Podcast appearances and mentions of brent weaver

Aujourd'hui, je rebondis sur le dernier épisode de podcast du digital agency show où Brent Weaver annonce la fermeture de Ugurus et du podcast par le fait même.J'en profite pour leur faire hommage et réfléchir sur ce que leur expérience peut m'amener dans ma nouvelle aventure entrepreneuriale.

In this final episode of the Digital Agency Show, host Brent Weaver gets interviewed by UGURUS Lead Mentor, Jennifer Buzza. They talk about the shutdown of UGURUS after 12 great years, lessons learned from the business and recording 375+ episodes, and much more. Tune in for this Brent's final thoughts on a great run.

Are you struggling to stand out in what feels like a saturated market? Brent Weaver, the founder and CEO of UGURUS, has the answers you need. In this insightful episode, Brent dives deep into the power of specialization for digital agencies, sharing how his team has navigated 13 different niches to find unparalleled success. He also offers a glimpse into the future, exploring how agencies can harness the power of AI to drive capacity, revenue, and profit gains. This week, episode 241 of The Digital Agency Growth Podcast is about embracing specialization and the power of niche focus!Watch our latest video training, How to Take Charge of Your Agency's Future Revenue. During this training, you'll learn how we get qualified appointments every week using tasteful and highly targeted email outreach.In this episode of The Digital Agency Growth Podcast, Brent Weaver shares the importance of specialization for digital agencies to improve performance and actionable steps you can take right now to educate prospects and help them understand their challenges in sales calls. Brent Weaver is on a mission to help 10,000 digital agency owners achieve freedom in business and life by helping them own their market.  Brent is the founder and CEO of UGURUS, a business training and education company dedicated to this mission. He also hosts one of the leading podcasts in the business niche—The Digital Agency Show.  Brent is in partnership with UnlimitedWP—a scalable white label WordPress development team to help digital agencies grow without all the headaches of hiring and managing people. He is also a Brand Ambassador for Cloudways, a WordPress hosting company, helping them evangelize their platform. In this episode, Dan and Brent discuss the following:The challenges of changing specialization, including changing your landing pages and copy.Focusing on where your leads and traffic are coming from, not just your website copy.Providing value to clients through flexibility and reducing the number of hops in communication.The evolving role of sales and helping prospective clients make informed decisions, rather than using persuasion.Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to follow, rate and review the podcast and tell me your key takeaways!Learn more about The Digitial Agency Growth Podcast at https://www.salesschema.com/podcast/ and our Video training at http://salesschema.com/takecharge CONNECT WITH BRENT WEAVER:LinkedInUGURUSThe Digital Agency ShowYouTubeCONNECT WITH DAN ENGLANDER:LinkedInSales SchemaStop relying on unpredictable referrals and take control of your agency's future growth. Go to salesschema.com/takecharge to access the free training now.

Struggling to break out of the feast and famine cycle? Do you feel like you're constantly putting out fires and not making the progress you want in your business? Brent is a seasoned agency owner who started his first digital agency at the tender age of 17. In this episode, he shares his journey of navigating the challenges of running an agency, from landing his first clients to eventually selling his business not once, but twice. Full show notes: https://trailblazer.fm/freelancer-to-agency-owner/ Free training: https://ugurus.com/launch-live-training/?utm_source=affiliate&utm_medium=leejackson&utm_campaign=q12024

In this episode, join Tom Hunt and Brent Weaver in this captivating podcast conversation as they discuss the value of podcasting as a relationship-building tool.

Brent Weaver at Ruakura, 10:30am Gathering

This week on the podcast, we're thrilled to have Brent Weaver, CEO of Ugurus. He has been on our list of wanted guests for a long time! Brent Weaver took the learnings from his first successful agency (that he started in high school 

Brent Weaver leads the vision for UGURUS and creates educational programs that help agency owners work on their business to drive additional revenues, increase profits, and create freedom in their life. He built his first website at 15 and created his first web-design business at 17. That company grew into a successful, 14-person web agency that was acquired in 2012. Brent has helped thousands of other web professionals master business skills and has made more than $10mm as an entrepreneur. He published the best-selling book, Get Rich In The Deep End, in 2020. Brent is interviewed by his good friend, fellow entrepreneur Marc Gutman.

QUICK LINKS:• The Agency Profitability Toolkit - Get the templates, formulas, and frameworks we've used with our consulting clients to help them double their profitability in under 60 days, absolutely free• For more information on our Agency Profitability Systems and Consulting, check out parakeeto.com• Love the podcast? Leave us a review on the platform of your choice at this link• Want to see/read more about this episode? Then do make your way to parakeeto.com/blogGUEST LINKS:Peter's LinkedIn linkedin.com/in/peterlevitan/ Peter's Twitter twitter.com/PeterLevitan peterlevitan.com peterlevitan.com/category/podcast/ABOUT: During 16 years at Saatchi & Saatchi Advertising Worldwide, Peter ran business development across Europe and the USA. He was also EVP Management Director in London and New York, alongside being GM of the Minneapolis office.

QUICK LINKS:• The Agency Profitability Toolkit - Get the templates, formulas, and frameworks we've used with our consulting clients to help them double their profitability in under 60 days, absolutely free• For more information on our Agency Profitability Systems and Consulting, check out parakeeto.com• Love the podcast? Leave us a review on the platform of your choice at this link• Want to see/read more about this episode? Then do make your way to parakeeto.com/blogGUEST LINKS:ugurus.comBrent's LinkedIn @brentweaverbrent@ugurus.com (again, if you fancy a free copy of his book, shoot him an email)The Digital Agency Show ugurus.com/podcast/ABOUT: Brent is on a mission to help 10,000 digital agency owners achieve freedom in business and life by helping them own their market. He also happens to be the founder and CEO of uGurus – a business training and education company dedicated to this mission. 

I'm excited for you to meet our special guest expert today — Brent Weaver, an expert in teaching how to attract prospects the right way. If you're meeting Brent for the first time — Brent is the founder and CEO of UGURUS, a business training and education company dedicated to helping agency owners learn how to attract prospects and own their market. Brent is also the host of “The Digital Agency Show” podcast and the author of the book, “Get Rich in the Deep End.” Let's start by reviewing a brief excerpt from Page 47 in Chapter 3 of Brent's book. It perfectly frames up the challenge agencies, business coaches, and strategic consultants face when creating content — and — the struggle around the decision to niche down and go more narrow. “We can no longer create random content and hope it gets results. The Internet is organizing into hyper-focused, hyper-specialized niches, and the winners take all. That means you need awareness about what you're trying to accomplish and who you serve.” “You need insight into where your customers are in their business — not where you are in yours — before you publish anything.” “Most agency owners don't realize this—so their marketing is typically ‘me-focused.' Most simply publish once in a while about what they're up to: a recent project launch, a technology they are interested in, or a reference to a trend or method they think is important.” “And I've come to learn that when marketing is ‘me-focused,' the agency itself is very likely the same way. In other words, they either don't have a market, or they're scared to communicate directly to their best clients because they might turn other ones away.” As you'll hear in this interview — Brent and I talk through how to attract prospects within the construct of his 5-A Framework, and we zero in on the audience, attract, and acquire. And — how that belief connects into what he calls the “5-A Framework” and how that framework can help all of us not just niche down — but then once we make that decision — what's the best way to create content that attracts right-fit prospects into our sales pipeline. When we do it right — the content we create should attract an audience because you've focused on your audience and helping them solve their problems — and not being “me-focused,” to use one of Brent's terms again. I promise you — the insights and wisdom Brent shares during this episode will give you and your team what you need to strengthen your authority position and roar through 2023. In fact — Brent fully mapped out the content and methodology he and his team use to attract leads each month. I'm encouraging you to take this framework — and your content — and you will be well on your way to attracting all the right fit clients you need. What you will learn about in this episode: Why niching down is not an instantaneous event — but a process that evolves over time How to identify the right audience — or who — represents your right fit prospects How to uncover the problems, challenges, and business issues your prospects are dealing with everyday What are the 5-As with Brent's 5-A Framework How to go from performing your content in your “garage” to getting on other's stages — where your right fit prospects are hanging out and ready to learn from you How to own your market and attract all the right fit prospects you need Free Resources: Get a free copy of Brent's book, “Get Rich in the Deep End,” by emailing Brent at (brent at ugurus.com) with the subject line: “Heard you on the Sell with Authority Podcast” Get Brent's Free “AGENCY ACCELERATOR PACKAGE” by going here. Download our WHO Framework and replace your dry sales pipeline by attracting a steady stream of well-prepared right-fit clients who want to work with you — and — are eager to pay a premium price to do so         Speaker 1: (00:03) Welcome to the Sell With Authority podcast. I'm Steven Woessner , c e o of predictive roi. And my team and I, we created this podcast specifically for you. So if you're an agency owner or business coach, or a strategic consultant, and you're looking to grow a thriving, profitable business that can weather the constant change that seems to be our world's reality, well then you're in the right place if you want proven strategies for attracting a steady stream of well-prepared right fit prospects into your sales pipeline. Yep. We're gonna cover that. Do you wanna learn how to step away from the sea of competitors so you actually stand out and own the ground you're standing on? Yeah. We're gonna cover that too. Do you want to future-proof your business so you can navigate the next challenges that come your way? Well, absolutely. We will help you there as well. Speaker 1: (01:00) I promise you each episode of this podcast contains valuable insights and tangible examples of best practices, never theory from thought leaders, experts, owners who have done exactly what you're working hard to do. So I want you to think practical and tactical, never any fluff. Each of our guests have built a position of authority and then monetized that position by claiming their ground, by growing their audience, by nurturing leads, and yes, by converting sales. But all the while they did it by being helpful. So every time someone from their audience turned around there, they were with a helpful answer to an important question. So their prospects never ever felt like they were a prospect. I also promise you every strategy we discuss, every tool we recommend will be shared in full transparency in each episode. So you can plant your flag of authority, so you can claim your ground, so you can fill your sales pipeline with a steady stream of right fit clients who again, never, ever were made to feel like one of your prospects. Speaker 1: (02:11) Okay. So I'm excited for you to meet our very special guest expert today, Brent Weaver. If you're meeting Brent for the first time, Brent is the founder and c e o of you Gurus, a business training and education company dedicated helping agency owners own their market. Brenna's, also the host of the Digital Agency Show podcast, and the author of the brilliant book Get Rich in the Deep End. Okay, so before I welcome Brent to the show, I'm gonna share a brief excerpt from chapter three. I have, I, I do have his permission to do this. So from chapter three of his book, because it perfectly, in my opinion, frames up the challenge agency owners and their teams typically face when creating content and when struggling with the, the decision to niche down and go more narrow. So here we go, page 47, chapter three, of Get Rich in the Deep End. Speaker 1: (03:06) So I'm quoting Brent here. We can no longer create random content and hope it gets results. The internet is organizing into hyperfocused hyper-specialized niches, and the winners take all that means. You need awareness about what you're trying to accomplish and who you serve. You need insight into where your customers are in their business, not where you are in yours before you publish anything. Most agency owners don't realize this. So their marketing is typically quote me focused, most simply publish once in a while about what they're up to. So think recent project a technology they're interested in, or a reference to a trend or a method they think is important. And I've come to learn, again, these are Brent's words, and I've come to learn that when marketing is me focused, the agency itself is very likely the same way. In other words, they don't have a market or they're scared to communicate directly to their best clients because they might turn others away. Speaker 1: (04:15) Okay? So end quote there. That's the excerpt. So as you'll hear in this interview, I'm going to ask Brent why he believes so strongly in the excerpt that I just shared with you, and how that belief connects into what he calls the five A framework, and how that framework can help all of us, not just niche down. But then once we make that decision, what's the best way to create content that attracts right fit prospects into our sales pipelines? Because when we do that right, the content we create should attract an audience because you focused on your audience in helping them solve their problems. In fact, you've created content that shows them you may even know their problem better than they do, and you never seem like you're me focused again to use one of Brent's terms. I promise you the insights and wisdom Brent shares during this episode will give you and your team what you need to strengthen your authority position in Roar through 2023. Speaker 1: (05:20) Okay. So without further ado, my friend, uh, welcome to the Sell with Authority podcast. Brent, it's an honor to be here. It is an honor to have you here. And thank, thank you, uh, for humoring me as I went through that really long introduction, but I really wanted, uh, our audience to have great context as to the insights and wisdom that you're going to share. And thank you again for saying yes. Before we dive in with what I'm sure is going to feel like a barrage of questions, uh, coming your way, uh, take us behind the curtain, Brent, and, and share a little bit more about your path and journey. Couple minutes and, and, and then we'll dive in. Speaker 2: (05:56) Yeah. And Steven, I I think if you ever, uh, if you ever need a plan B, you can, uh, you can, you can follow me around and introduce me in every meeting, every uh, event that I present at. Cause um, that was, uh, that was you, you had me enthralled, and I was like, who is this person he is talking about? And, and so I think the, um, you know, I mean, for, for me, my journey started in, in, in high school, I was building websites. I started, you know, got a client in high school Hmm. Uh, you know, paid me $500 cash, like, right. As somebody who's working for minimum wage at the time, at, at like 6 25 an hour. Um, that was a, a phenomenal windfall. Uh, I immediately spent it on things I do not remember. Um, and, you know, that kind of started my like, you know, career as, um, as a, as an agency owner. Speaker 2: (06:46) I mean, I didn't, I didn't know I was an agency owner for almost a decade, right? I was just building websites for people. And, and our first agency, we did everything wrong for probably the first seven years, uh, and started getting some help, mentorship, um, a advice, joined some business accelerators started to kind of figure out how to actually run a business. I'd never been taught how to run a business before. And so, you know, that was really a big inflection point. And actually the, the excerpt that you read, when I think about my history, um, as a agency owner and entrepreneur, you know, there, there truly was this like, inflection point where I thought like my business was about me and about what we were doing mm-hmm. . And at the same time, we were always really frustrated with the, um, you know, the output, right? Speaker 2: (07:31) We weren't getting enough clients. We had no control over our lead generation. We really had no structured marketing. I mean, we were doing stuff, we were, you know, building awareness. We were out in, in the community, out in the network, right? We were getting clients, we were doing great work. Those clients would lead us to other clients. But like, what I understand about marketing now, I mean, when I look at how sophisticated our Legion engines are at U Gurus and the agency that I now own, um, part owner and unlimited, wp, I mean, you know, what took us a year and a half to scale to seven figures for Unlimited, WP took us over a decade, uh, with my first agency. And even then, right? It was like, it was like seven figures of, of like, you know, like splotch together revenue and different niches. Speaker 2: (08:15) And it was like every dollar we were like grasping for, right? It was like, and it was super fluctuating and all that kinda stuff. Whereas when I look at our business now, it's like this, it's like this growth engine that's just like clock, clock clock. You know? It's like we can just see, you know, the consistency and also the, the freedom that's created. Um, now, you know, when, when I, I sold my first agency when I was, um, in, in 2012. Um, I was, I was about 30 years old. I started the, the business accelerator. We have been running now for the last 10 years, Yu Gurus, a couple years ago I started Unlimited WP with, uh, a graduate of our program. Um, last year, you know, we actually were acquired by, uh, Yu Guus was acquired by, um, cloud Ways, which was shortly thereafter acquired by Digital Ocean. Speaker 2: (09:00) Uh, and so now we're, we're scaling the business accelerator in a way that I've never even, um, I never imagined, you know, we've had this mission of helping 10,000 agencies achieve freedom and business in life. And, and now all of a sudden I'm like, wow, this is like happening, right? We're like seeing this, uh, every day in our work. So, so, yeah, I mean, it's, it's been a, it's been a fun journey, not without, its, uh, its pitfalls and pains. And I think most of that content in that book, and most of the content I talk about, uh, is more derived from the lessons that I've learned in business. Some of those, those lessons have been extraordinarily expensive. Uh, and so it's, it's easy to look at like, oh, man, you know, growth story, fun, exciting. But, you know, most of the things that we've implemented now, and most of the things that we do on a regular basis are just from, you know, all the mistakes that we've made. Uh, and so hopefully I'll, I'll share some of those with you today with some of the questions you're gonna ask Steven. Well, Speaker 1: (09:51) And, and that's, but that's what makes this conversation helpful and insightful. It isn't like you woke up one day and said, you know, I need to pick a niche. Oh, I know I'm going to go out and start helping a whole bunch of agency owners, and, and that's fine. I'm gonna read a few books in, in, in order to get the context. And then, you know, after I read the books, I'm gonna be an expert and I'm gonna maybe need to fake it before I make it. That's not what we're talking about here. What, what I love about your path and journey one that you're super transparent in sharing what, what it was and is, but it ties into this last paragraph that, that out, out of that excerpt that I chose and, and or selected, and you, and when you wrote, and I've come to learn that when marketing is me focused, the agency itself is very likely the same way, right? It's because of all of this context and all of this perspective, this path and journey that you've been on for a couple of decades, that gives you the ability to write that it, because you've been in the trenches, you understand it, so awesome. Right? It makes it that much more helpful. Speaker 2: (10:53) Absolutely. And, and too, like, I mean, well, I will probably talk about, you know, markets and, and how people can focus on those things. But when I think of the last 12 months of my life with these multiple kind of acquisitions under my belt, and now we're, you know, we're Scaling Unlimited, wp, which is a brand that is a, it's a white label WordPress shop for other agencies. And, and I look at this like portfolio of, of business that I've been able to create, um, which is really exciting, but a lot of, like, my enterprise value that I bring to organizations is my knowledge of my market. And we can talk about my story all the time, right? We can talk about like, the things that I've learned. Yeah. But like, the journey really starts with us deciding that, you know, being customer obsessed, is it create, like, that decision was the inflection point, Steven. Speaker 2: (11:45) It was like, that was the thing that made everything else possible. Because, you know, for us to start to learn about, you know, what kind of products and services our market wants, what their pains and problems are, you know, I mean, I can, like, it wouldn't surprise me if sometimes I wake up in the, in the middle of the night, you know, shouting the fierce frustrations, want and aspirations of agency owners, right? Because I'm so obsessed about it. My wife's like, what's, you're having a nightmare? I'm like, no, no, no. It's not my nightmare. It's, it's, it's my customer's nightmare. Right? Um, it's because like, it's, it's become this obsession Yeah. Of us understanding how do we solve these problems? How do we help people achieve what they want in their business? And, and through that, we've been able to create a ton of businesses and a ton of value for other people. And, um, and, and it's fun. It's so fun, man. It's, it's like, it, it business is, has, has been a really, uh, an excellent game to be able to play as an entrepreneur. And, and, you know, if I just, if I keep getting to play this game with this market, with these people, you know, for the next 10 years or 20 years, uh, you know, that's, that's a huge win for me. Speaker 1: (12:47) Amen. To that, I'm gonna key in on this, uh, nightmare analogy Yeah. That this, uh, gave us, because, uh, in, in another one of your chapters, uh, in fact, let me quick grab it. Okay. Chapter nine, I highlighted, uh, one of sort of the, the call outs here. And it speaks directly to what you just said and how you make content attractive to a prospective audience. You, you wrote talk about your ideal client's pain better than they understand it, and they will instantly see you as an expert to solve their problems when you have that passion when it wakes you up in the middle of the night and you're super concerned and you're super excited about helping them through their trials, tribulations, problems, business issues, challenge, whatever word that you wanna put that on, that gives you an ability that infuses your content when you mix it with the proper voice, which we'll get to in a little bit. But when you do that, it, it's, it's very easy then to say, as the recipient of the content that, oh, Brent is all about me. Not, not, not him. He's all about helping me, right? Speaker 2: (13:49) Yeah. Well, and, and I think too, a lot of people have a fear of talking about their craft because they see other people out there that are saying really smart things about whatever they do, whether it's building websites or doing Facebook ads, or, you know, creating brands. And so to stand out in a crowd, and, you know, talking about your discipline is really intimidating because we can all go to the internet and Instagram and see people that are doing like, better quality stuff than us. And so, a way for you to, you know, and, and, and honestly, most people don't really care about that stuff anyways, right? But it's, it's, that's the natural inclination is, Hey, I'm gonna, I'm a web designer, I'm gonna publish content about web design. And then you're like, oh, crap, there's all this content about web design. Like, where do I fit in? Speaker 2: (14:36) Right? And so, the thing that I think most of us don't understand is that we, we, we are looking for solutions to our problems. And usually the first thing that we do is we, we search out our problems. And so if you find people that are talking about our problems, um, and they are talking about them eloquently, and they're talking about them in a way that, um, is, is relatable, then, you know, that's like half the battle. Like, you're already, you've already created some really amazing content there that's, that's, that's gonna attract people to you. And so, you know, instead of thinking to yourself like, you know, I'm not as good as a southern web designer, you know, it's just going into your target market and figuring out what are, what are their issues? And, and most people, the most markets out there don't have our agency expertise, you know, that that's readily available. Speaker 2: (15:20) Like, they're just not, you know, that there's, there's a lot of blue oceans out there. And so I think usually it's very, it's easy to go into a market and start to master what they're struggling with and talking about that, that's something that you can usually do in a few weeks, right? Or, or even days. You can go out and, and understand those problems. Go do 10 or 15 customer interviews, you know, and really start to get a grip on those things. And then it becomes kind of this point of leverage or an X factor where you can start to create content and you can feel more confident about it because you're actually hearing these problems from people. And then you just kind of repeat what they're talking about, and then people will start to listen to you. Speaker 1: (15:57) Love that. So let, let's frame up maybe the, the re that's a bad pun, uh, frame, frame up the rest of this conversation with, uh, by, by walking through your five A framework. Um, and then, and then I, I know we're gonna dip into the attract PC authority piece and so forth, but let's go 30,000 foot view for overall framework. If you could take us through the five A's, that would be awesome. Speaker 2: (16:19) Yeah. So, I mean, quick, the, uh, the, the tl DR version, right? Audience, uh, awareness, attract, authority and acquire. So those are, just think about it as the five things that you should be able to write on a napkin, uh, when you go and market your agency, that you should have at least a one or two point bullet, uh, of, you know, each of these things. You know, who's your audience? What channel are you gonna use to build awareness to that audience? What's that path to customers? What are you gonna talk about to attract those people to you? Mm-hmm. , how can we establish ourselves as an authority within that market? And then how are we gonna actually acquire those people into scheduled appointments on our calendar? Is a, is there a literal, like a logistical path to getting that audience to engage with us in some way? Speaker 2: (17:10) And so, you know, my most simple, you know, I mean, on, on a simple level, we might have something like, you know how Yu Guus attracts agencies, right? We use, uh, you know, agency as our audience. We use Facebook ads to drive that, you know, to, to, to drive that audience to us. Um, couple the problems that we talk about are, um, you know, creating proposals, high value proposals, you know, winning high value projects, five, six figure deals. So that's kind of some of the messaging we use to attract. Um, we e established our authority by providing actual one proposals for agency deals. So those are, you know, and people see it. It's like, oh, wow, this is a, this is a real thing, right? Mm-hmm. . So that instantly creates authority. And then we acquire those, those folks through, um, you know, a very basic, uh, marketing funnel, right? A a very basic, like, optin, get the tool, join our Facebook group, have a call with us, and, you know, just for some context, right? So that's a, that's the five A's on an napkin. Like I can draw that in a napkin. It's no more complex than that. And, you know, that funnel for us generates two to 32,000 to 3000 leads a month for our business, right? And so, you know, that, that's, that's the five a's in a nutshell. Um, and then we can obviously, you know, kind of dive into each of those. Speaker 1: (18:24) Yeah. So, so let's do that. Um, so when you think about the five A's on an Appian, love, love the way that you described that, because because it is easy, we sometimes make it overly complicated. So if we're looking at kind of zooming out and looking at the five A's, when, when an agency owner is thinking about maybe adopting that into their business, which a do they struggle with first? Speaker 2: (18:49) Yeah. I mean, they're, it's, it's sequential and, and it should be mm-hmm. . And, and so I think that's the piece that people hit the immediate roadblock on, is they go, oh, audience, oh man, this guy's gonna ask me to niche. I don't want a niche. I don't wanna stop turning away, you know, start turning away clients. Like, what about the person that calls me tomorrow that wants to pay me $35,000? It's not a nonprofit org, it's not a doctor, it's not a dentist. Ah, well, I'm, I'm done. Mm-hmm. . Uh, and so they get, they get frustrated with that. And so I think, you know, the way that we look at it as, you know, the first, the first level of this is, you know, think of it as a campaign. You know, you're gonna invest some time in money in marketing. Um, you're not gonna overhaul your website. Speaker 2: (19:28) You're not gonna start, you know, you're not gonna, because this is how I first niched. I, we decided to focus, you know, we were a general web design firm, and we had a bunch of clients that were nonprofits. Like 30 or 40% of our clients were nonprofit organizations in Denver, my business partner and I went out to a lunch, and we were like, we were struggling to grow the business. We were unprofitable, we were putting all of our, you know, we were putting tons of stuff on credit cards, and I don't, it was a mess. And somebody, people kept told, telling us, oh, you got a niche. You got a niche, you got a niche, right? And I'm like, no, everybody can be my client. Everybody can be my client, right? We're never gonna niche . So finally we hit like a breaking point. We're like, screw it, we're gonna niche. Speaker 2: (20:02) So we were, we were at a Wendy's, right? That was, that was like what the, the, the cuisine was of, of that, um, you know, the dollar menu, right? Double, double cheeseburger, medium french fry, um, and chicken nuggets. Can't forget that, right? Three bucks I could get lunch . Um, and so we, you know, slammed our fists on the table and we're like, we're gonna niche to nonprofits. So we, you know, immediately went back to the office, changed our website homepage, we build great websites too. We build great websites for nonprofits. And then I think we even sent an email out to all of our customers. We said, we're working with nonprofits now, , and of course all the small businesses were like, what about us? Right? Right. And all the, the, the very little website traffic that we had at the time, you know, which was mostly from like some, some random Google searches, which we had no context of. Speaker 2: (20:52) And also just like referral and word of mouth and just general reputation, right? I mean, you know, two thirds of that traffic hit that home page and said, oh, these guys aren't for us anymore. And so our leads actually went like, into the toilet. Um, and so like, I think that, like that kind of surface level nicheing of, and, and again, it kind of comes back to this me focused versus customer focused mm-hmm. , you know, I thought nicheing was about me. Yeah. I thought it was, I needed to change my website home page. I needed to tell all of my clients that I was now, you know, nonprofit focused. And it was like a miserable failure. And I, I don't think it was, it was, it didn't, we didn't really start figuring out until, you know, a couple years later, we obviously changed our website back and we were like, oh, crap. Speaker 2: (21:37) We made a big mistake. And, you know, we, we kept having to have these sales conversations that would come up where people would say, oh, you know, Brian, I saw that email from you guys. It sounds like you're not working with us anymore. We're like, no, no, no, no, no. Like, please, no, no, no, we're fine. We're, we can still help you. Right? So it was, it was a complete disaster. And so when, when we say, Hey, pick an audience, it's like if you had, you know, a thousand dollars in your bank account and you were going to your budget and you were gonna decide how to spend that money, right? Um, that's really all this conversation at first is about, is you've got a thousand dollars, maybe you got 10 hours to invest in marketing this month. Where are you gonna spend that time? Speaker 2: (22:16) Yep. And then, and then once you de decide that, that, who, right? Who, who is that marketing offer? You know, then we can kind of start, start talking about where, like what do we actually do strategically and tactically to get that message in front of the right audience? Yeah. You know, shortcut, it's not changing your reps at homepage. It's not sending out an email to your customers. It's not turning down business. Now, at some point, if you're established in a market enough to where you're just like, like leads and clients are falling out of your pockets in your target market, and you're like, I have so much awesome business. Like, I'm starting to see, you know, the light at the end of the tunnel, I understand what this whole nicheing thing's about, you know, at that time, like, maybe it becomes more of a business identity thing and you start to actually turn stuff away. Speaker 2: (22:57) Um, and so I think that first step for people, like, it's, it's, it's almost like people are trying to jump from, you know, being single mm-hmm. to like married with kids in one step versus like kind of going out and, you know, going to the clubs at the bars or the sewing groups or whatever, right? And trying to meet people, you know, first, right? There's a few steps that happen before, like married with kids, right? Mm-hmm. . And so I think that that first step can become such a hurdle. Yeah. For some people, if they're in their mind, it's that I have to change my entire agency's identity. If they instead reframe that to, Hey, I'm just gonna invest like 10 hours in marketing and maybe spend a couple grand, like all of a sudden it's like, oh, that's not that big of a deal. I can focus on doctors for like a month. Yep. Right? And, and so that, that reframing, I think is, is really important as kind of a solution to that. But like, man, if you can't get past that, if you can't, like, you can't put a campaign out to a target market, you know, the rest of this whole nicheing conversation's gonna be way harder. Speaker 1: (24:00) I, I am so glad to hear you frame the up that way, again, using a bad pun, I guess, or using a pun, because I, I see it in agency owner's eyes all the time. And I, and I, and I'm sure you do too, that when you mention the word niche, they, they immediately make the leap of 10 years down the road, married with kids. And in thinking that that's might be what you and I or someone else is asking them to do, when in reality, that's why I was really grateful that I was thinking, oh, I wonder if he's going to break that down into the small little steps. And that's exactly where you went, which thank you for that, because that is it, right? It's not about firing your clients on Monday, cuz you made a decision on Friday. It's about how you then step into that recognizing that it is a long game, it's peace, after peace after peace. Eventually you'll get there. And, and, and so thank you for that because I'm hoping that that eased maybe some of the stress around the decision that it's not instantaneous, that it is a progression. Speaker 2: (24:57) Yeah. And in, in the book, I use this kind of, you know, the title's called Own Your Market. And so, you know, if you want to use a that analogy of, of owning, right? Before we do that, we might go and, you know, we might, we might be a looky-loo first, you know, we might be a, a Zillow or whatever you call 'em, right? , we might look at those places that we might wanna live. Right? But there's a big difference between looking and then, you know, being a tourist, like, Hey, let's go to like, got a friend that moved down to, uh, Costa Rica. Yep. They've been there for like five years, but like the first step for them was like, they, you know, they obviously had the idea and they kind of like, you know, did some research on it. The second step was, you know, they went down to Costa Rica for a, a quick family vacation to see like what the vibe was. Speaker 2: (25:40) And it was like, Hey, the family loves it. Right? And then they came, they went back to Costa Rica again, um, to, uh, you know, to, with without their kids to start to like actually plot out what it could be like to live there. Hmm. Then, you know, and then they went back to Costa Rica, the, the third time with a one year commitment. They were gonna live there for a year Right. As renters. Okay. And, and now they've lived there for, we're going on five, going on six years. And now the conversation has turned into, you know, do we buy down here? Speaker 1: (26:07) Oh, wow. Speaker 2: (26:08) You know, that same idea within a market. It's like, what can you do to do a little research? Like, hey, we're just looking, and then, hey, can we be a tourist? Can we go out to a, an event in your market? Right. And this is getting into our, our second day a little bit, Steven, of, of awareness. Right. But what can you do that's like a small investment Yeah. To kind of like step in and, and kind of see what's going on. And maybe you're going to a conference, maybe you jump onto some podcasts, maybe you sponsor a, an association or an event, you know, and you go and kind of rub elbows with people in the market, you know? Cause I, I went in an early market, we targeted, I won't say what market it was, was, uh, no, actually I will. Um, so we were, we were in Colorado, and this is back when like medicinal marijuana was like a big, like it was a big thing, right? Speaker 2: (26:53) Sure. And there was all these people like, oh, this is gonna be like the green rush, right? It was like, ah, you know, like we, we couldn't help ourselves but get caught up in it. And so we, you know, I met some people, some potential strategic partners. They were selling advertising, uh, in the local Westward Magazine for these different shops and stuff. And so he started hook me up with, uh, appointments to build websites and do marketing for these folks cuz they, none of them had a websites. And so, you know, I went on a couple of these meetings, we signed a couple deals, and then one day I went on a meeting and I rang the buzzer and they, they unlocked the door and I stepped into a cage and the door closed behind me was like, like, like it locked. And there was like, I'm in this like cage and there's like cameras and I'm sitting there and they're like, oh yeah, we'll be with you in just one moment. . Speaker 2: (27:40) And you gotta imagine this is all this like cash business and like, there's good reason, right? But this is like people that are coming from like the black market, right? Lots of cash still slightly ill, you know, kind of illegitimate in this gray zone cuz it wasn't legal federally and, and whatever. It really wasn't legal at, at a state level fully. And, um, it was, it just like, it turned me off. Yeah. I was like, Hey, there could be money here, but like, this is just not where I want to hang out as an entrepreneur right now. I don't want to be going into buildings with duffel bags of cash and being l literally locked in a cage with cameras on me to, um, you know, while they like took my license. And like, I, I don't know, it was just like, yeah, it felt weird. Speaker 2: (28:20) I drove back and I was like, Hey, , uh, you know, called my partner. I was like, Hey Steve, like, you know, I I was like, you know, we've, we've, we've really come a long way, but like, I just don't see that this is gonna be a path forward for us for, for such and such reason. And he was like, okay, cool. Like, let's, let's work on the next market, right? So it's like, you know, sometimes you find through that kind of exploratory phase in a market that for whatever reason it's not a great, great fit and that's okay, right? We don't have to, you know, commit a hundred percent, but at some point you will find that a market is, is great. And then you might wanna kind of jump in the deep end as, uh, as we talked about in the book. Speaker 1: (28:55) Yeah. That reminds me of, uh, a, a conversation that our, our mutual friend Drew McClellan and I had on a recent episode of his podcast, so episode 3 54. And, and, and he wanted to essentially dissect, uh, predictives. So my agency, kind of our path through various niches and in the evolving of predictive predictives about 13 years old now. And, um, and, and then we also talked about the permanency of niche and that decision and, and how it doesn't, we don't have to think of it as like pounding it into stone tablets and, and from here for the next several decades, it must be this. So that's why I really like your two examples that you've shared because it shows how you're moving into a niche with intentionality. What can we learn? What can we experiment with, what can we discover and all of that. And then same thing like with Costa Rica, um, in, in that example with your friends that, that they weren't pounding it into stone. Speaker 1: (29:55) We like Costa Rica, so therefore we're gonna move our entire family and so forth down there without doing their due diligence and all of that. Do some people do that? Of course. Did they do that? No, they went about it in a very pragmatic way. So all along sort of these milestones, if you will put it in a business context, there were the go no-go decisions. Okay, now we're gonna extend the trip for a year. We're gonna extend the trip for this point. And, and then finally we're all in. That seems like a very practical approach, Speaker 2: (30:21) Right? Yeah. Speaker 1: (30:23) Very practical approach. So let's, let's step into the attract piece. So one, once someone makes that decision, uh, then, then obviously I'm leapfrogging a couple of pieces in the A framework. So I'm going out of sequential order. Um, because the reason why I want to go into the attract piece one, I, I, I love how you structured this chapter because it's, it's very practical and tactical. You, you give high level, but then you go eye level pretty quickly too, which I loved. And, and you recommend some really good tips about how to create attractive content. So, so let's go through that piece and, and let's go through your recipe for creating attractive content and would love to even slice it at a granular level about the various tips that you share. Cuz I think there, again, going back to framework, that's gonna be a great framework. So, so let's go high level with the attraction piece. Um, how do, like, what's your point of view around creating attractive content? And then we'll slice that apart? Speaker 2: (31:23) Yeah, I, I think the, I mean, first is, is getting into your customer's head. Hmm. And there, there's a lot of different ways to do that. I think the thing that has been most impactful for me in terms of the research and understanding stage is to, um, conduct customer interviews. And the faster that you can do this mm-hmm. , uh, within your chosen target market, the faster the learning begins. And this happens, um, outside of the building, okay, this doesn't happen. Uh, you know, in, in Google, like now you can do some great research in Google, but, um, it doesn't happen on a whiteboard. It doesn't happen in a brainstorming document. Uh, you do have to talk to people and there's like a famous saying in, in, I don't know, business that, uh, you know, business would be, uh, really easy and fun if it wasn't for those customers, right? Speaker 1: (32:19) . Speaker 2: (32:19) And, and so like, I found that going out and becoming obsessively focused on, on talking to people in, uh, my target market. And at first it started very informal, like within the first markets that we targeted. It also started originally, like I thought the only time I could talk to people in my market is if, if they called me and asked me for a proposal and, you know, invited me into their office. It, it turns out, uh, that you can call an email pretty much anybody. Uh, you can knock on any door and you can ask them for insights and feedback and, and advice, right? Advice is a great thing to ask people for. Cuz everybody wants to give you advice. Uh, everybody wants to give you advice, right? Um, even about things that they shouldn't be giving you advice about. Uh, and so you can leverage that mm-hmm. . Speaker 2: (33:05) And you don't have to be going, you don't have to go in and ask somebody for business, talk to them. You can go in and just be like, Hey, I'd love to learn about blank. Like, Hey, I'm thinking about targeting this market. I'm thinking about trying to work, uh, with more nonprofits or more restaurants or more doctors, or more dentists. Like, do you have five minutes? Do you have 10 minutes? Just tell me about some of your biggest pains and issues or problems or frustrations or gripes or complaints about, you know, X, y, z about web design, about branding. And, you know, if, if that target market says, what do you mean by branding , that that's gonna be like, ah, you know, aha. Like, right? Like people don't even know what you do. Right? Or if you're like, you know, like, uh, you know, what are your thoughts about, you know, quantum computing and conversion optimization and AB testing and, you know, and your target market is like, what? Speaker 2: (33:54) Like, you know, that's like your first learning is that, you know, they have no idea what you're talking about in some cases, right? Not all cases, but, you know, when I was going after restaurants, for example, um, that was very much the case. Mm-hmm. even just going a layer deeper in a website. Like, Hey, what's your impression of WordPress? Or, you know, what are your frustrations with WordPress? And the, the amount of understanding from my target market of what even WordPress was, right? Many of them had no idea what I was talking about. Um, you know, if I used a term like CMS or responsive, um, they were like, I don't know what you're talking about. And so if my website, right, if my content would have led with, Hey, we build amazing responsive websites and I was trying to reach restaurant owners, I mean, I'm gonna make them feel like idiots. Speaker 2: (34:46) You know, they're, well, first of all, they're probably not gonna feel anything. They're probably just gonna get go. I have no idea what these jerks are talking about. You know, move on. I have a, I have a fire in the kitchen, literally mm-hmm. . And so getting in and talking with people in your target market, and the faster you can do that, the better. Uh, a lot of people like that I, I've talked to over the years, they hear about doing customer interviews and it's, it's this big, like, back to, to reframing things, but it's this big, like, okay, I gotta reach out to, oh my gosh, how am I gonna, you know, well, and they kind of drip like maybe a, a conversation once every week or two, um, when we got really serious about agency. Like, I did 72 customer interviews, 30 minute customer interviews in a week, like I in a week, right? Speaker 2: (35:30) So you can structure this stuff intensely and you can get a lot done. Like when I usually go in and develop a new product or a service, and I know agency owners really well, but still, I have a lot of biases that get in the way. I have a lot of false beliefs, I have a lot of assumptions that get in the way. So every time we launch a new program, a new feature, a new addition, like we always go and talk to our customers. We always, we always get in there and do that. And so we stack these interviews and we'll do, you know, we'll do 10 interviews in an afternoon mm-hmm. . So 20, 30 minutes a piece that's five hours. It, it's a little intense, right? You're like five hours straight, customer call, customer call, customer call. But what happens is you start getting into this mode where you're like, your, your unconscious starts to like, recognize patterns and you start to see like, oh my gosh, there's the thread here, or this thing that I keep harping on, they just don't care about. Speaker 2: (36:15) Um, and so that, that idea of going in, in and talking to your customers, that's, that's gonna be like, you know, one of the biggest things that, um, that we, we, we advocate. And then, you know, from there, it's, yes, you need to organize your content, you know, you need to talk about things that your customers care about, and then you, you need to do it in a way that's modeling off of, you know, good storytelling. You know, having a, um, you know, having a, a hook, a build, and a payoff, right? Having, having, capturing somebody's attention, getting them to listen to you, and building tension around the services and offers that you have, and then telling people, you know, how they can solve that problem. What's the benefit? What's the, what's the, the nut? What's the call to action? Right? What are they gonna, what's the, the juice that they're gonna get from this thing? And, and making sure that they have a, a good path and a good motivation to, to reach you. Speaker 1: (37:03) Yeah. When I think of 72 interviews in, in, in, in a week, and whether somebody listening to this says, holy bananas, I'm gonna do 72 interviews this week. Or they say, I'm gonna do 72 interviews in the next couple weeks or a month, or whatever the timeframe is. Don't miss the point 72 interviews gives you like this goldmine you mentioned patterns, right? You start seeing these patterns, it gives you essentially like your customer or perspective customer gave you, Brent, like gave you, this is the curriculum we want you to teach, right? Speaker 2: (37:35) I mean, the fact that you put it in those terms is mind blowing because that was exactly what we got out of it. We took, like, I took all those interview notes, we, um, themed them. What are the themes that people are talking about? We simplified those with some, you know, some work. Um, we then used actual, like customer quotes. So things that people actually told us, um, that we thought really grabbed people's attention and were kind of like in people's heads because they were literal things that people said to us, right? Yeah. And people email us like, oh my gosh, Brent, you're inside my head. And I'm like, I literally just like wrote you an email with a sentence that you actually told me. Like, you know, it'd be like that customer was like, oh my gosh, Brent, this is, you know, follow up from our conversation. Speaker 2: (38:17) This is so good. Right? And so, you know, going back to that specific investment of time, um, that was actually right before we launched our bootcamp program. Okay? Now, our bootcamp program, we ended up having about 13 to 1400 agencies go through that program. Um, it was about, uh, a $3,500 program. You know, you can do your napkin math, but that intense level of customer development led to, you know, a very lucrative upside. Now that product eventually morphed into, you know, the community and the program. And a lot of that research was still, is still something that we rely on today in terms of our core curriculum from bootcamp. And, you know, all of our new members that, that join us for our one year program go through bootcamp mm-hmm. . And so, you know, that was stuff I did back in 2014. Okay? And it's still paying dividends now. Speaker 2: (39:09) I don't know if, you know, I would tell people, Hey, go out and do 72 interviews in a week. It was a lot of fun. My team thought I was kind of crazy. I was super burned out. I had probably over expressed myself that week. But I mean, even doing five or 10 interviews in a week or in a day, um, can, can, you know, give you huge insights. And then what happens is you start to kind of get this, you almost get this like master's degree in your, in your target market. You start to kind of studying them and you start to have this acumen and just naturally, the more people in your target market that you talk to mm-hmm. , you start to change your language because you, you're gonna start to just self-correct in terms of how you explain what you do. And when that starts happening. Speaker 2: (39:51) It's, it's really magical when you start to look at like, what happens in the sales process, what you put in your proposal mm-hmm. , how you present your offer, what your pricing looks like, how you structure your pricing and payment plans. I mean, just like all that stuff becomes like, it, it just starts to becoming next level just naturally, right? Without having any kind of, you know, this is our 19 point framework for proposals or whatever. Like if you go talk to 20 customers in your target market, you will absolutely make changes to your proposal and to your offer and to your, you know, the language you use when with presenting without any additional sales, coaching or help, right? You'll just self-correct. Um, the more conversations you have. So, so in, in the attract stage, you know, in the book I go through a lot of different tactics in, in, in methods around like ideal customer profile and individual, like specific content frameworks and things like that that you can use. But without that body of work, without that context and content about who your target market is and what they think about, um, really all of that stuff is, is useless. Speaker 1: (40:52) Yeah. O okay. So that, that, um, that inspires me to want to quote you again. So, uh, forgive me here. So th this is, this is off of page 1 46. We're in the attraction piece because about the practicing and about getting in, and this is about like finding your voice, right? We've heard that a lot. Like you gotta find your voice, but what you say about finding the voice or someone's voice in my opinion, is really key here. And here's what I mean by that. So everyone, I'm, again, I'm quoting Brent here. I have discovered my voice by practicing a lot. You don't find it before you begin to write or speak, you find it through writing and speaking. So that tells me as, as a reader, and also now listening to you in this conversation, that the interviews, whatever the number was, you were mentally in, in writing, in notes, keeping track of the patterns, and also then giving it back to people and creating content and writing and teaching and speaking and all of that. And through that practice, not only did you see what was attracting and what wasn't, but at the same time you were gaining your voice and your belief around what it was that you were sharing. Am am, am I tracking with you? Speaker 2: (42:02) Yeah, a hundred percent. I mean, I I, not to inception our audience right now, but you know, I would consider this, uh, it's a rep, it's a, you know, I mean, yes, we're, we're, we get to perform today for this audience that you've, you know, so graciously put us in front of, but as an expert and as an authority, you know, this is one more, um, you know, one more rep that I get to, to do, right? I don't, I don't come in and, you know, prescript like, oh, this is what I'm gonna say. You know, I've got my, I've got my platform, I've got my content. But it's like every rep, um, is, is a way for us to help refine that and like, Hey, were we able to say that in a better way this time? Do we have a better analogy or a better story or case study? Speaker 2: (42:39) You know? So every time you get out there in front of that audience, whether it's through your social media posting or, um, through, uh, a platform like this, you know, it's an opportunity for you to refine that message. And one thing that I, I do think is really important is that, you know, there's kind of the, the garage band, uh, metaphor that I give a lot, which is, you know, the equivalent of, of me creating content, you know, on my own platform mm-hmm. , that's kinda what I call the garage band . Right. You know, it's like we're going outta the garage and we're like jam, like, ah, yeah. You know, like stare with, we're doing it right. Like, you know, we're gonna play Thunderstruck next. Right? And it's like, you know, it's like, I, I might be having like, the time of my life, my neighbors are probably calling the cops, right? Um, and so, you know, the people in the world that have become superstars, right? At some point they got out of the garage mm-hmm. , and they had to go start playing it at venues. They had to, you know, the Beatles didn't play in the garage, right? They, they played, they gig seven nights a week, three times a night sometimes. Right. Three shows that's 21 shows a week. Speaker 1: (43:36) Yeah. Two card week. Great. Formative. Yep. Speaker 2: (43:38) Yeah. Like they're, they're refining that sound in front of an audience. So there's that feedback mechanism. And so, you know, one of the things that you wanna do as soon as possible is create content, um, with third party editors and people who are going to essentially kind of, you know, give you very real feedback, um, by either not having you on their program, um, or, you know, they might give you some tips and things like that, or maybe you hear how they sound, or maybe the questions that they ask you and try to get clarification on exposes that maybe some of your content has some gaping holes in it. Um, you know, whatever it is. It's like if you can find those people that can become those filters and those amplifiers for you, you know, that practice becomes a lot more interesting and impactful for you in your market. Speaker 2: (44:24) And so that's one of the things that, you know, we started, we started with really slowly mm-hmm. , um, I would run these, uh, uh, these, uh, luncheon learns in Denver on, you know, social media and . I would send this invite out, like, come learn about Facebook and Twitter and blah, blah, blah, right? And I'd get four people to sign up for 'em, right? And so it's like, you know, in a way that was like feedback, right? I'd like have, you know, but then four business owners would come in and, you know, I'd give 'em this, you know, complete run through of social media and stuff, and they would be like, Brent, this was the most valuable thing I've ever, like, this is the most valuable lunch that I've ever been to. This was so amazing. And they'd invite two people. And then I had to think, okay, why are, you know, they're all telling me this is a life-changing workshop, but nobody wants to come to it, right? And so it's like figuring out that messaging and all that kinda stuff. So the more, uh, the more filter that you can use through other people's lenses, um, I think the more, the faster you'll go through some of those reps and some of that learning Speaker 1: (45:19) Yeah. 100%. And, and, and pushing yourself to get into, like, I, I'm a huge baseball fan, so, so pushing yourself to stand in the box, we gotta get into the box. Yeah. And, yep, A bunch of times we're gonna strike out. Um, I don't know how much of a baseball fan you are, but, uh, for everyone listening, uh, Derek Jeter struck out 1,862 times throughout the span of his career, and, and he is largely regarded is, you know, the best, uh, Yankee to ever play the game. And that's, that's a pretty, that's a pretty awesome list, right? 1,862 times to say that a different way. There are actually only 10 players in the history of the game who ever struck out more than Derek Jeter. He's number 11 on the list. He struck out 1,862 times only 10 players ever struck out more than Derek Jeter because he was willing to do Brent, what you're talking about. He was willing to stand in the box, he was willing to take the practice wings. He was willing to do that in the game and strike out if need be, but 300% of the time he was gonna get a hit because of those repetitions. Going back to your word, the reps. Cuz he knew the value of every single rep. Speaker 2: (46:29) I think, I think I'm gonna put like 8 18 62 on my, uh, wall. I think I'll, I think that's gonna become a new, a new number for me. . Everybody's gonna be like, what happened in 1862 . Speaker 1: (46:40) That's awesome. So I, I know that our, uh, time is, uh, quickly coming to an end. Before we go, before we close out and say goodbye, uh, any final advice, any recommendations you think we might have missed? Uh, and then, uh, please share with our audience the best way to connect with you, Brent. Speaker 2: (47:00) Yeah, absolutely. So, I mean, I think the, um, man, is there anything that we've, we've missed? What a, what a big thing. I mean, I think if we, if we close it out though on maybe a choir, because I think that's the other piece that sometimes is, is overlooked. Um, and, and this is just a piece where if you're, if you're on a podcast, if you're on a webinar, you'll give people a really great, uh, way to reach you. Right? Give them something that's really valuable, you know, know, and, and I was thinking about before I came on, I was like, what are the things that I could like give out the resources, the things like, you know, like what would, what would Stephen be like cool with in terms of like what would be okay for his audience and stuff? And, you know, I'm like, man, now you're like, you've talked up my book so much , and I'm like, gosh, wouldn't it be cool if we just said, Hey, anybody that wants a copy of my book will mail one out to you. Speaker 2: (47:51) Awesome. Uh, you just want to drop me an email, brent yu gurus.com and just say, Hey, I heard you on Stevens podcast, I heard you on on the Predictive podcast. Um, you know, and, and I'll have one of my team mail you a copy of, uh, of, of Get Rich in the deep end. And that would be a way for us to deliver ama amazing value to you. And, you know, just do that for free. So it's gonna cost me a bunch of money. My team's gonna like, be like, Brent, why don't you say that thing? Um, and that's okay, right? Because we're gonna get you guys some amazing value. We also have this, uh, own your market toolkit, which some of the things we talked about today, the frameworks, um, you know, we can get that to you digitally, you know, instantly. So if you're looking at like how to niche or how to create valuable content or, um, how to, how to structure some of this stuff, um, we've got some really good worksheets you can use with the Sharpie and kind of map this stuff out and go get a cup of coffee and, and work on the business. Speaker 2: (48:41) So would love to do that. And so to inception, our audience, um, you know, that would be an example of the acquire stage is if people are interested in what you do, is being able to deliver something of insane value that is not a pitch, you know, it's just like, Hey, here's this thing. And the whole point is to move somebody from an audience member who's just listening, um, into somebody who's engaged with you and know your, you know, methodology in, in your intro Steven, about like how do you, you know, sell to people and, and deliver so much value that they don't feel like they're being sold to. And that's like, that's our whole ethos at you grew, is we call it help first. And so, you know, we give people tons and tons of resources. I mean, thousands of people download stuff from us every single month and we'll just be like, Hey, like, you know, tell us about your agency. Speaker 2: (49:31) And then some people do and some people don't. And that's okay. And some people take our free resources and they go in and make hundreds of thousands of dollars with them and they email us, they're like, Hey, that proposal I got from you, I just landed a $200,000 project. Thanks so much. And you know, I wish they'd attach a check to that one . But you know, not always does that happen, right? Um, and so yeah, if you guys want the book, you know, draw me an email, we'll mail you a copy of the book, we'll get you the, the resources and, um, you know, would love to, to meet anybody in this audience that wants to connect. Speaker 1: (50:00) Awesome. And we'll be sure to put, um, the mentions of those resources in, uh, today's show notes, everyone. And, um, no matter how many notes you took, and this is key everyone, no matter how many notes he took or how often you go back and re-listen to Brents word's wisdom, which I sure hope that you do, is you need to take this framework. You need to take the awareness piece and you need to take to the attract piece and the acquire piece. You need to take all five that he broke down and shared with you so generously, and then gave you examples at the end. You can take this example, this free book example that he just gave you, and everything that happens downstream from that reverse engineer it, you put your content into that framework and do the same thing for your niche. And when you do, you'll accelerate your results. And Brent, we all have the same 86,400 seconds in a day. I am grateful that you said yes to come onto the show, to be our mentor and guide to help us move our businesses onward to that next level. Thank you so much my friend. It's my honor.  

It can be challenging to determine if niching down and building a more specialized practice in your agency is the right move. Today, Brent is sharing why you should niche down and get specialized. Episode 162 of The Digital Agency Growth Podcast is about the importance of specializing and getting rich in the deep end! Watch our new recorded video training: Relationship-Driven New Business At-ScaleIn this episode of The Digital Agency Growth Podcast, Brent Weaver is sharing the importance of specialization and actionable steps you can take right now to niche down. Brent Weaver is on a mission to help 10,000 digital agency owners achieve freedom in business and life by helping them own their market. Brent is the founder and CEO of UGURUS, a business training and education company dedicated to this mission. He also hosts one of the leading podcasts in the business niche—The Digital Agency Show. Brent is in partnership with UnlimitedWP—a scalable white-label WordPress development team to help digital agencies grow without all the headaches of hiring and managing people. He is also a Brand Ambassador for Cloudways, a WordPress hosting company, helping them evangelize their platform.In this episode, Brent Weaver and Dan Englander discuss the following:How much easier Brent believes it would be to have agency success now vs. back when he started his agency in High School to pay for his hobby of building websites.Why Brent believes niching down could save your agency or business in the long runHow to know when and what to niche down to as times change through looking at your existing clientele and marketing channels.Brent's suggestions around launching multiple business models at a time, or trying to diversify your agency through multiple business models at a time, and though it worked for him, why he doesn't recommend it for others.Niching down is far better, and far more lucrative, than remaining a generalist in your business model practices, and even pandemic statistics will prove that to be true. Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to follow, rate and review the podcast and tell me your key takeaways!CONNECT WITH Brent Weaver:WebsiteEmail: brent@ugurus.com for field guide and additional resources for listenersCONNECT WITH DAN ENGLANDER:LinkedInSales Schema

30 April 2017 | Ruakura 6pm

30 April 2017 | Ruakura 10:30am

30 April 2017 | Ruakura 9am

In this episode of The Remarkable Project Jay speaks with UGURUS founder, entrepreneur and author, Brent Weaver, about why minor tweaks to your niche can have major business impacts, how a killer community is the safety net you need as you scale, and the benefits of building out your own interactions engine.Brent Weaver leads the vision for UGURUS, a platform and set of educational programs which help digital agencies get more leads, win higher-value clients, and delight customers in a way which allows founders and owners to scale their businesses, whilst creating freedom in their professional and personal lives.He built his first website at 15 and created his debut web-design business just two years later. That company grew into a successful 14-person web agency that was acquired in 2012, with Brent since going on to help thousands of other web professionals master business skills and make more than $10m as an entrepreneur himself.Written during one of the most disruptive times in history, with people floundering around where to focus their buying power, his 2020 book ‘Get Rich in the Deep End' looked at how to commit to a niche, own a market and “audaciously” scale an agency. Equally targeted at digital marketing agency owners concerned about how to stay essential and anyone else running a client based business, the book drives home a solution based on becoming a specialist in everything you do, but at the same time knowing what not to do, and why.Married with two sons, Brent enjoys his road bike and swimming laps, and as for his favourite program…Google Chrome.Remarkable Takeaways Why making even minor changes to your niche can have a major impact the downstream elements of your business as well as your marketing position. How finding your core community of comrades and confidants offers a valuable safety net of expertise and emotional support as you scale.The benefits of creating and fuelling an engine which increases ongoing interactions with customers or clients.Connect with BrentEmail him here! Learn more about UGURUS via their website

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interview Brent Weaver. Brent is on a mission to help 10,000 digital agency owners achieve freedom in business and life by helping them own their market. Brent is the founder and CEO of uGurus, a business training, and education company dedicated to this mission. He also hosts one of the leading podcasts in the business niche—The Digital Agency Show and is the author of Get Rich in the Deep End: Commit to Your Niche, Own Your Market, and Audaciously Scale Your Agency. More About Brent Weaver: Get a copy of his book – Get Rich in the Deep End: Commit to Your Niche, Own Your Market, and Audaciously Scale Your Agency Learn more about Brent's business – UGURUS Brent's Podcast – The Digital Agency Show Podcast Take The Marketing Assessment: Take the Assessment This episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network and Semrush.

Does your agency have recurring revenue? In this episode of the Innovative Agency podcast, we are joined by the founder and CEO of uGurus, Brent Weaver. Brent is on a mission to help 10,000 digital agency owners achieve freedom in business and life by helping them own their market. During our conversation, he shares his insights on building an agency with recurring revenue streams. What you will learn in this episode: Why it's important for agencies to have recurring revenue How financing differs from recurring revenue in agencies How to determine what services are great -- and which ones are not great -- for recurring revenue Why customer development interviews are crucial for determining your pricing What should agency owners consider when developing service packages Why agencies can begin to offer fewer services at higher prices over time  Bio Brent is on a mission to help 10,000 digital agency owners achieve freedom in business and life by helping them own their market. Brent is the founder and CEO of uGurus, a business training, and education company dedicated to this mission. He also hosts one of the leading podcasts in the business niche—The Digital Agency Show and is the author of Get Rich in the Deep End: Commit to Your Niche, Own Your Market, and Audaciously Scale. Resources: Website: ugurus.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ugurusweb Twitter: https://twitter.com/u_gurus LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ugurus

Dan is returning from vacation, and instead of a guest episode, he was featured on the Digital Agency Show podcast. So today, we are sharing that episode with you. On the Digital Agency Show, Brent Weaver interviews successful agency owners and leaders on the best practices for agency growth and success. This week, episode 137 of The Digital Agency Growth Podcast is an episode Dan was on over on the Digital Agency Show podcast! Watch our new recorded video training: Relationship-Driven New Business At-ScaleIn this episode of The Digital Agency Growth Podcast, Dan Englander chats with Brent to share the importance of breaking down barriers in cold messaging strategies, which are covered in his book. He also shares actionable steps you can take right now to build deeper connections with your audience. In this episode, Dan discusses with Brett the following:The timeless power of de-risking conversations with commonalities instead of boring, publicly available information. Tips for messaging copy that truly converts instead of being left unread or sounding like a bot, even if that copy is created in advance.How to balance personalization and scale without being bogged down with too many tasks or feeling like a robot and impersonal.This fun podcast episode was shared graciously with us by the Digital Agency Show Podcast, and we are very thankful to have been on the show to share about the new book and share some wisdom with their audience.Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to follow, rate, and review the podcast and tell me your key takeaways!CONNECT WITH The Digital Agency Show podcast:WebsitePodcastOriginal EpisodeCONNECT WITH DAN ENGLANDER:LinkedInSales Schema

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interview Brent Weaver. Brent is on a mission to help 10,000 digital agency owners achieve freedom in business and life by helping them own their market. Brent is the founder and CEO of UGURUS, a business training, and education company dedicated to this mission. He also hosts one of the leading podcasts in the business niche—The Digital Agency Show and is the author of Get Rich in the Deep End: Commit to Your Niche, Own Your Market, and Audaciously Scale Your Agency.

It can be challenging to determine if niching down and building a more specialized practice in your agency is the right move. Today, Brent is sharing why you should niche down and get specialized. Episode 114 of The Digital Agency Growth Podcast is about the importance of specializing and getting rich in the deep end! Watch our new recorded video training: Relationship-Driven New Business At-ScaleIn this episode of The Digital Agency Growth Podcast, Brent Weaver is sharing the importance of specialization and actionable steps you can take right now to niche down. Brent Weaver is on a mission to help 10,000 digital agency owners achieve freedom in business and life by helping them own their market. Brent is the founder and CEO of UGURUS, a business training and education company dedicated to this mission. He also hosts one of the leading podcasts in the business niche—The Digital Agency Show. Brent is in partnership with UnlimitedWP—a scalable white label WordPress development team to help digital agencies grow without all the headaches of hiring and managing people. He is also a Brand Ambassador for Cloudways, a WordPress hosting company, helping them evangelize their platform.In this episode, Brent Weaver and I discuss the following:How much easier Brent believes it would be to have agency success now vs. back when he started his agency in High School to pay for his hobby of building websites.Why Brent believes niching down could save your agency or business in the long runHow to know when and what to niche down to as times change through looking at your existing clientele and marketing channels.Brent's suggestions around launching multiple business models at a time, or trying to diversify your agency through multiple business models at a time, and though it worked for him, why he doesn't recommend it for others.Niching down is far better, and far more lucrative, than remaining generalistic in your business model practices, and even pandemic statistics will prove that to be true. Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to follow, rate and review the podcast and tell me your key takeaways!CONNECT WITH Brent Weaver:WebsiteEmail: brent@ugurus.com for field guide and additional resources for listenersCONNECT WITH DAN ENGLANDER:LinkedInSales Schema

Agency coaching? It can help you avoid common mistakes and challenges and accelerate the growth of your agency. Hear insights about: How Brent started his first company in 1999 at the age of 17 building websites, and how he sold his agency in 2012 and moved into agency coaching Why Brent's goal is to help agencies avoid the same common challenges that he himself experienced growing his agency Why the biggest financial challenge Brent faced was bootstrapping his business and not being able to pay his withholding taxes for three years as a result Why coaching can help you accelerate the growth of your agency by learning strategies from experienced coaches who have already been where you are Why making long-term financial investments in your leadership skills and in your business is a crucial step for the growth of your agency How working with his own coach allowed Brent to see how much agency coaching can move the needle for an agency's success Why being curious, committed and open-minded are crucial traits for getting the most from agency coaching Why Brent believes learning to delegate and developing soft skills are vital and necessary skills any agency owner needs to learn How Brent uses data to project the profitability of his agency and to make key financial decisions Agency Coaching As an agency owner, you probably started your business with the intent of putting your skills and experience to work in your chosen field, whether that's marketing or research, staffing, or IT. However, at a certain point in any agency's growth, the owner must learn to extract themselves from the day-to-day work and instead focus on the profitability and health of the agency. Making that transition from subject matter expert to business leader requires developing many new skills that probably lie outside your area of expertise, and so it can be challenging to shift your mindset and step into a leadership role. That's where working with a great coach can help. This week's guest on the Progressive Agency podcast is Brent Weaver, founder, and CEO of UGURUS. Brent's agency specializes in agency coaching and teaching owners how to avoid common challenges and mistakes and to instead focus on growing their businesses. Agency coaching can help you accelerate your path to success by allowing you access to expert insights and experiences from people who have already navigated the path you're on. During our conversation, Brent shared how he helps his clients level up their leadership skills, learn to delegate the day-to-day work to their teams, and better understand their business financial numbers. The Benefits of Agency Coaching and Developing Your Soft Skills As Brent explained during his visit to the Progressive Agency podcast, the return on investment from agency coaching takes a while to show up; it isn't a magic bullet that will instantly transform you as a leader. However, patience is rewarded in the long term, because your agency will grow significantly faster when you have the voice of experience helping you make important decisions and helping you better understand your role as a leader. Brent says that the biggest thing that helped him boost his agency's profitability and growth was developing his soft skills and leadership. Brent believes that it's crucial for agency owners to be willing to invest in themselves and to approach agency coaching with a committed, focused, patient mindset. After all, Rome wasn't built in a day, and developing your leadership takes time, experience, and trial and error. Why would you want to go through that process alone, when you could instead have an experienced coach helping to guide you and clear your path? To learn more about Brent Weaver, UGURUS, and the coaching programs and services Brent and his team offer, you can visit their website at https://ugurus.com/ or reach out to Brent directly at brent@ugurus.com to request a copy of his book Get Rich in the Deep End. And, as always, please visit me at https://craigcodyandcompany.com/podcast/ for more informative, money-saving podcast episodes like this one. How to Connect with Brent Weaver: Email: brent@ugurus.com Website: https://ugurus.com/ LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/brentweaver/ LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/ugurus/ Facebook: www.facebook.com/ugurusweb/ Twitter:  @u_gurus Additional Resources: Website: https://craigcodyandcompany.com/ Twitter: @CraigC2742 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/craigcodycpa About Brent Weaver: Brent Weaver is on a mission to help 10,000 digital agency owners achieve freedom in business and life by helping them own their market. Brent is the founder and CEO of UGURUS, a business training, and education company dedicated to this mission. He also hosts one of the leading podcasts in the business niche–The Digital Agency Show. Brent is in partnership with UnlimitedWP–a scalable white label WordPress development team to help digital agencies grow without all the headaches of hiring and managing people. He is also a Brand Ambassador for Cloudways, a WordPress hosting company, helping them evangelize their platform. When Brent isn't working with agency owners around the globe, he enjoys going on date nights with his wife Emily and biking at the local skatepark with his two sons.

Brent Weaver from KState First joined The Quest for New Inspiration Podcast on this week's special pride episode. They discuss PRIDE, Brent's journey, and the importance of finding your people.Show Notes:http://newinspirationpodcast.com/2021/06/30/finding-your-people-brent-weaver-episode-12/

This week on the show, I have Brent Weaver, the CEO and Founder of UGURUS. Brent is a successful, serial entrepreneur. Brent and I talk about the strategy behind creating a successful Facebook group for your business as well as what not to do. I think you’ll find a lot of value in this episode, so stick around.

Brent Weaver is the CEO and founder of uGurus. He leads the vision for the company and creates educational programs that help agency owners work on their business to drive additional revenues, increase profits, and create freedom in their life. Brent is here to share his insight on referrals and the importance of choosing a niche for your agency. 3 Golden Nuggets Niching helps you fish in the right pond. Figuring out a niche where you can be profitable and deliver the best results is "fishing in the right pond" according to Brent. The key is testing out different ponds in order to find the best fit for your agency. Pareto Principle: 80% of outcomes are from 20% of input. Is worthwhile and valuable to determine if you're spinning your wheels on small clients that aren't helping contribute to your revenue. Going through this exercise is key to being more profitable. There are 3 marketing engines agencies need. These are:  content, partnerships, and paid ads. Relying on referrals is not scalable. It's like sitting on a one-legged stool. You must add these 3 marketing engines into the mix.   Sponsors and Resources Wix: Today's episode is sponsored by the Wix Partner Program. Being a Wix Partner is ideal for freelancers and digital agencies that design and develop websites for their clients. Check out Wix.com/Partners to learn more and become a member of the community for free. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM Is Your Digital Agency Fishing in the Right Pond? Jason: [00:00:00] On this episode, I talk with Brent Weaver about why referrals just aren't scalable and why it's so important to pick a niche. I hope you enjoy this episode. Hey, Brent, welcome to the show. Brent: [00:00:13] Good to be here. Yeah, I'm excited to have you on, so tell us who you are and, uh, a little bit about the agency that you're in and what you do now. Yeah. So, uh, my name is Brent Weaver, CEO, and founder of uGurus. We are a business school for digital agency owners. We primarily work with agencies that are kind of 1 to 10 person range, really helping them to track more leads, win more deals, delivering delight for their clients. They can profitably scale their agency and achieve some freedom in their business in life. Before, uh, we're coming on into the ninth year doing this business. But before that I ran HotPress Web, which is a digital agency based in Denver, Colorado for about, I guess, about 13 years. And, uh, grew that from, uh, my business partner and I from, uh, us in our bedrooms and high school to a 14 person thriving agency in downtown Denver, uh, serving over 300 clients. And, uh, we had clients like Dish Network and Anheuser Busch Inbev and all sorts of, uh, smaller and medium-sized businesses across the board. Jason: [00:01:17] Awesome!. Did you sell the agency? Did you were like, Oh, we don't want to do this anymore? What's the what'd you do? Brent: [00:01:23] Yeah. So we did the business did get acquired by another shop in Denver. We had probably about two years before we sold the business. I started to blog and build some training programs for agency owners, and we had done some deals with Adobe. And so we, um, Kind of started kind of riding two horses at the same time we had the agency business, which was growing really well. And then we had this thing that, uh, myself and my business partner would do, you know, a day or two a week. We'd go and, you know, create videos, we'd go do our own thing. And, uh, and so we kind of felt like we were starting to run two businesses at the same time, but also I think just as I'm sure, you know, right. The impact that we had on. Other agency owners that were like following our processes and our methods, like we were getting all of these, thank you letters in all the time for people that we'd really helped them transform their life and their income and their freedom. And after a while, it was kinda like, Hey, we really enjoyed doing this. And we wanted our agency to go and be in a good place. So we had some really great opportunities to get that business acquired. And so we pursued one of them and it turned out really well. Jason: [00:02:24] Awesome. Let's talk about after high school, um, and do an agency, right? Because I think I know how, how it goes in high school. It's like, dude, I can, I can get some money for a year. Brent: [00:02:37] I was basically working uh minimum wage $6.25 I think an hour, at the time, at a fabric store and somebody paid me $500 to build them an order form for a candy store out of Michigan. And it took me about a day and I was like, cool. When I went to my boss at the fabric store and said, I'm going to go ahead and do this other thing. Cause I basically made like, you know, two months wages in a day. So, so that was that. Jason: [00:03:03] That's awesome. And so if you could go back to when you were starting, what would you have done differently? How would you grow the business? Brent: [00:03:14] I think for me, it's, you know, finding that audience, a high-value audience that you can leverage your skills to get really great results. For, as I mentioned, our first project was a candy store in Michigan. The only reason we got that client was because my business partner's dad would go hunting in Michigan and, you know, he'd go buy at this candy store and he'd pick up, you know, they'd order stuff. But then they'd grab these order forms, uh, to order stuff. When they came back to Dallas and they would have to fax the order form in, and Shernis, uh, the woman that owned the store would always, you know, have to call it. Well, I can't read your handwriting, you know, there's this like whole thing, a community that supported this business. And we just happened to kind of be a solution for that business. Right. But this tiny little candy store in Michigan, right. I mean, she wasn't making massive money. And so yeah, we built this thing, but the value of it right. Was great for her, but like, you know, it wasn't like it was worth $50,000 or $500,000, right. Or something like that. But I think that we could've, our same skills could have easily fetched us a lot more money sooner, but because we were fishing from this pond, that was kind of like the local neighborhood pond. Right. Like we only had the network that we had access to. I was making a lot more money than I would at the fabric store. Uh, I think there were other high-value ponds out there. And I think that's the thing that. Um, when we eventually figured that out, right, let's go hang around businesses that are, you know, making millions of dollars or tens of millions of dollars or like Dish, you know, billions of dollars. And it's just a totally different way to do business. Right. I mean, I remember when we got Dish Network as a client, I mean, they'd come in with these like last-minute deadlines, but they'd basically give us a blank check. They'd be like, Hey, as much as you guys can work over the next two weeks like we'll take all of your team's hours for the two weeks, and we'll pay you a premium on that time because, you know, we have some big deadline or whatever, right. And so it was just fundamentally a different type of client to work with versus where your, your skills might not be as valued. So I think that the audience component is something that we eventually learned. And once we started hanging out with businesses who, you know, in the millions of revenue, like budget became not like inconsequential, but it became a much less deciding factor in terms of like who you were, you know, what kind of work you were doing. Jason: [00:05:36] Yeah. I always found that when you first start out and I started out doing websites for 500 bucks too, I don't know why it's always, you know, 500 bucks, but you always think, well, that's the max someone will pay. Or if I charge them twice the amount, I have to do twice the amount of work versus figuring out that audience, like, you know, Dish Network. Like our first one, I think our first big client was like Wter.com. And they were a billion-dollar water brand, like Crystal Springs, Hinckley Springs, Belmont Springs, all these different Springs. And it kind of changed our mindset of going, Oh, there are these bigger companies that will pay for value rather than pay you for the amount of hours that you actually work. Brent: [00:06:20] Like a lot of people, I got convinced that your prospects sometimes start to dictate your mindset a little bit. And when we first opened our office in Denver, we were trying to, you know, we're in a conference room, we were thinking about, hey, where should we get new clients? And we thought, hey, maybe the chamber of commerce, right. Or something like that. And they were running these classes for brand new businesses. We thought that was a prime audience, right? People are like, ah, you know, all these new businesses, they all need websites. Right. But the problem was, they weren't established. They were $0 revenue. They were sole proprietorships. You know, these businesses that maybe had 10, 20, $50,000 a year in annual revenue, which is, there's a lot of businesses out there. There's like, almost 20 million businesses in the United States that are making $50,000 or less per year. So there's a lot of them out there, which is why Wix and Squarespace and GoDaddy and all these major brands are going on volume. Like they focus on that market, but for us as a small services shop, not a huge market like that. And so I was going and teaching these classes and I'd have all these people come up to me and say, oh yeah, maybe you can help me build a website. And so we'd go through the proposal process or I'd go through even qualifying and they'd say, well, yeah, well, we only have $500. We only have $1,000 dollars. And while we had done some projects for $20 or $30K, I started to convince myself that that was the market now for websites that like getting $1,500 for a website was like becoming really, really difficult. And, and I started thinking, okay, well, we should build our business based on volume or this or that. Like we were trying to solve the problem. And the only issue at the time really was. I was fishing in the wrong pond, right? Like, no matter how many cool sales methodologies I could use, no matter how much, you know, value-based language, right? Like if the pond that I'm fishing from literally has businesses that are, you know, $50K a year in revenue, like, you know, selling a $10,000, $20,000 website to them, it doesn't really make sense. Jason: [00:08:13] Very cool. And so how did you figure out the pond that you wanted to the fish after? And like, how would you do that over again? Cause I find that a lot of people struggle with that. And like you were saying, you kind of go to the chamber of commerce, you get a couple of clients and then those referrals actually dictate how your next couple of years are going to go because it's always the same or lower. Brent: [00:08:35] So I think once we sat down in a room and said, okay, this is not working. Right. So we looked at, you know, where was all of our money coming from, which I think is a really good exercise. There's this concept of the pareto principle where 80% of your yield or revenue comes from 20% of your inputs or originally it was like somebody looking at, uh, land ownership. Right. But this concept is, has played really well in business. So somebody had kind of taught us that we looked at our client base and we looked at who you're making the most money from. And yes, we did have a lot of clients that were small potatoes and they were taking up all of our time, but they weren't really getting us the results. So we looked at all of our clients instead of, hey, who's actually driving results for us. And it was, by and large, it was organizations that had, you know, had been established for five or more years. Had over a million dollars in revenue. Uh, for the most part, they had dozens of employees, whether it was a nonprofit or whether it was a business, you know, some of our clients had tons of employees. So we started looking at this and saying, look, let's just at least start saying no to anybody that hasn't been established for more than five years, it's less than a million dollars in revenue. And, um, you know, that has less than, let's say, 30 employees. So that was step one was at least identifying, Hey, here are some qualities, some constraints that this audience has that is actually driving revenue for us. And let's start saying no to all those other things. So which created some capacity for us to look at other types of businesses. The second question to that though is we started asking ourselves well, okay. So these are the clients that are driving all of our money. We know who is helping us make more money. We want more of those clients. So the second question is where do they hang out? Where do million-dollar businesses hang out? Right at that time, I really wasn't super educated on like verticals or really this idea of niching. To me, it was like a foreign concept. And if anything, it evoked a little bit of like resentment or disgust like, Oh, I could never niche. Right? Um, but we at least started asking ourselves that basic question, right? Where do these million-dollar businesses hangouts? And we start identifying organizations, there's organizations like EO. YPO in the Denver area, there were organizations like it was called Diner. It was like Denver Independent Network of Restaurant, uh, something. Right. And we started identifying these groups that these businesses hung out. And so for example, I went and gave a talk at the Diner Organization, which was basically this group of about a hundred Denver-based restaurants that were all roughly over a million dollars a year in revenue, right. There were the most successful restaurants in Denver that were independent. So I wouldn't give a talk at this group about how to leverage their website and social media to get more butts in seats. And there was like the same number of people that were in my old Chamber of Commerce classes. You know, there's about 15 restaurants, right? Except in this instance, I gave this talk, and then, you know, half a dozen restaurant owners came up to me and said, Hey, I love what you're doing. We don't have anybody that can do this. It's great that you're teaching me this, but can you just come in and do it for us? And every single one of those clients turned into a 10 to $20,000 initial project with ongoing, you know, 10, 15, 20K a year in work. So like one talk in the right audience. And it was a fundamentally different conversation afterward. And so that was where a real light bulb I think happened for us, was like, Oh wow. We can go in. Share do the same thing, right? The dynamics are the same, go teach stuff, share stuff, give tons of value. And if the pond is just a fundamentally better pond than, you know, we're going to have different results. Jason: [00:12:02] Yeah. I love to teach how to do it because there are so many agencies that think if they do that well, you're giving away the secret sauce. And at the end of the day, there's no secret sauce, but people will actually decide to work with you if they actually understand the plan. Like, I always tell everybody when I used to race cars and I would teach people how to go through a corner at a hundred miles per hour, like a 90-degree turn. And they'd be like, there's no way. But if I could actually communicate and show them, there is a plan for them not to die and then actually demonstrate it to them. Then they're going to always. Be able to like, Oh, I can do that. And then like, I'd always laugh with my other buddies and be like, oh, now they're faster than me. I was like, crap. I need to tell him, be like, hit the brakes harder there. Brent: [00:12:54] Well, I think that the fundamental, like, I mean the classic agency business model of staff augmentation, where at the time we had, let's say a dozen people working at our agency for a company, even an established company to go up there and hire a team full-time to be a part of their organization is a lot of money, right? I mean, if you're going to go hire three people to be part of a digital department, I mean, that's $50K in salaries a month, plus all the other stuff that comes with having a team. Right. Whereas you can pay an agency, you know, maybe even, it sounds like $50,000 is a lot of money, but when you put it in the context of the alternative for most businesses, or maybe they hire a, a jack-of-all-trades person that has 19 responsibilities within the business, and one of them happens to be maintain a website. Right. And they don't have the experience to, you know, really do like hardcore SEO or pay-per-click or build funnels. Right. Uh, so I think at the core, right, like agencies. Want to showcase their skills, uh, almost like a job interview, right? I mean, it doesn't make sense for most businesses to go out there and hire an entire team. Right. That's why agencies exist. Cause you can snap in those skillsets for a fraction of the cost. I think going out there and teaching what you do showing the results, uh, also is a big part of that showing your potential clients, Hey, this is what you can get with this kind of, to your point, right? Demo-ing, I think is a big part of that pre-sales process. Jason: [00:14:14] When you actually start doing this and you're, you're growing your agency, what's the mistake that you see a lot of agency owners make, or a mistake that you guys made with, you know, in terms of referrals. Brent: [00:14:27] I mean, look, referrals are, referrals are great. I mean, who doesn't love a referral, right? Uh, when, when somebody sends you an email and says, Hey, you got me great results. And here's my friend. You know, Joe and Joe need your results and you should, you guys should talk. Right? Cause then you get that a little bit of that credibility passes on. Right. And so referrals are, are great. Uh, the problem is they're not really predictable. Uh, they're not really scalable. Now I've published content. We've published blueprints about how to create systems around referrals, but even that right is kind of dictated based on the size of your network. Right? How many clients do you have? If you have 10 clients, you probably can't go to all 10 of them every day and be like, Hey. Can you give me another referral, right? Whereas, you know, with something like Facebook ads, right. I can go to Facebook every day and they will take my money and they will put my ads and in front of audiences. Right. So I think that referrals as a strategy, I call it kind of a non-strategy. Uh, it's hope marketing. It's, you know, referrals are table stakes. You should be out there doing good work and that should create referrals for you. And that will be like one leg of marketing, you know, game plan. Right. But you're, you can't really sit on a one-legged stool, right. It's not super comfortable. So we need to have a couple of other legs on that stool. And so I call those marketing engines, right. We want to have a couple of additional marketing engines outside of referrals. To help, uh, your business get those consistent leads that are predictable, repeatable, and scalable. Those are kind of three qualities that we want to see out of them. When I, when I say marketing engine, we should be able to put in a fixed amount of money, money, or time and get a predictable result on the backend of that. So the biggest mistake kind of back to your original question is that I think agencies, a lot of times they're so busy doing the work. And building stuff with their clients that they forgot to go out there and build awareness for themselves because they're so comfortable. With referrals because referrals are so easy. Like it's like the difficulty from relying on referrals, actually building marketing engines, uh, for the first time is actually a pretty big jump because referrals require you just to focus on your clients, which is what a lot of people are used to. Right. But going out there and proactively building a marketing engine feels like a lot of work. And so they don't do it. And I think that that was the biggest shift for us, right. Where we went from being passive, passively engaged in our marketing to going, Hey, you know what we need to actually. Really invest in this. We need to put somebody in the business. That's in charge of this, of the marketing component of the business. A lot of agencies out there treat themselves as they're, you know, they try to treat themselves as their own best client, uh, which is just, I mean, it's a recipe for disaster, right? I mean, we know that, that just doesn't work typically. And so we started this to shift resources, right? Both hiring internal staff members, dedicated to marketing the agency and then also hiring other agencies. To help us market our agency. Jason: [00:17:14] Very cool. And so what's one example of a marketing engine that you see really working well. Brent: [00:17:21] So I think there are three kinds of categories of engines. One is content. I mean, you're definitely awesome at this, right? You publish a ton of content. You're super consistent. You've got the great frequency of it. Another engine kind of category is partnerships. So finding other people that have your ideal client, either as their own clients or on a list. And then the final one is a paid advertising. So I kind of focus mostly on a track-based strategy where we're putting out. You know, the information we're putting out messaging and then the right people are coming to us. I'm not a huge fan personally of operating outbound and no, it's a great strategy out there. But I think for, if you're trying to get into a position of authority with your clients, I think that publishing becoming an influencer in your niche is the way you create raving fans. Right? It's really hard to create a raving fan through, uh, through outbound connection where somebody has never heard of you before. So in those three categories, I mean, one example of a content-based strategy. One of my clients does is they, um, they speak on stages. So it's pretty simple calculus day. Every time they go and speak on a stage where they're virtual or physical. Right now, right now, the physical is not really happening. So they've moved a lot of their stuff to virtual. They get anywhere between five and 15 qualified leads. These are longer sales cycles. But they have found that if they get about 20 to 30 qualified leads a month, that gives them enough energy to like to keep their sales pipeline like over full, right. They always have plenty of opportunities for them. Their marketing engine is really simple. Get on two stages a month and that's a solved problem for them. So their only marketing activities are really. Booking out those stages. So at any given time, they might have four to six months of stages booked sometimes even more now, before COVID hit, I think they were up to like 12 months of stages. And then all of a sudden, a lot of it evaporated and they did have to kind of rebuild that in the virtual space, but you know, that's a marketing engine, right. They know that if they go put their hour or two hours a week into outreach to, you know, other associations or organizations in their niche, that they're going to get that next stage book. Right. And they just keep kind of putting some time into that engine. No, they're not out there doing Facebook ads. They're not out there trying to publish blog posts. They're not out there on social media. Like their whole engine is just getting those stages, uh, booked onto their calendars. And then they're, they're just done. Right? So that's an example of content, right? Where you're out there, gigging in your market. Jason: [00:19:50] Awesome. Very cool. Well, this has all been great. Brent, is there anything I didn't ask you that you think would benefit the audience? Brent: [00:19:58] You know, I think that I mean, just on that last point of gigging, I think that this is kind of back to that. The core of what agencies can be doing for them. It's probably one of the one areas that I spend the most time coaching, which is. Helping people get out there into their market and building that confidence to share their content, share their expertise, start running ads, those types of things. And, um, I think that's probably one of the areas that I think people could always spend more time on or, or spend more money. Right. I've got clients who, before they came to us were like a Facebook ads agency. That's not spending any of their own money on Facebook ads. Right. And so, so trying to figure out how to fuel your engines and being confident that if you do that, You know, you're going to get results. I once had a client that before we started working together, you know, they're trying to attract $50,000 clients and they were scared to spend $500 in advertising. And that's one thing that I think. You have to think about it in the context of your client's value is like, if you're going out there trying to attract $50,000 clients or a hundred thousand dollar clients, right. The amount of effort that you need to put into that engine is probably at least somewhat proportional to, uh, to the output. So that's something to think about as you're starting to build your marketing engines Awesome. And, uh, you have a book out that everybody can go check out on Amazon. Or tell us a little bit about the book. Jason: [00:21:16] Yeah. So the book is called, Get Rich in the Deep End. And, uh, the basic premise is how to overcome that dependency on referrals and word of mouth as a digital agency owner, uh, how to identify your audience, build those awareness channels, attract the right clients, establish yourself as an authority in your niche, and then build systems and processes to acquire. Those prospects and leads. So we walk you through basically those five A's of audience awareness, attract authority and acquire. And the book is a little bit different in that we follow an agency on our story. This is kind of an amalgamation of a bunch of different clients that we kind of created a narrative in the story. So it makes it really easy to read.  It's a pretty simple concept. And, um, yeah, we'd love for you guys to support that it's called get rich in the deep end. I think your viewers would love to read that book. Awesome. Well, everybody go check it out. And if you guys enjoyed this episode and you want, and to be surrounded by amazing agency owners that can, you know, really see the stuff that you might not be able to see, and really know what it's like in order to grow above the eight-figure Mark or beyond. I want you all to go to a DigitalAgencyElite.com. This is our exclusive mastermind where we're always looking for the right. Agency owner that can have fun that can share that'd be transparent. And that really wants to scale very quickly. So go to a DigitalAgencyElite.com, and until next time have a Swenk day.

Brent Weaver leads the vision for UGURUS and creates educational programs that help agency owners work on their business to drive additional revenues, increase profits, and create freedom in their life. He built his first website at 15, and created his first web-design business at 17. That company grew into a successful, 14-person web agency that was acquired in 2012. Brent has helped thousands of other web professionals master business skills and has made more than $10mm as an entrepreneur. He published the best-selling book, Get Rich In The Deep End, in 2020. Brent is interviewed by his good friend, fellow entrepreneur Marc Gutman.

In this episode of The Agency Accelerator Podcast, I am joined by the CEO and co-founder of uGurus, Brent Weaver. Brent and I had similar beginnings in the agency world. In this episode, Brent shares his journey and we look at how your agency can adapt and grow in 2021. [03:55] Adaptability, Specialisation, and Authority In times of global challenge, the only way for agencies to thrive and grow is by adapting (and listening to your clients), specialising, and building authority.  Specialise by finding your niche - the more specific, the better, then broaden out over time. To build authority and awareness you should focus on growing your list of subscribers - so when clients are ready to buy, they reach out because you have stayed in touch and continued to provide value. [07:41] The fear of going niche Niching is the best way of separating yourself from the crowd and winning more business. Generalised agencies tend to differentiate by pricing (being cheaper than the competition) and overpromising. This is not a sustainable strategy.  [13:30] Stay Focused It's easy to get distracted by new ways to bring in revenue. These ‘shiny new objects' will be a distraction from your core services, and if you are not careful you will end up losing income. So get clear on who you are and what you offer and stay focused! [21:17] The Yes Mentality Just because you can do it does not mean you should do it. Think of your business as a system. This system can only continue to run well if it is not interrupted by adding in new services that don't fit in your agency and you don't have a system for. It's always best to refer these clients elsewhere rather than to make a mistake that may later cost you the client and lost revenue.   [29:27] Getting agency owners to let go We often find agency owners continue to want to have their hand in every project or be in the know of every detail, but this is not possible if you're going to continue to grow. The only way to let go is by hiring all-star A-players who can do the task better than you!  [34:05] Trends in 2021 The digital ecosystem is here to stay. Post pandemic companies are looking to shift and adapt, and with everything going digital, those who were resisting it before now have no choice but to evolve and grow ….or fail. Rate, Review, & Subscribe on Apple Podcasts “I enjoy listening to The Agency Accelerator Podcast. I always learn something from every episode”

What does it take to get more clients, better projects, and higher pay?    Brent Weaver has started and built a 14 person web design business that he later sold. Then, he went on to start UGURUS a company that helps web professionals get more clients better projects and higher pay. In the [...] The post How To Get More Clients Better Projects and Higher Pay – Interview with Brent Weaver appeared first on Small Business Advice Help For Startups and Entrepreneurs.

Press Play for: Finding your Audience and Ideal Customer What to do if your Team doesn't Jive with your Customer Why you don't want to go after ‘Everybody’ in your Marketing How to ‘Dial In’ your Sales The Thing that Woke Up Business Owners to Digital Marketing The 3 Things you Need in a Market We Meet: Brent Weaver - Founder & CEO of UGurus  Episode References:  Get Rich in the Deep End - https://www.amazon.com/Get-Rich-Deep-End-Audaciously OwnYourMarket.com Phrase - There's Riches in the Niches - Pat Flynn Dirty Jobs - Mike Rowe - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Rowe Documentary Happy - https://www.amazon.com/Happy-Dalai-Lama Connect: Connect with Rick: https://linktr.ee/mrrickjordan Connect with Guest: https://ugurus.com/ Subscribe and Review to ALL IN with Rick Jordan on iTunes  Subscribe and Comment on CastBox Subscribe on Google Podcasts or Google Play Follow on Spotify Subscribe and Review on Stitcher About Guest: During one of the most disruptive times in our entire history, people are floundering when it comes to where to use their buying power. Whether you’re a digital agency owner concerned about how to stay essential, or anyone else running a client-based business, Brent Weaver has the solution. From a bank balance of three dollars, Brent grew his digital agency to seven figures a year while managing more than 300 active clients, including Dish, Anheuser-Busch, InBev, and Adobe. As the Founder & CEO of UGURUS, he creates educational programs that help digital agency owners get more leads, secure more deals, drive additional revenue, increase profits, and achieve freedom in business and life. When readers follow the principles in his newest book, Get Rich In The Deep End, they’ll identify their ideal target audience, build awareness of their business, use stories and frameworks to attract the right customers, establish their authority, and build a marketing engine that will help them acquire a solid, growing client base. Whether you’re just starting out in business or you’re an industry veteran who can’t seem to get the recognition you deserve, Brent shows entrepreneurs and business owners all over the country how to own their market to become an invaluable expert for their chosen industry and build the stable, successful business they’ve always dreamed of.

Press Play for: Finding your Audience and Ideal Customer What to do if your Team doesn't Jive with your Customer Why you don't want to go after ‘Everybody’ in your Marketing How to ‘Dial In’ your Sales The Thing that Woke Up Business Owners to Digital Marketing The 3 Things you Need in a Market We Meet: Brent Weaver - Founder & CEO of UGurus  Episode References:  Get Rich in the Deep End - https://www.amazon.com/Get-Rich-Deep-End-Audaciously OwnYourMarket.com Phrase - There's Riches in the Niches - Pat Flynn Dirty Jobs - Mike Rowe - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Rowe Documentary Happy - https://www.amazon.com/Happy-Dalai-Lama Connect: Connect with Rick: https://linktr.ee/mrrickjordan Connect with Guest: https://ugurus.com/ Subscribe and Review to ALL IN with Rick Jordan on iTunes  Subscribe and Comment on CastBox Subscribe on Google Podcasts or Google Play Follow on Spotify Subscribe and Review on Stitcher About Guest: During one of the most disruptive times in our entire history, people are floundering when it comes to where to use their buying power. Whether you’re a digital agency owner concerned about how to stay essential, or anyone else running a client-based business, Brent Weaver has the solution. From a bank balance of three dollars, Brent grew his digital agency to seven figures a year while managing more than 300 active clients, including Dish, Anheuser-Busch, InBev, and Adobe. As the Founder & CEO of UGURUS, he creates educational programs that help digital agency owners get more leads, secure more deals, drive additional revenue, increase profits, and achieve freedom in business and life. When readers follow the principles in his newest book, Get Rich In The Deep End, they’ll identify their ideal target audience, build awareness of their business, use stories and frameworks to attract the right customers, establish their authority, and build a marketing engine that will help them acquire a solid, growing client base. Whether you’re just starting out in business or you’re an industry veteran who can’t seem to get the recognition you deserve, Brent shows entrepreneurs and business owners all over the country how to own their market to become an invaluable expert for their chosen industry and build the stable, successful business they’ve always dreamed of.

Show Notes and Transcript: https://entrepreneuradventure.com/60

In this episode, Brent Weaver discusses the similarities between BMX and business, emphasizing the importance of being willing to keep trying and failing in order to learn and succeed in business and in life. He speaks on the significance of a service mindset, connecting with your clients often and focusing on what’s working well for them, specifically for agency owners during the era of covid-19. Brent also shares with us his favorite elements of his new book and offers powerful advice on the most constructive way to deal with rejection and failure in your career. Don’t forget to subscribe to Operation Agency Freedom podcast to stay up-to-date about the best ways to own your agency: https://dudeagency.io/category/podcast/

Cloudways - Managed Cloud Hosting Platform Simplified. A Managed Cloud Hosting Platform Where Teams Can Build, Deploy, Scale & Manage Phenomenal Web ApplicationsIn Today’s Episode, I Am Talking With Brent Weaver, A Brand Evangelist For Cloudways, A Cloud Based Hosting Program That Helps You Manage More Efficiently And Can Cut Your Hosting Costs Up To 70%.Brent Weaver Is On A Mission To Help 10,000 Digital Agency Owners Achieve Freedom In Business And Life By Helping Them Own Their Market. We Are Talking About Simplifying Hosting Experiences Because We Believe In Empowering Individuals, Teams And Businesses.Takeaways From This Episode:Hear Lee And Brent’s Hosting War Stories.Cut Your Hosting Up To 70%Getting Hit By A Bus Idea!What's An Ideal Recurring Revenue-Based Business Model For An Agency?How Do You Get Peace Of Mind In Your Agency?Cloudways has set high standards of performance, committed to complete freedom of choice coupled with simplicity and agility in every process. Backed by an innovative approach, their platform is built on best-of-breed technologies and industry-leading infrastructure providers that create smooth managed cloud hosting experiences. And, they do this by investing in the right talent and by organizing the perfect teams, diversifying revenue streams by adding (and building on) solid recurring revenue. Why agencies need to abstract the technical layer if they're going to offer hosting.Brent talks about being in a situation where they had the keys to the client's infrastructure, emails, websites, e-commerce, processing millions of dollars in orders a year. And he had the thought if one of them gets hit by a bus like the client is kind of screwed, and so they decided, they needed to move their infrastructure. So, if they end up getting hit by a bus, there's still an infrastructure component. Boom - Cloudways. Cloudways does beautifully, it gives you access to that cloud hosting layer, but also provides that management layer on top of it so that you don't have to have any sysadmin people. Brent explains that in a little more detail.It's really hard to replace a person who's in two very distinct seats - Like a lead developer, and sysadmin all in one. And replacing that person who's like an amazing developer. It's kind of a unicorn person. It can be expensive and also hard to find. So, Brent always tells people, anytime you have that team member that basically has become a unicorn in your business, It’s best to try to separate that.Cloudways has what they call their agency partner program. They took some of the advice from the Mavericks and they went in and did customer development, user experience research with agency owners and said, “Hey, what do you guys actually need from a managed hosting provider?” They came back with three main things: Jerry Maguire moment, ”Show me the money, right?” They want to have better pricing because they feel like one agency is bringing 50 sites or 10 servers or whatever, not just bringing one server at a time. So we should get a better deal. The second big thing is support. Having a team, depending on what level, you have a different additional layer of support. Then having exclusive access to some other resources. Someone helping them to grow their business and solve problems outside of just the hosting bucketBrent would love for more agencies to explore Cloudways as a managed hosting provider. Whether you're on WordPress or using another system that is hosted, looking at them to provide that infrastructure would be probably a smart move. Their team has been an absolute joy to work with and I can highly recommend them. www.marketingagencycoach.com

BGBS 055: Mike Rohde | Sketchnotes | No One Has Your Persnickety-ness How can you dare to do something you previously thought you couldn't do? Mike Rohde, designer and author of two bestselling books: The Sketchnote Handbook and The Sketchnote Workbook, helps everyday people overcome just that. Through simplifying the art of drawing and providing a judgement-free space, Mike empowers his students to realize their Sketchnoting capabilities. Mike defines Sketchnoting as a communication device that is first for you, then for other people. Whether you make scribbly drawings or masterpieces, the importance is that you engage with what you've retained to find value in what you learn. Drawing was always a part of Mike's life, and we learn about his journey from doodling cars from memory as a kid, to working as a print designer in the pre-computer era. All of his knowledge truly paid off when having full control of the hand-lettering and drawing within his books. To Mike, writing a book is like climbing a mountain, but he emphasizes that celebrating each small win makes it oh-so worthwhile. Today, Mike is on a mission to teach, and the world is definitely better off because of it. Keep making the world a little bit braver Mike! In this episode, you'll learn... In most of Mike's workshops, around 80-90% of participants begin the session believing they can't draw. His goal is to make these same people confident in their abilities by the end of at least an hour. “Ideas, not art.” People get hung up on the idea of their ability to draw as a stumbling block. Once Mike teaches them a simpler way to visualize in a flexible setting, non-artists realize that they have much more capability than they believe Here's the thing about Sketchnotes: It's first for you, then for other people. If you have a scratchy drawing that captures meaningful information, that is more valuable than a beautiful Sketchnote that doesn't represent what you've heard Growing up, if Mike wanted something, he had to create it himself. This is how he made his own comic books and newspapers, allowing him to hone and master the skill of drawing from memory, which helps him with work to this day In a long haul project like writing a book, it's all about the progress, not the achievement. It can't be done overnight; there will be lots of grinding and revisions and being happy with the progress made, no matter how small, will make everything worthwhile. Before the name “Sketchnote” was coined, Mike named his creation “sketchtoons”. After writing notes for a life-changing event in 2007, the new name felt more fitting Mike enjoys using both an iPad or pen and paper for his work and doesn't prefer one over the other. The way he sees it, you wouldn't ask a professional mechanic if they prefer a wrench or hammer! They each have their own strength and purpose. Lately, Mike has been into drawing with good old Paper Mate Flair Pens on his own Sketchnote Ideabook, which has thick, white paper ideal for Sketchnoting Mike believes that the thickness of a pen line will affect your state of mind while working and can impact the way you draw The Sketchnoting technique is beginning to be used within schools to get students more engaged in their learning and discover how to better analyze and make sense of the world  Resources Website: rohdesign.com LinkedIn: Mike Rohde Facebook: @Sketchnote Handbook Instagram: @rohdesign Twitter: @rohdesign Quotes [11:54] The more important skill in Sketchnoting is actually listening and analysis. So the ability to listen and to make sense of what's being said, and to then be able to draw it is really key. If you have scribbly, scratchy drawings and writing but you're able to listen and make sense of something and capture it, that's going to be much more valuable than a beautiful Sketchnote that doesn't represent what you were learning or what you heard. [24:12] Ultimately, it wasn't about the money...I've been through enough projects where I wasn't in control of things to know that when you turn it over to someone else, they just don't have your vision or your persnickety-ness to make things exactly the way you want it.  [30:38] Here's some wisdom for people who are thinking about book writing and creation. It's definitely worthwhile when you're done. But it's definitely a journey when you're going through it. And that's okay, I think it's good to have those lifetime experiences where you can't do it in a weekend, you've got to do it over months. [41:51] Seth Godin always talks about if the idea is good, you're probably not going to be able to stop it...I just look back at these certain pivot points where it hit a point and accelerated, and it just continues to do that. And now, there's tons of people doing it and teaching it and sharing it. And I really like that. I love having lots of voices in the space. I think it just verifies that it's a real thing. And it's definitely a benefit to people who adopt it. Podcast Transcript Mike Rohde 0:02 It's really funny that all that stuff happened in the first that first 2007 I think that the first 2007 was where I realized, it feels like I should call it sketchnoting. Before that, it's funny like, up to that point it was like the pro name for it was sketch tunes like I was, it was sort of like was cartoons and sketching. But when I did this event, it was a little less like cartoons and just more like sketching and noting and that word just came to me. So it was right at that event, when I just really started calling it sketchnoting. And for whatever reason that name seemed to make sense to a lot of people and they liked it. Marc Gutman 0:39 Podcasting from Boulder, Colorado, this is the Baby Got Backstory Podcast, where we dive into the story behind the story of today's most inspiring storytellers, creators and entrepreneurs. I like big back stories and I cannot lie. I am your host, Marc Gutman, Marc Gutman, and on today's episode of Baby got backstory, we are talking to someone who has impacted my life in ways that very few have and today we are talking with Mike Rohde, the author, and I guess you can say inventor of Sketchnotes, the unique method of taking notes visually. And before we get into my conversation with Mike, if you'd like and enjoy the show, please take a minute or two to rate and review us over at Apple podcasts or Spotify. And Apple and Spotify use these ratings as part of the algorithm that determines ratings on their charts. Better yet, please recommend this show to at least one friend you think will like it. Hey, while you're at it, one enemy who like it as well. It's time we bring the world together over the common love of the Baby Got Backstory podcast. Today's guest is Mike Rohde. Mike is a designer and the author of two best selling books, the sketchnote Handbook, and the Sketchnote workbook. He teaches in evangelizes sketchnoting. in Visual Thinking literacy around the world, he's a principal designer in visualizer. at Johnson Controls, his team helps group and define problems and imagine new solutions using Human Centered Design Thinking principles. Mike illustrated the best selling books rework, remote, the hundred dollar startup in the little book of talent. And as I mentioned, Mike's book changed my life. I'm not I'm not joking here. I believe it was Brent Weaver, who suggested the book to me in passing. And it wasn't supposed to be life changing. Just a little recommendation from a friend, or something he had heard of, or briefly seen. Hey, you should check out this book, about sketchnoting. I think that's what it's called, is what he told me that when I opened up the book, it was as if Mike was speaking directly to me, to the way I saw the world, to the way I learned to the way I listened at events. But I had self doubts. I didn't, and still don't see myself as an artist. My drawings are rough and crude. But Mike's book told me I could do it. If I followed his teachings, if I followed his steps. And you know what? He was right. And a whole new world opened up for me, my aperture expanded and I was able to communicate in a way that was authentic to me in a way that was beneficial to me and appreciated by others. Today, I get stopped by others who crane their necks to see my notes. I've shared my notes that the requests of others and classmates and people at conferences. And most importantly, it has helped my memory of key ideas and events in a way that handwriting just can't. Oh, and by the way, I have the world's worst handwriting. Several times a day, I lose an idea or a to do item on my list because I can't read my own handwriting. Drawing and big type in pictures was designed for me. Recently, my good friend Keith Roberts and I were interviewing one another, and he asked me about Sketchnotes. And we published that interview to YouTube. And you might imagine my surprise when on a Saturday morning while drinking coffee, Mike Rohde emailed me saying he liked our video that started an email conversation back and forth. And here we are. I'm so excited to introduce you to Mike Rohde, and this is his story. I am here with Mike Rohde, the author of the sketchnote handbook in the follow up the Sketchnote work. book. And as I told Mike, when we when we just met on zoom here a couple minutes ago, it is a real honor because Mike is a personal hero of mine. I'm a big fan of sketchnoting. I did a little YouTube video about it and via the power of the search engines and crawling algorithms that found its way to Mike and Mike reached out and said, I was really cool that you like my sketchnoting? And I said, Yeah, that's really cool. You liked my video about your sketchnoting? Yes, no. And so here we are. And so Mike, let's get right to it. Like what is Sketchnoting? Mike Rohde 5:39 So Sketchnoting is this way of capturing information visually. So it's note taking, but you're not limited to only writing, you can write, and you can draw pictures, and you can do lettering and use icons and color to express yourself in a way that's more expressive. And I think, provides more ability to remember and recall information than simply writing in text. Marc Gutman 6:05 Yeah, I would agree that's one of the things that I love most about it is the ability to recall I mean, I'll be flipping through old notebooks. And I'll see like something funny that I, I drew that was it was meaningful to me, like, Yes, I completely remember what that was about, and what we talked about in the takeaway, versus if I'm thumbing through and I see a bunch of text and, you know, it just doesn't resonate in the same way. So that that memory recall, is one of the the biggest things I love about it. And, you know, I think one of the first questions most people probably have is, you know, do I have to be an artist? Do I have to be have this immense talent to be into Sketchnoting? Mike Rohde 6:39 That's a really great question. And when I used to present in person, I haven't presented so much in person lately. One of the first questions I would ask in one of my workshops, whether they were an hour or a full day, is who here feels like they can't try, please raise your hand, and usually 80 or 90% of the room would raise their hands. And I would get excited about that. Because having done the workshop hundreds of times now, I know that by the end of at least an hour, people will feel more confident in their ability to draw in the key to it is exactly what you pointed out, people are concerned that this is art. And if I'm not a good artist, I can't do it. And so it's really fun to show them another way. Another way to, to visualize it doesn't necessarily rely on the art that they may have been taught in school, which in a lot for a lot of people is baggage, it's more harmful than helpful to getting started. So one of my mantras is ideas, not art. And it's not, it sounds very provocative to an artist. I'm an artist as well. And I don't feel that way at all. I think what it what it means to me. And the reason I use that term, is the idea that people get so hung up on their ability to draw, being a stumbling block, that I needed to take that stumbling block away from them, I needed to provide them a simpler way to visualize what they were thinking that would not be so demanding, and so difficult for them to do, right. And especially in an environment where you're doing this live while thing people are talking and being able to draw, making it simple, is a really, really big key to getting people to do this, because you can you know, most people who come to the classes already can write. So I mean, unless you're teaching, you know, second graders or something like that, that the challenge is just be writing, right? Maybe actually, the second grader could draw better than they could write. But for most people, they can already do notes as it is right. They can write things, but they are really afraid of drawing. In fact, I kind of wonder if the fear of drawing is actually stronger than the fear of public speaking in some ways. And the reason I say that is, as you think about it, let's say you're a really successful business person, maybe a CEO, or a high powered executive, and you're supposed to go and draw something. But if you can, if you can't draw any better than a fourth grader, that's not going to be your best side, you don't want to reveal your weakness, right? So it can be really scary for someone who feels like that's a weakness in their life, to admit it to someone else. So I think it's really important to in these workshops, and also individually to create some kind of a safe space where it's okay to not be graded, trying and again, so it comes back to the simple way of drawing that makes it possible for non artists to do this work. And to see that they've actually got tons more capabilities than they probably realized when they walked in the room. Marc Gutman 9:32 Yeah, I totally agree. And you talk a bit about writing in this in this idea of writing and how we all know how to write but, you know, to me, there's this mythology that artists are born they come out of their mother and they are just talented. And when you were speaking it reminded me that well, yes, well, we all can write it's a learned skill and we don't come out as babies with the ability to to make characters and we actually spend quite a bit of time practicing, and we have, you know, in our class, we have dotted paper and all these things to make the most basic characters. And what I really like about Sketchnoting is this same idea that it's something that you can learn, and you can build up your own alphabet, so to speak, you can build up your own library of things that you can draw on, it really is more about being suggestive. And I think, you know, what I really love. And I don't remember which book it is. But there's, there's a variety of ways of even doing like human figures, like I'm like terrible human figures, but you can do stick figures with pointy noses. And just by the way that you can't the line or have an arm movement, you can suggest motion and all sorts of things. So really taking that away and using Sketchnoting more as a communication device and something that people can learn. And so that, you know, that's something that is that I've taken away from your books that, you know, with a little bit of practice, like you can build up your own library and get pretty, pretty good, at least for your own skill level of wherever you want to be. Mike Rohde 11:01 Yeah, I mean, it comes back to is it helping you be better be a better person, right? is it helping you? If you go to a conference and you want to learn something? is it helping you remembers and helping you process and helping you learn better, like, I could care less? If it looks awesome, right? That's not the point of it. In fact, you don't even have to show it to me, you can keep it private. If that's what you feel like, I think that's sort of a misnomer was Sketchnotes that seems to travel with it as well. If you Sketchnote, then you have to publish it on social media and the show everybody in the world, your work? Well, you can but I don't think it's required, it's first for you, and then for other people. Mike Rohde 11:37 So it's going to have more meaning for you, because you're the one that did it. And all those little short hands that you're doing, as you're creating the Sketchnotes mean a lot more to you, especially since you were there in the moment when it was happening, right, it's gonna bring back memories that nobody else has got in their heads. So I think actually, the more important skill in Sketchnoting is actually listening, and analysis. So the ability to listen and to make sense of what's being said, and to then be able to draw it is really key. So if you have, you know, scribbly, scratchy drawings and writing and stuff, but you're able to listen and make sense of something and capture it, that's going to be much more valuable than a beautiful Sketchnote that, you know, is doesn't represent what what you were learning or what you heard. So I do think listening is kind of like the secret weapon that a lot of people overlook, for drawing really well. And I think, you know, drawing is sort of a part of it. But it's almost like a whole body experience of listening and drawing and involves every part of your body, which is another good reason to do it, because it's really fully engaging in a lot of ways. Marc Gutman 12:45 And so you're in Wisconsin now, is that where you grew up? Mike Rohde 12:49 I grew up in the Chicago area, actually, as a kid, and moved here. When I was in my teens, and had been here for quite a while, raised a family here really liked this area. I always felt good. Being a Midwesterner, I like the seasons. So it's been a really good fit for me and my family. And I like I like being here. Like, kind of like being from Milwaukee, there's, it's kind of a cool little town that sometimes people don't always think about when they come here, like this is a really cool city. How did I not know about this city? So it's kind of fun to sort of know my way around and know the cool places to take people. And it's kind of fun. It's it's good to be from the Midwest, and in the Midwest, I guess. Marc Gutman 13:28 Yeah, I can attest I last time I was in Milwaukee was I think, during the polar vortex, like two years ago, and I couldn't really go outside very much. But it was it was really great and really cool seeing there. And I can't remember the name of it. But I went to this really cool kind of indie movie theater. And I see that you're in the movies there with your background with Blade Runner and Star Wars Back to the Future. And, and that's a big love of mine to see I really, really loved that. And Wisconsin. And so when you were growing up in Chicago, and then into Milwaukee, I mean, were you always kind of doodling Were you always thinking in images? Mike Rohde 14:02 I think I was when I look back as a kid. You know, we we were I guess, lower middle class. I don't know. I don't think that can be judged a lot of different ways. But we did have like tons of money. If I asked for stuff like maybe I'd get it for Christmas, or maybe my birthday. I didn't have lots of toys. We had used bikes that my dad would get from a cousin fix it up. And my dad was good at fixing things. So typically, we would get things that were repurposed, which I kind of appreciate now, and so if I wanted something, I would sort of have to create it. So I got into making my own comic books and I made a little newspapers and books and you know, I did drawing a lot because it was kind of fun. I think a lot of it. I was seeing things and the way I saw things is a little bit unusual for a kid. Mike Rohde 14:49 So I remember, as a little kid, my parents told me that I basically memorize the front's of old cars and I saw the faces In the cars, so the headlights and the grills how had faces to me. So you could be driving down a road and I was Oh, that's a Buick. And then as I got older, that's all the saber, or you know, like I could identify the differences between these cars by the identifying grills or tail lights or other, you know, the lines of the vehicles. And I think that actually encouraged me to draw those. So I could draw them from memory. And I can still do some dumb practices like I did when I was a little kid. But you know, that the ability to memorize and sort of turn cars into objects, I think, sort of primed me in some ways for this idea of doing the visual library that you talk about, like, how can you break down these complex things into simple, simple shapes or simple objects that you could recreate, and you have the essence of the thing, even though it's like, you know, 10 lines, you can capture the essence of a Pontiac lesabre. Right. So that that also came into play. Later, when I was in college, I was a print major and became a graphic design major, one of the things I loved was type graphy. And that was another thing that I could memorize the letter form. So certain letter forms go with certain typefaces, and you could spot a typeface. And all you really need to know is like three or four of the key letter forms. And if you see it in a sentence, you can spot Oh, that skill sands, or that's whatever, right because of specific characteristics. So I think it's the same kind of thing. It's like identifying and boiling things down, and then being able to rely on that memory. I think that's helped me now in doing that kind of that same kind of work. And drawing was always sort of part of my life. And it just never, they never were, no one was able to ever shake it out of me. So I guess I'm lucky in that way that I got to draw since I was a little kid. And it really never stopped. Until now, even in my professional life, I found a way to kind of squeeze it in. Or sometimes they say it leaks out of me whether I like it or not. So that's been a real, I'm really fortunate that that's true for me. Marc Gutman 16:58 Yeah. And that was gonna be my question. So your your parents cool with you pursuing a career in art? Did they see that as a way that you were going to be able to, to make a living, I am sure for, you know, the way you just described it, that middle to lower middle class that like, hey, they probably were like, Hey, we just, we just wanna make sure Mike is okay, you know, he makes a living. And he can make a buck where they were they cool with the art path? Mike Rohde 17:21 Well, my mom is always actually very artistic. And my dad was very good at troubleshooting. So I took on both of those aspects from them. So the funny thing about me is I always had sort of a technical side and an artistic side. So I had both those. I think my dad was probably more concerned. And I'm sort of facing this now, because I've got a son who's just turned 18. So we're kind of wondering, like, what's he going to do right now I'm in the same spot as my dad was. But I think he just didn't understand like, what was an option, then, like, he didn't know understand what graphic design or commercial art was, in our school or high school, I happened to have a really good printing program, at the time, where you could learn printing in the school, do all this work, and then you'd get an apprenticeship and get a job in industry and just transition and be a full time could make pretty good money as a printer back in the day. Mike Rohde 18:10 But as it would, as luck would have it, it was right around the time of a kind of a recession. And so the jobs that normally would have been wide open for a kid like me coming out of high school, with those skills suddenly dried up. And so I went to a Technical College, again, in printing. And in my printing class. There, we did lots of cross training. So I ended up in these design classes with designers in the commercial art or graphic design program. And so I ended up in these design classes, and they're like, what are you doing in printing, you should be a designer. And so I sort of thought, you know, that's, that's a pretty good idea. I'm pretty good at this. And I do like the technical side of the printing. So I switched majors and became a print designer to start my career. And I think I always had the advantage of, you know, I mentioned I was always had a technical and an artistic side. Having come from that printing side, I understood that the reason why printing worked and what the limits were. So when I did my design work, I sort of always had that in the back of my head, and I could go to a press check with a printer, and I could have a discussion with them about ideas for making things print better, or, you know, my stuff would tend to print pretty well because I knew what I should and shouldn't do because I was a printing student. So that's sort of where I made my shift into design and my dad's ended up being very happy with my career choice, but I think a lot of it is he just didn't understand at the time that there was actually a way to do art and be paid for it. He just thought of the starving artists eating ramen noodles in a studio apartment right and then starving their way through life or something. So, you know, he did his best and you know, he ultimately had to trust your kids to make good decisions and that the the train that you gave them up till they were 18 would rub off on him a little bit and then Seems like it did. Marc Gutman 20:02 Yeah. And so your dad, you know, had the wherewithal to step back and let you be your own man. But like, what were you thinking? Were you super confident coming out of school that like you were gonna conquer the world with your art degree? Or was there? Are you uncertain? Or like how clear were you coming out of like, if this was gonna work or not? Mike Rohde 20:20 Well, I was pretty hard, I was pretty hardcore for printing, like, I was pretty good at that I had an artistic eye for it. And I was good at the technical stuff. And I understood the concepts and knew how to apply them. And, you know, there was a little bit of an at the time, because it was still pre computer, when I was coming out, there was a little bit of artistic flair to printing at the time, right? Because you did things made most things you did manually. So there was some human aspect to it, that you could, you could be kind of almost artistic in this in this profession. And I was pretty good at it, I was pretty dedicated to going into that. And then, like I said, the economy sort of changed the direction. And I'm glad it did, because, you know, it sent me back to college, because otherwise I might have just gone right into that business and would have been a printer. And so, you know, it sort of made me pause a little bit and rethink, there was a time for, I think, for a summer that I was into photography as well. Mike Rohde 21:18 So I've always had an interest in these, I guess, communications or visual arts, in general. So all those things are still interesting to me doing photography, I by no means a professional photographer, but you know, I like to, I like taking good shots, I like good lighting, like all those things sort of informed all the work that I do now. So I tend to be, I guess, you know, I would call myself a renaissance man. But I like a lot of different things. I like to have competence in different areas. So having those skills is definitely worked out. Well, for me being able to do as a solo person, or partnering with just one or one other person, like in the case of the Kickstarter, you know, shooting, shooting photos, and doing illustrations, and, you know, all that kind of stuff, all those skills have come become very valuable. Now, as I'm doing this, you know, teaching and product work. And even the books that I wrote, all that printing skill that I had sort of forgotten for a long time came in handy because when peachpit, the publisher came to me, they said, Hey, can we give you like $5,000? And have you design your own book? That's like, Yeah, sure. So I took it all the way from writing the text, and sketching and doing the illustrations to production. So I'm quite an unusual author in that sense that I actually turned over my production files to the printer, and they ran the book, based on my production work. So that's, um, that was a really nice thing to have control from end to end over the whole product. But what were both of the books. So you know, at the time, it's sort of like, you know, the Steve Jobs, quote, you can't see how things how the dots line up until you look back. And that was definitely one of those cases like going into it. He told me when I was a printing student, that one day, I would write this book about visual notetaking. And I would design the book, and it would be a best seller. And I've traveled the world teaching it like, you got to be crazy, like, you would never believe that. But here we are. Looking back and all those experiences. And all that knowledge that I gained over time, really did help me in doing the things that I'm doing now. Marc Gutman 23:23 Yeah, and just for those of you listening, since we are on an auditory medium versus visual, like if you you know, I do want to point out like the complexity of your book, this is not like, you know, I think I think you know, today you can go you can do an E file, you can send it to Amazon, you can get a little cover art, and they'll turn out a book that looks amazing. That looks like it was you know, that's the real deal. But your book is a very visual artistic book, every page is hand lettered, every page is hand drawn to some degree. And so that that's no like insignificant fact that you put in our work. Yeah, he put this book together. I was like, $5,000, like, they got a good deal for that! Mike Rohde 24:04 Yeah, it wasn't like, you know, I took that opportunity as well. I can make money doing it. But I have control that was really, ultimately it wasn't about the money. It was about the ability to make sure so I I've been through enough projects where I wasn't in control of things, to know that when you turn it over to someone else, they just don't have your vision and or your persnickety ness to make things exactly the way you want it. Right, and maybe that's being a perfectionist, but, you know, I I've heard stories of other authors who are also designers who gave up that right someone else. And they were really, really frustrated, like they would spit covers and they would get all turned around. And I just had a really great working relationship with my editor and all the people on that team that they trusted me and I trusted them and we just really worked together well, and it's, it worked out really well. And it's interesting, you mentioned that the book being hand lettered. Mike Rohde 24:58 Actually, one of the things that I I realized as a print production designer was, I do not want to hand write this whole book, because there's going to be too many typos that I'm going to make. So I actually reached out to a friend and said, Hey, do you know somebody who does typeface work? And he's Yeah, sure, this guy named Dell wetherington. Does that work? So I reached out, and he was willing to make a typeface out of my handwriting. So we did several different fonts. And that's what we use to produce the book. So it made it like almost like typesetting like you would use Microsoft Word or something. And then in the end, we had turned that into a product now you can actually buy that typeface for your own projects called the Sketchnote typeface. So, you know, this thing that we did for the book purpose ended up being, you know, an asset later that people use it. In fact, three weeks ago, I saw an ad in a Costco. flyer in my email was using my typeface. So it's, it's pretty crazy how you think it's a one time thing, and it can often have greater impacts. And maybe you imagined in the first place. Marc Gutman 25:59 Yeah, I mean, that's going to be quite the feeling when you see your own typeface and the Costco flyer, and you tell Dell, if he's ever looking for a model of a typeface that's legible. I would be happy to to be you could use my handwriting. You This is like, but it makes me feel a lot better that that was typeset versus, versus hand drawn. Mike Rohde 26:18 Most of it Marc Gutman 26:19 Yeah, yeah. Mike Rohde 26:19 Some of it, Some of it was handwritten, like some of the, in the sketches, Sketchnotes, do have people's actual handwriting. But I mean, the body of the text was my, my typeface, which, you know, Delve was pretty sneaky. He found out there's a feature in this interfaces you can do called contextual alternates, and some, some software like our page layout software, will use it. And what it does is you can have like 10 different A's and 10 different E's and 10 different ages, and it will randomly rotate through them to make the make the typeface look more random. So especially important for a handwritten style typeface to you know, not like not the same as over and over again, it would actually rotate through I think he, I think he kept it at like four is four characters for each letter that can potentially spin in there randomly. So it gives it a little bit more of a random feel to it, which I thought was kind of a neat little nuance that nobody but me and delve and now your listeners will know about. Marc Gutman 27:19 No, I think that's fascinating. I never knew that that was possible. And just like the or even, you know, just technology, like there's such a custom aspect to it yet. It's it's really brought to us via technology. It's incredible to me. So you mentioned this a little bit. But, you know, what's what's challenging about writing a book like this or writing a book in general? Like, what don't we know? Mike Rohde 27:43 Well, I would say this, if you're thinking about writing a book, I encourage you to do it, because I think I never thought I would write a book. And here I am an author of two books. So I think there is definitely there are definitely books in people. So I would encourage you to do it. Mike Rohde 27:56 But I would also go into suggest you go into it clear, I didn't know that writing a book is a huge undertaking. It's like walking the Appalachian Trail or climbing a mountain. And I say that in the sense that the thing that I learned about writing the first and then the second book was if you're used to pulling all nighters and doing projects, forget it, it doesn't work that way. I, I kind of grew up in the design business where you could like pull all nighters and do like an annual report in a weekend or, you know, stuff like that, you could pull it off, right? You cannot do that with a book, it just doesn't, it won't accept that option. You can do an all, you know, you can spend all weekend and write something, but it's going to be a long haul. So basically know that it's going to be a long haul and sort of plan accordingly. What I found really valuable for me was having a team that would sort of keep me on track and make sure that I was doing the things that I was doing. So editors, editors are hugely important. If you think you can get away without an editor and you're writing a book, then you're fooling yourself. You need editors, both copy editors to make sure you're not saying dumb things to you know, other other editors who make sure that your concepts makes sense and hold up and challenge you and say, Do you really believe that? Is that really true? Like those kind of things, they're going to make your work better? Like it's a pain in the moment, but it's better in the long run. So I think a good team is really important if you're going to write a book, even if you have to assemble it yourself. And then I would say the probably the last thing is, well, I'll say two more things. The next thing is you have to know that in a long haul project like this, it's all about progress. It's not about achieving it. Like I said, you can't pull the weekender and knock out a book, I guess you could but it might be a bad book. But it's gonna take lots of revisions and lots of grinding. You just have to be like, happy with progress, like, Hey, I made progress today. You know, even if it's writing a page or whatever it might be like look at the progress. And know that if you continue along that path that's going to build up into a whole book. And I would say the last thing is, when you write a book and you're done with the book, you're only have done because the other half is promotion. And often that's actually harder than writing the book. So, you know, know that promoting is going to be a ton of work. And that it, it requires a lot of effort to do that as well. And, you know, something I learned in that space was don't do everything, all the ones like so don't have all your podcasts launched on the first day, like spread them out. So they sprinkled through the, you know, a month or something. So it seems like you're everywhere for a month, right? That's gonna be probably your, your best option to get people's attention, you know, repeated repeated action, in their mind is sort of what where it's at. So there's some wisdom for people who are thinking about book, writing and creation. It's definitely worthwhile when you're done. But it's definitely a journey when you're going through it. And if that's okay, I think it's good to have those lifetime experiences where it's, you can't do it in weekend, you can do it over months. Marc Gutman 30:56 Yeah, and so much more to a book than just as you mentioned, writing it, you know, there's the promoting and thinking about what you're going to do. That's, that's great advice. And thank you so much for sharing that. This episode brought to you by Wildstory. Wait, isn't that your company? It is. And without the generous support of Wildstory, this show would not be possible. A brand isn't a logo or a tagline, or even your product or a brand is a person's gut feeling about a product service or company. It's what people say about you, when you're not in the room. Wildstory helps progressive founders and savvy marketers build purpose driven brands that connect their business goals with the customers they want to serve. So that both the business and the customer needs are met. This results in crazy, happy, loyal customers that purchase again and again. And this is great for business. If that sounds like something you and your team might want to learn more about, reach out @ www.wildstory.com. And we'd be happy to tell you more. Now back to our show. I'd like you to take a moment and think back and do you have a clear recollection of like when this thing sketchnoting was born? When you look down in your notebook? And you're like, I've got a Sketchnote! Mike Rohde 32:28 I actually do. And it's the funny thing is is like it actually started earlier than I realized, but I just didn't know what it was. And that that actually tracks with so many people that I've met that said, oh, I've been doing sketchnoting for so long. And I just never knew what to call it, which is a great feeling. Right? I was sort of the lucky one that got to name it and the name that stuck. But I do remember that actually, the first sketchnote that I call a Sketchnote is one I did in early 2007. Mike Rohde 32:53 That's really where I think it started, where I intentionally went to a conference in Chicago, from Milwaukee on the train design conference, with a different mindset around note taking up into that point, for probably three, four years, I'd somehow gotten myself to a place where I wrote like everything down and I use the pencil so I could race mistakes. And I had a giant notebook. Like and it was a huge burden I hate I was really good at it. And I hated it. It was the worst. And so early in 2007, I found that I can't take it anymore. I got to do something else. And as a designer, I'm always faced with constraints and restrictions. You know, you can only have this many colors, you got to use that typeface. You got to use my ugly logo, all those kind of things are always in my life, right? So I thought, well, what if I put a if I put some constraints on myself, what would happen if I did that? So I thought, let's now that you know, it's time I didn't think about it. But I kind of did it. George Costanza, remember that episode of George Costanza decides to do everything opposite of what he normally does. And then he like, starts dating a beautiful woman and gets the job of his dreams. You know, all these good things are happening because he's doing the opposite. It felt kind of like that, where I said, Okay, I'd normally carry a big book, what if I carry a pocket book? I usually use a pencil. What if I use a gel pen. So those are sort of my first two decisions. I sort of boxed myself in. On the train. All I had with me was a pocket moleskin that I bought, I don't know, a month before and didn't know what to do that because it was too beautiful. I finally had a purpose for the thing. And then I had these jeetu gel pens if that. Okay, I'm just going to take these two things. I'm going to show up at this conference and see what comes out because I really wasn't sure. And once I sat down, the interesting side effect of these two limitations was I was faced with the fact that I couldn't write everything down that I normally did. And that when I did write stuff down, it couldn't I couldn't erase it because it was ink. So it's sort of put my put my mindset in a different place. My mindset now shifted to I need to really be thinking about what's being said right now. I can't, I can't just write everything down and maybe describe Ever later, I got to think about it. Now I got to really listen closely, I have to really analyze what they're saying, decide if it's worth me putting on the page, because I'm using a pen, and then put it down. And from my perspective, I suddenly had tons of free time, because before I was just writing, writing, writing, writing, I never had time to think twice. So suddenly, for me, I had all this free time to do like, the lettering that I loved, and drawing images that were popping up in my head or sketching something from one of the slides. And I, I really loved it, I got to the end of that day, and I just felt like this is the this is the solution. I have to keep doing this. And I kept looking for opportunities to go to conferences and kept trying it. And that was really that conference in 2007 was really where I think sketchnoting was born for me, intent that, you know, with intention. And when I look back to my college years, when I was in that, remember I said I switched from printing to design. I happened to dig up my old notebooks from those years of after sketchnoting and sort of taken off and said, holy cow, I was doing sketchnoting I was doing this exact same thing in my classes. I was trying. And I was writing and I was doing lettering, and I'm like, how did I forget that? What what happened to me over these last couple years. And I think looking back now I sort of realized that the technology side of me sort of took over I got into palm pilots and powerbook duo's and I you know, I started typing everything. And you know that I just sort of shifted my mind to a different place. So when I went back to analog and books, I just kept following the assumption that I had a keyboard in my hands, and I could write everything instead of really realizing that, you know, that thing I did in college is actually really effective for remembering and studying from. And I ended up not realizing that I would stumble back into what I actually had been doing before. So I didn't call it sketchnoting back then. But it really, when I look back at it, it is what I was doing. So I think I was probably doing it all through college and probably back into high school to some degree in some form or another but never really intentionally, like as a thing like I would call 2007, where I really put all the pieces together and realize, hey, this really works. And I was aware of it. Before I sort of just did it naturally. And accidentally here is where I really did it with intentionality. Marc Gutman 37:20 Yeah. And so if you weren't calling it sketchnoting, at that time, when did you have a name for it? Or were you just like, Hey, this is just the way I do it. Mike Rohde 37:27 That was just the way I did it. I didn't have a name for it. It's kind of funny. Marc Gutman 37:31 And then so you're, you're Mike, you're doing your thing, you are taking notes in your own visual way. And like most great things I have to imagine, I mean, you're doing it for you. I mean, you're not probably thinking, Hey, this is a speaking tour. This is a this is a book like when does it become a thing? Like when do you start to get? Where does it start to become like a real part of your life? Both? I guess it's already become a part of your life from a conference standpoint, but like professionally, like what all of a sudden, do you become like the Sketchnote guy? Mike Rohde 38:03 Well, there's sort of a couple of points along the way. So this is early 2007, when this first thing happened. And I kept on wanting to try it. So I think it was in the summer or the spring or late spring, early summer. And the guys who are on Basecamp. Now that used to be called 37 signals, they decided to do a conference at their at a space that they had access to for like 150 people. And so I said, I'd really like these guys. And I said I'm going to go do this conference. And this would be a good chance to test out this note thing, the sketchnoting thing that I'm playing with and see how it works in this kind of setting. Right. So I went to that event and I did that event and Jim Kou doll who's friends with the base camp, guys. They're also Chicago firm. They're like an ad firm. They do. They're the guys behind the field notes. If you know what field notes are. Marc Gutman 38:49 Yeah, my friend Aaron draplin, who's been on the show has also partnered— Mike Rohde 38:52 Yeah, partnered up with those guys. So they could all partners found my Sketchnotes on Flickr somehow. And they put it on their blog, and then 37 signals whose Basecamp they put it on theirs. And that's that was a really big bump in like awareness, people started being aware of it. And I kept doing it and doing it. And I went to South by Southwest that following spring, I think 2008 and did it and I published it again, at the time I was publishing on Flickr and I use Creative Commons, I intentionally use Creative Commons because at the time, it was pretty popular. And the thing that I liked about it was I retained all my rights to the work. But I could build in usage rights right into the licensing. And what that meant at the time was bloggers, if they found the images compelling. Mike Rohde 39:40 They could just use an embed code and stick it right in their blog, and they wouldn't have to ask me for any permission because I'd already pre given it to them. So that was really important in spreading the concept and that that got back to the South by Southwest leadership. So the next year they said Hey, Mike, if we give you a pass this off by Will you come in sketchnote officially, like spend the whole week and just capture the experience of being here. Like, yeah, sure. So that was my next event. So that was a really important one. Because that's South by Southwest in 2009. I wanted to see like, could I handle this for a whole week, and what would get tired first, my brain or my hands. And it turned out, my brain actually got more tired than my physical body did, just from all the thinking and analyzing, but it was a blast, I really loved it. And that, so that was a really important point, because then that sort of spread it even further. And then it was around 2011, or something like that is when the book stuff happened. in between there, there was a point where I created Sketchnote army, and that was basically this desire to share other people's work, I had been sharing and pumping my own work. And I just felt like, it's not so much fun to be doing this alone. I mean, I started seeing other people doing and it seemed like there's a movement, and maybe I should be the one to capture this in one place. Because it was really hard at the time, around 2008 2009. To find this stuff. You just had to scrounge everywhere. I thought, well, what if what would happen if I invited people to submit their stuff, and we just put it on our website, then you just go to one place, and you could see the stuff. So that was an important moment in 2009. And shortly after that, the book deal came out. And in between there, you know, I did illustration work for the guys that Basecamp for rework, and then later remote. So that was those are also, you know, points that sort of brought awareness to that work, right. So they I think they all sort of added up over time, and it just kept building. And once I wrote the book, you think after doing all that work on the book, and there's a video that we did, that suddenly would take off, and I think it did pretty well. But, you know, nobody knew who I was, other than maybe they saw a book. So it took a little while for it to kick in. But it just kept on growing and growing. I think the idea was that Seth Godin always talks about if the idea is good, you're probably not going to be able to stop it. And I think that's sort of what what happened, right? I sort of solved the problem in my own life, which was I hated taking notes in this old, dreary way. And I found a way that made sense to me. And I figured, well, it solved the problem for me, there's probably a few other people out there that it could help. And it turned out there were a lot of few other people out there, right. So I think that's why it just kept on growing and growing. And I just look back at these certain pivot points where it almost like, you know, hit a point and accelerated, and it just continues to do that. And now, there's tons of people doing it and teaching it and sharing it. And I really like that I love having lots of voices in the space, I think it just verifies that it's a real thing. And it's definitely a benefit to people who adopt it. And it makes you know, being in a community is way more fun than being all alone. So there's lots of benefits to the way that it's worked out over these many years. Marc Gutman 42:48 Yeah, and yeah, and I can even my own experience, it's like, I've been a part of some long term education classes and things like that. And there's just something magical about the Sketchnotes, right, like, people see me doing it, and they're drawn to it. Like, I think everyone wants to do it as well. Like, it's like this universal way of, of communicating. That's just so incredible. And so, when did you coin it? Sketchnoting? What, like, when did you be like, when were you like, this is the name? Mike Rohde 43:16 I think, actually. So it's really funny that all that stuff happened in the first that first 2007 I think the first 2007 was where I realized, it feels like I should call it Sketchnoting. Before that, it's funny, like, up to that point, I was it was like the promo name for it was sketch tunes, like I was it was sort of like was cartoons and sketching. But when I did this event, it was a little less like cartoons and just more like sketching and noting and that word just came to me. So it was right after right at that event, when I just really started calling it Sketchnoting. And I don't know, for whatever reason, that name seemed to make sense to a lot of people and they liked it even over the more established names that existed before like graphic recording, which is kind of a different thing. or visual notetaking like, you know, Sketchnoting just has a little bit more of a branding ring to it, I guess, you know, it's less clunky and it's descriptive and it's concise and it just seems to work so that's that's sort of when it popped up was right at about that same time as the first Sketchnotes kind of appeared in my head. I had a name for them, so I guess it was destined to be. Marc Gutman 44:25 Destined to be, and so is Sketchnoting now your your full time gig, is that what you do for a living? Mike Rohde 44:32 It isn't actually it's something I do on the side. I do pretty steadily on the side. It's kind of my side, my side gig. I primarily I work as a principal designer, doing user experience and service design for large organization. I really like it I like working in a team I like I still have a real love for design in general service design, specifically solving you know the company work for isn't a big industrial company. Mike Rohde 45:01 So there's all kinds of opportunities to apply these ideas. And, you know, visualization opportunities like crazy, because so much stuff is just bad PowerPoint. So the opportunity to do illustrations and Sketchnote and even, you know, doing using my design skills in that space is really, really powerful. And I see lots of upside and opportunity. So a lot of why stay there. And you know, I've got a family as well. So it's good steady work, and it allows me to do this stuff on the side. And so far, it's worked out pretty well. Marc Gutman 45:33 Yeah, not too bad. Not too bad. And so do you have, you know, I know you're probably not like your children, right? You're probably not supposed to talk about your favorite Sketchnote. But do you have a favorite that you just, you look back and you're like, you know what, that's that's the full expression of Mike. That's, that's, that's it. Mike Rohde 45:52 There's a couple of them. But if I if I was forced to pick one, there's one that's in my Flickr feed, that I still love that still has really fun memories for me. And it's the story behind it is that I was doing a work project in the Oakland area in San Francisco, and we ended up going to shape nice, we couldn't get into the main shape, nice. But we got into the cafe, which is like a smaller venue, we got reservations for myself and to work colleagues. And I happen to have my notebook along. So I pulled my notebook out. And after I would finish a course, I would sketch out what it was and built this whole little two page Sketchnote in my notebook. And it just really has like a captures everything like a captures a moment in time a really great meal. With two good friends. If you look at it, it's not really it's all black and white. So there's no color. Mike Rohde 46:40 Some of the stuff that I drew is not really super detailed. Like it's not a standard illustration. It's not a piece of art, it's more of a, it's a Sketchnote. It's like the purest expression of a Sketchnote for me, and I really, every time I see that I'm like, wow, that that really turned out really good. And it was actually it's kind of old. It's like 2012 it was right around the time. Not too not too long, before I started on book work, so I was really fortunate that I had the opportunity and that one among others. There's some other ones that I really like as well. But that if I was forced to pick one, that would be it. Marc Gutman 47:14 All right, paper or iPad, you know, I was really I got your headshot in for the the press kit. And you're standing with an iPad. And you know, I I don't I'm not surprised I'm actually using an iPad right now. And I think it has Oh, by the way, there you are. But as we're talking I'm drawing Mike but um, yeah, I pad or paper or both? Mike Rohde 47:38 I'm a both person I think of I started think like when the iPad Pro and the pencil came out, that was the moment where the iPad became useful to me as a drawing tool. Like I'd used it before, for reading for like, part of my book, I actually typed in an iPad with the keyboard. So I mean, it had been useful to me. But as a illustration tool, a serious illustration tool when the pencil came out, which I think is 2017 or 18. That's when I picked it up. And I saw the value. And I always think of like, you know, I think there's sort of a desire always to like say, Oh, the iPad is a paper killer. It's like, Why does it have to kill it? Like, why can't I use both? Right? Mike Rohde 48:15 You know, you go and do a professional mechanics toolbox, they're not going to say wrench or hammer. Right there, they need both of them. Because in some cases, you need a wrench. In some cases, you need a hammer, sometimes you need a six point wrench because man that bolt is on their heart, and you've shot it with some penetrating oil, and you're gonna have to wail on that thing. And like a adjustable wrench isn't going to work, right. So even within wrenches, there's specific things right. So I think of like the iPad is sort of one tool, and it depends on what I'm doing. Like if I need to do lots of changes. So like client work, or have to go back and modify things or move things or I want the ability to shift things, that is often the best choice. And then there's other times when I want to use paper when I don't want to be potentially distracted, right? The problem with an iPad is you're like a second away from Twitter or Facebook or who knows what, right so and the battery can run out. I mean, they made the batteries last a long time. But if you forgot to charge it, you know, now all of a sudden, you've got a Karen feeding issue, write up a notebook and a pen, you know, it's probably gonna run the other. The other funny thing I always say is like, you know, you know how many pieces of paper and beautiful pens you could buy for the cost of an iPad, like you have a lifetime supply for what you pay for an iPad. Now, that's not to knock the iPad, it is a valuable tool, but it's always again about what's the right what's the right purpose for the tool. And so I look at it as a spectrum all the way from, you know, paper to an iPad and I choose the thing that makes sense, or that I feel is right and I just like having options, I guess. Marc Gutman 49:50 Yeah, and that makes complete sense. But you know, you're talking about paper and, and pen and we were talking right before we recorded about just you know Kind of this there's something magical about pen and paper, you know. And so it was what's your favorite combination the gf got going right now. And if you're anything like me, it changes like mine has changed. Yeah, over time, you know, but but I kind of come back to the same, the same kind of combo more often than that. Mike Rohde 50:17 Well, the last couple years, I've become an ambassador for this company called Norland, it's a German company that makes markers. For graphic recorders. Graphic recording is basically like sketchnoting. Except graphic recorders typically work at large scale, they typically work in front of the room. So everybody watches them while they doing while they're doing it, they have to be very skilled at listening and trying. And these tools are built for those people. But they realize the value of sketchnoting and they're starting to build more tools for Sketchnoters. So they have a variety of tools that I really like the fine one line, which is designed for sketchnoters in mind, have some really nice tools. Mike Rohde 50:53 The thing I like about New Zealand too, is every one of them now is refillable. So you can buy bottles of ink and refill your pens and just keep reusing them. If your nibs get squishy, because they're felted you can pull the nibs out and put new nibs in so they're in effect. They're like lifetime investments, kind of like the tools I was mentioning, right. So those are really great tools and the the colors and the quality of the pigments are really great. So it's not a hard thing to choose. As far as gel pens go, you're exactly right, I started jumping around. For the last little while I've been really into good old Paper Mate flares like you had in junior high school black paper, mate flair and boxes. And I just you know, as they get too mushy, I just go to the next one. And they just have a really nice, there's something about the feel of it that I really like. So that's another one. And then I'm always like checking the latest gel pens and trying stuff out. The latest one that I really liked is Sharpie of all pens has come out with a gel pen. And the one that I stumbled onto is a 1.0. So if you know your thicknesses of pens, it's really wide pen. But I love it because it just lays down this nice black line, it's really juicy. But because it's gel like dries nearly immediately, so I don't have to worry about smearing it so much. So that's sort of my latest gel pen that I'm into. And then as far as books go, I did a Kickstarter campaign with my friend Mike Ciano last year. And we basically designed a sketch notebook that's ideal for sketchnoting. So it's really thick, hundred 60 GSM kind of a thick, almost cardstock like paper and bright white, and a polymer cover that's really tough, and then guides inside, but the paper inside is really fantastic. So actually really, I really use my own notebooks to do sketchnoting with and then for, you know, if I'm doing bullet journaling, which I do every day, I've been using the leuchtturm brand, a bullet bullet journal or the dot grid books. And then there's also no Island is just released one that's a little bit bigger, that I've been using for a while since they sent me one as an ambassador, and I've been testing it, it's been actually really nice. It's a little bit bigger than a typical five and a half by half sheet so I get a little bit more space. So I've been enjoying that. So those are a couple couple things that I've been using pretty regularly and quite enjoy. Marc Gutman 53:11 Wow, that's awesome. Yeah, I have long been electrum fan. And that's been my go to book but I've actually got one of yours on the way and I'm very excited to to try that. Mike Rohde 53:22 I'd love to hear what you think of the paper and all that stuff as a product and branding guy. Marc Gutman 53:26 Yeah, as well as the Newland pens. Yeah, I was hoping that pink I like to make extra colors pink, you know, I like that a lot. And that didn't have it, but it had smooth. So I got some I got some other stuff that I'm very excited about. And like I were talking about before the show started I could just really geek out and try different pens. I like to you know, my goat my go to that I keep coming back to is actually the the pilot Gtech that has that like kind of scratchy feel, and it's a thinner line but like I have less control as I do because I like I'll crosshatch or that's all fill it in. But like or even in your technique, I'll do multiple lines down. But now I also feel like that's a little bit for me was like a more of a beginner pen less control, I can control the ink and, and I do like playing with Federline pens as well Mike Rohde 54:12 it is interesting how like the pen you use can impact the way you draw. So like a real thick pen will sort of produce a certain kind of a, it almost puts you in I'm in a mind state or something. And if you use a thin pen, it's put you in a different mind state. You wouldn't think so. But I've noticed it's subtle, but it actually is there. And it's it's it also sounds like if you and I went into an Office Max or an Office Depot, we'd be the guys standing at the pens the pen aisle like for an hour like look oh look at that one. Marc Gutman 54:41 Never tire I've got like pen cases for like even like like armful of pens. Yeah, I keep finding like pen cases with like pens that I packed for a trip that like then I like sit down I pick up I'm like oh my gosh, like I've got all these pens like I forgot that I even like packed for a trip just in case you know. So, Mike as we as we come to this Our time here. What's next for sketchnoting? Where do you see this going? We're ready. Hope it goes? Mike Rohde 55:07 Well, I'm really excited about a couple things. So one thing that's really excited and I have a little tiny bit to do with, but actually pretty small is it's moving into education. And the reason it's moving into education is because teachers are like totally crazy for sketchnoting. And they're crazy for it because of a couple things. Because the teachers told me this, that they see their students really embracing it, their students are actually much more engaged when they teach, because they're being given the the right to do doodling in class. Mike Rohde 55:41 Now, of course, it's directed toward the subject, but they get to do drawing and doodling and stuff. So they get engagement. And then the, the other benefit that teachers seem to be really excited about is, when they use sketchnoting. In the classroom, the students actually remember a lot more, right. So it becomes this really great tool that gives them the ability to analyze and process which a teacher wants and then remember more. So when they go to a test, they can actually do better. In fact, I have one friend in the Fresno school district in the science department that does something called sketch booking, which uses the sketching technique in it. And I believe she lets the students like as they learn stuff in science they get, they have to draw it in their sketchbook and it gets graded. And then a test time, I believe they have open book testing

“It’s not what you say yes to, it’s what you say no to, that creates focus. And niching is saying no to everything else.”Brent Weaver is the CEO and Founder of uGurus. a coaching and training program for digital agency owners. We help them attract leads, win deals, delight their clients so they can scale their business.Brent is on a mission to help 10,000 digital agency owners achieve freedom in business and life by helping them own their market.He recently published his first book, Get Rich in the Deep End, which makes agency owners step-by-step through picking a niche and scaling their business. Brent is also a partner and advisor in a white-label WordPress agency, UnlimitedWP, as well as a brand evangelist for Cloudways as one of their Mavericks.If you want to learn more about niching and how it can help you with your next launch, then this episode is for you.We discuss:The power of a listThe importance of building relationships with your listNichingThe DipWhy there should be existing market infrastructureHow long it takes to see a breakthrough in choosing a nicheWant to connect with Brent Weaver?Website: https://ugurus.comEmail: brent@ugurus.com--Are you currently in a launch and feeling stuck? Or about to get into a launch and you're not quite sure what your next move should be?Then why don't you and I hop on a quick 20-minute Launch Chat and see if we can help you move forward. All you have to do is click on this link and find a time that works for you. https://calendly.com/kenwestgaard/20-minute-launch-chatLooking forward to connecting with you!--If you enjoy this episode and it inspired you in some way, I’d love to hear about it and know your biggest takeaway. Take a screenshot of you listening on your device, post it to your Instagram Stories, and tag me @kenwestgaard. Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast to receive notifications of new episodes.Haven’t left a review yet? All you have to do is go to https://kenwestgaard.com/podcast, and thanks for your support of this show.Support the show (http://paypal.me/kenwestgaard)

Recently I’ve been thinking and talking a lot about FOCUS. It’s essential to focus on where you spend your time, how you spend it, and how—just like your closet—your business needs to be periodically decluttered. Like I talked about in the last episode with James Heaton, people are overwhelmed because they have so much to do—and yet most of what they’re doing isn’t moving the needle. Why? Because there’s a lack of focus. Symptoms of unfocused energy can show up your system processes, your day-to-day life, and your product offerings. That’s why it’s so important to stay on top of. When we do too much, we dilute our work and our impact. As you can see, focus (or a lack thereof!) touches everything from the little stuff to the big stuff and is why it’s essential to reign it in so you can create a thriving, badass business. Today, I’m excited to have someone on the show who just wrote a book about focus, author of Get Rich In The Deep End, and seriously badass business owner, Brent Weaver. Many of you probably know Brent because he’s a big name in the branding agency world. He is the founder and CEO of UGurus, a business training and education company, and they are on a mission to help 10,000 digital agency owners achieve freedom in business and life by helping them own their market. Brent’s had a long and successful career building and constantly reinventing his businesses for over 20 years, and I’m excited for him to share what he’s learned. Tune into this episode to hear: How clarity and focus is essential to business growth (and how focusing on less makes your work better) Why solutions to your business problems should be evaluated by where YOU are in business. A strategy to grow a business from $500k to a million isn’t necessarily going to work if you are struggling to pass the $100k mark How mastery is essential to gaining authority in your business and in your niche Why it’s important to get business advice and strategies from people who were in your shoes before Learn more about Brent Weaver: Brent’s Book: Get Rich in the Deep End: Commit to Your Niche, Own Your Market, and Audaciously Scale Your Agency Message Brent on Facebook "I want the Field Guide" on Facebook and he will send you a copy of the Get Rich in the Deep End Field Guide just for being part of the SYBWB audience Ugurus.com Connect with Brent on Facebook Learn more about Pia: Make Six Figures Your Biatch Application LEAP To Badass Authority The Show Your Business Who's Boss Crash Course Start reading the first chapter of my book Piasilva.com  

Recently I’ve been thinking and talking a lot about FOCUS. It’s essential to focus on where you spend your time, how you spend it, and how—just like your closet—your business needs to be periodically decluttered. Like I talked about in the last episode with James Heaton, people are overwhelmed because they have so much to do—and yet most of what they’re doing isn’t moving the needle. Why? Because there’s a lack of focus. Symptoms of unfocused energy can show up your system processes, your day-to-day life, and your product offerings. That’s why it’s so important to stay on top of. When we do too much, we dilute our work and our impact. As you can see, focus (or a lack thereof!) touches everything from the little stuff to the big stuff and is why it’s essential to reign it in so you can create a thriving, badass business. Today, I’m excited to have someone on the show who just wrote a book about focus, author of Get Rich In The Deep End, and seriously badass business owner, Brent Weaver. Many of you probably know Brent because he’s a big name in the branding agency world. He is the founder and CEO of UGurus, a business training and education company, and they are on a mission to help 10,000 digital agency owners achieve freedom in business and life by helping them own their market. Brent’s had a long and successful career building and constantly reinventing his businesses for over 20 years, and I’m excited for him to share what he’s learned. Tune into this episode to hear: How clarity and focus is essential to business growth (and how focusing on less makes your work better) Why solutions to your business problems should be evaluated by where YOU are in business. A strategy to grow a business from $500k to a million isn’t necessarily going to work if you are struggling to pass the $100k mark How mastery is essential to gaining authority in your business and in your niche Why it’s important to get business advice and strategies from people who were in your shoes before Learn more about Brent Weaver: Brent’s Book: Get Rich in the Deep End: Commit to Your Niche, Own Your Market, and Audaciously Scale Your Agency Message Brent on Facebook "I want the Field Guide" on Facebook and he will send you a copy of the Get Rich in the Deep End Field Guide just for being part of the SYBWB audience Ugurus.com Connect with Brent on Facebook Learn more about Pia: Make Six Figures Your Biatch Application LEAP To Badass Authority The Show Your Business Who's Boss Crash Course Start reading the first chapter of my book Piasilva.com  

On the show with me today is Brent Weaver Founder & CEO of UGURUS. From a bank balance of three dollars, Brent grew his digital agency to seven figures a year while managing more than 300 active clients, including Dish, Anheuser-Busch, InBev, and Adobe. In today's conversation, Brent and I talked about the biggest risk facing agency owners today, why focusing on a single niche is so important, and how to do it correctly. We also covered topics that included how to create awareness for your brand, how to identify your target audience and where they hang out online, how to create awareness for your brand with this audience, how to focus on the 3-5 things your audience cares about so they will be attracted to your company, how to establish the authority you need to be seen as an expert, and finally, how to convert these leads into paying customers. If you are an agency or eCommerce brand owner and you are looking for proven strategies to ignite more growth, this episode is for you!

Janelle Allen is a Learning Designer and serial entrepreneur who believes that every company is in the education business. For the past ten years, she's worked with corporations such as Pearson Education, Potbelly Sandwich Works, Starbucks, and Apple to create training and online courses, using principles of adult learning and design.  On this week's episode of the Get Paid Podcast, Janelle joins us to talk about how she pivoted her business to help entrepreneurs create profitable courses that change lives.     QUOTE "You've got to have a reputation of being a truth-teller. So many people think they're going to create a course and achieve their passive income dreams overnight." - Janelle Allen   Resources Mentioned:   Finish Your Damn Course Launch Your List (How to Start an Email List) Fizzle Dubsado Brennan Dunn  Brent Weaver       Connect with Janelle Allen: Website Podcast Twitter Instagram     Free Facebook Ads Masterclass   Today's episode is brought to you by our Free Facebook Ads Masterclass. Five ad formulae that sell online courses on autopilot. People tell me all the time that even thinking about getting started with Facebook and Instagram ads feels incredibly overwhelming, and I don't blame them. It isn't easy! That's why I recorded this masterclass to teach you about just 5 ads that you can use to sell more of your online course group program or mastermind.    Sign up, watch it, and then I want you to just choose one of those five ads to focus on to start, get instant access to the training here.    Now it's time to GET PAID   Thanks for tuning into the Get Paid Podcast! If you enjoyed today's episode, head over to Apple Podcasts to subscribe, rate, and leave your honest review. Connect with me on Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram, visit my website for even more detailed strategies, and be sure to share your favorite episodes on social media.   Now, it's time to go get yourself paid.

If you’re not new to the podcast or AMI, you know that I am a proponent of agencies differentiating themselves by finding a niche where they can develop a depth of expertise or a position of authority. It’s one of the core messages in the book I co-wrote with Stephen Woessner, Sell with Authority. Which makes Brent Weaver a kindred spirit! Brent Weaver shares our philosophy of niching down, and he joins me to talk about what he believes it takes to become an authority. Brent is a former agency owner and now focuses on helping business leaders finding their niche. He currently serves as the founder and CEO of UGURUS, a business training and education company dedicated to helping business owners achieve freedom by owning their markets. His work focuses on helping clients overcome their dependence on referrals and word-of-mouth through developing thought leadership. If you didn’t get a chance to meet him during our previous conversation, check out Episode #66 where he explains how to turn a profit doing web dev. In this episode of Build a Better Agency, Brent provides valuable insights about finding your niche. He shares his own experience on niching down so you understand what it takes to become the dominant player in a specific market segment, even in times of crisis. Learn how to find your market, own your market, and, as a result, scale your business. A big thank you to our podcast’s presenting sponsor, White Label IQ. They’re an amazing resource for agencies who want to outsource their design, dev, or PPC work at wholesale prices. Check out their special offer (10 free hours!) for podcast listeners here. What You Will Learn in This Episode: The framework of Brent’s book, “Get Rich in the Deep End” How finding your niche and serving that audience will make everything in your business easier The difference between having a lot of clients in a niche vs. being an authority Why niching down will enable your agency to thrive in good times and bad How to find time to market your business amidst your chaotic schedule What type of content is central to developing a position of authority The correlation between niching and scaling a business How niching goes beyond marketing “Finding your niche and serving that audience will make everything else in your agency 10x easier.” @u_gurusCLICK TO TWEET“Having a select market and consistent deliverables makes it easier to sell. It also makes it easier to deliver results for your clients.” @u_gurusCLICK TO TWEET“It’s one thing to have a lot of clients in a niche. When you are the thought leader and the marketing authority in your niche, clients will start coming to you.” @u_gurusCLICK TO TWEET“When you’re a niche agency and times are good, you make more money than anyone else. And when times are bad, you get back on your feet quicker than anyone else because clients are not looking for a generalist.” @u_gurusCLICK TO TWEET“The more complex your business is, the harder it is to scale. Finding your niche simplifies the equation.” @u_gurusCLICK TO TWEET Ways to contact Brent Weaver: Book: https://ownyourmarket.com/pre-order Website: https://ugurus.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brentweaver/ Twitter: @u_gurus Additional Resources: AMI Assessment 2019 Agency Research Study Money Matters Live Workshop  Build and Nurture Your Agency’s Sales Funnel Live Workshop Sell with Authority (buy Drew’s book) Facebook Group for the Build a Better Agency Podcast  

Brent Weaver from UGURUS joins the show to share how you can get rich by owning your market. Choosing your niche is a bit like dating - you can try a few before having to commit and get married to it. We cover how to choose your niche without alienating your existing client base, how […]

#024: Steve and Brent talk pivoting, niching, and the second wave of marketing trends. Also, it's okay to say “I don't know" sometimes—and it's okay to build a BMX ramp in your front yard always.

Brent Weaver is from UGURUS, a coaching company for agencies that teaches you how to attract leads, win bigger deals and scale your business. Prior to that he grew an agency which he went on to sell. For some of us that is the dream. Brent drops some absolute gold in this chat. My favourite […]

Small business owners face some challenges that are shared by all of us. Often times we use the excuse of trying to get something perfect to help us avoid showing our final product to the world. At times the perfection quest can become paralyzing and keeps us from succeeding at what we're doing. A class I took years ago from UGurus addressed this issue. And the owner of the company, Brent Weaver said something that really hit home for me. "Do something imperfect." That's what we're talking about today here at the Airstream Chronicles! •Check out my Drone Photography Course - Only $10 for listeners: https://bit.ly/2Q9Y1Zo •Learn to build websites with X Theme and Wordpress. Only $15 for listeners: https://bit.ly/2LWrnqT •If you enjoy the music check out Soundstripe: https://soundstripe.grsm.io/RichardCharpentier •My YouTube Channel: https://bit.ly/2mI1qkm •Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/livingintin/ •E-mail Me: rich at rlcdesign.net --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/the-airstream-chronicles/support

CEO and Chief Guru Brent Weaver from Ugurus (Ugurus.com) joins the Daily to talk about what makes him personally successful

Discussion - David and Nathan discuss whether or not it's a good idea to automatically update your plugins. Interview - How to get paid more with Brent Weaver - Part 2. Last week we were introduced to Brent Weaver from uGurus. We learned about his business and how he aims to assist businesses achieve higher fees and become more profitable. This week is a little different, because we're delving more into Brent (the man) and not Brent (the business man)! Does that make sense?

Discussion - David and Nathan discuss whether or not it's a good idea to automatically update your plugins. Interview - How to get paid more with Brent Weaver - Part 2. Last week we were introduced to Brent Weaver from uGurus. We learned about his business and how he aims to assist businesses achieve higher fees and become more profitable. This week is a little different, because we're delving more into Brent (the man) and not Brent (the business man)! Does that make sense?

In this episode of the podcast we talk to Brent Weaver from uGurus. He's an exceptionally thoughtful mentor for people who would like to see an upturn in their web design business. uGurus has been going for many years and has helped loads of agencies both big and small to increase their fees. I guess that there is no magic sauce for this kind of thing, but what you'll be gaining is the combined experience of people who have struggled through this problem before.

In this episode of the podcast we talk to Brent Weaver from uGurus. He's an exceptionally thoughtful mentor for people who would like to see an upturn in their web design business. uGurus has been going for many years and has helped loads of agencies both big and small to increase their fees. I guess that there is no magic sauce for this kind of thing, but what you'll be gaining is the combined experience of people who have struggled through this problem before.

I found Brent through this article, where he told us never to say WordPress in our web project negotiations. We want to leave the tech out of the conversation and focus on what we're solving. After 15 years in the business and selling his agency in 2012, Brent has an interesting story to share about his new pivot into an education product over at Ugurus. Join us in episode 38! Interview with Brent Weaver of Ugurus Watch on YouTube Listen to the audio version Matt Report - A WordPress podcast for digital business owners Episode 38: Make more money without saying WordPress Play Episode Pause Episode Mute/Unmute Episode Rewind 10 Seconds 1x Fast Forward 30 seconds 00:00 / Subscribe Share RSS Feed Share Link Embed Download file | Play in new window Don't say WordPress I think we get so excited about using WordPress for a new solution, we spend so much time talking tech we aren't talking about the value we're providing. Why is this important? The customer's don't live and breathe this stuff like you and I do everyday. Basic client's might balk at hearing too much about responsive design, widgets, and custom post types. We want to avoid “the geek speak” and focus on what pain we're solving for them. Setting expectation I know when I started out, I was so excited to land a job that I just wanted to start working on it right away. One of the lessons we learn as young entrepreneurs is to set the expectation with the customer. Be it in the design, the function of the site, or as we talk about in this episode — when to get paid. I couldn't agree more with Brent, that these expectations need to be set before signing on the dotted line. It's not just for the sake of the customer, but for the health of your business and sanity. What did you think of this episode? Do you like it when I bring in people from “outside” of our community? Let me know in the comments and subscribe to the mailing list!     ★ Support this podcast ★