VO 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 had 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, let us begin. Over to you, Chris.
Chris Simmance (Host):
Thanks voiceover guy, and on the podcast today we’ve got Bibi the Link Builder. How you doing Bibi?
Bibi Raven (Guest):
Hi, I’m doing amazing, all things considering.
Chris Simmance (Host):
Yeah. Yeah. Let’s not talk politics, or war, or viruses in this podcast.
Bibi Raven (Guest):
Boring.
Chris Simmance (Host):
Sorry to everyone who was hoping for that for some reason.
Bibi Raven (Guest):
[inaudible 00:01:11].
Chris Simmance (Host):
Firstly, Bibi, tell us all about the agency. What is it that you do, beyond the obvious being Bibi the Link Builder?
Bibi Raven (Guest):
Well, there’s not much beyond that really. I just…
Chris Simmance (Host):
This is going to be a short podcast, everybody.
Bibi Raven (Guest):
Yeah. People need links to their websites to help them get higher in the search results, and I build those links from other websites to their website. That’s the whole nuts and bolts of it.
Chris Simmance (Host):
And you’ve been going for about three or four years now, haven’t you?
Bibi Raven (Guest):
Yeah. Yeah. I’m really bad with time so it could be 20, I don’t know.
Chris Simmance (Host):
Yeah. For the people that are listening to this you can’t see that Bibi’s got one of those Zoom filters on where her hair’s on fire.
Bibi Raven (Guest):
Yeah.
Chris Simmance (Host):
She could be having a good day or a bad day and you just never know.
Bibi Raven (Guest):
[inaudible 00:01:59].
Chris Simmance (Host):
Well, hopefully not, this is a family podcast, Bibi.
Bibi Raven (Guest):
Is it? Oh, okay. Fuck them then, bye.
Chris Simmance (Host):
You’ve got about, what, 30 people in the team?
Bibi Raven (Guest):
Sip of coffee. Yeah. Yeah, about 30.
Chris Simmance (Host):
And you run an almost entirely remote business, don’t you?
Bibi Raven (Guest):
Yes.
Chris Simmance (Host):
They’re all over the world, are they?
Bibi Raven (Guest):
Yeah, it’s entirely remote. I haven’t worked in an office for, I think, about 10 years or so. No, longer, I think 12, 13 years. But my team, most of my team is in the Philippines and then I have a business partner in United States and my sister works for me as well. She’s on Majorca, Spain.
Chris Simmance (Host):
Oh, right. Time zones is probably the biggest problem that you’ve got when it comes to communicating at times, is it?
Bibi Raven (Guest):
Yeah, it sometimes is. Although the people in the Philippines, they just determine their own work hours, basically own work schedule. And a lot of them like to work at night so they just live by the day and work at night. Some work part of the day in the morning and then part of day in the evening.
Chris Simmance (Host):
That’s nice.
Bibi Raven (Guest):
We all find a spot where we can communicate.
Chris Simmance (Host):
That’s cool.
Bibi Raven (Guest):
We have normal team meetings and everything.
Chris Simmance (Host):
That’s cool. What do you think’s been one of the biggest successes that you’ve had in all the years you’ve been running the agency?
Bibi Raven (Guest):
It’s going to be really weird because it’s not…
Chris Simmance (Host):
That sounds unusual. I wasn’t expecting normal, Bibi.
Bibi Raven (Guest):
I think I was really happy when there was a big typhoon in the Philippines and their houses were blown away and all that stuff, and it was fine for us. We were able to donate money to help everyone out, to keep paying them, paying them double, and to sustain everybody through their crisis. And I think that was such a rewarding thing to be able to do. And I realized I’ve always wanted to help people, running a business is hard to be a volunteer and all that stuff.
Chris Simmance (Host):
It is.
Bibi Raven (Guest):
But then I realized I can still make money and have a purposeful business, so I can still help people. I think that was one of my biggest wins. Even though 80% of our people weren’t able to work for a really long time, I think it was almost a month, we just kept going and we had enough.
Chris Simmance (Host):
The biggest success in a sense is that the business had resilience but also you managed to do a good thing and help people out?
Bibi Raven (Guest):
Yeah.
Chris Simmance (Host):
Which is really cool.
Bibi Raven (Guest):
Yeah. And astonishing thing of that was also that so many people, even though they know what I’m like, and they know that I really care about them, they all thought they were going to get fired for being hit by a typhoon that’s [crosstalk 00:05:03].
Chris Simmance (Host):
It’s not their fault is it?
Bibi Raven (Guest):
It’s not their fault, that’s it.
Chris Simmance (Host):
But maybe that’s the gig culture for workers like that. They just assume that they’re disposable, even if you are nice to them.
Bibi Raven (Guest):
Yeah. I think that the disposable term, that’s a really good term. That’s something I use in my job posting. When I hire new people, I always say, “A lot of entrepreneurs or online entrepreneurs they see you guys as disposable labor, but I don’t see you, so you have to be committed because it’s both ways.”
Chris Simmance (Host):
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
Bibi Raven (Guest):
That’s really it.
Chris Simmance (Host):
That’s a lovely thing to call a success. I think it’s really lovely.
Bibi Raven (Guest):
Thank you.
Chris Simmance (Host):
Congratulations on being a good human being.
Bibi Raven (Guest):
Ah, [crosstalk 00:05:50].
Chris Simmance (Host):
You win the prize.
Bibi Raven (Guest):
I’m an atheist so I might still go to hell.
Chris Simmance (Host):
You can’t do it all, you can’t do everything. If you were to go back the four years, plus all the time that you spent beforehand, before you started the agency and you were to build a time machine, Bibi’s Time Machine, and you were to go back in time and give yourself one piece of advice, what do you think you’d give yourself as that one piece of advice?
Bibi Raven (Guest):
I wish you asked me four years ago. No, no, because I need that much time to think about it. I think to realize what your capacity is, because I think in the beginning I said yes to too many leads because I was so flattered by people. All the marketing I get is inbound, but people ask for me and it was good for my ego but I ended up saying yes to too many projects, too many clients.
Chris Simmance (Host):
Yeah. I think we talked about that a while ago, didn’t we? And I think getting over the flattery is quite hard.
Bibi Raven (Guest):
Yeah.
Chris Simmance (Host):
Saying no is really hard when you run an agency.
Bibi Raven (Guest):
Yeah. And especially if people keep pushing, if people say, “Yeah, but maybe we’ll wait a month, then we’ll start,” or they tell you, “I’ll be very patient, I won’t expect much,” and all that stuff. Now I just say no, because it’s going to kill you in the end.
Chris Simmance (Host):
Can I get some links from you next month? Have you got time?
Bibi Raven (Guest):
Yeah, I got it all.
Chris Simmance (Host):
You got loads of time, you’re fine. You’re never busy. Four years ago, the four year old version of you had shown up and given that advice though, do you think you’d have listened at all?
Bibi Raven (Guest):
Maybe a little bit. Yeah. Maybe a little bit.
Chris Simmance (Host):
Maybe. Okay. I can imagine that apart from the shock of seeing yourself four years older, I think that kind of advice is the sort of thing where you only listen when you’re ready to hear it, but also it’s something that when you start realizing that it’s true, you might come to the realization sooner rather than waiting four years and being a bit stressed out.
Bibi Raven (Guest):
Yeah. But I do have to say that there were probably people already saying it to me back then, but I didn’t listen.
Chris Simmance (Host):
And this is one of the hardest jobs from my point of view as an agency coach, I find it really hard to be giving advice, mentorship, coaching, et cetera, if I know the person isn’t ready to hear it. Often that’s when I’ll turn an agency away and say we need to be in a position where if you’re asking for advice and support, you’ve got to be ready to listen to that advice and take the support. There’s a lot of agency owner/director leaders out there that think that getting an agency coach is the solution to the problem. And you then can tick it off, and then you say, oh, well, the agency still isn’t working. It can’t be all of the things I’ve done, it must be someone else. But if you don’t listen to the advice that you’re given, then it’s probably because you’re not ready to listen to it.
Bibi Raven (Guest):
Yeah. How do you get people ready to listen to it or just [inaudible 00:09:14].
Chris Simmance (Host):
Well, I think it’s when they ask.
Bibi Raven (Guest):
Right.
Chris Simmance (Host):
Usually lots of agency coaching businesses, they’ll do lots of events and invite those agencies for free staff and free advice. And then those people might turn into clients, but they’re not necessarily ready for it yet, they’ve had the ego massage and then they go straight into a six month program and everyone thinks that everything’s going to be fine. But at that point in time, usually that’s when they’re looking for a fix and not support. They’re looking for someone to come in and say, “This is what you need to do.”
Bibi Raven (Guest):
Right.
Chris Simmance (Host):
Or, “Read this book, read that book, and here’s a spreadsheet.” Whereas when you’re ready for the advice, you go, shit, I’ve got to do something here and it’s probably my fault somehow. And when you start going, it’s probably my fault, that’s when you start listening. And that’s when people come to me and they say, “Hey, Chris, are you free to talk?” And usually I do what you do and just say, “Yeah, sure, sure, no problem at all,” and then just don’t sleep and things.
I don’t listen to my own advice. I often say, “You should eat your own dog food,” and I need to go and eat some dog food, I think. Apart from saying yes to too many things and taking too much on, is there something that you regret doing the way you did or that you started doing that you realized was really successful, that now you always do and it’s really successful for the business.
Bibi Raven (Guest):
Those are two questions, right?
Chris Simmance (Host):
It is, yeah, I cheated.
Bibi Raven (Guest):
You asked first, was it something I realized I shouldn’t have done?
Chris Simmance (Host):
Yeah. Is there something that you did wrong, but in changing it, it set you up for success now?
Bibi Raven (Guest):
I think managing expectations, again, that’s also part of the whole capacity thing. I think I promised people to deliver links within a certain timeframe and I think that timeframe was too small. And so for instance, when you start a link building campaign, you need to get to know the project, get to know the market and all that stuff. And the first month there might not be a link, but I always promise to have 10 links ready in the first month. And now I know that that’s not a good way to go and it’s better to set up people expecting it even later so when they come earlier, they’re happily surprised. Now I try to tell people the first month there are not going to be any links. And then if there are links, then they’re happy.
Chris Simmance (Host):
That expectation management thing is something that I guess that, it’s regretful you didn’t do it in the first instance, but you learned from it and that’s now become part of the systems and the processes of onboarding new clients?
Bibi Raven (Guest):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
Chris Simmance (Host):
And I guess the good thing, I always find that the clients you end up losing are the ones that… If you get the onboarding perfect for a client, they often stay longer because they know who they are, they know who you are, they know what to expect from you and what you expect from them. Whereas when you’re in that yes mode, that goes out the window. I remember when I first started running the agencies, I remember thinking, yeah, yeah, we’ll take that on, we’ll do this. Yeah, we’ll do your social media management and all that, and by the way, how the hell do you do social media management when you’re an SEO agency, I don’t know?
And you sell all this stuff, but then you realize that you lose that client in three or six months time, and you’re thinking, oh, they’re an asshole, why is it they left us? And you start thinking, well, it’s probably me. I didn’t tell them, “Don’t expect these things in month one.” And if you do a technical SEO audit on someone’s website, you need to let them know at the sales process, that when we do an audit there will be things for you to implement, which may cost you money from a developer. They don’t pay 10 grand for an audit and then expect the website to be perfect, they expect additional costs later. And usually if you don’t set expectations, then you lose people quicker.
Bibi Raven (Guest):
Yeah. I think it’s also really good for a lot of SEOs that sometimes they keep things vague because they don’t know what’s going to happen or what the results are going to be, because they don’t want to over promise things, and I understand. But what you can be very clear about is what your work process is, and what the terms are under which you work. And like you say, that there might be costs later on. Even if you’re not that clear about these are the exact results in that much time, you can really have your reporting or everything you do very open and transparent and that will help them trust you more.
Chris Simmance (Host):
Yeah, absolutely. And I think it’s a people business, in a sense. If you are selling a service, you’re selling the promise of doing something. And if you’re selling the promise of doing something, they’ve got to buy you as well. If they don’t buy you as a person and they don’t buy trustworthiness, and they know that you’re not going to try and screw them over, then it’s really hard for them to understand why they didn’t get links in month one, or why that was a bit harder later on and things like that.
On the other side then, is there something… Because I know that from some of the stuff I’ve seen you share in the past and things, I see that you guys have got a really nice way of reaching out to people for links and things like that. Is there something that you guys do internally with your team that make everyone as good as they are, that you’ve just gone, oh, it felt natural to you but you’ve now made that part of the business?
Bibi Raven (Guest):
Yeah. I think it’s part of the recruiting. Basically when I hire someone, before I hire someone, I have them do a test and a test, it’s very straightforward, it’s what they’re going to be doing in the team anyways. And it doesn’t mean that they have to do it well, or have to even understand the test, but I have to see potential. And the potential is to be able to write very creative and personable copy because that’s the hardest part in link building, what I do. And once I see the potential for that, then I hire them. I really hire them on their most important traits.
And something that I did find out this year was that I left training to the team leads, but I now think that it’s watered down a little bit so I’m diving back in and creating a solid training again. And then I also asked the people that were doing the jobs because they didn’t want to do some stuff anymore, and I didn’t understand why. One of the things they didn’t like doing anymore was writing templates. We use templates in our outreach, but they’re very creative so they’re actually a standalone product. They’re really good writing. But they didn’t like doing it anymore. And then I found out it was the pressure that they had to produce too many of them.
Chris Simmance (Host):
Oh, I see. Yeah.
Bibi Raven (Guest):
That killed their creativity. When I trained, I used to have somebody do templates and then I would do video feedback and then they would do revision. And there was a couple of times forth and back, but they didn’t like that anymore because they felt hurt by my feedback because I’m Dutch so I’m very direct.
Chris Simmance (Host):
Are you?
Bibi Raven (Guest):
Yeah.
Chris Simmance (Host):
Oh.
Bibi Raven (Guest):
And then I asked them, “How would you like to do these trainings? I know you guys don’t enjoy doing this anymore and it shows in the work.” And then they said, “Well maybe we can try groups.” Now we’re doing groups where everybody gives feedback on each other’s work and I chime in of course. And it’s given everybody new motivation and inspiration.
Chris Simmance (Host):
Any group coaching, group training, those sorts of things where people can challenge each other’s ideas and challenge each other’s perceptions, even if you end up coming out of those meetings having learned nothing about the subject matter, you learn something about how you’ve communicated which is fantastically important for a business like yours.
Bibi Raven (Guest):
Yeah. Yeah. It’s worked really well. We’ll just keep doing that.
Chris Simmance (Host):
Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. It sounds really good. Especially if you’ve got remote teams as well because it adds a little bit of culture to the business as well so you’re having lots of people talking in a meeting of sorts, to learn something. But they’re learning from each other and culturally they’re learning from each other as well so you’re building a bit of a more sticky team. Because, of course, not everyone works very closely with each other, so necessarily sees each other in person. If someone’s waited 25 minutes throughout this entire podcast, and sorry if you’ve had to listen to us for 25 minutes, but if you’ve listened to us for 25 minutes and all they’ve been waiting for, as a brand new agency owner, is Bibi’s one piece of advice. What one killer piece of advice would you give a new agency owner?
Bibi Raven (Guest):
Oh my God, you’re such a hyper bowl. Jesus.
Chris Simmance (Host):
You should see my outreach emails, they’re awful.
Bibi Raven (Guest):
One killer piece of advice. Don’t think that you have to do something a certain way. You were talking about social media marketing, right?
Chris Simmance (Host):
Yeah.
Bibi Raven (Guest):
The agency might think, I need to go on Facebook and I need to do this. It can work really, really well, but if it’s not within your personality or your business structure, it’s not going to work for you. You have to find ways to generate leads or to run your business your own way. At the same time, there are so many people who can show you examples. Just shop around and look at how other people are doing things. But don’t think, oh, I have to be an alpha male and I have to be a baller and boast myself in a Lamborghini and push people into going with this 20 K budget or whatever. If that fits you, yeah, cool. Do it. But if it doesn’t fit you, you will find your own way.
Chris Simmance (Host):
There’s a formula to doing some of this in the broad strokes, but if you fit everything in all the boxes, then you’re not going to be any different and you’re not going to be any better either.
Bibi Raven (Guest):
Yeah. That’s the same as well. Yeah. That’s it. It’s fine to copy everybody else if you want to have maybe their clients or something, if you want to follow their path, but you don’t have to.
Chris Simmance (Host):
Well, quite a lot of agency owners, they start their agency after coming from another agency and they think they can do better. But their template, their benchmark is everything they’ve just been doing so they go away and they take all of the structure, the systems, the processes that they remember as an employee and try and put them in place as an employer, in an agency that they want to have different clients to the one that they started at. And they’re trying to put square pegs in round holes at that point. And eventually those things fall through and they break down.
Bibi Raven (Guest):
Yeah. You must see that a lot.
Chris Simmance (Host):
Yeah. Yeah. But it’s part of growth of an agency. You get to that end of that first 18 months to two years, that’s when the referrals and the recommendations start slowing down because you’re now running your own agency, you’ve already spoken to everyone you could possibly choose to speak to. And at that point, that’s when you start to need to really build a sales and marketing machine, and then you look at it and you realize it’s really hard to sell and market when you look like everyone else. Then you don’t know how to push that and the next thing you know, you look like every other digital agency on the planet.
Bibi Raven (Guest):
Yeah. It’s so funny because when you were talking about agencies, I realized that for a really long time I didn’t want to be called an agency because I had so many negative associations with the word agency.
Chris Simmance (Host):
But you are one, Bibi, you’ve come to terms with it now.
Bibi Raven (Guest):
Yeah. Even to the head of agencies was this, these sleazy, preppy, hip guys at a ping-pong table.
Chris Simmance (Host):
I think in general that’s relatively fair.
Bibi Raven (Guest):
But you could also just be me, a mom, sitting on your couch watching Below Decks while managing your team. You don’t have to be what you think an agency.
Chris Simmance (Host):
Exactly. And I think that you don’t have to be what you think an agency is, is probably even better advice than your first piece of advice.
Bibi Raven (Guest):
Yeah, I think so.
Chris Simmance (Host):
And I think that’s a really good way to end the podcast. Thank you.
Bibi Raven (Guest):
Oh, wow, that was fast.
Chris Simmance (Host):
Yeah, I know, it feels fast, but those poor people who’ve listened to us for 28 minutes are probably climbing the walls in frustration.
Bibi Raven (Guest):
They’re, “Where’s the [inaudible 00:22:47] advice? Give me the exact blueprint of how to do an agency.”
Chris Simmance (Host):
Hey, that’s what people pay me for.
Bibi Raven (Guest):
So smooth.
Chris Simmance (Host):
Thanks very much for coming along, it’s been lovely to talk to you, Bibi.
Bibi Raven (Guest):
All right, bye. Thank you guys.
Chris Simmance (Host):
Thank you. And in our next podcast, we’ll have a different agency leader talking about the things they’ve learned and the lessons that they’ve taken away from those. Enjoy.