YouTube Video aOJg-1yqy4A  ## Metadata - Author: [[YouTube]] - Full Title: YouTube Video aOJg-1yqy4A - Category: #articles - Document Tags: [[process]] [[sales]] [[training]] - Summary: YouTube Video aOJg-1yqy4A - URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJg-1yqy4A Hey folks, welcome to Agency Action with Toby and Kurt. Uh, thrilled to have Toby Kines with me. And with that, I'm sure Toby's going to say he's got a question for me. Kurt, I've just been dealing with hiring. I've hired nine employees this year in 2025. We're looking to hire another one right now. So, I've been thinking about this a lot. And let's just start from the top. What makes a good boss? >> Are you asking me? Um, it it's so weird because, and I actually talk about this when I when I do some public speaking gigs, by nature, I was not a good boss. By nature, I was a hard-nosed jerk. Um, I as an employee, I was a high producer, you know, like I always worked hard. I had a workaholic tendency and I worked really hard. And um, so when people would promote me to manager, I believed in work harder, work faster. Why? Because I said so. Like these are the goals. We must attain these goals. If we don't hit these goals, you know what? Other people will work here too. Like and I was not good. I was not a good leader at all. So I think when I was younger, I I embraced management but not leadership. And as I got older, I realized something's not working. Like people don't like working with me. like people enjoyed the successes that we had, but they didn't enjoy working with me. And so I started diving into some stuff and I I got wrapped up in the John Maxwell leadership stuff and I read a ton of his books and then ended up getting John Maxwell certified. Through that process, I think I really learned things like how to extend grace to people, how to understand that if someone does something 80% to my level, that's super sufficient. Um, and just realizing that especially as an entrepreneur, you'll hear other entrepreneurs say something like, "I'm really looking for my team members to take ownership of something." Like, "I need them to take ownership of this project." Well, they're not going to take ownership of the project. It's not theirs to own. They're just working on it. And so we we have to recognize sometimes that our our level of buyin as employees and then entrepreneurs is typically much higher than the average person's buy in. And we just have to be cognizant of it and extend grace in that in that area. >> Wondering about this ownership thing because something I've been thinking a lot about. So, I'm with you. Like, it's very difficult to have somebody take ownership of anything for a variety of reasons unless it's their butt on the line. Like, truly their money they've invested. >> Yeah. >> And not even their job, but like actually their money and reputation. But what I've been wondering is if there are ways to break that down into things that aren't ownership, but like a process. So, for example, in web development, one thing I'm struggling with with my team currently is QA. My web developers are not doing a QA to my standard. And I'm wondering, and to me, you could translate that as ownership. like you just gave me something that you said is ready for the client and it's not at all ready. There's some to me obvious things that wouldn't pass basic QA and so you could say that's that's uh ownership or maybe there's a checklist I could create and that hey you're an employee. Did you complete the checklist? Did you check the header against the artwork? Did you check mobile? >> Yeah, I you know those are really good points. So, uh, because I'm such an e-learning nerd, what we do is we make video screen shares of our processes and then we save those video screen shares and convert them into lessons for a private course in the back end of our website. So, when we hire a contractor or bring someone new to staff, I don't have to like train them per se. like I we onboard them and hey this is Kurt and this is Hayden and this you know like like we have those like they we onboard them but we don't actually train them. We we say okay the position that we hired you for uh those skills basically fall within these three sections of this course. So you need to take the three sections of this course. Uh complete those lessons and then once you do that you're you know you're equipped you're knowledgeable about our process on how we do this. And by doing that to to your point that's like a checklist kind of but I think having the course makes it more um you know more interactive. It's it's more complete because they actually see an example of it. Um, so we've been using that and I agree ownership doesn't mean like like you have a note in here that says when is grace just enabling bad performance. We never want to enable bad performance. We always want to encourage people, hey, you could be better at this or how could I help you get better at that? And I think that's where the difference between leadership and management comes in. Management would be like, hey, you just need to do better, right? And leadership is like, hey, there's some gaps in performance here. How can I help you do this better? You know, and I and I think that that is um kind of like shifting shifting the blame or the responsibility to us cuz cuz we're the we're the head of it. We we should make sure that these standards are in place. And if there is uh if there's a gap in understanding, I'm here to fill that gap of understanding. Now, if there's no gap in understanding and they're just lazy, well, then we need somebody else. >> I think it's sometimes hard to know as a manager and a leader like who is just not up to snuff and who just needs to be led differently. This blends my two lives together, right? Because I have the agency, but I also have that whole powersports training, you know, angle of my business. And Toby, this is the weirdest thing. So, we we offer our training for fixed operations to motorcycle dealerships. So, we teach dealerships how to increase their parts and labor sales. And so, we have this it's a great curriculum. It's an awesome curriculum. But now, we have dealer owners that are actually coming to our sales team and they're saying, "Look, you know, my service manager's been doing this for 30 years. My service manager's been doing this for 20 years. He needs an advanced course. Like, we're not doing this course for beginners." nonsense. He needs an advanced course. And then I get these guys on the screen and we're we're training six, seven, sometimes 10 dealers at a time and and I'll say, "Okay, you know, by by a show of hands, how many of you know how many motorcycles you worked on last month?" None of the hands go up. How many of you know how many hours your technicians turned? None of the hands go up. And I'm like, all of your owners said that you were advanced service managers. If you don't know the most basic of your numbers, you're not an advanced manager. You know, you're not an advanced leader in this department. And I think that that is the parallel there for this conversation is we make a lot of assumptions about someone's knowledge or skill level or and sometimes we do it based on time like oh you've been doing this for eight years you've been doing this for 10 years but in reality they've never had any formal training or any kind of process management training for for what you're doing and so we're expecting them to operate at a high level when they've never had experience at that level. What another thing I run into as a leader of the company is with the development team in particular because my experience professionally as a as a developer I am expecting them to be me when it comes to development and with all my like idiosyncrasies, bad habits, good habits and I get angry internally. I try not I try to never share my anger and I try to always be productive, but I do get internally sometimes I'm just burning and I'm like closing the computer, walking away cuz they didn't fix the menu, you know? >> Yeah. And and now I'm curious, do you find yourself getting angry more with newer people or seasoned people on your team? Well, this is the question about leadership and can you change people? Should you give them grace? It's tough. I get angry. I don't think it's about seasoned or not. It's about are they really are they taking ownership? And here's an example. I'm consulting right now with uh a company that is over 40 years old. And the CEO brought me in. We have weekly calls with him and two of his leadership team. And my role in those meetings is to just push the company forward. Like we're old, we're an old established company and we're stodgy and we need to change because AI is going to change our company. >> Yeah. This is the way we've always done it. >> We had a so it's been going on since I think June or July. And basically my first project with them was like let's just think of something innovative to do. And what they did they thought of some it took us all this time we thought of something not we but they really I was just pushing them to think of something. My my objective was like did you think of something good? Um something actionable like a project that we could execute on and deliver. They did it. They scheduled the project for a variety of reasons to start in June of next year. And it's currently October 24th of this year. And I was like, great, we have a thing scheduled for June. Let's meet next week and start thinking of the next thing. And they they're not going to do it. They're just like, "No, we thought of the thing. It's in June. We're going to talk. Maybe next October we can start talking again." And I'm like, and it's super frustrating to me is I'm not even an owner of the company. I'm just really just doing a favor for a friend. And it's I get I'm getting so frustrated on this call. And I was really grateful cuz they do this really strict thing where they do the free Zoom and it ends in 45 minutes and whatever's and lit literally they said we're not doing it. And I'm like, well, and I got cut off. I was like, well, that was a relief because I was really going to lay into them and exhibit bad behavior, bad leadership or maybe I don't know. >> Did you know that that's how Manano Nas was actually born? >> How was that? >> The name I had a group of customers in a conference room and none of them did their homework like their content for their websites and it was supposed to be a group meeting to go over the strategies to launch eachbody, you know, launch the sites and no one had done their homework. And um it was I I used to work in South Albuquerque, very Hispanic neighborhood. And uh and I I lost it. I just lost it. And I went, "Mñan Mas, there is no easy button. I can't do this. If you're not vested in your own success, I can't make you successful." Like, you cannot put off till tomorrow what you should be doing today. Mñana. And uh the guy that ran the office center wheels out on his chair and he goes, "Hey, Kurt, that would be a good name for your business." And that was it. Yeah. It was 2008. I >> think I've run into issues when I've been trying to be very honest and give honest feedback as well. And I don't regret giving the feedback, although I think at times I maybe could deliver it differently based on the reactions I've gotten sometimes. And it would be and I think I'm getting better with age and experience. >> Yeah. But where I might have used to say, you promised to deliver this today and you have not delivered it. What do what do you want? What's going on? That's what I might have used to say. Now I might couch it a little differently and and and say uh just try to say it in a way that's >> Yeah. >> where they can get me what I want but also have save some face maybe. >> Yeah. Well, that's when you say things like, um, while I understand that life happens, we also have firm deadlines we have to meet for our clients. You know, I was expecting this deliverable on such and such a time or hour and I haven't received it yet. If I've missed it, please bring it to my attention. But if you haven't delivered it yet, I need to understand why. I like your thought too there about delivering the feedback in the context of I'm not this isn't arbitrary. I've promised something because you promised something. The client's expecting it. >> This is making us look bad. >> Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. That I mean and and so I I do have someone in my circles that always says, "Oh, you're you're so diplomatic." And it's funny because like I said earlier, I didn't used to be that guy, but now it's like I get it. You like like life does happen. Obstacles do happen. You know, computers do need updated. Sometimes the internet goes down, especially if you're on Amazon Web Services. Uh, you know, sometimes things happen, but it's like you go, I get it. I understand that things happen. We also have firm deadlines. >> So, we have to balance that out and we have to figure that out. And so, you know, problem solving that moving forward, you just say, "Hey, are you overcommitting and underdelivering?" Like if you're telling me that you can get something done by October 24th and today's October 24th and it's not here, did you overcommit like like you knew you weren't going to have it done by the 24th and you thought November 1st would be okay anyway? Like if if that was your thinking, you should have just told me November 1st. Yep. I'm going to change the the stay same kind of topic of how to be what is a good boss. I I was doing an interview this week and I was surprised by a really good question from the person I was interviewing for the job and they said, "What are the growth opportunities career-wise at the Mighty Mo?" And I was I thought, "Let me think about that for a minute. First of all, we don't have we don't have a lot of roles to choose from. First of all, >> there's hopefully nobody leaves. So there's hopefully going to be no positions open for you to move into. But I was thinking about it and I I let her know I was I said if you're an enterprising person that sees opportunities and jumps at those opportunities, there will be opportunities for growth here because we're in growth mode. >> That's a lot of growth you mentioned. >> Mhm. Yeah, it it does make sense. I just I try to be I have contractors that ask me that all the time, right? Like, so what what's the uh what's the upscale potential of revenue at Mñana? Well, you and I are both entrepreneurs. We're like, the sky's is the limit, baby. Like, there's if you are a go-getter and you bring referrals and you help with sales and we knock out these proposals, we will continue to grow and there will be plenty of revenue. And if you want to and and if we grow to the point where I have to have, you know, two different project managers and things, that's phenomenal. That's great. But it doesn't it's it's not going to be like mama bird feeding baby bird. Like you got to be on the team and we have to make this happen. Like there's there's no just sitting back and and growing with the company as it as it goes because if if the team isn't putting in the effort, that scaling doesn't happen. And I think this would be a news flash to a lot of agencies. I'm I'm realizing I'm realizing that my desire for growth doesn't match a lot of other people's desire for growth right now. Like I have a series of videos I do on Fridays called um fitness focus freedom Friday. And it's literally like I can do anything I want because I'm an entrepreneur. Like I don't h I don't have to grow this thing into this giant, you know, commercial endeavor. I just need to pay my bills, reach some goals, and move forward. And if I have people on my team that enjoy the revenue along the way, that's awesome. But if they're thinking, "What do I got to do to become Kurt?" Well, you got to wait for me to die. >> Yeah. >> How's that going to work? I had a CEO of the Mighty Mo at one point and he was with us for a couple years and at first it was really helpful and then about a year and a half into his tenure he he he wanted to scale back the Mighty Mo not for the Mighty Mo's sake or my sake but because he wanted to like take more vacation. >> Yeah, this is going to be too much man. >> And he started taking vacations and he's like I can work from vacation. It's fine. And he while he would show up, his internet connection was spotty and he was really just embarrassing me like with clients cuz his internet was so bad. >> Yeah. >> I ended up having to fire him. That was I I guess so there are like even at that level there are people who just don't get it. >> No, but there's got to be alignment, right? And so that takes you to are are you going to hire for skill, for attitude, uh for their groovy vibe on the phone calls? Like like what is it that you actually hire for? Um I've been a part of some what I consider big Zoom calls. Uh I' I've had a larger agency bring me in as like a sales engineer. I had a client bring me in as a sales engineer on a um on a deal to the Department of Defense once and what I found really interesting about it was there was like 30 people on this call and there you know they're from the Department of Defense and there's all these you know military folks and professional people and it takes us back to what I said about service managers. you make the assumption that everybody's operating at this high level and then it only takes five or 10 minutes of the call to realize they're they're still here. They're as they're trying to ask me smart questions about, you know, e-learning programs and they're not smart questions. And I'm like, "Okay, here we go." And then the customer at the my client at the end of the call is like, "Oh, thank God you were there. You know, your vibe on the call was exactly what they wanted." And I ended up serving not only as the sales engineer, but as like the salesperson, the the marketing, like I ended up fielding the whole call. And then I got to wonder to myself, well, why am I filling this role? I should just be going to the Department of Defense myself and pitching my own contract. >> Yep. >> Right. >> Yep. >> So, how do you hire? Are you looking for vibes, for feelings, for skill sets? >> Definitely not feelings. Definitely not vibes. I'm looking for someone with a skill set and maybe talent, but I don't even know that talent's the thing. And I think what I what I really and this is where I think a lot of people fail at the Mighty Mo over the years is with communication. >> Yeah. >> And you most of our team right now is not native. English is their second language, most of our team. And so it's not about English language skills, but it's are you organized? So, I had a call today with one of my teammates and it was his meeting. He was leading it. And I get there, I'm like, "Where's the agenda and he didn't have one?" And then I was like, "Okay, let's go. >> Bye." >> Well, pretty much we talked for 20 30 minutes and I was like, "I still don't know what we're talking about." And so I said, "Okay, we're going to stop the meeting. Uh, when can we reschedule this for?" And we rescheduled it. I said, "To start next meeting, show up with an agenda because otherwise, what are we talking about?" and and the the the verdict's still out or the juryy's still out. We'll see what happens. And this this might be a deal breaker for working at the mighty mo. Can you deliver the things in a way that people can understand them? And then this takes us into a different conversation for me. So when I hire people, um they used to call it personality types, right? But I actually try to examine people for their work style. And so you're You could there's the four personality types, melancholy, caleric, and all that, but but you could break it into normal words. You could say like if you think of the term real, right? Re a l. There's rulers, there's entertainers, there's analysts, and there's loyalists. Loyalists, they just wanted an L on real, right? So that's really like emotional people, right? Um, so when I'm looking to work with people on my team, I don't I don't necessarily need to hire the entertainer or the ruler as the primary work traits because I hold those, you know, I so we have a very small footprint as far as people go. And so if I bring too many rulers to the team or too many rulers to these Zoom calls, there's going to be a conflict, right? And so I'm very much I hate to say personality, but I'm looking for work communication styles. And so you by demonstrating that you like having that agenda, the agenda is the sign of an analyst, right? So you're coming at from a developer analyst perspective and then they're coming at it probably from an entertainer's perspective and they don't understand why you're upset that there's no agenda because, you know, we're just having this meeting to communicate anyway. Um, but it's to me I always try to figure out like what blend of people do I need on my team and what's going to serve my customers the best through that blend. And then secondary to me is the actual skill set because most of the skills can be trained as long as they have a foundation in it. You know like for instance I am foundationally handicapped at graphics. I'm not very inventive and creative and artistic. Um, but I've got a couple of girls on my team that are phenomenal artists and so for me that works. But the problem is one of them is completely l completely a loyalist. Like emotions, you know, I guess chews a lot of gummies and gets really out there sometimes. Um, and and because I'm a ruler, entertainer work style type, it's hard for me sometimes to wrap around all of the vines that she creates with her with her product. So, I have to I have to reel her back in. But her core product and her core skill set is awesome. So, I can deal with the communication style. >> This kind of similarly, I was having a conversation with the person who owns a company similar to mine. just he he has 60 or 70 employees now in Minneapolis um and and abroad. So he has uh at least one team in Africa and probably employees elsewhere too, but a lot of his team is in the cities here. Um but we had a conversation about mission, vision, that sort of stuff. And where we kind of landed and and so we have different we're at different places with our businesses and so I don't want to say you need this or don't need that. He said it wasn't what he said the mission and vision were not important until he was extracted from the day-to-day operations and then it became more important cuz people were like why are we here what are we do like what are we pointing towards and he was like when I wasn't there telling people like showing showing them through my actions the mission mission and vision became more important. >> Yeah. Well, you could definitely see that, right? It's if you think about being on a boat, if the captain's on the boat, everything, but if the captain takes the dinghy and goes to shore, what happens on the boat, right? And so, yeah, you have to have a a a mission and a vision so that people understand the direction we're going. It's amazing because companies that are on the outside identical can be completely different on the inside, you know, and it's super important to understand like people's hearts, where they come from, and if there's an alignment for you. I I have um I've told you before when we lived in California, the economy was so rough on us, we had to say yes to everything. And then the the freedom that comes with moving to a better economy for us and being able to say, "Ah, that's not really a great fit for us right now." like that is that's so freeing to be able to go I'm only working with the people that I really want to work with, right? And then the quality of the work is better, the output is better, the relationship with the clients better, our revenue is up, you know, per project. So, realistically, it's been really good. >> Do you think, let's say you're a an agency looking to grow, you've been the founder, you've been responsible for generating all the business to date, should you hire a salesperson? That's a trick question, Toby. That's a trick question. So, I have to look at this. I've just had this conversation with someone the other day. They were saying, "Oh, well, we got plenty of clicks and we got plenty of this and plenty of that, but you know, we just don't have that many customers coming in every month." And I was thinking about conversations I had had with you. And I said, "But everything you described isn't sales. You just describe marketing. You just described branding and marketing. and you're thinking that branding and marketing is going to convert to sales. Branding and marketing is not going to convert to sales. You need to pick up the phone and call these people that visited your website. Like you like cuz you have this thing for, you know, abandoned shopping cart and whatnot. You have some way to contact these people. You need to jump in their inbox, man. Um and he was like, "Yeah." I said, "Look, I know you hate it. I know you hate it, but if you don't do it, you're not going to see the results, right? Um, so when you say, "Should should you hire a salesperson?" I look at my own performance and I say, "Yeah, I probably should hire a salesperson. I probably should." Because even if I'm still pounding the pavement, if I add effort to that pavement pounding, we should see results because we make a ton of content, right? So, I'm in the same boat. I make a ton of content. I'm on like five different podcasts a week. I get plenty of exposure, but when I look at the actual like plays for the shorts or plays on my YouTube live or plays on my Instagram reel, it's 50 100 or that's that's not going to generate revenue. So to generate revenue, we got to go out, we got to meet people, press the flesh. Yeah. I've been as I've been researching it this year because I've been looking to double our revenue and we're at about we're at about 180% of last year's revenue today and so we might get there this year, you know, so we might meet that goal. Um, I was thinking, and this is my most recent hire, was a link a full-time LinkedIn lead generation expert. And the strategy is with, and this is something that most marketers don't understand because they read marketing books that are built for like how to make a how to have a million customers. >> Yeah. >> And what those books totally fail to capture is we don't need a million, we need like 10 this year. And that's and what that might look like compared, let's say you're not going for a million. What you need is 10 high-paying customers. It probably looks something like scanning LinkedIn for potential people you need to meet, figuring out how to meet them. Here's an example. Just talking to uh talking to someone who's a musician and and they're very talented. I've known him for decades and they want to I was like what's your dream? They want to have an audience with a few huge players like Billy Corgan, other two other people like Radio Head, some other person that you've heard of, oh Eminem. I go great. And she's describing it and thinking about it as a marketing problem. I go this is not a marketing problem. This is a sales problem. >> It's a picking up phone problem. >> You can get into that room with those people. It's not going to be easy. But you know what? getting in front of the CEO of Best Buy or Walmart is also not that might even be more hard than getting in front of Billy Corgan. And I was I I was advising her and this is how I'm approaching my business, but I said you need to figure out that LinkedIn network of that person, the tree, like who's the lowest the closest you can get to them right now. Maybe it's the friend of the front desk person of the assistant of the, you know, go have lunch with that friend and then see if you can get in with the assistant to the assistant to the assistant. You know, you got to work that. And then maybe in 6 months, maybe you can get that fiveminute audience with Billy Corgan where he's ready to hear your music and not not a surprise like, "Hey, I'm here. Listen to this." But like, hey, friend, I heard this is Billy talking. >> Yeah. >> I'm here. I I such and such advised me to have a conversation with you. They said you have some neat music. Let's hear it. >> That's the goal and and that's the sales problem and that's what the Mighty Mo is trying to solve for as well. That same problem. >> Think I shared this with you, but I'll share it publicly on the airwaves. Why not? Um I'm pretty active on LinkedIn as well. I went from 1,200 connections to 10,000 connections in the matter of like two and a half years. During that time, I invited all of the new connections to a short icebreaker conversation. And I have spoken to probably 7,000 of the 10,000 people. When I speak to them, not obviously they're not all ready to buy a website or ready to buy our our services. Uh so I don't go I don't go at it like a hard sales gig. I just go at it like, "Hey, let's break the ice. Who are you? What are you about? What what do you do when you're not working? um if you weren't doing this for a living, what would you really do? Right? And that's where I find out where people like, "Oh, I hate this corporate job. I'm actually thinking of writing a book and becoming a coach or something, right?" Um so I help them explore that and all this happens in 15 minutes. Um and I end the quest, I end the call like once there's once the ice is broken and once there's communication, I'll say, "Hey, you know what? I realize you're probably not up for my services, you know, right now. Uh, I just want to be front of mind for you as time goes by. But, uh, who do you know that I should know? And then we agree to do what we call referral ping pong. We basically just send each other, hey, I'm friends, like I'm friends with Toby Crimes. You should meet Toby. He's from Minnesota. And they go, oh, that's cool. I'm from Minnesota, too. And and you do that, you know, 10, 15, 20 times, you've got another hundred people on your list. And who do you know that I should know? And that just turns into a giant a giant circle of introductions. And some people say it's wasting time, but I will tell you that it has netted me revenue. So, it's not a time waster. >> And part of the the when you think of optimizing sales, like a sales process, is you got to be a little more strategic because like the the criticism that you're hearing, I can't have coffee with everyone. Yeah. Don't have coffee with everyone. >> Yeah. >> Have coffee with figure out who you need to have coffee with and figure out how to have coffee with them. >> Yeah. Well, exactly. Because I'm not just inviting everybody on LinkedIn to have a conversation. I am picking people through a strategic search, connecting with those people, and then asking them if they want to have an icebreaker conversation. I'm not trying to sell them anything in their DMs. I'm not sending them paragraphs and nonsense. I just say, "Thanks for connecting. Do you want to have an icebreaker conversation?" And they go, "Talk about what? It's a great question. What do you want to talk about? Here's a link." >> That's it. >> Yep. And then it's amazing how many people say yes because you're not pitching them something in the DMs and spamming them to death. And then I just say, "Who do you know that I should know?" Like, "Hey, you know what? We've got we've gotten to know each other a little bit in the last 10 or 15 minutes. You know, you seem pretty solid. Who do you know that I should know?" >> Mhm. >> I met really cool people that way. I met a guy named David Valentine who ended up being a guest on my podcast and he is a tremendous serial entrepreneur. like a really cool person to talk to and get to know a little bit, you know, and it's I I was on the Eric Allen podcast, same way, just connecting to people, connecting the dots and getting invited to shows or or to different things. >> And I think part of the argument here is in lie of doing nothing, do something. So coffee with the nobody way more advantageous to you than no coffee at all. >> Than no coffee at all. Yeah. It's, you know, it's it's such a weird thing because you and I have both I I feel like I feel like I'm gonna say it again. You and I are obviously working like we're putting in time, we're doing shows, we're getting exposure, we're doing all this, and then we know people in the same kind of like agency space who don't do a dang thing and seem to be plenty busy, right? And so does that come from skin in the game like longevity in the business and referral or >> how are they staying busy without the work without without putting in the work? >> Yeah, it'd be um so right. So we we know people who are doing that. I often wonder though about what I'm trying to fix in my business is I want more and steady work. Like I want more leads, more steady flow of leads, more steady deals because right now I've I've lasted 19 years without doing any marketing except for SEO. And it's been very like you know like but I go like a some there's been times where it's like oh it's been two months I haven't closed a deal. >> Yeah. >> And then I go out there and I go to LinkedIn or Facebook I start you know ah I do WordPress and and then all of a sudden I get a deal and part of this is the endgame. And now I'm old and I'm like I would love to at some point have more options. Options to take the day off, options to uh sell my business, options to reinvest in my business, you know, to make it bigger if I want. >> Yeah. >> Have more fun with the business, whatever. And I think to do that, in order to have that sort of flexibility, you need consist more consist more inconsistent quality leads and an ability to close those that and all that I in an ideal world can happen happens without you. you >> well and here's here's an interesting thing to think of from the from the opposite opposite side of this conversation and that's we make websites for other people for other projects and we kind of see from our exposure how their venture does which which to me is an invaluable insight I have gotten to see a lot of people launch businesses and I've seen ones that fail I've seen ones that succeed I've seen things that And so for me with my powersports background, I was making these e-learning websites for all these different companies and and I made one for Ducati, I made one for Suzuki, I made one. So I I was like, okay, how does this So I got to understand that business model, right? And then I thought, well, I could just keep making websites for other people or I could try and launch one of my own successful projects since I already know how the web stuff works. I could try and emulate that success. And so I built the Powersport Academy and for years it sat and did nothing. But as of last year, it's on track to do $60,000 in revenue a year. And so to your point, that's kind of like where some of that freedom can come from as well. If you master the website of business and then you get to learn from the trial and errors of your clients, you get to kind of emulate something that's successful. you can find a recipe that works or fits your that's in alignment with you and then you can you can build that. So that creates that separate vertical for us. So I don't have to depend on the next e-learning job to pay the mortgage. You know, it it's cool. It it's just it kind of spreads things out. And some would say the riches are in the niches and you're too diversified and you're going too wide. You're not going deep enough. There's all these gurus that'll tell you things. But I've been on that I've been on that treadmill before with you know three four months without closing a deal. And and I'll tell you it's nice it's nice to have a different vertical creating revenue. >> And what you're describing is this is the why probably of why you need to invest in marketing and sales as a leader of your business. you you know I'm not saying you need to you listener you Kurt but if you want to make more money doing the same amount of hours and same amount of labor who wouldn't want that that's what the goal is and I'm not saying make a million dollars a year but if you're making 50,000 wouldn't it be nice to make 60,000 and do no more work >> yeah well and I and I think on this subject and and I know that we're running good on time so so we I think we can close Just like one more consideration in this topic. You're building your business. I'm building my business. Is there an exit strategy for this endeavor or is it like one day you don't wake up and then your family goes what do we do with all this? What do Hey, I found a list of passwords in dad's desk. We're >> lucky. >> What What do we do with this? >> My family can't even find the list of passwords. But yeah, the question is what are you building for towards what's your exit plan? And it's all related. If you don't want an exit plan, you have, you know, you have a certain set of options that it's probably more options actually. If you want a a healthy exit plan that that you really feel good about, you're going to need to build out these functions that we're talking about. I I think about this frequently because I am older now and that is when I when I was looking for work and I couldn't find work back 2007208 right I was looking for work couldn't find work I got tired of looking for work so I invented a job and manas was a great job for a while right but then I said you know it's not really a business if I don't if I don't sustain anyone else other than myself it's not really a business, it's a job. And so then I started thinking, well, how do I sustain other people? And then I was like, okay, well, that means I got to bring in contractors. In your case, you bring in employees. I do contractors, but um I had to like how do I sustain other people? And it's not limited to just the United States. I mean, I've got people around the globe as well. So, how do I sustain other people? Then then it feels like business, right? Because now it's not just a job. I'm creating employment for other people, which is awesome. Um, but then comes the exit plan. Like, how would I exit this? And if it's just some kind of like five contractors and a handful of clients and a hodgepodge of of things kind of stuck together, there's nothing to sell. There's no value to that. But if I create processes and have a process manual and we have like a like an onboarding direction for people and a and a pathway like if we have strategy to our business all of a sudden it becomes viable for other people to run and I think that's where the that's where the exit strategy where the value comes in. Like when someone buys an agency I don't think they're just buying a handful of clients. They they want to know what's the process? How did you how did you build this successfully? >> I think one thing that's surprised me as a human this late in life is that I now view this is has not always been the case. I now view growing my business as a life a rich life experience. >> Not everybody gets to experience. And so the things you're talking about employing people, that's a whole world of learning that needs to happen in my, you know, and has been happening over the years, but also hiring a marketing team, which I'm doing right now, and sales team. I've never done that. It's neat. It's it's a life experience that some people get to experience, others don't. >> Do you say, "Sell me this pen?" >> It's a good idea. >> Here's what I want you to do. Sell me this pen. Uh, all right. Well, Toby, I think we've kind of killed this topic. Man, you want to wrap it up? >> Yeah. Uh, thanks everybody. This has been an episode of Agency Action with Kurt and Toby. >> Kurt, where can we where can we get in touch with you? >> Uh, mñana nomomas.com for business. Uh, if it's personal, you want to make that connection on LinkedIn we were talking about. I'm the only Kurt von on LinkedIn. So, when you find me, you know you got me. >> And I'm also on LinkedIn, Toby Kines. Um, if you're still with us, ring that bell, subscribe, whatever it is. I know Matt will appreciate it as we as will we. Also, leave us a question if you have any questions. We'd love to address it on a future episode. So thanks everybody., YouTube Video aOJg-1yqy4A, YouTube, 01kabxh139em4gbjjjxgeefa7e.