Voiceover Guy:

Hello, and thanks for coming along to … And We Have An Office Dog, the digital agency podcast, where we talk to agency owner directors, and learn more about what makes them tick. From the things that make them similar, to the things they’d rather have known sooner, where they’ve success, and where they’ve learned some hard lessons, all will be revealed with your host, Chris Simmance, the agency coach, and he’ll be talking to a different awesome agency person in each episode, asking them four questions and seeing where the conversation takes us over the next 25 minutes. Okay, so let us begin. Over to you, Chris.

Chris Simmance:
Thanks, VoiceOverGuy. And on the podcast, we’ve got Kevin. How are you doing, Kevin?

Kevin:
Pretty good. Great to be here. Excited for this conversation.

Chris Simmance:
So thanks very much for coming along all the way from Stormy, U S of A, I believe. Um, it’s just been horrible and stormy and sticky here today. We, I think I’ve pressed all of the buttons wrong when I first started this. So thanks for your patience. So Kevin,

Kevin:
Absolutely.

Chris Simmance:
you, uh, you run KNB online. Tell us all about that.

Kevin:
Yeah, absolutely. So I’ve been really fortunate to be just in the digital marketing space for a long time. And just kind of during that, just kind of saw a need in the market to have it take a smaller agency where, you know, it’s not so much about like churn and burn type of thing where like, you know, I’m deeply involved. I love marketing, and just, you know, being able to be that it’s a guiding light to a lot of, you know, entrepreneurs. And, you know,

Chris Simmance:
Mm.

Kevin:
giving them honest feedback because, you know, one downside in the market space, there’s a lot of snake oil salesmen or really good salesmen who have no idea how to do marketing and they sell

Chris Simmance:
Yes.

Kevin:
a lot of these spokes and packages and they just get no results. So that’s where I said, you know, we’re a bit different. We’re smaller, very particular about kind of who I want to work with. Cause someone makes sure that, you know, I can get them results.

Chris Simmance:
Yeah. And you say you’ve been in the industry for quite a while. I was, I was making a good look at your, um, uh, your website. And I noticed that a good few of the team have got a decent amount of experience as well. So how long has the agency been running? If you’ve been doing, uh,

Kevin:
Yeah.

Chris Simmance:
in this space for 20 plus years.

Kevin:
Yeah. So, um, you know, everybody on the team, I feel like they’re all a player. So we, you know, I’ve been really selective with the folks kind of keep around, you know, you know, hire slow and fire quick type of thing, especially in

Chris Simmance:
Mm.

Kevin:
the agency world. So I’ve been really kind of keen on that. So like my background is really initially like SEO affiliate marketing. And then, you know, from that. I was able to kind of be in charge of marketing for two different kind of e-commerce sites. One was Planet Shoes. They sold shoes online, did about like 10, 15 million by the time I left. And then I ended up helping launch Candy.com, which they were at the time like the largest like candy supplier online.

Chris Simmance:
Alright,

Kevin:
So

Chris Simmance:
okay.

Kevin:
it was really kind of like, you know, during all that, you know, time I had kind of the agency on the side and then right when I decided to kind of leave Candy.com and I kind of want to get serious about, you know, the agency. That’s where I really started kind of, you know, build things up. So it’s been like on both sides of it where like, Hey, like you’re, you’re buying agency services and then, you know, maybe on the other side, I’m like kind of seeing that, you know, need I’d say for really like honest and, you know, folks actually kind of know what they’re doing. That’s where like everybody on the team, like, you know, we’re small, but you know, um, you know, everybody just does a really, really good job.

Chris Simmance:
And you need that. Like you say, you hired A-players and I think there’s a distinction in quite a lot of agency land, should we say, where you can tell the difference between agencies that have done that and agencies that have built based on, let’s call it a traditional model, where the agency itself is actually built on an awful lot of lower end staff, should we say. I don’t mean that in to say that they’re bad people. but they work on a scale basis of lots and lots of juniors, should we say.

Kevin:
Yeah. And that’s a problem that actually happens at like a lot of big agencies where they just have good salespeople. And then they

Chris Simmance:
Hmm.

Kevin:
end up handing it off to these junior people that have no idea what they’re doing. And again, I don’t blame them. It’s just like you learn from experience. There’s only so much you can learn in a course or whatever. And the other down side is that obviously there’s a lot of folks pumping out these courses on how to start an agency. And they give everybody a bad name because they just… You know, just guarantee the world of people. Many times like, you know, I’m talking, because I take all the sales calls. I’m very low volume. I want to make sure that, you know, we can have a big upside with the client. So, you know, I review things and I look at a lot of these accounts that like these big agencies are running. I’m just like, this person had no idea what they’re doing. Like

Chris Simmance:
Mm hmm.

Kevin:
at all. And, you

Chris Simmance:
Yeah.

Kevin:
know, that’s obviously the downside of the agency because a lot of them, they’re watching like Grant Cardone and guys like that, it was like 10X, 10X. And they, they hire. a massive amount of people that just don’t know what they’re doing, which is unfortunate.

Chris Simmance:
Yeah.

Kevin:
The business owner is the one that gets the pen end of the stick on that because they’re paying for somebody that really is not seasoned. They don’t know what they’re doing. Think about it. A lot of industries need a license to do it. You want to be a doctor, you’ve got to be licensed, you’ve got to go to school. Same thing. Marketing, where the states could be… you know, really high, if you have a, you know, fat finger on something where you could spend a lot of money and see no results.

Chris Simmance:
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And so tell me in all the years that the agency’s been running, what do you think has been one of the biggest successes that you guys have seen?

Kevin:
Probably the big is just kind of the results we’ve been able to get for some clients. I got a client that sold kitchen cabinets of all things online and they saw really great return at that time. I think it was like over 500k in sales on 14,000 ad spend. Another really good client during kind of the COVID times where we… generated over a million dollars in the first 43 days and they had a really good ROAS. They were making money like hand over fist. So, you know, those are some of the best returns. I definitely would mention that it doesn’t always happen. You know, it always comes down to the right offer. I’d say like one of the important things that I’ve just learned over the time, it’s like you got to be selective. You got to make sure that you can get results. They have a good offer because if they don’t… You know, you can have the best assets in the world and the best targeting, but if it’s not a good product fit for the market, nobody’s going to buy.

Chris Simmance:
Hmm.

Kevin:
And then you’re

Chris Simmance:
And, and

Kevin:
the one to blame for it.

Chris Simmance:
yeah, well, absolutely. And, and, and like, it kind of comes back to what you said earlier, that you can be, and you are a little bit picky about who you, who you work with. So are there, are there things that you do, once the lead comes in that kind of give you that indicator before it goes too far down the road and upsets anyone?

Kevin:
Yeah. So like I really good targeting, uh, with like my ad. So basically when we had some capacity, I’m able to bring somebody on. Uh, I turned my ads on and

Chris Simmance:
Mm-hmm.

Kevin:
so like, I know if I get on calls with people, like they’re like 80% qualified. So really it’s like, I have just like genuine calls with people, kind of like this, you know, talking about their, their business and really trying to

Chris Simmance:
Mm-hmm.

Kevin:
help and educate them. So things like I’m trying to kind of get out of them. One, it’s like, are they like easy to work with type of thing. you know, like, are they cool? Is this somebody like, I’d like to have a conversation with because, you know, I’m in constant communication with these folks and they are with, you know, folks in my team as well. So it’s really about just kind of, you know, talking to them, helping them and just making sure that, you know, after that conversation, like, do I think I can help them? And if I think I can, you know, then I want to send them a proposal. If not, you know, I definitely let them know. And then sometimes when it’s like a, you know, like a drop ship or like, Like I know I just can’t help them right out of the gate. So then I just, you know, just kind of let them know that, hey, like you don’t do paid ads because you’re not going to get results with it type of thing.

Chris Simmance:
Yeah, and honesty often saves people the pain later and it does cost a lot of money when you turn a client. So if you go back in time to when you were setting up, is there any advice that you’d give your younger just starting out in agency world self?

Kevin:
Yeah, I mean, I think this would be what I’m doing now, which is like, be really selective.

Chris Simmance:
Mm.

Kevin:
You know, think more deeply about, you know, who you’re going after, why, like, is it, is it a good offer? Can we actually get results? Cause you know, it’s very front loaded doing work. And the last thing you want to do is, you know, commit and then not get that person result. Cause if not, you know, it. you’re not going to make money because at very, very times, like the way I have a lot of my deals inside a flat monthly fee plus a percentage of either managed ad spend or, um, ROAS. So I got to make sure that, you know, we’re going to have something that can really scale, you know, to be able to get them results or, you know, you know, ROAS, cause I always really like trying to get the ROAS if it’s something that’s like trackable that way, you know, Me and every team were more aligned to their success, um, because like, they’re coming to us. and other digital marketers to get them results. You know, if you don’t get them results, you failed. You know, plain

Chris Simmance:
Yeah.

Kevin:
and simple.

Chris Simmance:
And I’m guessing, and I’ve not been delivering services like this for a little while now, but how much more difficult do you think it’s going to be to sort of prove the return on ad spend and things like that when GA4 changes and some of these platforms kind of follow suit from a cookies point of view?

Kevin:
Yeah, so good question. So I think like GA4, like I think that build out is honestly like horrible. I mean, it’s so buggy. I mean, really, I think the thing that really hit more was the Apple privacy tracking.

Chris Simmance:
Yeah.

Kevin:
That really hit things really hard. Facebook, or Meta as I call now, I’d say has definitely done a really good job with kind of figuring things out. I think really where there’s more potential issues long term is the fact that in the e-commerce space, more and more people are buying things from Amazon.

Chris Simmance:
Mm.

Kevin:
So they see the ad and then because pretty much everybody has an Amazon app, at least in the US, they’re seeing it and they’re going direct to the shop by store and then they’re buying it on Amazon. So in that case, the attribution is gone. You don’t have any attribution. The system can’t optimize. You know, like they did come out with something called like buy with prime where you can edit on your Shopify store. And I have one client that we’re like testing it on and we see upwards of like 40 to like 60% of purchases

Chris Simmance:
Hmm.

Kevin:
are happening for people that are clicking that. So when that happens, the attribution doesn’t go back to Facebook and you know, the platforms like that. So that’s really where I’d say the one thing that I’ve been doing is really kind of educating, you know, a lot of these business owners about.

Chris Simmance:
Hmm.

Kevin:
You cannot be as focused on one channel and the ROAS as you were in the past.

Chris Simmance:
Yeah.

Kevin:
All the platforms work together and you got to look overall, hey, what is overall marketing spend? What is our overall revenue? Is it increasing? If yes, probably really good chance that’s directly correlated, you know, to the marketing efforts.

Chris Simmance:
And the trouble with that in a sense is that it becomes a digital marketing version of half of our ads are working, but we’re not sure which half.

Kevin:
correct.

Chris Simmance:
And it’d be interesting. So in the, so for season at the time of recording for this, you know, things are just about to kind of kick off with GA4 in particular. And but Hopefully you’ll come back in a year or so it’s time for season two and we can talk about the actual developments in the agency that have been based around that because it’d be interesting to see, you know, how a business which does report performance measures as it’s kind of adapted some of those things, some of the narratives and stuff. So hopefully have you back for that.

Kevin:
Yeah.

Chris Simmance:
What do you think since setting up the agency, what’s been one of the things that you kind of did, I say wrong, but one of the lessons that you learned quite quickly and you’ve now sort of That’s been a warning shot, should we say.

Kevin:
Yeah, no, and I’m just go back to like the preview on GA4. Like one thing that, you know, we’ve been doing, I think a lot of marketing is going to be doing is leveraging other tracking besides GA4 and Google

Chris Simmance:
Hmm.

Kevin:
analytics. Like I use one called like any track, what helps with, um, you know, conversion API or segmetrics. So really it’s going to be leveraging, you know, other tools like that, that are still going

Chris Simmance:
Yeah.

Kevin:
to be, you know, tracking and like, you know, GA4 and then kind of your question, could you say that again?

Chris Simmance:
Yeah, so is there anything that you’ve done in the formation up to now of the agency that’s kind of been a hard lesson that’s been learned, but something that you’ve now sort of built into the business?

Kevin:
Yeah. No, it could be. Okay. Yeah. I mean, that’s probably going to be like, when it really started out, I tried to like help everybody type of thing,

Chris Simmance:
Mm.

Kevin:
you know, and bring them on where it’s like, Hey, like I could figure it out type of thing. Um, and

Chris Simmance:
I built a plane whilst you’re flying it.

Kevin:
yeah. So I, that’s really where like, I’ve learned, you know, you, you got to think more deeply, especially to offer your targeting and be more selective. Um, because you know, there’s just so many people that just don’t live by that and they just want

Chris Simmance:
Mm.

Kevin:
to sail and they’re just say, Hey, I’ll figure it out later. Um, you know, I always, especially in the past, you know, when I talk to people, like, uh, it won’t always just make sure that I can get them results. Um, and just with a lot of the changes that I’d say that has happened with like the iOS privacy, that has made it a lot harder. That’s like where, you know, like I will just, I won’t really take on drop shippers, you know, cause it just, it’s just not going to work. And that’s just where like, I’m going to be able to identify areas where it’s going to be really difficult with like the chances of being successful are, are really low. So that’s really where I kind of build that into say the sales process upfront where, you know, I’m trying to stop any of that because like it honestly pains me when we bring a client on and we can’t get results. Um,

Chris Simmance:
Mm.

Kevin:
cause like I said, I mean, it’s, it’s a failure. It’s on me for bringing them in and, and thinking that, that we could get results. So it’s really just kind of, you know, Like I said, just being selective and that was something that I definitely was in the beginning

Chris Simmance:
Mm.

Kevin:
and just kind of building that into that sales process upfront so that way we don’t get into situations like that.

Chris Simmance:
And you mentioned a moment ago when you’re in a place where you can take another client on, you switch your ads on, the assumption there is obviously the ads are targeted, which I very much likely, given that that’s what you do, you are targeting properly. But how did you get to a point where you knew who your audience was in such a way? Because so many agencies sell everything to everyone and do everything for everyone. How did you get to a point where you could say that’s the customer?

Kevin:
Yeah, really good question. I mean, it’s really just from doing and just thinking about who are like the customers that I really get results for, like who do I like working with? And then it’s

Chris Simmance:
Mm.

Kevin:
a matter of kind of finding that targeting and then crafting that message to get them in.

Chris Simmance:
Mm.

Kevin:
And you know, that’s the other thing. I mean, there’s a lot of agencies that like they can’t get clients for themselves from paid ads, which is like, it’s like, what, how are you trying to do this for other people? That’s where like, you know, I take a lot of pride in that where it’s like, hey, if I couldn’t get clients from How on Earth would I be able to get it for somebody else? And there’s just a lot of agencies out there that don’t like to have those horrible ads and all they’re doing is like spanning people. And

Chris Simmance:
Mm.

Kevin:
that’s the other thing that this kind of gives our space that we’re in, just like a bad name

Chris Simmance:
Yeah.

Kevin:
because there’s a lot of folks like that. So yeah.

Chris Simmance:
Yeah. So, I mean, I guess if you, if you know, um, the solutions that you drive and what the gains are from that point of view, you can look at the pains and the issues that those clients would have. And, and it isn’t as simple as we just want a better return on our ad spend. It is we want to hit our targets or we want to grow, uh, based on the business’s strategy and we want to make sure that I look good and get my bonus and things like that.

Kevin:
Yeah.

Chris Simmance:
Um, And most ads that I see, especially for digital agency services are the short tail keyword type thing where it’s just like SEO, SEO agency.

Kevin:
Exactly, yeah.

Chris Simmance:
Um, not, not the, not the stuff that kind of pre qualifies them in, in a sense, because like you say, you want to, you want to know before you get to the pitching process, before you put a proposal together, that they aren’t a drop shipper or a person with no budget that can’t be helped. Um, so, you know, knowing the audience and catering for that in your ads is, is massively key. So

Kevin:
Yeah.

Chris Simmance:
let’s say, let’s say there’s someone listening now and they’re thinking, do you know what I’ve been listening to Kevin’s podcast and I, this is, this is it. I’ve decided I’m setting up an agency tomorrow is my, my first day of getting my, uh, agency building in place. I’m starting from tomorrow. They knock on your door, Kevin, and they say, what’s one piece of advice that you’d give me, um, before I get going. What would it be?

Kevin:
honestly say don’t do it.

Chris Simmance:
NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN

Kevin:
To be honest, it’s not for everybody. And I want to tell you why. Because it’s, you know, starting out, you know, it can be really difficult. You know, that, you know, grow too fast type of thing, your quality goes down. Probably like the hardest thing is juggling clients. You know, it can be really difficult, especially starting out. I mean, starting out, you got to be You know, you’re the salesperson, you got to do like the inbound marketing. Um, you’re going to have tremendous ups and downs because, but you’re starting out, you know, you’re going to live and die by those first few clients, you know, and that’s going to be stressful beyond belief. Um, but like if you’re somebody who doesn’t give up, you know, you’re, you’re willing to be okay with the ups and downs, you know, then do it, you know, you know, agencies can be quick to get some clients, but it could be just as quick to lose them. And that’s really where. Being able to juggle so many things starting out

Chris Simmance:
Yeah.

Kevin:
tends to be really difficult. That’s why I say don’t do it, try to get into something else because it’s absolutely, I feel like a sea filled of red, like they say, where it’s always the people are kind of chopping at the bit. Because

Chris Simmance:
Mm-hmm.

Kevin:
even when you get results for clients, these clients are gonna always have some other agency chirping in their ear sweet nothings for having better results.

Chris Simmance:
Exactly. And I often say to people, um, and I have these kinds of conversations with them, that, you know, champagne on the way up and punches in the face on the way down.

Kevin:
Yeah.

Chris Simmance:
Um, it’s easy to like champagne. Um, the, uh, the,

Kevin:
Yeah.

Chris Simmance:
the key thing is, um, you’ve got to be able to take a punch. Um, so yeah, resilience is a massive aspect of running an agency. And I think that, you know, people getting into the industry or getting into agencies, uh, and learning to lead. And there’s, there’s a heck of a lot of, there’s, there’s more punches in the face, uh, than there are sips of champagne. Um,

Kevin:
Yeah.

Chris Simmance:
but if you know what your plan is, if you know who you are, if you know what you’re selling and who you’re selling it to, and you’ve got a decent sort of value set and cultural sort of agreements internally, then it’s easier to, uh, it’s easier to enjoy the good times. Um, you know,

Kevin:
Yeah, yeah, I think you say, you know, perfectly with that, I mean, just say, there’s gonna be tremendous ups and downs, you know, and that’s

Chris Simmance:
Absolutely. Kevin, it’s been wonderful having you on the podcast and hopefully we’ll speak in years time and we’ll be able to talk about all of those tracking changes and what developments the agencies

Kevin:
Absolutely.

Chris Simmance:
have put in place there. But thanks so much for coming along.

Kevin:
Absolutely. And thank you for having me. Hope this was helpful to anybody listening. Hope I didn’t discourage you. Just, you know, agency.

Chris Simmance:
they start listening the second you said don’t start an agency Kevin I’m sorry.

Kevin:
No, I mean, I just want to be honest. I mean, I live in it, you know, like I don’t have a huge agency and most people starting out will definitely be on that small.

Chris Simmance:
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And in our next episode, we’ll be speaking with another agency leader to hear their story and the lessons they’ve learned along the way. And thanks very much for listening.

Kevin:
All right, thanks.