SPEAKER_00 0:00

You can have all the strategy in the world, but if you don't have eyes on to your strategy, then you're not going to get conversion. I remember someone in my year, because I was yeah really heavily into the gym, he came up to me and was like, You do me a programme, went home, Microsoft Word. How do I pay you, man? I'm like, oh my god, I can literally charge money for like a Word document for my laptop.

SPEAKER_03 0:16

Fitpreneur hit 150k in monthly revenue in less than two years. What would you say is a catalyst to that quick road? And that's what a lot of agency owners, I think, fail on because they're talking to the big guys though, you're outreaching a thousand people a month, but you're kind of cherry-picking some of the top guys.

SPEAKER_00 0:31

I was walking around, like Jeremy Brendier and stuff, like shouting out, James, bro. And these big people that people look up to are like calling my name to go and see them.

SPEAKER_03 0:39

Especially in an industry like fitness. I don't know what that does to that space when the lines are blurred and then everybody is just utilising AI to create content.

SPEAKER_00 0:47

People by people, some of the best content that we see our clients do actually is the less. Lots of people would go, cold email doesn't work.

SPEAKER_03 0:54

And it does only if you have the right what do you think it is that agencies get so wrong that they need to get better at coming over the next 24 months. James, welcome to Agency Giants. Mate, appreciate you having me. So uh Fitpreneur hit 150k in monthly revenue in less than two years. What would you say is the catalyst to that quick growth?

SPEAKER_00 1:18

The quick growth is fast changing marketing strategy and the right clients because I think shifting into clients and different sizes of clients has been the biggest um catalyst for sure. Interesting.

SPEAKER_03 1:34

So you started off straight in the deep end with big influences in the fitness space, or did you work your way up to that point?

SPEAKER_00 1:42

Yeah, so work my way up. So a lot of my years has been spent trying to get, you know, your coaches primarily instead of creators with maybe two to five thousand followers up to you know your five, ten, fifteen grand a month. Um and it was hard, right? Because like, you know, as you know, like some ultimately growing a business, you can have all the strategy in the world, but if you don't have eyes on to your strategy, then you're not going to get conversion. I mean, you know, you can get up to a good revenue amount. Um, but um, one of our biggest creators uh reached out to us about three years ago. Um and that was when I was kind of like, you know what? Let me see if I can help you. Because ultimately, you know, I've done this with people that don't have traffic, and you do. Um, so then took it on um and spent that whole year just kind of like with that one client, basically seeing what we can do with millions of followers. Um, and it was amazing. And then after that point, I was like, this is what we need to do because people that have all of that uh following and and and big followers, they get into it because they might have done TV shows, they might obviously love content, but they don't get actually into it to do business. So then when we find these people, they get pulled into things like brand deals, but ultimately, you know, they don't actually sell anything that they own. So when you apply that to the right creator, and don't get me wrong, we've had some some very interesting cases because following isn't always everything. Um, but um, yeah, when you apply that to the right creator, it is the most powerful um thing in the world.

SPEAKER_03 3:13

It's interesting. I want to unpack some of that like acquisition strategy on getting hold of some of these big creators, and but let's start off by zooming back a little bit because you are like I suppose what many would call like a serial entrepreneur. Lots of people come onto the pod who start agencies, it's like their first business, and they jump in. It's naturally a service business, it's an easy business to get into. You got into the fitness coaching space before, but then I believe, correct me if I'm wrong, you were selling through to 11. Literally, yeah. Yeah, had a cocktail bar at the end of the year.

SPEAKER_00 3:41

Yeah, mate, I've I've literally had a I was the youngest personal license holder in Kent, 18 years old. Two days I've just turned 18, council come down. Hang on a minute. I didn't think I was gonna be meeting an 18-year-old to give to a personal license.

SPEAKER_03 3:53

How did that come about?

SPEAKER_00 3:54

Um, so I have always, I think when I was younger, I was always chasing opportunity. And obviously, like I've always um built everything from scratch, you know, never had any any kind of funding. Um, and there was a big entrepreneur in my town that I really looked up to, to be fair. Um, and um he basically approached me because he could see that I was trying to hustle. Um, and he said, Look, I want to start this bar. Um, I'll give you 50%. You put no money down, but basically you do it all. And obviously, yes, okay, I'll I'll take it on. Ended up hiring staff, getting my personal license, helping with the refurb, uh doing all the spreadsheet margins for like cocktail profit and doing live events. It was some experience. Um, and um, yeah, I think for me it was just jumping a deep end. And I, you know, I said yes to so many things back in the day, as you do when you're that young. Um, but I you know, I loved it. It's interesting.

SPEAKER_03 4:47

I I resonate with the uh local mentor thing because you and we would just spoke off camera, you're from the countryside. I can't speak for what Kent was like growing up and would like you to. Were you surrounded by lots of successful entrepreneurs? Where's what was there a lot of financial success in the area that motivated you to starting entrepreneurship? Because from my experience, like I had that same local mentor, but there was only a few guys in the game, and so it was almost like they were looking for anyone else that just that showed a glimmer of wanting to get into is it a similar to your experience?

SPEAKER_00 5:18

I would say where I grew up, so play a little seaside town called Hern Bay, everybody, and yeah, because we are only I mean Hern Bay is only like an hour from London on the train. So where we are, Seaside Town, we get a lot of people moving down from London. I mean, everyone calls them DFLs. Um, and that naturally attracted lots of big players, ultimately buying up you know, million-pound houses for the weekend. Um, but yeah, this guy actually um he had started through social media back in the day. He got picked up some by this guy in LA and he started to to grow. So that was kind of um, you know, out out of that realm. But my best ever mentor, uh, a guy called Peter, he sold two of his companies now, and he actually calls me good luck because every time I've seen him in the last two years, it's the payout day. So I'm like, here we go. Um and he moved down from London and I actually uh PT'd him back in the day. Um and then he basically, when I had the gym, he invested into my gym. Um, and um yeah, and and that's how I met him, and he's made like helped me make some amazing decisions. But um, yeah, I I guess I've always been actually surrounded by I'd probably say like older age entrepreneurs, so like where where we live, there you know, if you said the word agency back in the day, people would be like, What's that? Like literally. So it was all like very much like brick and mortar businesses. So a lot of the principles I learned early on were that mind. Interesting.

SPEAKER_03 6:46

I uh I remember the day the first time I even heard about agency, and it was in in the well, not even that long ago. We're talking about probably about 15 years ago, and and it was just like this this brand new model that people that not even really heard about before. Ironically, because agency's been around for over a hundred years, as far as the model is concerned, but the new age of social media marketing was just uh yeah, and people were making a lot of money very quickly when they were doing that. So you it really took you a a long time in between, you know, from 18 to how old are you now? 27. 27. There's a lot of time, almost 10 years we're talking from where you then launched your agency. Yeah. Because it's been running for now.

SPEAKER_00 7:27

Yeah, so in in theory, three years. Um, because obviously when we took that first client on, it you know, it was there. But um, I guess the year before that was a kind of we went into like the kind of appointment setter agency. Um, so I've kind of yeah, I've been around the agency time for about four years, um, essentially.

SPEAKER_03 7:44

But you transitioned from doing fitness coaching? Yep. So what happened in the time between having the the bar and then getting into fitness coaching? Like what was it that that spurred you onto getting involved in that?

SPEAKER_00 7:57

So I was qualified at the time. So I got my PT qualification at 16 um and was personal training on the side, doing some online at the time. Went to body power the first year that Gymshark, first ever blew up in 2014, um, and then went into like selling online programs because I was just like, this is amazing. Remember someone in my year, uh, because I was yeah, really heavily into the gym, used to compete actually. Um, and he uh he came up to me and was like, Can you do me a program? Went home, Microsoft Word, training programme, gave it to him. How do I pay you, man? I'm like, oh my god, I can literally charge money for like a Word document for my laptop, and that was when the online thing really kind of triggered in my head, and it was at the same time as the uh uh bar. So I was kind of like, you know, ultimately the bar was fun, man, but um I was drinking like every day. Yeah, obviously, when you're 18, it is good crack. Yeah, um, but um, I remember just sat there with my dad on like a Thursday afternoon having a few beers, and I was like, this is not gonna make me wealthy, like it's gonna make you know, it could make me rich or whatever, but this is not gonna be a franchise. Like it was just like a bar in a in a seaside town. So um I actually went to uni um the same day. So I had three applications, all um, you know, approved, but I basically said I wasn't gonna go, and then literally last minute went to uni. And I did that to buy time, and then in that time, I obviously did loads of PT, loads of online. I remember spending a lot of my student loan on basically investing into mentorships for like fitness coaching and stuff. Because it again, that was new at the time. That was when you literally had PDFs and Word documents. Um, and then to be honest, last year of uni was difficult because I was doing really well. I didn't actually need my degree. Um, I still don't, you know, in theory, need my degree, but I think what that degree was was passing time for me. Um and it allowed me to yeah, just basically lock in and focus on the online space. And within them three years, I just you know went up like crazy.

SPEAKER_03 9:56

Why why not continue to scale the fitness coaching business? Why then move into agency? What gave you the idea to make that?

SPEAKER_00 10:02

So naturally I went from the fitness coaching into mentoring because loads of and this was like just pre-COVID, so everyone was kind of like, can you help me? Um so I did, and to be honest, I loved the fit uh the business side more than the fitness side. Um and I liked you know physical transformation and I loved that side. But then when I took on my first mentoring client and it was kind of like, you know, wow, thanks, man, you know, I'm now out of debt and I've got like five grand a month coming in. I was like, this is like a new level of satisfaction. Um then obviously got really good at that, and of course, lots of clients. Then the first agency that I did, which was the appointment setting, and almost also like video editing, stuff like that, was a natural progression. You know, we've all probably done it where you have a load of clients, they have a problem, and then you like try and launch another business to like try and do it all. Worst decision ever. Um, but we all do it, and um, yeah, that was just like a logistical nightmare because it was just a pure people business. It was like service-based, the more clients, the more people you had to manage, the margins are super tight. Um, and then that was when I just kind of realized there's got to be more services that we can do that are just almost like less, less pressure. You know, when you're like when we do an appointment setting, like the pressure of that is so hard. Especially when you're this was like when Hormosy had just started doing like his offers. So it's like, you know, all you do is a simple text graphic on Canva with like, we'll guarantee you this, and like mate, our calendar was filled. Um and we were like, mate, we're gonna like print here, and then like all of a sudden, you know, we were plugging setters into accounts that to be honest shouldn't have had a setter. Um, but we just you know saw the uh saw the path and and grabbed it. So um that was a a very big lesson.

SPEAKER_03 11:53

What would you say is how how has the service now evolved then? So you you moved out of the appointment setting and now working with fitness uh entrepreneurs, fitness coaches, etc. If you can clarify on that, that'd be great. Um and now how has the service evolved? Like what have you what are you now providing for the businesses that you work with?

SPEAKER_00 12:12

Yeah, so what was interesting was we obviously went from trying to like basically um plug and play freelancers essentially into our clients' businesses, and it was just a mess.

SPEAKER_01 12:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:24

Um so like I then kind of like real, I thought, you know what, I'm just gonna like you know, let people hire whoever they want to hire, go on upwork or whatever. And then I was finding myself spending way more time, like, because I'd say, right, go on upwork and hire this person. Then they'd come back to me and be like, and I was just like, hang on a minute, this is ridiculous. Um, but what I learned from the first agency was like, if we're gonna do something again like that, almost like a done for you, we need to have the right clients at the right price point with the right service. And that's what a lot of agency owners I think fail on because they overpromise, they don't charge enough, and then they're just like basically working every single hour under the sun, and their margins are like so tight. And I was just like, if we're gonna do this, and also because of the caliber of client, like we need the best. So basically just shifted into more of like a higher ticket agency um Rev share model going into some equity-based deals this year. Um, and essentially, you know, we only work now with the agency side with essentially creators that above 550,000 followers, but they also must have a good enough TAM, which is basically total addressable market. So we basically plug and play their followers, their audience demographics, their engagement into a calculation, and it will tell us roughly how many people out of their followers would actually buy from them. And then we basically decide whether we're gonna back that client or whether we just kind of say, look, we'll just consult for you instead of doing stuff for you. Because again, with what we do, we it needs to be with the right client. And you know, I'm really lucky to be in that position now where we can just pick our clients.

SPEAKER_03 14:13

Do you have to be careful of, and I don't know if this exists a lot in the fitness space of people who fabricate and bolster up their numbers, followers, engagements, and then what are you assessing that on story views or something to so this is literally it, man.

SPEAKER_00 14:26

Like, and we had you know a creator that had come to us, she had 1.3 million followers, and I was like, Oh my, this is like gonna be insane. I was like, and you know what's really funny? She was actually on my like top 20 hit list. So when I first started, I was like, these are the top 20. And then when I looked into and she basically launched something already, and it like it was tumbleweeds, and I was like, Man, like you know, let me look into your insights, and her following was 98% male. Wow, and she was sending a glute program. Interesting, you just you're never gonna sell glute program to males, yeah. Um, so yeah, we we've learned a lot about that. Um, and even things like we've worked out, you know, creators that talk on camera versus don't talk on camera. There's so like what we've learned over the last kind of three years is like you really have got to dive into the creator's personality, and you know, there's a few little metrics that we check to make sure that it is the right fit. Um, but then when you do find the right one, it is the best thing in the world.

SPEAKER_03 15:29

Yeah, it's it's a niche, or just in general, people working with people who've already got authority. The presumption is always it's hard to get hold of those people, it's hard to sign them up, it's hard to, you know, client acquisition's not going to be easy. Presumably, now it's a lot easier because you're just leveraging other people that you work with. So people by association are like, okay, if that person's working with him, I want to work with him. In the early stages, what did that look like? Right? Because I imagine there's a lot of ego in the fitness space as well. Massive. And these guys are getting hundreds, if not thousands, of DMs on a weekly basis by people gushing over them and wanting to beat them. You've got to cut through that noise. What did that early stage strategy look like for you?

SPEAKER_00 16:08

So I took, and one thing you learn about me is that I'm like hyper analytical. And I uh I always used to have this motto like scale the unscalable. Like if I want to try and do something, I will like really try and get into the weeds. And I realized that obviously lots of influencers and creators, I mean, they like to be called creators now. Um, lots of creators um obviously love brand deals. So they will have an inbox and all of them will have an email address available on their Instagram. All of them. Um, some of them will still also be managing them themselves. So what I realized was that email is going to be the one because they will look at their emails every single day because they are trying to find opportunities. And if they don't do it themselves, they have obviously got a manager that is also looking for opportunities. So we scraped, um, we use a platform called Influencer Hero, um, which is really, really cool. Um, and you can actually segment depending on that engagement rate and stuff, and then it scrapes everything completely. It's powerful. Um, and we we did use something called Modash, but now we use Influencer Hero. So we pick our demographic um and we scrape all of the emails and we literally do like a three-stage uh campaign. Um biggest mistakes we learnt at the start was again just pulling any influencer. So we were like filling the calendar up, and it was just like getting on, and it was just like people that had well that brought followers and you know, you name it. Um, and then obviously naturally lots of people would go, oh, well, cold email doesn't work. And it does only if you have the right qualified lead list. So what we found the hard way was like, right, we're filling up our closer with like really bad leads, we don't need to uh qualify the booking process better, we just need to make sure that we've got a better lead list because ultimately, if you have the best lead list and the best campaign, you end up with really good book calls. Um, and that's all we do. And so cold email, um, we send a thousand a month, uh, so we don't do high volume. Um, and all we do is we've tried a few different approaches. Um, but I actually used our first creator as a bit of like feedback, and I said, if you had your inbox, what would like basically cause your attention? Because when we started, we were trying to like, you know, uh email when you're trying to dodge around the fact you're trying to sell something and you're like trying all these creative angles, they hate that. They literally said, like, the things I open are like want to work with me or or whatever, you know, want want to work, want to scale. So we actually have a like a very aggressive subject line, but it's because people just open it because they get so many emails a day, so many people are trying to beat around the bush and trying to get the open when actually they just like get straight to the point.

SPEAKER_03 19:02

Makes a lot of sense in a saturated market where everybody's trying to skirt around it just to go for it.

SPEAKER_00 19:07

The same logic wouldn't apply in in a in a broader market, but yeah, and that that's the power of like just really understanding how you're like I said, we literally asked our target client, how would you essentially look at your inbox? And then we built our approach off of that. Because again, like I didn't know at the start, I was like, How do we even get these people? You know, I've I've tried to run ads. I mean, our ads at the moment are just basically retargeting lists off of our email base. But trying to, you know, get an influencer to buy in from a Facebook ad is pretty difficult because half of them they spend time on socials, but they post and then get off because they're like they find it overwhelming.

SPEAKER_03 19:46

So they come in, they're working with you. Are you then building out offers? Are you, you know, doing and running ad campaigns? Like what are you tangibly doing and what are you promising that that people are coming in for?

SPEAKER_00 19:59

So we have two types. We have one creator that or creators that have a business or a product, it might be a physical product, it might be a digital, it might be an app, whatever. Um, so we'll basically audit their business. And normally their website and landing pages are awful, their pricing is all over the place, they don't know any of their numbers, LTV, so like they're not even in a stage ready to spend money on ads because they don't even know what they can spend to get a customer. So we kind of come in and plug and play and just go, right, you know, this is what we're gonna do. Like a couple of weeks ago, big nutritionist in LA, uh, the landing page they launched, converted to like six percent. We have a really good formula that I mean, minimum will be about 15% landing page conversion. So we literally built them a new landing page, sent the same amount of traffic, and doubled their sales by changing the landing page. Like, so when like that's what we find when we have somebody that already has tried something, when we plug and play what we do, the the the change and difference is insane. And then what we do is we then just obviously kind of then take them into more services and just kind of prove our worth. Because for us, like doing a bit of CRO essentially and a and a new landing page is like really low risk for them, but then the actual impact of that can you know earn them an extra 50 grand, and then they're like, man, these guys are like insane. Let's what else can we do with them? So we have that side, and yeah, we'll do things like um we'll build out like a 12-month cycle because again, um, what we found with uh influencers is selling evergreen is pretty hard, and obviously their audiences are pretty like gen pop, you know, you're your proper consumer, so like they love the things like your programs, your challenges, your fancy names. So we normally build like a 12 month cycle of like what we're gonna do campaign wise, when we're gonna do challenges, and then like with even tested. This year, I mean, two years ago you could sell a monthly subscription pretty easily. Numbers are just like dwindling. So this year, what we found is we're actually selling one off purchase and then upselling in the back end, and that is getting better economics than selling monthly subscription. So like we're always just you know trying and testing that, and just basically getting them to a point where they can see their whole year like mapped out. And we've got like we know that if we get a thousand front end here, we're gonna convert, you know, maybe 20% into a recurring, and then you get your spikes. You know, you might have times where you don't sell and we build like lead magnet campaigns and build their list up. Um, so yeah, to kind of answer like it's offer, landing page, um, sales, you know, kind of sales campaigns, uh, list building campaigns, email marketing, and then ads when we have all of that in place. Yeah. Because again, when we're running ads, we like to know exactly what we can spend and again realistically um have everything in place because again, if we don't have that, then the ads are pointless.

SPEAKER_03 23:04

I love the the 12-month plan because of creating that future for the client and then obviously reducing churn for yourself and increasing LTV naturally. Um what is your general mindset around or what have you seen through data around the rhythm in which you can uh repeat offers so you can bring them back, and at what volume um or frequency are we bringing new offers to a market broadly? Because I think that rule applies regardless of fitness, it's other coaching offers and so on. It's any any offer to that degree, really. Something interested to know.

SPEAKER_00 23:38

I would say um it's a really good question. I would probably say um it obviously depends on how successful that offer is at the start. Um, so for example, we actually have found now that we have at least uh like a four to eight week break between sales. And we found you know, massive data in terms of sales will just naturally drop because people just feel like they are being sold to all the time. Um and what we do is we might use the same offer in theory, but we'll tweak the offer to the time of the year, yeah. Like literally, and just make sure that that offer is just speaking to that person with their mindset and behaviors at the time. Um, and that's the biggest thing we found is like it's more like we find more success when we get the emotion right behind the offer um versus just sending like an eight-week challenge. When you get the emotion right and you time it right, I mean, we've even got data um around kind of Boxing Day and New Year's sales. Like, we find that Boxing Day is an incredibly successful time to launch for us. Interesting. Um, and you know, lots of people go, surely everyone's busy, but literally everyone wakes up, you've just had your Christmas day, you're feeling rubbish, your email ping's off, and if you can get in early before everyone else selling their sales, then you're there. But then what we also find is like the week after, so that first week of Jan is actually like tumbleweeds. Whereas everyone normally goes, Yeah, first week, you know, first of January, get back to it, start your challenge. Honestly, like everyone's inquiry data and website traffic is so low, and it's not until the week after that we see the big spike because everyone's going back to work, getting into routine. So I think, yeah, it's like you can rotate offers as much as you want, making sure that you do have enough times in the middle to just focus on actually helping people and potentially you know moving into more of like a lead magnet focus. Um, and then when you do launch, making sure that you've got your timings right, your emotion points right, um, and um you'll have great success.

SPEAKER_03 25:47

And when we're talking about like going through a launch, are you utilising story sequences often? Are we are we kind of just sending out to the list and it's all back end? Like, what's the approach broadly?

SPEAKER_00 25:58

So we like some people actually say, like we've had a few um kind of people that have like so some big clients will have like other uh calls with other companies and they'll always say what we do, and all these other companies say, Oh, you know, that's just way too confusing. We do like eight to ten segments of an email list, like it's pretty insane. But what we found is properly segmenting the list in terms of like, you know, open but not clicked, you know, high clicks. Um, we also do some things like we'll do surveys in the email to find out what their goal is, and then we'll create hyper focused segments depending on their goal. So we'll do like another three flows there. Um, then we'll do previous purchases. Like, so when we when we send out email campaigns, we've got like 10 different flows, and people think, man, it's like a fitness coach or whatever. But it's not because I find fitness creators at that size, they are a hybrid uh between sending a service and selling an e-com product. Like you can actually do e-com tactics with them, and it's like the best thing in the world. Um, because they have that buying power. Whereas obviously most coaches are like, you know, you have to have an inquiry form, you have to book a call. Whereas, like, literally, people probably no more than 99 pounds. We found um in terms of the highest price point click to purchase. Um, but that's what we found. So when we launch, we go offer, we go story sequence, content strategy, paid ads, email, um, and then also some UGC. Um, so like UGC is powerful. Um, you know, what we're really hitting into at the moment is the beauty industry. I mean, it's booming. And we're finding um getting girls that are like big beauty influencers, getting on like an eight-week program, get them to like document their like weekly change, and then they've got this massive following of girls who basically care about what they look like, and then she goes, I've just done this eight-week program, the conversion is insane. So we take like a full-spoke approach, um, and then we're always just looking at different avenues as well, like, because again, like with the creative space, when you do something because it is to the mass, lots of people see it, so you can very quickly get copied. So you always have to like try and think of the next idea.

SPEAKER_03 28:23

Have you brought coming from the appointment setting space? Have you brought appointment setting back into the the offer at all? Are you using any AI and the DMs, for example?

SPEAKER_00 28:32

So we're not using AI. Um, we do need to look into it. Um, and but yeah, we still have human setters. Um, just because also some of the creators are quite wary of their accounts, and you know, because again, I think they're just still getting used to all the AI stuff. But um, man, like putting a setter into a creator account is the best thing in the world. Yeah, like it's mental. Like, I used to think sometimes like scripts don't work, but they didn't work because like they were with kind of smaller accounts, so there wasn't that trust. But when you have a creator, and basically when you say hello to someone in the DMs, they are like, oh my god, you know, like this is my I'm such a big fan. Like, if you literally just say, like, what's the goal, you know, this is the program, they'll just buy it. So, like, it's been an eye-opening thing, and again, it comes full circle because it was like them years ago, I had the right idea just with the wrong client.

SPEAKER_03 29:32

We just took on Larry Page onto a point wise, the point selling bot. Uh, we'll talk off camera about that. I think there's some cool things that you may be able to do there. Um, talking to the big guys though, um, I know you you flew over like 17 hours to see Mike O'Hearn. Yeah. You've paid for um like an autograph session with uh who was that that was Jay Cutler. Jay Cutler, that's it. Yeah. Um so have you got you're outreaching a thousand people a month, but you're kind of cherry-picking some of the top guys, yeah. Right. Is there like a further strategy, like this deeper strategy with those, or is you just quite opportunistic with them? And did either of those opportunities actually pull off? Was it worth doing so?

SPEAKER_00 30:10

Yeah, so um I last year I went to every single fitness expo basically in the world apart from India. Um, and um what I I basically like tactically did it because I was like, I flew out to America from Dubai, direct, horrific, wouldn't recommend. Um, but um when I was out there, obviously, and if you've ever been to the yeah, and you've been to the US, when you like say hello in the British accent, all the US guys are like, oh my god, you know you're from like England, like London, Big Ben. So I was like, I was like walking round the expo, just being like hello, and they're like, Man, like what are you doing in Ohio? I was like, Oh, you know, I worked with creators and stuff. Oh man, come around. Like so there was that, and then obviously I got time to speak to these big creators, and then because they were chatting to me, they're like, You're from the UK, so yeah, I flew out, and then I went to FIBO in Germany, same people, they're like, Oh, you were at Arnold's, weren't you? I was like, Yeah, chatting, and then like by the time we got round to like the UK Arnolds, I was walking around, like Jeremy Brendier and stuff, like shouting out, James, bro. I I've gone from like that was my third expo, and these big people that people look up to were like calling my name to go and see them. Nice, just by like making the effort.

SPEAKER_03 31:29

And have you managed to get clients from the expos?

SPEAKER_00 31:31

Yeah, massively. Because again, I leverage content, so like when I'm with these big creators, I'll like get loads of content with them and then I'll repurpose that, and then yeah, you just kind of get a bit of a name for you.

SPEAKER_03 31:44

What is your strategy when you're talking about like your own content, like being working with creators? Do you think that creates a pressure for you to have a brand yourself?

SPEAKER_00 31:52

Um, I must admit, I think that's why I've always obviously we're chatting before this about like content strategy. Um, I I do sometimes yeah, feel a bit lost with it because like also like my creators aren't really like consuming. So um I think sometimes I get yeah, a bit like lost. So I'm thinking about changing my angle and just kind of going down that just authority level of like being the expert with big creators and brands and just going down that route and more just like documenting what I'm doing instead of trying to educate because a lot of my educational stuff like isn't really applicable to you know, my Instagram. I've still got a lot of them coaches that are like two, three, four, five thousand. So like some of my stuff, you know, landing page conversion isn't gonna make an effect when you're only getting a hundred visits, you know, like it's just not going to. So I feel like, yeah, my content's a bit more advanced now. Um, but I think I'm just gonna go down the route of like just like more documentation of the brands I'm working with. Like we're about to, I mean, I'm working with a big supplement company at the moment, we've done a beauty brand, uh, we're about to launch another supplement brand end of the year, and I might just like just document it and just show like this is the real foundations of what we do.

SPEAKER_03 33:06

Yeah. When you think to on on the client base and the the people that you work with, like if you were to think to one of the most or one of the more successful campaigns that you were you're the most proud of, like who is it that comes to mind in that and what did you do in that campaign?

SPEAKER_00 33:21

I would say um, she won't remember mind me saying her name, but Gabby Allen. So we she was on Love Island Um and it was so funny because like obviously I knew she was going on it a while back, and um I was like planning stuff, and then like she got super busy before the show, and then it was like the day before she was at the airport, voice loaded me, right? You know, get on a plane now, they take my phone, see you whenever. And then basically she just gave me full control of her business. Um, like we have a great like you know relationship. Like, I've worked for her for about two years now. Um, and she so first thing she wanted, she was like, before she went in, she was like, When I'm in there, we need a link in my bio to like sell stuff. And I was like, We're not going to sell. I was like, we're genuinely not gonna sell, we're just gonna day together. So she came out the at the villa, obviously won it. Um her list size, I won't go into details, but it pretty much grew like 9x. So it was a it was a five-figure list already, and it grew 9x, so people can do the maths. Um and then we launched a program, and it was her most successful program, like you know, mid six-figure launch. Um, and we did it, we opened it up for a weekend, and I remember like I I rarely do it for everybody, but I just there's something inside me that I was like, this launch is gonna be insane. And I just like stayed in the office till like midnight just watching Stripe and like everything like that, and it was just mate, at one point when we launched, it was actually quite funny because I remember it very well. Um, and we had all the emails scheduled, and we used MailAlight, and we had all the emails scheduled, and we'd um planned in for like a 6 p.m. launch, and for some reason, on that day, they had changed, or maybe they'd done it that week, but they had changed the way that they deliver emails. So they said, like, you know, you need to actually schedule them in like X amount of days before to guarantee, or something. I think still think it was a bug, but it was like 6 p.m. and it was like sending at like 10 past six. So I was on support, like, what are you doing? Her inbox mate was flooding at 6.01. Hey, I haven't had the link. Hey, I haven't had the link. And I was at that point, I was like, this is gonna go insane. I was like quickly replying to everybody because I was just like in the motion, and then link went live and stripe was just like it was like so satisfying.

SPEAKER_03 35:46

Yeah, it's insane. It is, it is so I remember like I remember early days of the agency when just you have big e-com clients come in and you're just looking at those uh Shopify, yeah, Shopify notifications just coming blasting through. It's crazy, it's a rush. On the flip side to that, what clients have, or you don't have to name the client, but has there been a particular time in this journey since working with fitness entrepreneurs or or creators in general where things haven't gone to plan and you really wanted them to and thought they would go to plan, but it's just completely flopped. And what were the lessons that you took from that?

SPEAKER_00 36:23

I think again, it's a personal relationship and type of client. So we worked with one client and they were still like they obviously got their business to a certain point and they really struggled to let go. So, for example, like we came in and we were like, This is what we're gonna do. We did all the flows, we did all the landing page, don't like that, don't like that, don't like that, don't like that. And I was like, at that point, I was like, this is gonna be a difficult one. And I I literally in the second month, I was just like, let's just call it a day because it's not how we work, you know. Like you've hired us to come in and improve what you're doing. You know, it's also hard to kind of be a savage and go, what you were doing wasn't working, bro, sort of thing. Um, and yeah, just like everything that we did was just like a fight back. And mate, like I like fight back, you know, and when it's justified and and valued, and you know, again, some things, you know, I like people's opinions because you can think about things differently. But this was just like everything we did, like absolutely everything we did. Um, and I just don't think they were in the right place at the right time to basically need us, and yeah, they just essentially probably a bit of ego, to be honest.

SPEAKER_03 37:37

It's one of the bigger mistakes that agencies make is they just say yes and they appease the client and they allow them to dictate it, and you have to just remind agencies again and again, you are the expert here. You're not here being employed by that person just to go ahead and do the work.

SPEAKER_00 37:51

That's a big thing. I I'd say that is a huge thing because um I think also a lot of agency owners, especially with big clients, um, you can get a bit of imposter. So it's very naturally if they go, should we do this? Yeah, let's just do this. But you actually need to think, actually, no, that's not what we're doing, we're doing this. Um, because very quickly, yeah, like you end up just essentially just doing whatever they want to do. And then unfortunately, if you don't get a result, it's down to you. And as much as at the end you could go, yeah, but it was all your ideas, you have to take ownership at some point, you know.

SPEAKER_03 38:26

How's it been now you've you've come from you know having that appointment setting business where you had loads of appointment settings that you're placing into companies, you've already hired people within the bar and other companies that you've been in as well. How was it building a team this time round? Like, what was your approach to to building a team? Did you approach it, would you say, differently to how how many other people do going through their first round of hiring?

SPEAKER_00 38:46

Yeah, um, big thing I've I've done is I've built like a essentially like an automatic hiring funnel. Um, because again, like some of the CVs back in the day, I used to like read CVs and then basically book calls off of CVs, worst thing in the world. Um, and what I also realize in this space, and sometimes I actually think, is it a bit of a limiting belief, but I don't think it is, the influencer space is actually still quite new. And trying to find people that truly understand, like, you know, big uh big creators, big audiences, uh, marketing at that level is actually quite hard. Um, and yeah, so we've actually found that we've had to get a few key players in that understand overall strategy, and then we've kind of kept things quite lean. Um, I mean, in the last couple of months, I've actually had a big restructure because I actually felt like we were getting a bit bloated and um efficiency was going down. And you know, sometimes we just have them times where you go, this could be what like this was easier before, and we had less people. Um, so we've just done that. Um, and we've actually just brought in a very, very good key player, worked on some insane clients, like even worked on Logan Paul's Maverick, Clover brand, insane. So um, for me, to get to where I like I want the company to be now, it I've just got to get the best talent. Um you can get obviously other talent, you know, like UX and stuff. I feel like you can mold them, but when it's like influencer marketing strategy, it's a very unique thing.

SPEAKER_01 40:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:21

Um, and yeah, I think if you did find the right person that you could mold, it'd be fine. But I think when you're talking at that level, you need experts. Yeah. Well, what's your approach? Where are you looking for those people? LinkedIn and headhunting. And through network. Like my latest hire has brought an insane media buyer and an insane social media uh exec, like who worked on some crazy brands, and that was just by one hire. I've now got three hires from their network. Yeah. Perfect. Yeah, that's what I'm like that has taught me. And I like, you know, we have meetings every single week, and we're always thinking that I know this person is with that, you know, like, so I'm kind of building out that that good team with good experience, and um that's where we need to be.

SPEAKER_03 41:06

It's definitely the future of agency is being as lean as possible. I I can't count it's it's it's it's a weird maybe it's manifestation or just like a mirror of myself, but I Q1 went through the same thing. It was like we're so bloated in this business. We've got so many people actually lean the team down by 47%, which is which is serious from Q1 to now. And so much happier for it. Revenue is the same, yeah. There's not shit coming my way all the time. And it in agency giants episodes that we've done in the last couple of months, I've had this conversation again and again with other founders who've gone through the same thing over the last 12 months. And I don't know if it's the subconscious pressure that AI is putting upon us, like maybe but uh or it's just a path that people end up going on in the agency space in general. Um, but I truly believe the future of agency is in very lean teams and just maximum efficiency because the more people we have, the more stress there is inside of the business. And when you're a people business and your your product is your people, like it's it's a pain in the ass that scale. And uh, I don't know about you, but I don't have the desire to build a corporate agency as such and have hundreds of team members.

SPEAKER_00 42:14

Mate, it's like it's so funny because like I have always dreamt, whether it was my dream or not, and I can't remember the term, but it's basically thinking that your dream is your dream because you see other people at other people's stuff. I always thought I wanted the big office, the big logo on the wall, the perks, the benefits, the you know, the team picture. Mate, like far from it. Like, literally, like I find that um obviously you know, we we we've got the office, we've got the big fancy office now, but efficiency is not that great, productivity's low, um, obviously HR issues, XYZ. Um, and I just kind of looked and I was like, our remote team is most efficient, most productive, less issues. And also, you know, the talent is easier to find because you're not tied to one location. So I've really struggled with that um where I live in Kent because like there is literally no talent. Um, I mean, there is talent, but like they're all in London or or whatever. And like I said, for for what we're doing, it is like trying to find a needle and a haystack for people that have that experience. Um, and yeah, I just had this realization where I was like, it was a few months back, and I was like, revenue's climbing, but obviously, you know, profit is shrinking because we're growing more team. And I feel like everything's just messier because we've got almost like sometimes I remember I hired this like um this project manager thinking that that was what we needed to officially and it was actually causing way more work. And it was like really weird because I had this like illusion that like the bigger the team, everything's gonna be better, but it's actually did the opposite for me. And we're actually running way better on a smaller team. And yeah, everyone's happier as well because there's just less like less people to talk to and too many, too many cooks in the kitchen, should I say.

SPEAKER_03 44:13

Yeah, I completely agree. And I think the mistake many agencies make is they have a problem, which is a big problem for them in this moment in time. They hire for that problem. And then all of a sudden you realize that that wasn't really a problem anyway. And then that person's left there in limbo trying to find something else to do. You kind of find them something else to do. And then you forget about them three months later, they're still there in the business, and you've got five of those people. And actually, like every now and then, that's why in the company we always do a time audit every quarter and we just audit what we're actually doing, and then we assess are we spending time on things that actually move the needle inside of the business? I know many an agency that makes hundred grand a month in profit with five team members, and I know many an agency that makes 500k a month in revenue with less profit and 30, 40, 50 team members. And so it's like, what are you building? And that's that's the question that people have to ask themselves. Like, what am I building? Am I building a business that wants to look really good and I'm serving people in general? Or did I start this thing because I want to have minimal stress, maximum money, which is the coin in which the side of the coin in which I'm on, and I think if most entrepreneurs are honest with themselves, start off there and get lost in the source at some point, and then through emotion don't allow themselves the opportunity to unwind it because they're like, shit, what about all these lives? And it's like, okay, what about all those lives? But now you are a vehicle for sacrifice for the rest of your life because you made the mistake of hiring all these people.

SPEAKER_00 45:35

That's so true. Like, I I realized that, for example, I I obviously outsourced a lot of the strategy stuff. Um, and you know, every single agency owner, I mean, you've probably been through this when you know you have that part in your head where you're like, I'm the best at doing this, you know, I need to be doing this. Um, but yeah, I I let go of strategy and it was like the worst thing I ever did. And I actually realized I kind of let go of strategy to essentially manage the team more, but I actually didn't like managing the team more, I liked doing the strategy. So again, I listened to um uh uh consulting.com before it got taken over by Imam Orsi recently. Um the video was about leverage, and the guy was like social media makes leverage look like remote uh outsource everything, work less, and you know, live on the beach, right? But he said true leverage is actually removing yourself from the things you don't want to do and putting yourself back into the things you do want to do that you enjoy, and also move the needle forward. And that quote like just hit me. I was like, that is literally what I've done. I've I've tried to build the team to work less, ended up working more because you're managing more people for what?

SPEAKER_03 46:54

Yeah, yeah, what are you doing it for?

SPEAKER_00 46:56

Like literally, not like nothing changed apart from I was working more, and I just had this like Friday afternoon. I was like fighting fires, and I was just like, man, like what am I doing?

SPEAKER_03 47:05

The amount of founders that start something because they love what they do and then get completely lost in doing something else for for and and forgetting the reason why they did because it's such a gradual process, this happens over years. You almost brainwash yourself because of other businesses that you see. It's like um I always like it's it's something that always brings me back to to just a point of reference is when I think about Telegram. I think about Telegram got 33 team members but over a billion in revenue. And then you compare that to, let's say, WhatsApp, for example, which is effectively the same app, right? It just used in the same way, but Telegram. Telegram is for people that don't know, I mean it's it's used for for dark web stuff in the UK, but but in in Russia and other countries, it's the number one. It's it is WhatsApp. So I mean WhatsApp employee clout uh count is we're talking uh WhatsApp employee count actually, to be fair, is relatively conservative. It's still under a hundred team members. But if we look at probably other you know social media apps, huge volumes of found we're talking thousands. I'm speaking to, let's say, a Go High level, which is another software, right? Go high level, uh an app that's used a lot in the agency space. Um great software company, valued at over a billion, sure, right? But they have a thousand team members. Insane. And so now the company like that is trying to compete with other new age, let's say, funnel companies, like you may have seen uh um Perspective. Yeah, yeah. You can see in their ads that they're gunning for high level. We're talking about a less than a 10-man team, you know, built on new tech, built with AI in mind, built with a different mentality. It's very hard. And I can say it's like the guys at high level had this conversation, we're like, it's very hard for us to try and adapt and compete when we've built this business as Behemoth. Now, but they probably had the same goal when they started off. You know, they had the same goal just to build a great platform and serve a lot of people. And so it's a it's that ever debate. It's that debate of okay, do we bloat this thing? Do we are we building this just because we want loads of people and do we need these people? And I think having an office, I think having an office makes that harder because you you're then comparing yourself to other companies that have these offices, but they're bigger and they've got more headcount and so on. Whereas when you're virtual, there's no emotional attachment to that. I don't have any ego attached to the size of the company. Yeah. Is there an ego attached to our profit? Probably, sure. But I'd rather my ego be attached to my profit than the number of people I've got sat in an office.

SPEAKER_00 49:35

100%. 100%. Yeah, no, I I fully agree with that. And um, I think that's what it comes down to. It's like it's that ego, right? It's like we get some creators, obviously, we've got the office, and to be honest, the reason why we're getting the US office is A, to just have some collaboration, um, and B, like with these big creators, sometimes they do look for that, like, where's your location, like for trust? Um, so it's a bit of a hard battle for us, but um, from an actual operation perspective, we don't need to be operating in an office. Yeah, we're just basically gonna like we're actually uh we've got a flexi membership at a place called Uncommon in Holburn because the recent hires are all around London, and it's like £350 a month, and it's like a I mean Gabby came in the other month, she was like, This is like being in Dubai.

SPEAKER_03 50:21

I was there yesterday.

SPEAKER_00 50:22

It's so nice, right?

SPEAKER_03 50:23

Nice.

SPEAKER_00 50:23

Um, so we're like gonna do bi-weekly two days a week and just like collaborate and have fun and get some food. And I feel like we're gonna be way more efficient, have way more fun.

SPEAKER_03 50:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:32

It's really weird.

SPEAKER_03 50:34

Yeah, agree. If you can do monthly or quarterly meetings with the team, I think in the agency at the moment, we've we went through with the idea that we wanted to have a physical office. We were completely virtual, then we wanted us to be completely physical. I say we this is driven by Joe mainly, who who who's my business partner in the agency. Got an office in Sheffield, now we've got a bigger warehouse, and we just have the creative team inside of that office, but have this hybrid between virtual as well, and that works very nicely. And then it stops the pressure of the founder because when you are in an office, and and I'm not, I don't want people to get this wrong when they're listening to this, there's no right or wrong way to do this. It depends on what kind of business you're trying to grow. We've had many people on the podcast that have got um incredible offices, massive teams, 150 team members plus, and actually, in some instances, we've had someone with like 3,000 team members on the on the pod. There's no right or wrong way to do this, it depends on what your goals are and what you're working towards. But if the goal for many people is to have like a really healthy, happy business with minimal stress, when you have that office, you have to be there, you have to be showing up. But if you are a hybrid business and you create that from the start and you lay those foundations, then you're allowed to be away. You can go to overseas and you can you can be wherever you want to be. Um, and you don't have to constrict your life and and and enslave yourself to the company.

SPEAKER_00 51:47

And that's the thing, because like obviously with an office, you have to have culture. And um, obviously, depending at your agency size, obviously you would have, you know, if you're a big uh agency, you probably would have somebody that is operations and culture kind of manager. But when you're like maybe a team of 14, like maybe sub 20 to 30, um, you know, you are your your culture. So like I at some points I feel guilty for like popping out and getting a haircut, like genuinely, because like you just think like, you know, I need to be here all the time, like first one in, last one out, you know, like it's really weird. Like you kind of have this like um because I always I've always had this thing of like I used to hate working for people back in the day when I was like 15 or 16. Of like, I remember I worked in a gym, and the guy who owned the gym was like just you know in the office upstairs suit, had no interest in the gym. And like you'd go up to him and you know, you'd get like one of uh a tricep rope or something because all the members are asking for it. They're like 20 pounds, nah, you know. Yeah, and I used to hate that thinking, you know, you have no interest in this. And I used to you know create that friction of like I hate working for this person. So I've always um wanted to be that kind of founder and and and manager that's like putting in the reps all the time, you know? And then like sometimes, yeah, it kind of bites you because you can't really again. We get into business sometimes to have that flexibility, but um, I just found sometimes, yeah, it was uh the opposite.

SPEAKER_03 53:14

That is the most important thing, regardless of whether you're in an office or regardless of your virtual, regardless of that situation. The single most important thing for culture, as far as the perception of the leader is concerned, is that you are the hardest person, work the hardest working person in the business. There's not a single person in my business that would could even consider challenging the fact that I'm the hardest working person in the business. I'm I am even virtually, I'm the last one on, I'm the like I'm the first one in, I'm the last one out, I'm 24-7. You message me, I'm on all the time, I'm bugging people on the weekends. It's undeniable. And you don't have to be in an office to replicate that. But it is much harder if you start off physical office and then pull it away because they're gonna question just because you're at home, even if you're putting in the reps that you're not doing it anymore. So I don't know, maybe I'm imposing my my worldview or agency view. Um, but for anyone that hasn't done this yet, like start virtual, then go hybrid. I think a hybrid approach is the is the is the best way to agree.

SPEAKER_00 54:12

Because again, like otherwise, you're gonna lock in like a three or five year lease, you know, like two and a half, like two, two and a half grand a month with rates and you know, whatever. And then like you know, you get to a point where you go, damn, we're not efficient. And also, oh, that two and a half K could be into ad spend.

SPEAKER_03 54:27

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So maybe that's where we're going. We'll see. Um talking of like the future in general, I'd love to know working with influencers, like where you think we're going as far as creators and so on are concerned. Like now in this world where being a creator is very is popularized and so on, but we're also in a world of AI when we're seeing AI influencers and so on coming on the scene, dilutes the value of knowledge that people can share. Have you thought much about this? Like, have you thought about the what this means to the future of your business and and where it's going in general?

SPEAKER_00 55:00

I think again, this is like very, very person opinion like dependent, right? So, like, for example, I mean, we've even seen the shift. I mean, I was on the train and I saw um Curries. Did you see that reel from Curries? And they were like, they've done a reel, and it was like basically buy this coffee machine for like 399 quid, sell coffees at six pounds a day, sell 30,000 a day, make 60 million a year. It was like hashtag side hustle, and then everyone's like, someone commented uh 30,000 coffees a day, and Curry's commented, just need to work harder, bro. And it's like EGC is like crushing it, and like I went to a uh a creator fest last year, so it was like head of TikTok, uh Snapchat, you name it, all the big players, whatever, and got some really cool trends and insights. Um, the team from Mr. Beast were there as well, showed us all the YouTube process they go through. It was like so valuable. It's in London this year if you if you ever want to go. And um yeah, like influence is the biggest thing in the world. Um, obviously, even from like when we're running ads, you know, we find that when it's like I brought this product and I did this and I did that, they're always like converting really high. Now, my my thing is obviously right now, maybe I haven't seen a good enough um AI influencer. But and again, I think I'm hypercritical, like I I can always spot when it's AI. Um I don't know, I think A, you know, is it gonna get regulated potentially? But also B, if people start to realise that like it is AI, are you going to still like buy from it because you remember it's not real? Do you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_03 56:44

It's really it's but but also it's like there's the whole hybridized approach that I think that I think the influencer or the creator industry is a danger of because what AI is it makes us I've had this myself and now I've just come full circle with it. When you you lean into AI too heavily, you rely on it too much because what do we love to do the most? We love to figure out how we can do less and achieve more, right? So if we're creators and like we're coming up with video scripts and we're coming up with captions and we're coming up, all this stuff, we actually want to lean into AI as much as possible. And so I suppose I'm interested to observe over the coming years on how that's going to impact creators when people over-rely on AI, and it becomes harder and harder to be able to spot the difference between AI content and non-AI content. Because then we lose the personal touch, like because fitness influencer or just influencing in general, right? You're not coming up with a new way to get a six pack. Like that's just not happening. You know, you can come up with these USPs and like unique mechanisms or whatever else. It's just progressive overload, you know, and that's all it really comes down to. And um, and and so on that basis, like it makes it very hard to differentiate or it makes it very hard for people to buy into the individual if everybody ends up merging into kind of very similar. You'd see a lot of patterns between the content in which people put out it when they are utilizing AI. There's a lot of, you know, there's it becomes very generic. And so I'm interested to see, especially in an industry like fitness, where it people who are woke to what it actually takes to become fit and to get in good shape, um, are already aware of that. And then, you know, I don't know. I don't know what that does to that space when when when the the lines are blurred and then everybody is just utilising AI to create content. It's you do you you it's gonna become purely about personality and and individual and being individual as a person and being able to it's gonna be who you are as a character, really, rather than the value that you can bring.

SPEAKER_00 58:44

And I think that that's literally what it comes down to, right? It's like people by people. And I think we always need to remember that. And yeah, even for example, some of the best content that we see our clients do actually is the less scripted stuff because it's more them. And again, yeah, in a world where people might be consuming um, you know, other creators and they're like, you know, the same hook structure, the same this, you know, the same patterns. Um people do crave, like if everyone starts becoming the same, essentially, yeah, then obviously um people will get out. But I think you just have to make sure you you have your unique spin. So even little things like you know, I I'm all for using AI, but like when people literally like don't even like you can tell they don't do anything to it, it's just like the first thing it spits out, still got the M dashes in or whatever. And it's like you're just like dashes are the given. The first first word is like unlock, and you're like, man, just at least like spruce it up a bit, yeah, you know.

SPEAKER_03 59:38

Yeah, James. Final question, man. Um, you speak quite openly about how um there's a lot of agencies in the in your space that you know don't do a great job that are not uh that don't set a good standard for other people. Naturally, it's a space that a lot of people want to get in. I can name a lot of fitness-based uh influencer agencies. What do you think it is that agencies get so wrong that they need to get better at coming over the next 24 months?

SPEAKER_00 1:00:07

I think it is so big point from coming up at the start was obviously um making sure you are signing the right client at a right price point and having the right team to deliver. Because so many agencies sell the dream, don't deliver at all. Like, you know, again, leveraging AI, like I've seen some sequences go out from influencers again, where it's like M dash is like and it is just like garbage, basically. Um so I would actually say and I'm pretty sure I think you said this the other month, and it really related to me. I was like, use AI to like further challenge where you're at. And it's like that's what I'm doing. And I think you know, if you want to work with these big creators, you just need to be good. Like you actually just need to be good. Like all I know like you know, you can leverage uh AI and stuff, but you need to have a good core foundation of actually, you know, if you've got any if they've got an email list of like 150,000, do you actually know what to do with that? Like gen, like seriously, because like if you don't, obviously A, bring somebody in, but like, yeah, I think it's just living up to what you're actually selling. I think that's where a lot of agencies go wrong. I mean, I've done that, I've done it before, we've all done it. You know, you sell sign a client and like you kind of think I'll work out after. Like we've all done it. Um, but I feel like now is a time, you know, because we've improved our efficiency using AI, I would put more time into like further knowledge, testing to kind of like um find out new things. It's like, you know, I said to you, like a lot of our stuff is we're always trying to see what we can do next because we've now got time, you know. Like even our copywriters, you know, they've we're now leveraging AI because it's actually beating human copy, which I was always like, oh, it's never gonna beat it, but now it is. But now we've now freed up our team's time to actually just work on strategy and analysing and getting better and better and better. Because it does come to a certain point where if you just have the same amount of output, but like you haven't got enough time actually digging into what's working and what's not working, you can just get repetitive. And we found that like you know, across the year, if you're like you're not really putting much time into development, like you're gonna roughly get like similar results, whereas like it's that time where you're like trying new ideas, trying new strategies, like even things like you know, wait lists and like testing different offers of wait lists and stuff, like you can get really creative. So I just think, yeah, in a world where you've got time to essentially more time to be more creative, yeah, use it because that's when you're gonna get the edge because you'll you'll find a strategy. Like again, we're very good at email, obviously backed by our results, but we only have done that because we've just like had all the time just to like get a bit like you know deep with email. Like I said, our flow is like mental, and some of our will get on a call and they go like, you do all of that. It's like, yeah. But it's like because we've just like had time and gone, oh, what if we tried that segment? What if we tried that segment? Wow, like that crushed it. And then like we've just started to build our own almost like our own um blueprint of what we do.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:10

Nice, yeah, cool, man. Nice place to end. Appreciate it, man.