that there is like a need from time to time where if you see yourself doing a repeatable process, you're thinking, okay, I can't constantly come up with new ideas. I'm gonna burn out from that. So I need some sort of framework to be better at doing that thing. And that's typically where I'm like, cool, we need a framework for this. Um and it's got an input and it's got an output, and we've got to like pull it together. Um, and there's gonna be often parts of the framework that can't be easily just be like, oh, that's just part of a system. Like that, but you can definitely get all the information up to a point where you then say, right, a bit of human creativity has to come in at this point, and then it goes back through again. But um the the the the frameworks for like ad buying, let's say, are constantly updated and they're kind of SOPs to a certain extent. Like back in the day, probably like five years ago, um, and this is uh how agency life is changing as well. Like, so um you would have a SOP, let's say, for ad buying, but it would be so intricate that it would be like you'd only trust a few people to be able to make the the serious decisions because it's so many moving parts. And now as AI is kind of benefits more and more of all the um campaigns for good and for bad, it means that ad buyers are kind of like, well, I kind of put it over here and I just check on a few bids and and then it's like hopefully AI dials in. And it's I'm oversimplifying, but it is quite like that sometimes. And so more of the emphasis is now on creative. But creative um with the demand on it, uh, that's now the needed different frameworks completely as well. So we um if we if we know that we have to do high volume or high quality of of uh creative for clients, and normally both, um in that instance, um we I'm not the sort of person that's gonna be like happy with let's just see if we can draw up some inspiration today. It's like that's really hard when the curse is literally blinking on your on your like page, and you're like, I just I just don't know where to start. So that's like that has to be frameworked out. Um the framework I tend to go for um will be looking at all the inputs I need to bring together. And there's a lot of brainstorming to start with, right? There's like a and it and you you good frameworks don't come to you immediately, I find. It's it's almost like right, okay, I like so okay, I'll give an example. So we've got a framework called Cornerstone now. We used to have adjucate, and we kind of merged into Cornerstone to uh to have a few more attributes to it. And it kind of outdated Educate a little bit. Um so I normally try and call them something. Uh so adducate was an acronym, um, and it had like sort of aim, difficulty, understanding, credibility, action plan, teach, and ed uh and exit. That was like the um the the seven letters. Yeah, seven letters. Um and then um so it was like every script would have kind of pretty much adhere to that. And then as time goes on, we're like, actually, we need more, like it's it needs to be more story-based. So I immediately realized like adjudicate's good, but to make it even better, we need like story-based stuff. Um, and we need all the persuasive stuff we've got, as well as we need all the data that we've learned about, as well as we need the videos to sometimes be a bit longer as well. So I had all these competing um pieces and I kind of put it together. I'm like, cool, let's try and map out something that would look right, so to speak. And I'm like, you merge it and you play around with it, you test it with your team, someone says I love it, someone says I hate it, you kind of work it around again, and everyone, it's a bit of compromise from everybody. But in the end, you're like, cool, I think we've got it. And then that's still going to develop over the next six months, especially as you start actually running it. But we then, for Cornerstone, our new video creative um process, we have um three acts and three sections in each act. And then we know if we're doing that information collecting, we can we now hire like journalists to find the information from a client. Like we don't hire a copywriter because copywriters want to just get on with copy. Journalists are like, I've got to unpick a story here and I've got to get all this information, it's got it all linked together. But it opens you up to be like, right, a journalist doesn't cost as much money as a as a what an A-star copywriter. I think A-star copywriters are somewhat. Um I love copywriters, I don't get me wrong, but sometimes I feel like they are ridiculously expensive. Are good, they're worth their value, but it's I don't want to just give them any job because I'm like, this is gonna be expensive. Um, so journalists, um, there's a lot of them who are very, very talented at finding the story and picking apart this argument and this kind of constructive um logical um piece where it's like this just makes sense because this offer is so good, and it is uh, and so you can put it all together like that, make a really good case for why you should buy this product. And you're like, cool, that makes sense. That's a really good argument. Now let's have a copywriter do it. So our framework is almost like, well, how do we get that information we need? The journalist is gonna ask the client the information we need. Um, and there's gonna be certain questions that you would ask every piece, but because we've got like nine sections, we know we need to like we almost score each section and be like, that section's not good enough yet. Do you know what I mean? So we like we know what questions we need to ask, and then it all fits into those areas. And once that's done, it goes into a news section, which is like, right, copyright is now gonna look at this, and their job's ten times easier because all the information is there, they're just gonna knit it together and make it sound beautiful and put a really nice storyboard to it. But that that framework for us is like it develops over time. Um, but you know you're gonna need something which is like then you can put far more people through it, and you can start getting the right people to help with it or using AI in certain sections as well. But um, and then you can start improving it. But yeah, that's typically how we'd approach um frameworks. It's not like I've got a set way of doing it, it's more that I realized there's a purpose for it, and it's a lot of brainstorming, normally from one person. If you get too many people involved, it kind of can go a bit sour sometimes or lose its impact, I think.

SPEAKER_03 48:29

So it comes out of necessity than anything else. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. That's such an interesting take with the journalism. That's a really, really interesting take. Um Do you mind breaking down that framework?

unknown 48:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 48:42

So this is a framework for YouTube ads creative?

SPEAKER_01 48:46

Yes. And then we found that most once we've started writing these, we found that everyone uses these ads elsewhere as well. So we kind of designed them for YouTube, and then everyone's like, Can I run that on Facebook? And I'm like, go for it. And normally it converts very well there as well.

SPEAKER_03 48:57

So a so kind of a preface to this, then what would who which scenarios would and who would this apply to?

SPEAKER_01 49:05

So I'd I'd be as bold as to say every business that wants to market their business, which is pretty much every business, um, should have a cornerstone video. That's a pretty bold claim, right? I get that. Um that's honestly how I feel about it. Like I look at my dad's business who runs an accountancy firm. Um, I feel like he should do this. Like genuinely in my mind, I'm like, you should go and do this because you don't communicate your business very well. It's it's like it's it's it's not very nice looking at his website, but it's just another accountancy website. Do you know what I mean? It's like nothing special about it. Whereas if they can tell their story a little bit better.

SPEAKER_03 49:37

Is this like a founder story framework?

SPEAKER_01 49:39

Well, let me let me unpack it for you and then you can see what how you want to think about it. Because we call it cornerstone because we say, right, once you've got these nine elements down um and they've been thought through and they make sense, you can turn it into um a video for your website, ads, you can use it for advertori, you can use it for blog posts. You've got like a um a guiding style, you know, we talked about like our values earlier with profit, like I can make a decision based on profit. You can then say you can let all your marketing material can come off this cornerstone because you can use it in multiple different ways. But it's a the way so when when I talk about storytelling, what I love about storytelling is that it grabs everyone's attention. Everyone, as soon as you start telling a story and there's open loops in it, and and there's a kind of everyone's like, like they can't not watch the end of it, you know. Like that's why you when you watch Netflix or a film, you're happy to sit there for two hours or whatever watching it and being like, I didn't I didn't want to leave, you've caught my attention for two hours. That's quite a tough ask. Do you know what I mean? Like, um, so so that's the benefit of storytelling. But what I don't like about storytelling is it doesn't apply itself to marketing very well, I don't think. Because if you say you need a character, I'm like, oh my word, here we go. And now you need a protagonist and you need an antagonist, and now you need like their story to look less. I'm like, I'm just literally making stuff up now, and I don't know how this all works. And I I can't, I can't build a framework around that. All those frameworks like the hero story or something, like that doesn't apply to businesses, I don't think, very well. Um, and even if they can make it work, it's really, really tough work. It's really, really difficult to, and you're and you're trying to force something, it's like putting a s like a swear peg into a round hole, so to speak. So I was like, right, there's benefits of story, I get that, but there's a much better framework. And I actually learned this from um the South Park uh writers. Um not that I'm a massive fan of South, but there's there are parts of it that make me giggle, but like the um, but they're they're very controversial, I know. But essentially they were talking about how they um this is like a big missing piece for us, how they put a story together. And they say, um, you don't have a story um if it's like this happened and then this happened and this happened and then this happened. Like that is boring. Like it's just a series of events. What they do instead is they say, this happened, um, uh, therefore this happened, but then this happened, and therefore this happened, but then so it's therefore, but pretty much going all the time. So it's it's like there's a there's a reason for your moving from one angle and you're kind of going on this like whiplash tour essentially, of and it's funny and it's different and it's uh it's engaging. So we're like, right, we need to get that into our video ads. Um and also and also we need to tell the way you're gonna tell a story is to tell the story of the um of the brand and the product. Like tell the story of the product, not so much the brand, actually. So we're saying, right, we've got to make a case for why you're gonna buy this product. And if you're gonna like you can't tell someone it's great, they just won't believe you. You can't say it is amazing, look at all the testimonials I've got, look at the credibility I've got, they still won't believe you. They're only gonna really believe you when you can tell the story of how that product came to be, like the evolution of it. So that's um how how so those two things go together, the the therefore, but and also the evolution of a product. Um though, and there's a there's an unpacking of this in a second. Um, and then um the uh the other thing is that like when we looked at like Netflix and films, they're all a three-act structure. You know, they always say like, right, yeah, and and so for some like TV stuff, they're actually like nine act structures because they've got like before the ads and then the middle section of that, and then they've got the ads afterwards, and so you've got like a you break it up a little bit more. But the um so when we look at the three acts, um, act one, and and there's a storyboard for each act, so there's a venue for act one, two, and three, so it keeps it fresh as well. But you're gonna start with act one, part one. It's like so it's think of it as like a grid. Acts one, part one, there's gonna be something new that sparks off someone's pains or fears or desires. You know, something something it's like, did you know? So we did something that um we just um did this for a collagen brand recently. Um, and lucky enough, there was a um article that came out literally days before we started writing the script, which talks about um we uh as humans we age uh very quickly at two points in our lives. I think it was like age 45 or something, and then at age 65 or something. I can't remember exactly ages, but it's something like that. But it came out in The Guardian, I think it was. And as soon as I saw it, I was like, oh my word, this would be perfect for the collagen brand we're working with. And that became one of our hooks. So new research shows you the age quickly from 40 at 45 and at 65. I just so happened that's demographic for that particular product. And so you find something new, you find something that's kind of something to talk about that's a bit of a hook, and you say, and this is gonna tie in perfectly to people's fears of aging and fears of kind of not looking their best or not feeling their best any longer. So we're like, right, we can use that as act one. We're talking about those fears. Um, and therefore, this is like going into the second part of act one, therefore, um there's gonna be um more information that we need to share with them at that point. But essentially it's like, therefore, you've got to try and find a solution. And it just so happens that pretty much every solution is inadequate. It falls short of what it needs to do. So that's probably gonna be like the first two parts of Act One. And then you introduce yourself uh in the third part of Act One to essentially say, I won't stand for it. It's not, it goes against my values, it goes against like what I'm I I can sit here and be like, I've got all this credibility of building the best, like um uh of being in the health and beauty industry, not me personally, but the the brand has. And like we won't stand for the fact that this is aging is happening, and there's not a good collagen brand out there, it's just not happening. And there might be a sense of urgency around that. This is where you might start introducing a bit of your story to say that I won't stand for it, not my watch. Like, I need to fix this, and I've got on a mission now to try and fix this thing. So that would be like almost act one. Act two, you open up with like a new bit of information. So that's gonna be like you went on a bit of a deep dive tour to understand, okay, well, hang on second, why isn't there not a good product out here? What's the real root cause? What's the like what's not happening here? And so you you would go down to a deep uh dive into that um into that problem, and you want to uncover something that no one's uncovered before. Um, and when you do that, so a good example for me is like when I talk about YouTube ads, uh, we found something about two years ago, which is where they started pairing, and I know we've talked about this before, pairing click-through rates with CPMs. And if I unpack that for people, most people are like, oh my word, this changes the game completely. Um so when I unpack that in this part of the video, you want to make people to say, oh my word, that makes so much sense. Why has no one tackled that before? Um but you've all of a sudden, you've discovered the root cause, you've unc unpacked, uh, uncovered it. So then you move into like, so we built a new method. This is now the second part of act two. You built a new method and it worked ridiculously well. Like, because you're now tackling the root cause, you've actually got a product now or a solution for people that actually works, and you can show like a really good case study at that point. Say, but this is the point where you educate people, you show them, and you might give them some value and some some so if you're doing to do this as a YouTube video or as an advertorial piece, you might actually like give people really good advice away. Or if you're gonna write that blog post for um the um for the the speaker conference thing, then um this is the point where you unpack all that information, like give them some really good um advice at this point. So you say, here's the inf here's the good thing uh that we've we've developed. Look at this case study, isn't it amazing? And then you move into the third part of act two, which is where you say, but there's a drawback. Like this this method works, don't get me wrong, it's really effective, but it's really expensive, or it's really time consuming, or it's really lots of effort, or it doesn't integrate very well with what you've got. Whatever it is you've developed, there's there's gonna be some sort of drawback. Um, and it means it's not market viable, you can't get it out to people. Like you say, oh my well, we found this doctor that's found this medicine, but the medicine can only work for one person in the world. It's like, well, that's not good to anyone. Um and so you have this big, big drawback, and that sets you up perfectly for act three. So it's like these like little cliffhanger moments um from going from act one to act two and act two to act three. And then at act three, you start out um at that point where it's like, right, there's new information. So you've been inspired by something or you've figured something out. So um we did this in the financial space uh with an educational product. And the a lot of the time when people are trading the markets, for example, they they don't realize they've actually got three problems. One is they don't have the education, two, they don't have a platform to actually trade on, they understand. And the biggest thing is they don't have funding, they just or they don't have the money to be able to do it. So even if they did do a great trade, great, what do you do? I've made 50 quid or something. It's like that's not gonna change your life. So you need more of a pot to play with. So that was kind of like like, oh, we should just give people the money to do it. And then that fun, then if they if they um if they actually make money, they'll become a trader, they'll do it properly now. And so that's like they fund traders at that point. Um, so you want to like say, ah, we've we've worked out how we can fund you, and therefore you can actually trade the markets now, and it will be enjoyable, and you can keep, and we'll do it as a partnership type thing. So there's a you want to find a new way, a new way of delivering something that all of a sudden makes sense to everybody. Like, ah, cool, I can see you might deliver as a workshop. AI can be a really useful tool here as well. Can you say, through the power of AI, we've managed to work out how to build a bit of software around this to really speed things up, and we don't have to do the human element anymore. You can speed it things up. So you just want to show like you've managed to work out how to deliver this now for a moment of inspiration, typically. And then you move into like now, look at all these testimonials. Um, testimonials is an important one because you want to make sure that anytime you use a testimonial, it makes you feel like people like me are getting the result, not just anyone, but like if you're the viewer, you want to be able to see it and be like, I can resonate with that person because that looks pretty much like who I am. Um, and so they can see someone there and be like, I can see myself in that person, they got the result. I want to be that same person, essentially. Um but the other good thing about that is whether you can share that identity and say you kind of share the identity with the person that's got the result, then you can put a little bit of tension on that. Because then when you move to a call to action, which is the last part, and you're gonna do your whole thing of like, here's what we've got for you, bonuses, risk mitigation, and things like that. At that point, the call to action, you can also pull on that identity and say, kind of like, so those people are just like us. That's who they are. We're agency owners or whoever it might be. And then when you do your call to action, you can say, like, maybe you're one of us, or maybe you're not. You're you're about to find out. Like, if you click the link, like good, like good people like us, we do things like this. We're gonna click and we're gonna go to the website and sign up, or whatever it might be. But you want to kind of put that tension on them because not always easy as an ad to be like, oh, and last use spaces kind of going all the time, or big heavy discount for a limited time only. You can't do that with an ad if it's gonna run evergreen. So you put that tension on them about their identity. You say, Well, who are you? Are you gonna be the person that clicks and does this, or are you gonna be the person that probably just dabbles and never does anything with this? And all of a sudden they're like, I don't want to be that guy, I want to be the guy that takes action. And so you can phrase it in that way. But that whole story becomes almost like an evolution of how you develop the perfect product for them. But they they went on the story and they liked it, they've built like a lot of credibility around that. But also the perfect thing is that as you go through that journey with them, they've got that value, but they realize how valuable the product is because it's not just that this is great, this is like this is why it's great. It had to go through all these iterations, it had to keep on developing. The reason I did it was because I had this big mission to start with. Like this, I wouldn't stand for it. So you shared your values with people. There's a lot going on in there, but that's all the psychological principles coming together. Put it in a story, and those ads can be shortened down to even just like a minute sometimes, but most of the time they're like five minutes. Adds to eight minutes, to 12 minutes sometimes. But those have been our biggest um breakthrough for a lot of clients.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:10

That's amazing. That's such a great framework. As you are, I just created a brand new VSL and I've been spending a lot of time on it in the last couple of months. As you were talking through it, I was trying to match things together. And there was a couple of couple of little moments where where we where I was mismatched, and I was like, ah, that would have been a really, really nice thing for us to add. Um that's awesome. Thank you so much for sharing that. It's such a huge value add.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:32

Um other thing as well, as I said about video ads, and you have this in in buckets loads of talent around this, is that there's a there's an ability for someone to present as well. That's another so we talk about theoretically speaking. There's also that kind of ability to hold attention. You don't have to be like an amazing presenter or a really good-looking presenter or anything like that. It's that ability to be on camera and talk sincerely and talk in a way that you actually mean it and you can tell that you mean it, um, which is a hard skill to develop because sometimes you're like, I don't want to do a video today or something. Because I think we talked in like one day you were like uh one of your best videos you ever did was like where you just like spoke off the cuff and you were holding your camera or something and you said like that did so well for your business. It's like cool, you don't all you don't always um have that ability to tap into that creative creative side of yourself sometimes, you know. Um so it is sometimes a bit of an act, like I've got to get in front of the camera today and do this video. And to be able to present and um be sincere with it, like that's a difficult skill to learn. And every time I watch one of your videos, I could tell that comes through from your videos. It's like there's like a secret source there that's you should be leveraged quite heavily.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:40

It's um I think in a in a in a world where offers and and big bold promises are so like prominent at the moment, people just want to buy from people. And um I just think this is so important. And I like even recently in my in my meta ad account, we've we're running tons of creative at the moment. We'd we want launched a new offer and we're just going crazy with it. And um loads of really just heavy-hitting problems and pain points and all sorts. And then we just threw a founder story ad into the thing. It's like one minute long and me just telling my story and like why the problem existed in my life, and then it's the number one performing ad in the entire ad account. Like forget the pain point. Like, I'm t I'm speaking pain through my experience, and then people just relating to it, and it's just the best performing thing. And so, like that's it's such a huge and this we see the same with all e-com clients as well. Like, founder story ads seem to be and uh the cornerstone is much more than that. Kind of the founder story is an element of that, I suppose. But um, they're always the best performing. It's just uh people want to see the person behind the product and then the reason that product exists so they can resonate with that.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:44

Yeah. If you if you get the ability to share your values with people, people love that. So say that's why we have that one element which is like I won't stand for it, not on my watch. It's like it's that kind of my values are like I I won't stand for this. Um because and it shares with people like people like, yeah, I'm I'm with you on that. Yeah, I get that. Like I understand why you're so passionate about it. And they want to share that with you, you know, because then they're like, oh, I'm one of you, I know how to behave around you, I know how to like share the same sort of values as you. That's like a really core piece of um any video we do. Um, because then people like get on the same mission with you as well. And they're like, I want to achieve that result, and this is what I stand for, is what I stand against. There's a like so many people can tell you what they stand um against, and sometimes it's really important to understand what to stand for as well. Um, but the stand against is a lot stronger. So there's a radio um like an online radio station that used to say we play rock all day. It's like that's what you stand for, great, fine. Um, but then they changed their slogan to you'll never hear Justin Bieber or Lady Garga on this radio station. Um and apparently listeners went through the roof as a result of that because you're like, I won't stand for it, I just won't have those people on this. And so it just called out to the listener in a lot better, better way. Um, and there's that type of um feel like like if you can get that across, and then and then they know that like they can be part of your community as well. So at the end of that, we're saying people like us, we do things like this. You're saying, now you know our values, you know what mission we're on, and then you also get to later on to be like, why don't you join us? Why don't you be one of us? So we're on the same mission, we share the same values. Um, and then you then they just start to adopt that identity, and you can even give them that identity. So, like you're one of this, you're a certain agency owner or whatever you whatever you want to call them, so they can adopt that identity. And then then it's very difficult to give that up at that point. So we did this with um uh a survival brand in the in the US. Um, they were they they do a lot of spend and they sell a lot of different products, um, and they do like a non-perishable foods and that type of stuff. Um, and if you go camping, you can get a big generator and that type of stuff. Um, but uh when like I didn't realize, but like the states go through so many like catastrophes, like right now, the the Florida uh storms and and hurricanes and things, um they go through so many catastrophes across the whole of the across the whole of the country, um, and forest fires and everything else in between. Um and when that happens, there's a real sense. Of community uh spirit. Like I think we've we've had it in the UK quite a few times as well, where it's like you go through something and all of a sudden your neighbor's your best mate, all of a sudden, you know. Um and there's that sense of um, and we called it um, we wanted to call it something and called it guardianship. So we we told people they're guardians. If you're the person that's well prepared for a um, because not everyone's gonna get prepared for a catastrophe, and there's gonna be a catastrophe at some point, but if you're the person who's prepared, you're gonna be the person that can help your community, you're gonna be the guardian. So we gave people that identity, and then we start pulling on that to later on to be like, look, a good guardian would buy these sorts of products. And that's true, and it's like you've got to be careful about how you do it. But if you give them an identity and they feel like, yeah, that's me, you give them the like the they know how to behave in terms of the values and what they might look like, how they sort of wear, how they hold themselves and things, and you say, Cool, this is who you are, you almost get that badge of honour, and then you're saying, like, cool, now those sorts this is the guardian package type thing. It's very difficult to not buy it then at that point. So you're gonna I play around with a lot of that um in videos.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:56

Not buying is denial that you have the identity. Exactly. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:00

I'm not one of those people now. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:02

I um I I feel very fired up to plan out one of those videos. Do you have a documented framework for that that you can send to me in private? Would you mind doing that?

SPEAKER_01 1:07:10

I can do that. And then we've actually got like a training on it as well. So we've got like it's like 18 questions, and I've just worked out how to make it so that as people go through the training, the hardest thing I find, I don't know about you, is to write things down or type things out. Because I'm I just keep on editing and just crossing things out. So now what I do is I use um I use a transcription tool uh just inside of uh Google Document. Uh it's like a Google Doc. You can just like press voice something, I can't remember what it's called. Um it's so useful. I've got it, yeah. It's so good. And it's like especially for AI as well. We're using it for AI and just talking to like so I I I just talk, it transcribes it pretty much perfectly, and I chump and I have like several prompts that I put into Chat GPT and it gives me back a summarized version of what I just said. But like I'll just waffle for 10 minutes um and then just put it all inside of ChatGPT and it just cleans it up. I'm like, yeah, that's it. And it puts it into bullet points of like so you ask a question of yourself, like it's a typed out question, you answer it with voice, and then you just get it back summarized. And all of a sudden you're like, okay, cool, that is completely correct. You've got that down to the T. And then they can help you improve it as well. So when it comes to offer creation, particularly for me, what I'll do is I say, right, it says, What is the offer? What's the price point? And what's the risk mitigation? So I'll kind of talk about like, okay, cool, this is what you get, this is the bonuses, this is the price point. Um, and they're trying to talk about it, because if I try and write it, it won't work. So I talk about it. Then I put that answer transcribed into ChatGPT and say, Can you summarize that? And how would you improve it as well? And it normally gives me loads of suggestions, like, cool, yeah, I'll take those suggestions. And all of a sudden you start putting of all these 18 questions, you start, they all now merge back into the cornerstone structure. Um, so it means that now you've got like that answer goes a bit in there and a bit in there, and that answer goes in here, and that answer goes in here. So it kind of just puts it back into the right framework. And then you've got like, cool, the the VSL is pretty much written at that point.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:58

Do you have that made out built out already?

SPEAKER_01 1:09:00

Yeah, it's all done now.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:01

Can I gain access to that? Yeah, you can go, yeah. That's awesome. That'd be that's a that's a great low-ticket offer that. Well, you kind of don't want everybody doing it to be fair. You wouldn't want to sell it at mass and then have have everybody uh pollute it. But that's it.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:12

Well, my my my thought is that like if everyone gets to actually write proper copy, so I even think like my dad, and you ask like who's the cornerstone for, and my dad's an accountant, for example, I kind of hold in my head sometimes. Like, if he can go through it and just literally talk about his offer and talk about what he does, um, and then it all that gets transcribed and he just goes through a few chat GPT prompts that I've put together, he'll have the whole framework done. Um if he gets the framework part, yes, there's a bit of copy style and that type of stuff that you need to add on top.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:39

But if he gets to that part, marketing becomes so much easier.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:42

It's like you just most people get the messaging so badly wrong or miss everything, or don't put anything in there, or kind of don't have any style to it, sort of thing. And it's like, God, if you can just get to that point, then every time you do a post on social media, every time you do an ad, every time you do a YouTube video, it just hits harder. Do you know what I mean? And it all often becomes easier.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:00

Like that's the thing, is like so many people they're constantly testing new messaging, but what they don't realize with all that new message testing is it's like it's it's ripping, it's ripping away the genuity of their content because it's like this person doesn't know who they are themselves. Yeah, you know, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:13

So yeah, I've got this ad working really well here, and then I've got a completely different message working over here.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:17

Contradictory. Exactly. Just because this one got a higher CPN's like you're you're bending reality now. It doesn't matter if the CPA is better, like you're creating this contrast.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:28

You need that unity across all platforms, because that really helps as well. If you have the same ads working really well on YouTube as well as Facebook, it I I honestly feel like the the last five years has taught me that like the value used to be in the ad buying, and now the value is in the um in the creative. Uh, because if you have got ridiculously good creative, well thought through, well put together, and you might put some like time into like where in studio right now and that sort of stuff. If you put your time and effort into that stuff, you might as well get it right. Do you know what I mean? And you're gonna everyone's gonna need to put a video together at some point, and you might as well get that right. And you can even have actors do it as well. It's like we've had sometimes better results with actors than the actual owners. Um because you can position the owner really well with it if you've got an actor talking about you. Um so you you have like the framework there and you can make it amazing. Um, but yeah, once you've got that unity um across multiple platforms that work really well, that's I feel like you if you can get that one piece done, get that what we call cornerstone, obviously, if you can get that one piece done and it kind of and you know how to go back into it and dip into it and create different messaging around it, but um different metaphors as well, then all of a sudden you've got like the perfect um thing to harp back to. But then all your all the marketing efforts you put in, like email and everything else, just start working. And that's what I feel like we can get people to really kind of pay for, because we know how to run UG Baz ridiculously well. It's like you can then say, right, here's how you would use that messaging. Um it's the hard bit for sure.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:50

Aaron Powell Could you apply the same cornerstone logic to um testimonial interviews to create like powerful testimony? Because the best testimonials are the ones with the depth of story in them. Like it's not like the I think that's what a lot of companies get wrong about testimonials, actually. They just focus on that like I made X in Y in this time frame, but they forget all of the struggle and the pain that came before it, which is the thing that people resonate with. So I suppose you could apply that same logic to the Ross.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:15

Yeah, you when we pick up testimonials, we're we're always like we love the results-based ones as well, because sometimes there's a nice little like sound uh to say like this is the result I got. But I think people are getting wary of that as well. They're kind of like, cool, yeah, everyone's got a good result. And also, um I always feel like it's the recency of result that's most important. Like um, I did this, it's like, say, for example, you've got an ad that's going out in November. It's like, uh, in October of 2024, I got this result. That has a lot more impact than what most people are like, a really grainy video from like seven years ago. This person got this result. It's like great, yeah. Um but the um yeah, once you've got the cornerstone down, you can then apply that testimonial to it because you can be like, oh, I went through this in the early stages and it was good, but now it's even better because we've got AI involved. And look at the results I'm getting now. Like so you can even have the story of the testimonial that's truthful that would just align with the with the journey that product's been on as well to get that result.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:10

So you but if you've had legacy customers that have been with you that have had multiple wins over a period of time, then you really could create the ultimate testimonial. And you know, that's like the if you've had I'm thinking now of people that have worked with me for eight years, you know, and they've had win after win after win, they could build that that that true kind of yeah, zero zero interesting.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:29

Yeah, that would be really nice, wouldn't it, if you had like a product a person that got a um a really good result with you back in the day from an original product you had. And you said, Oh my word, this product's got so much better or whatever. And now they're still using it, and look at the results they get now. They they stuck with us because they're one of us. Wouldn't you like to be one of us? So all of it starts to knit together. That's perfect.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:48

Exactly. Just show me the money.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:52

Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:52

Um is admired about you, and so many people just don't get right, including myself, is uh somehow you've managed to keep your blinkers on over the last 10 years on on uh and just focus on YouTube ads. And so many agencies just pursue shiny objects. It's like, oh no, let me do this, let me do that, let me just because there are so many other complimentary services you could offer alongside YouTube. So how on earth have you managed to stay with in with tunnel vision on YouTube? And have you fell victim to like shiny object syndrome, or has it just not been something that's affected you?

SPEAKER_01 1:14:24

There's there's certain things that I wish I'd applied myself to other elements other than just YouTube earlier. Maybe like so I did Facebook ads probably when it like it wasn't popular to do Facebook ads. Almost like so I was doing YouTube ads, and when Google was like so Facebook didn't even used to be a thing, right? And we it was like Google ads, and then I went to YouTube ads, and I felt like I was a new kid on the blog. And then as Facebook came out, I was like, yeah, I can do it. And so we actually ran Facebook ads with lots of clients. Um, and then I just realized that like no one's touching YouTube, and it's like a massive blue ocean, and I'm getting really good results with that. I should probably just focus on what I'm good at. So I just dialed in there. Um, and I think probably because we had like about like 10 clients who were absolutely killing it on YouTube at the time, I was like, why am I even bothering going to another platform? I wish I probably had done at that point because it was really early days, and now the growth that you can get on Facebook, like I missed out on a big opportunity there, I think. But then I probably would have not become well known for YouTube. And if I stick in my lane and just do one thing, it's amazing how many introductions I get just because of that, you know. Um, and and I think our hook of like performance-based marketing, which is like we'll fund the ads, has opened the door for us a lot as well. Because it's like, oh, these guys put their money where their mouth is, and they just do YouTube. It's like, why would you work with somebody else who's willing to do that? Like you would at least be like, Can you look at our stuff and see if you want to partner up? So that's um um that's probably why, but but I also find that there's a lot like whilst YouTube ads feels like I'm sticking in my lane, and it is, I suppose, in some ways, I do feel like the job is endless. So the job of like creating new creative and and new angles, and um and I don't see the growth being like more like opportunities for one client. It's like just go deeper and deeper. There's so almost more volume to always have on YouTube. It's like the if we can do 140k a day on YouTube just in the UK, uh haven't cracked bigger than that in the US. And I'm like, that's a 10 times bigger audience, you know. Um, and we've promoted a lot of like very widely um profitable businesses. So like uh in the golf niche, for example, it's like how many golfers must there be in the in the States? There's like a huge number of golfers, they're all spending a fortune on their stuff. Um, and I reckon that like I we we have done very, very well in the States uh in in golf, but like I feel like I'm not even tapping into like I'm probably can get to like 40 grand a day or something like that. Whereas I can do so much more in the UK, like that there's more to come, so I prefer to dive deeper with that rather than go and get more clients and try and serve this in multiple ways and then have more competition, you know.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:52

Makes a lot of sense. Yeah. Do you have the aspiration to continue scaling the agency up? Because you've you've kept operations relatively lean, haven't you? Which presumably is is great for profit. Um is that intentional in in the business, keeping the business like streamlined and lean?

SPEAKER_01 1:17:07

I think my goals have definitely changed over over time. So I think that when I first started the agency, I was literally what I call calculator porn. I was like, you know, when you put the numbers in there, like, well, hang on a second, if I get 10 more clients, oh my word.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:21

That sort of stuff.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:22

Um, and uh so like there was a lot of that when I was uh in my twenties, probably like late 20s. I was like, okay, and and we did do really, really well with like a lean team. And then we grew during COVID and had a really, really good time during that period. And then like everybody else, agency life got harder um after COVID, and we were probably overstaffed, so there's a few redundancies, but that had never really happened to me before. And I was like, oh my word, I don't like making like close, because when you're a small team, you get to know everyone pretty well. Not like I knew everything about their private lives, or there'd be some distance because I'm the boss at the end of the day, but there would be definitely like you're jumping on calls and you're having chats with everybody. I can't be that distant person all the time, like some people can be. And I'm kind of still a human being behind behind this facade that you see. But no, there's a but when um when we had that, I was almost like, do you know what? I don't want to scale up more because we did hire people, we did train them. I tried to have a big team in Rygate, which is where our uh officers are based. Um, and we look to hire people and train them up. First of all, it's really difficult to train people up, and when they get good, they're normally like, well, I might go and get another job at another agency now or something and get paid better because they're gonna be paid better than uh potentially than uh where we are. Um and then and they're more corporate agencies, you know, when they've got like 500 people in the in the local branch or something, and it's like, okay, fine, like I'm not if you want that life, I get it. Um and and you're not gonna get that with me necessarily. So I was like, well, the training side of it is time consuming, it's it's like, and also you some of our um team members are just so good, but they're not based in where I live. They're based like a few of them in the UK, but then we have people in Australia, people have people in um America, and because of that, it's almost like I've just got a really cracked team, and it's taken me a long time to get to that point that I'm like, I don't have the aspiration to grow, probably in the same way as I once did, in the same model at least. You know, it's hard work I find sometimes. Um, and the I do enjoy the work, but I wouldn't want more of it, you know. Like it's like I found my sweet spot, and also I've got three kids at home. There's also a balance to be like, but pre-kids, I was like, I'll just work until like my body falls apart. Yeah, um, and I'll do four o'clock in the morning for six months and and I'd enjoy it. And I didn't need to work, but I did do and stuff. Um I still do that with some things, like so. If I'm pioneering like building the software and things, I love that stuff. Um and I'm looking forward to like really ramping that up. But the um, but the agency side is like it's we've got a really good team. I really trust everyone on the team, and I feel like we're in a really good place. If I was to hire more people, then I need to get more clients, and it's just not a it's not uh an easy trajectory upwards. So I'll probably look at other ways of growing rather than just more and more agency all the time.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:57

Fine. Is that where the software comes into it?

SPEAKER_01 1:20:00

Yeah, the software, um it's really good because like the software that we've built is for YouTube owners, and um, if they've got lots of videos, we can really highlight like here's your best content, here's how to improve it. And once they see it and they see the value of it, it's like Legion for that is very, very easy. And we have um some pretty good products off the back of it as well. We need to improve probably some of the um some of the products in terms of like how easy it is to access some of them and that type of stuff. So there's there's definitely improvements to be had uh with the with the software. But we built it originally because we wanted to get the insights and the data for ourselves that would inform us how to create better video creative, which is what we did. And that's been really, really useful from that front. But then just so happened that we're like, actually, this is a bit of software that everyone could, everyone who's got a YouTube channel would benefit from. So that is kind of like kind of merged a little bit as we grew it. Um, but that is um that is a big opportunity for two things. One, um, because we feel like it's a really, really useful tool, it might rival something like VidIQ or TubeBuddy, those other big software um things it does a very different thing, it like analyzes the content rather than analysing your SEO stuff. So I feel like it's got a niche in the market and it's very useful for all YouTube channel owners. And so it's just more a case of getting out there. But as you know, with software, the multiples you can get on software is very good. Um, and um the monthly uh recurring uh should be very strong on it as well. So it's kind of there's it's fun and exciting from that standpoint, but it's also a great lead-gen for our um for some of our other products and agency work as well. But then it'll also have like this cornerstone framework, and we're building that into the bit of AI uh focused stuff as well. I'm always scared of going down the AI route because I feel like if you build something six months later, it's gonna be absolutely obliterated by the next AI thing that comes out, so to speak. Um, so I'm kind of like I always try and look at what is the core competency that we're really good at and how do we speed that up, and then how do we open that up for more people? Um, and that's what our cornerstone package will essentially be. But um, our software package for the YouTube, it's gonna be three things we're working on at this moment in time.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:58

Big learning curve software. I'm building a software product myself at the moment. It's taking more time and costing more money than than I ever imagined. Yeah. And it's a huge learning curve. It's always it's it just happens all the time. Agency owners, it's like the natural progression of an agency, isn't it? It's like this thing takes so much time. How can I stop it taking so much time?

SPEAKER_01 1:22:18

And and and just sometimes the feedback you get, so you tend so much time building something, you're like, look how cool this is. And they're like, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:27

And it costs you like 20k to build. Exactly. Get rid of that.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:30

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Now we've got a bit of a tool that no one uses, great.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:34

Um so there's a lot of that type of stuff. Um that well, what what I find sometimes I I work really closely with our CTO, so um that I feel like he's teaching me. I feel like a consultant. Is he building? That that uh we've got a team, but like he's a translator almost to me. But um the when I talk to him, um, because some of the team are based in Brazil and some of the team are based in Australia, so it's kind of like a he's put together like a team that helps us. Um and the when I talk to him, he kind of does a translation of what has just been said. So I feel like I'm I'm kind of learning, but I still be like, okay, cool, can we just um so we've got this thing at the moment where I'm like, when a new user comes in, they just need to be tagged with something. Um, but I'm not sure if if adding a tag or uh uh as an immediate thing um is going to be a one-day job or a two-hour job, or if it's gonna be a four-week job. Those are the sorts of things where I'm like, I don't know some of these things like that, that are kind of like if I request something, I have to be like, how long will that take and how much disruption will that be? Because there has been things before where we're like, cool, we just wanted to do this one little thing. And then like two months later, they're like, you know that little thing. And I'm like, yeah, it wasn't really that important. What about it? And they're like, we finally fixed it. Like, great. And he's like, that's been two months worth of element.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:46

I don't want it anymore. Can we switch it back?

SPEAKER_01 1:23:49

Exactly. Um so there's little things like that that I'm like, cool, learning how to be um more of a software brain on my on things, but like um the we we we feel like we're from the outset, we're like, we'll do this properly and get it all properly done from the day. So we see a lot of people like, oh, you can just go to fiver or something and have someone build some software for you. It's like I can I can just tell that's gonna be breaking pretty quickly. So um we feel like it's really robust and does what it's needed to do. Um and then um, but yeah, yeah, we're we're probably at a point where we're like, we've built it, we've over overdeveloped it a little bit, and now we've got to start selling it uh a little bit more aggressively. And I'm like, cool, I hope I haven't built something that no one wants. Um I don't think that's the case because everyone who goes through it loves it and they come back for more and they want to get more from it. But you never know, right? Like if our is our marketing going to be good enough uh to get it to be where it should be. Um we'll see.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:37

Yeah. I'm in the exact same position. Overdeveloped, ready to sell. People love it, but you still you feel like you're racing against the clock with software. And it it's it's because it's there are just so many other software businesses out there, and you're just thinking, oh, just one of these big companies comes along and does the thing. But actually, what I realize so much with software as well is there are there are many softwares that are I mean, even if they create a unique solution, there are there are well, let's just say it's a software that there's there's multiple companies doing the same thing. Because eventually there's always going to be, even if your solution is unique, there's gonna be someone else, one of the bigger players, did IQ will try and replicate that thing that you've created. Totally. But it's it's such a huge brand element when it comes to software. People uh are loyal to software for the same reasons that they're loyal to educational products or any other product that like a skincare brand, for example, like there's diminishing returns at a certain level of any product, then they just stay there for the what that product makes them feel and like the identity that it attaches to them. And so I think that's like a huge part of it that I've been learning about the software side, is like actually it doesn't even matter if someone comes along and replicates what I've created, even though it's unique right now. Yep. As long as I hold the strongest brand and the strongest present in the community in which I'm trying to promote it, then that's the most important thing.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:48

Yeah, totally. And that and that's something that we're pushing hard on with the with the YouTube software as well, is that brand identity to say if you're the sort of YouTube owner that is just looking at stats and looking at how many view counts you've got and looking at how many um subscribers you've got, and that's purely your metric for success, cool, that's over to you. Great. We don't have a tool that is good for you. That's fine. And and a lot of people do want that. We're like, we're looking for those people that want to actually genuinely create amazing content and analyze their content and know what works, know what doesn't work for them, and know what really resonates with other people. Because if you can create better content, you will win eventually. You might not get like the big spike that you do a big viral hit or something like that. Great, good for those people that want to do that. But if you actually want to create amazing content that people love that stands the test of time, that's what this tool does. So it's kind of like we're trying to divide those people up because vidIQ is kind of like that, you know, like, oh, this is what keyword you should use next. It's like, no, be yourself. Keywords give give a fuck. Do you know what I mean? Like if you if you're gonna create the best video of your life, you're not gonna be like, okay, cool, I've just made this amazing bit of content. Ah, it's rubbish, actually. I didn't get that keyword in there. Do you remember? Do you know what I mean? It's like that doesn't make any sense at all. So it's like um, we want to make sure that the videos that people create are just like ridiculously good value for people. They know how to structure it, they know what content really resonates with people. And if people can do that over and over again, they will find that the whole thing just becomes amazing. Um, and that's that's kind of like the approach we tend to take with it, is to say create better content and content that's worth promoting as well. Because if you can create like a corner, let's say, because one of the ways of using a cornerstone is to put it on a YouTube channel. So like that homepage video that when people get to your site, they get to know you. If you have a cornerstone there and the emphasis being like subscribe, get to know us, maybe buy our products, etc., if that's on the front page and people get to know like and trust you as a brand, it's like that's a a great video to create off the back of all your YouTube content that you know that's works really well. And then you can put that there and you can really grow your channel that way as well. It's kind of like that's the it's like that piece. But the um but what yeah, coming back to um the the software piece, I definitely feel like it's gotta sit somewhere, even if it's got competitors, it's gotta sit somewhere where the user says, No, not that stuff, this stuff instead. You know, like not the competitors, I I really want to do it with drawing. Gordon because of his way he's done it, so to speak. Or or kind of like you have a different mentality or a different methodology, that's kind of what that's what I'm buying into. And that's and this this software fits that, you know.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:12

Just as a as a quick tangent, you just mentioned about having a cornerstone video on the on the front of your channel. Um obviously I've got no YouTube channel is the core part of our business and brand. Do you recommend that a cornerstone video as a subscriber video? It's an interesting just like have a really great cornerstone video, but the call to action is subscribe rather than to any product or something. Have you have you seen someone do that yet with success and it's still like building evergreen traffic?

SPEAKER_01 1:28:37

Yes, we don't typically um get an opportunity to do cornerstones for organic channels for like, but I'm like, I feel like the cornerstone, once you've got that messaging down, that should be a core competent, like core piece of any marketing material you do from there on in. Um and so like if you were to do like a content piece where you knew that, like, let's say, for example, um, what would you say is like the most stickiest content or the content that you know that your customers, your ideal customer, would be like when you talk about this stuff, I love it. Like, is there is there like a concept that you'll talk about, like a growth of an agency or something?

SPEAKER_03 1:29:10

Yeah, I mean it's client acquisition.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:12

Okay, how to get more clients for your agency. Okay, fine. So if you were to like talk about your methodology, then you say, look, cool. In this video, I'm gonna unpack how to get more. And so this like say, Do you if you want to get to know what we're all about, I'm gonna teach you something so cool today, because that's what we all stand for. I'm gonna show you how to do something really, really cool. Um, but then you'll go through that cornerstone approach, right? So you'd you go through that that middle section is gonna be your methodology and why it's so good. And then you say, that's a lot of work, isn't it? But we've made it easier because we've got the software or whatever. So like so you so you can say, like, I'm gonna give you some stuff today that's gonna show you how Scape Going customers, and you absolutely love it, and you're gonna see that this is gonna open up for you. It could be like a 10-minute, 20-minute video or something. Um, but then you kind of you actually frame it around your cornerstone approach. You know, so it's it's different content. You've plugged in different content, but the messaging behind that becomes like the whole thing. And you can still put the offer at the end of it because you can say to them that you can get them to subscribe, or you can say to them, now you know a little bit more about us, why don't you join us? And it's a soft call to action, it doesn't need to be hard.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:09

Yeah, it's interesting. You know, my one of my best performing ads ever that literally kickstarted my whole business was a simple and I uh didn't follow a framework, but probably if you watched it, you'd be like, Oh, this is actually this actually follows a framework. One of my best performing ads ever was just me talking to the camera, introducing myself, and it was a call to action to subscribe. And it got me from zero to ten thousand followers, and it was literally like a couple of pence of followers for like UK and US followers as well, which is like you couldn't do that now, like for that for subscribers on that level. Um but it was just so successful, and it was just a simple and I think it was because of the fact that I was spending money to just ask people to subscribe to the channel that people just came over and were like, oh, this guy seems nice, so I'll go and they they were expecting a pitch at the end of it, and there was no pitch. It was just uh This is what I do. I just I just want you to come and check out the channel, and if you like it, stick around and subscribe. And it just worked so well. Recreating that with the cornerstone, that's uh just give me an idea. I think I'm doing it.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:03

If you want to kind of like run ads at something as well, you can do this. So you could if you want to kind of really grow your channel quickly, um, you can run like an ad on like a normal ad platform, like so uh on um on YouTube and and run it as like a you can multiple different ways of running it, but you want to probably run a like a reach campaign. You can then um have people go to your channel, and if it's like a new um like a non-subscriber, um I'm just a normal person, I suppose.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:30

Non-subscriber, I don't know what to call them.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:31

Um but essentially someone who's coming to your channel for the first time.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:35

You don't want to be one of those.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:36

You have one chance to become part of that. So what you can do is say, um, I've put this whole video together for you. If you subscribe to this video right now, um uh you will get access to the video. And then that that essentially that once you subscribe, it turns into the second video. So you get like the trailer video, don't you, for the channel? And if someone does become a uh subscriber, then they get a different video. Yeah. So you put now, then you put the cornerstone there. So you essentially essentially incentivize them to subscribe and then give them the content, and then that will be like your whole cornerstone there. But you've got the subscription as well as then you've got potential to sell them as well.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:06

Could you then go, could you go cornerstone for subscribe and then cornerstone to buy as soon as they come in? So the two. Or would that be is there ever a point when you're following a framework that someone can then see through the framework and be like, ah, this is kind of familiar to the video I just watched, and I feel like I'm being taken through a journey? Because I feel like now I've been in the space for a long time. When I watch a set certain videos, I'm like, ah, I know what's happening here. Like you just can you just know something is coming, a strong call to action.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:32

I think your brain is like so much more advanced than other people in this space, you know, so it's like they're not gonna be looking for it and be like, I just saw something. Um but um I think if the framework's not executed well, so it's not like we go right step one and then we'd nail that instead when three seconds over on this bit.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:49

Every brack braid. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:51

Yeah. So it's kind of like um when it comes to the nine steps, they kind of merge into each other, and one might be a bit shorter, one a bit longer, but you're finding the story that that resonates with you. And then you might say, like, oh, do you know what I'm just gonna drop that bit because it doesn't really fit well with me. Oh, cool, absolutely fine. But you at least you went through the process of like saying, like, this is what I want the messaging to all encompass. And then you can say, we're gonna drop a few bits because they don't they don't really serve the story that well. But then yeah, then you can create whatever video you want, and no one will really see that because nine steps. No one's gonna be like, oh, I think we're on step seven now. Like, no one's gonna really know. And so it's a and and also sometimes in the middle section when you talk about your content, that might be something where you go really deep on it. And you might say, right, I might spend 15 minutes in there. Normally it's three minutes or a minute or whatever. You you can go really deep, especially with like YouTube content. That's a really nice way of doing it. Um so yeah, so there's no one will see the framework. I don't think anyone will see the framework because it's but it's something written it, it actually doesn't look like a video framework any longer.

SPEAKER_03 1:33:45

That makes sense. Okay, so look into the future. Um, you've been running the agency for a long time, we've got the software on the horizon. Like, what are your long-term goals for the business? Do you plan on exiting at some point or getting an acquisition? Like what's yeah, where do you see it going?

SPEAKER_01 1:33:59

Yeah, I think that like one thing we've been doing a lot more of is um quite high-level consultancy. So I don't know if you've seen this in the space, but um I've seen a lot of times where like as I said earlier, like um as an advertising agency, you normally get pulled in definitely like seven years ago, like and pre-COVID, so to speak. It was, can you come in and make these numbers do this essentially? And that's what my job was, like CPA, cost per lead, cost per sale, and then I just made the numbers work, and then here's my invoice at the end of the month. I would have no consideration about what how well those customers then go and upsell and that type of thing, and what the company's um cogs are, or what the kind of like company's like PL sheet looks like. I'd never look at any of that stuff. But over time, I feel like marketers' jobs or advertising's jobs have almost become like you you get more and more into those conversations. And because you see lots and lots of companies, you get more into like, well, this person does it this way, or this person does it this way, and you and you find um you you learn very, very quickly, but then you all of a sudden like become like an advisor to the brand um around all of their marketing. Um, so that's the the role I normally get into sometimes, which is like I kind of start taking a bit more of like a I don't want to say CMO because I don't I don't feel like I fit that role, but it's almost you start almost becoming like a board member.

SPEAKER_03 1:35:12

Yeah, it's like a fractional, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:13

Yeah. And so I've I've adopted that position with a few brands now where I sit on the board with them, um, not officially a board, so to speak, but it's like um that's the kind of like advisor standpoint, and we take a Rev share model on top of our current deal. So that that's a really elegant way for me, I feel like, is like I I get to see a lot more, and um I I kind of will be on boards of kind of bigger companies spending a lot of money and being like advising them to be like, cool, we'll we can still run as an agency, but like I've almost separated myself out a little bit from the agency to be like, here's my consultancy package as well as here's my agency to do the work as well. Um, and with that means that I need to do a lot more work um on my personal brand. Um so that's in the in in the immediate and like medium term, it's like get back into doing a lot more YouTube content because I've just been off that boil for quite a while. I just focused three kids, um, they're all growing up quite quickly now, so they've got more free time back and things. But I'm like, I can see my crown slipping a little bit with YouTube ads. So I'm just like, right, let's get back on properly and uh just like annihilate the competition. Um, so there's a little bit of that. But like I think long term, I really like the agency how it is. And I because it's performance-based, I don't feel like it's gonna be the sort of thing where we easily get an acquisition. I don't think someone's gonna come in and say, I want to buy that, because we don't necessarily have the same profile as every other agency. So it's kind of it might I might be kind of a bit short-sighted with that, but I don't think it's gonna be something that immediately someone says, Oh, I want to be like buy your agency, uh, because it won't integrate that well, I don't think, with everybody else's models of like a monthly spend and a percentage of spend or something. Um, so I don't know too much about that piece, but I'm like, it's in a place where it's really profitable and it's it's easy for me to manage. I love the team. I'm like, cool, it's an it's a nice, um, it's a nice business. I I mean it like it's a good lifestyle business from where I'm at right now. And I don't see myself being like, let's scale it to 100 employees and and go crazy. I see myself more like that's let's be a specialist agency working with amazing companies um and and working really hard for those companies, but not like going out to like I want to have 4,000 clients or something. Um that's not my desire, but I'd much prefer to grow the um the personal brand on training and that type of thing as well. Makes sense. Um I feel like I've got a lot to share and I don't get to share it very often.

SPEAKER_03 1:37:25

So uh I'm glad that I've got a platform here that you can share it on. That's awesome. Um if you were to start off from scratch, um and uh well actually let me let me reframe that. Many people watching this will be new start agency owners um or existing agency owners, small size, even if they've hit their first 10k month or whatever, but they want to scale. Um, and obviously that's a it's a hard path. It's not the easiest business model, it's the easiest to start, but it's a hard one to scale. Service business has its problems. Um what would your advice be to someone who is listeners to listening, I'd love to achieve what Tom's achieved, I'd love to sign up that kind of client. Like thinking back to being in the beginner stages, what do you think is the most important thing to be aware of?

SPEAKER_01 1:38:09

I think the landscape's changed a lot, right? So I think that I was lucky whereby when I started running ads, it was like I could make so many mistakes. And and and I did make loads, loads of mistakes, and it didn't cost me anything, really. It's like, oh, okay, I lost a hundred quid here by being stupid on something. But that hundred quid could have made me a grand or something, but the but then you're just gonna spend another hundred quid and make a grand. So it was like the easy days at that point, and now we're in much tougher times, I think. Um especially with where companies are at where they're kind of maybe a bit bloated with staff and they they they haven't figured those pieces out. So it's kind of it's a lot more challenging. I think that the um you want to go and get definitely get a lot of experience. Um and you can do that getting paid experience by um by working with kind of cool brands and and like really helping them get like a core competency that you're really good at. Like just choose one thing that you're like can absolutely nail and you could almost be the best in the world at learning that one thing because you've you've done it time and again for different brands and it's got you get and just collect up all those case studies and just be really this is what I would do. Get really good at that one thing that's quite a unique thing. So it might be like um, or develop your email marketing plan or something like that, and just like say, for this type of company, um, I can absolutely nail it. So, like for for this niche um like real estate agents or something like that in the US, I can absolutely nail your email marketing. You give me a lead and I'll put them through an email sequence and they will become a customer. Like just get ridiculously good at that. So you can plug that in to multiple businesses, but get really, really good at one thing that then you can roll out to a lot of other different companies as well. I probably would, if I have my way again now, I probably focus more on like smaller businesses, I think, and do it en masse, I think. Because it's harder to break through to the absolute big ones, um, because then they you're just gonna be up against big, big competition and it's gonna be tough to break through, I think. Um if you're starting out and haven't got that much experience. If you're like, if you've been working in another company for 30 years and you absolutely nailed it and you're like an expert, uh then fine, slightly different story. But if you're gonna like new to agency life, um you're gonna want to just like have one thing you're ridiculously good at and you can repeat that process and you know that everyone loves it, and then work out how to make more money out of that every time. Um, but that's the easiest way to break through because if you get really good at one thing, you can then do the blogging thing, the podcasting thing, the speaking thing. You'll your your your rise to fame will be a lot lot quicker. And then if you can do other things, then great, do more things for those clients as well. But I would like stick with that one thing that you're ridiculously good at and um and just offer that to as many people as you can, and just like be like, it's so slick in your operations and it's so cost effective that you're like, it doesn't really cost us anything to deliver amazing results for a client. That's gonna be your like your thing to focus on, I think.

SPEAKER_03 1:40:48

Yeah, that's fantastic advice. Tom, it's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for coming on. Thank you for having me, Jordan. Any final thoughts?

SPEAKER_01 1:40:56

Uh no. Thanks, man.

SPEAKER_03 1:41:00

Cheers, Valley.