In this inspiring episode, Mike Schmidt and AJ Rivera, Co-Founders of AgencyCoach, share how they help aspiring online entrepreneurs overcome the feast-or-famine cycle that is holding them captive.
You will discover:
– What causes the feast or famine cycle (artisan trap) and how to overcome it
– A virtually risk-free way to build the muscle of delegation
– The crucial difference between leads and prospects
Episode Transcript
Scott Ritzheimer
Hello, hello and welcome. Welcome once again to the secrets of the high demand coach podcast. And I’m here with a pair of high demand coaches, we have the two and only Mike Schmidt and AJ Rivera Sr. They’re the dynamic duo behind agency coach a coaching team using real world experience and expertise. Mike started his agency anchor wave in 2003, when digital marketing was in its infancy, his vision was to his vision of the future, I’m sorry, turned into a thriving multi million dollar 20 member agency that has built over 2000 websites and hundreds of digital marketing campaigns marketing campaigns, Ajay brought his run his corporate sales experience to anchor wave in 2008. Ajay is renowned for his innovative sales strategies and abundance thinking approach which led the agency to win multiple awards. In 2017, Mike and AJ combined their knowledge and practical wisdom to mentor and guide agency owners worldwide. Well, gentlemen, welcome to the show. So excited to have you on so excited to dive into some of what you’re doing with your clients right now. And that’s actually where I want to start. What would you say is some of the most important work you do for your clients?
Mike Schmidt
Yeah, Scott, really excited to be here with you today. You know, the clients that we work with are typically web design, digital marketing agency owners, that find themselves in a struggle to get themselves out of the predicament they find themselves in. And that predicament we touched on just before going live here, which was they own a job and not a true business, right that many of us get into business in the first place. Because we think we could do better with again, make more money. And we want to make an impact. But what ends up happening is we’ve ended up designing the most elaborate prison possible, which is this job that we don’t make enough, we spend too much time on, and it makes you wonder why we jumped in the first place. And the truth is, you know, business is a game that we get to play. But more importantly, it’s one we each get to design. And I think a lot of folks forget that when jumping into business, or they just don’t know that in the first place. And so I’d say the main thing that we’re helping these agencies with, is helping them design a business that serves their lives and serves their purpose. So that way, they can have all the benefits of being a business owner as opposed to being a job owner.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, it’s so true. It’s funny, there’s a couple of questions that I found in helping a lot of founders that kind of drive their their journey, right, that first one is, there’s a better way, right? Isn’t there a better way? And then the second one, which you hit on, once we get into the game? It’s like, what was I thinking? Right? Like, what in the world? was I thinking doing this? How do you help folks to kind of move for that, because oftentimes, we can be in that early mode, when your job is job is really humming. It can feel like it’s all you can do to just get your nose above water, right to get that little breath of air, and then you’re just back in it again. How do you help them to get get out of that kind of hustle and grind every single moment to really take the time they need to design the business they want?
AJ Rivera
Yeah, 100% I think it’s, it’s really accurate, that we designed this game in a way that doesn’t really serve our needs, or what we’re looking for. Right? I think many agencies that we help are caught in what we call the feast and famine mode, right? He’s in famine cycle, right? Where there’s periods of time with a lot of money coming in, and they’re really happy and things are going well followed by times where they’re not sure what the next check coming from. And they’re worried about that, right. And the main reason that happens is because we’re saying yes to everything, and we’re doing all the work ourselves, right. I think agency owners are some of the most resourceful people on the planet. You know, when why can I ever grown up in this, like, there was a college degree for it, it was just like something we went to figure it out, because we’re passionate about it, right? And it’s that resourcefulness that I think in sometimes hurt an agency owner because they can do everything right, or they’ll figure out how to do it. And, you know, I always say like, imagine if a realtor had to build every house that they sold that fine, I’m going to sell a lot of house. That’s right. But that’s what agency owners do all the time is they go sell something, and then they do all the work themselves. And guess what, while they’re doing all the work, nobody’s out there marketing and selling and getting fill in the pipeline. And then they don’t realize that until the job’s coming to Amanda now there’s nothing left there. Right. And so we help them to really identify ways that maybe they can start to take off some of the hats and over other responsibilities to partners that can help deliver on to the services that they’re selling, so that they can focus their time and energy on the on the business building out the processes, you know, selling that next customer doing the marketing and those things and that keeps that Baykal away and get kind of keeps a steady flow of capital coming in.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, I love have that one of the the fears I’ve found, and I’ve experienced this myself, myself through a couple of businesses, and I see it all the time with the founders I work with is, you know, I don’t know that they can do it as well as me. Right? I don’t know, you know, if I hand it off, right, it’s like this my name on this business, and they’re representing me. So how do you help folks to? Do they overcome that? Did they just learn to live with it? What’s been your experience in this space?
Mike Schmidt
Yeah, it’s like, it’s kind of like a muscle that you got to practice, right? Like, you know, those you guys who tried to do pull ups, right, and you’ve never done a pull up before even just doing one, you know, is considered a win, right. And you might do one every single day for a week before you can get the second one. And I think delegation is kind of a similar situation. And what I find is that, you know, when when I’m looking at this, it’s like, there’s two factors. One is the fear of somebody messing it up or not doing it as well. And then I think the other component is, well, I kind of pay this other person, it’s just easier to do it myself. And I don’t have to share the money with anyone. And that’s, I think the first part is recognizing in a bigger picture that that’s, that’s short term thinking. And that’s the kind of thinking that actually creates the prison that I mentioned earlier, that really traps you inside of the business that you created. And so my advice to folks that are struggling with that is two things. First, when it comes to the quality, you know, I like to pick something that is so small, right? If there’s a big task to be done, what’s the smallest component that you can hand over? Yeah, and prove yourself that someone can do that, right. And it may not be that may not be that useful, right? You handover something small, but when you can start to stack these small, little Lego pieces up and start to build that belief that’s important. But because it’s so small, that the challenge is because it’s so small, you might just never do it in the first place. Or it’s something where that practiced over and over again, starts to build that confidence. And we need to find examples of where folks can do these things. Right. It can follow that. And I think, when it comes to the money side of things, right, that you’re worried about, how do I afford this? And we need to look at, you know, what are you asking your clients to invest today with you such that you can’t afford those things? I think people wait too long to raise their rates, right? They think, well, you know, this is what I need to make. But when you’re determining what you’re asking your clients to invest, I like to pretend as if I had this big team right now, today that I’m hiring, I just happened to be filling several those roles and wearing several of those hats. But if you wait to the point where you’re like, I need to hand this off, but I can’t afford it. That’s a really difficult position to be in.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, that’s so true. That’s so true. So as agency owners set off on this journey of moving from job to business, what have you found are some of the biggest challenges that they face?
AJ Rivera
One of the biggest challenges is that they haven’t put enough focus on recurring revenue. This was a lesson that we had to learn many years in the business, you know, we went out there chasing large one time projects that add a lot of cash that came in at one time, but then gets a lot that’s gone the next day, and you’re starting every month at zero again, which is in sales, a horrible feeling, right, like, as we started to add more and more team members like that, that fence went higher and higher and higher that we have to climb, and it’s more and more stressful when you’re starting at zero. And, you know, it wasn’t until Mike and I really started digging into this that we had our account run a report that looked at like our top 20 clients for the past five years. And I was little hardly expecting it to be this casino that we built this website for. There was like a six figure website to be number one, guess what it was like barely in the top 20. But guess who was number one, it was this orthodontist had been paying us two grand a month for the last five years. And it was an AC company that had been paying us two grand for the last five years. And that completely changed our mindset because I was out there looking for the big whale, right? I was looking for those big one time projects, when those are the ones that were willing to move into the needle for us. So once we were able to just switch our mindset and really focus on those services and going after those clients that could actually purchase ongoing recurring digital marketing services. That’s when our world changed. Because guess what, it didn’t take very long before we got to a month where instead of starting at zero, we were starting with all our bills paid all our payroll made no money in our pocket. And that changes everything because now you know, we could work on the things that we needed to work on a scale instead of having to try to do Hail Mary marketing campaigns or we could hire people to help you know because we were confident that we had the money to do so we could invest in equipment. We could say no to projects that weren’t a good fit and we knew weren’t a good fit, you know, but you know when the time that we needed money, guess what if somebody had a credit card and a hand and they’re like do you do it ecommerce site and you’re like We don’t really like those. But you know what, like, I need just the clothes that will take it right. And we don’t. Those are the big headache. And those are the things that are hard to delegate. And so I would just say, Man, building recurring revenue from day one in your business and knowing that that’s your focus, that will save you from so much heartache and running your business future.
Scott Ritzheimer
It’s so true. It’s so true. We’ve all been at a place where it’s like, do you Yes. So can I finish my sentence first? No, no, we got this.
AJ Rivera
We call that oh, that commission breath. There’s a guy on our team that used to be a cars salesman, like, you got commission breath, you’re gonna say yes. To anything right. And probably just counted two.
Scott Ritzheimer
That’s so true. And yeah, that that feeling if anyone hasn’t had that feeling of starting the month with revenue already, right? It is, is transformational. It seems like a simple thing. But it’s a massive, massive shift. I love that you guys focus in on that brings me to the next question here. What are some of the key areas that you find yourself focusing on with your clients again, and again? And again, per each one?
Mike Schmidt
Yeah, I mean, there’s really a couple key areas that that folks are coming into our world are struggling with. And a lot of them think that the problem is leads, right? You asked most businesses on the planet, like what their biggest need is right now. And they’ll say, I just need more leads, I need more leads. And while that’s true leads are the lifeblood of any business. The truth is that, you know, there’s a big difference between leads, and prospects, right leads are people who are kind of top of the funnel unqualified, maybe they’ve expressed some interest, but they’re definitely not in your sales process. Where a prospect is someone who is in the sales process, they had been all fired. And one of the things that tends to be a recurring theme for us is helping people understand the difference between those two things. Because, you know, leads are abundant. They’re everywhere, right? There’s so many people that could do business with you. But the question is, once they become a lead, how do you get them to raise their hand and ask you for help? Right, I think most of us could probably agree that, you know, there’s a big difference between me saying, Hey, Scott, I can help you with this thing. You should buy this thing for me versus you saying to me, Hey, Mike, I understand you do this particular thing? Can you help me? Right, and I think would probably agree with like the second one a lot more, as a lot of our coaching and training is about not just about generating leads, but how do you get someone to raise their hand and ask for your help? How do you create a relationship with people because, you know, if you’ve ever run advertising, and you stopped it, because it didn’t work? Right, chances are as it probably generated leads, but the thing that you were looking for was customers and prospects and people in that sales pipeline. And the big piece we’ll focus in on is how to move someone from leads into into prospects.
Scott Ritzheimer
That’s fantastic. It’s so true. So genuine, there’s a question I like to ask all my guests, I’m going to ask each of you. So we’ll start with you, Mike. What would you say is the biggest secret you wish just wasn’t a secret at all with that one thing you wish everybody watching or listening today knew?
Mike Schmidt
So I kind of touched on it a little bit already. But I’ll kind of say it, again, is that business is a game that we get to play. But more importantly, it’s a game that we each get to design. And I’ll say that the days that I’ve struggled the most, and the hardest days in business, where I’m like, You know what, I don’t want to do this anymore. I’m just gonna go up in a hotdog cart, or I’m gonna go get a job or whatever, right thrown in the towel. For the days that I forgot that I’m actually in control of how this whole thing works. And, yes, there’s marketing conditions. And yes, there’s things outside of our control. But the secret that I think most businesses and agency owners being in this category, I think, I want them to know, to the bondo arts is that if your business isn’t serving you, then there are different ways that you can run your business and you’re in charge of changing that no one, no one is gonna come in here and say, say to you, no one’s gonna come in here and change it for you. You just have to decide to say, this is the way I want to play it, and you will attract folks who want to play your game, the way you design it.
Scott Ritzheimer
So good. All right, AJ, you’re out. Same question, what’s the biggest secret you wish wasn’t a secret at all?
AJ Rivera
I think the biggest secret for me is just that you’re always the bottleneck in your business. Right? I tend to think that entrepreneurship is like the purest form of personal development. And because then you’ve got to grow a lot in order to run a successful business. And you’re gonna have to keep evolving and growing. And the times that I’ve kind of plateaued and not felt like I was going where I wanted, were probably at the times where I wasn’t good enough on myself. And the times where we were really growing is when I was recognizing that I needed to develop new skill sets, right? Like what gets what got you here, they’re gonna get you there. And you’ve got to always be looking for that thing that you’re lacking or be willing to hire somebody that can help with that thing that you’re lacking in order to be able to make it to that next level.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, that’s fantastic. That’s fantastic. Now, I know there’s some folks listening to this. And as you guys are speaking, they’re just like, like this is it. This is what I’ve been waiting for. It’s the right word at the right time they want to connect with you. Where can they find more out about you guys and learn about the help that you offer?
Mike Schmidt
Awesome. So we put together a quick page at agencycoach.com/secrets, that you can grab a free training on building more recurring revenue in your business and your agency, something that we typically reserved for some of our students inside of our programs that we’re making available for free for listeners here. And then if anybody wants to reach out, I’m always active and available on Instagram at Mr. Mike Schmidt. Drop me a message, say hello, let’s network let’s get to know one another. And let me know how I can serve you.
Scott Ritzheimer
It’s fantastic.
AJ Rivera
We’ve got our new site launch sheet at agencycoach.com as well, if you’re just interested in kind of checking that out, that’s going live today.
Scott Ritzheimer
Right, right. Well check it out agencycoach.com/secrets. You get a copy of that resource. Fantastic stuff, I had a chance to browse around the site looks phenomenal. Tons of resources. You guys did a great job with that. And those of you listening will absolutely love what you find there. Mike, AJ, thanks so much for being on the show. Just a privilege and honor having you guys here and for those of you watching and listening today, you know your time and attention mean the world to us. I hope you got as much out of this conversation as I know I did. And I cannot wait to see you next time. Take care.
Contact Guests Mike Schmidt and AJ Rivera
Mike Schmidt and Anthony Rivera are the dynamic duo behind Agency Coach, a coaching team using real-world experience and expertise. Mike Schmidt started his agency, Anchor Wave, in 2003 when digital marketing was in its infancy. His vision of the future turned into a thriving multi-million-dollar, 20-member agency that has built over 2,000 websites and hundreds of digital marketing campaigns. Anthony “AJ” Rivera brought his corporate sales experience to Anchor Wave in 2008. AJ is renowned for his innovative sales strategies and abundance-thinking approach, which led the agency to win multiple awards. In 2017, Mike and AJ Rivera combined their knowledge and practical wisdom to mentor and guide agency owners worldwide.
Want to learn more about Mike Schmidt and AJ Rivera’s work at AgencyCoach? Check out his website at https://agencycoach.com/
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