V.O. 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. OK, so let us begin over to you, Chris.
Chris Simmance (Host)
Thanks, voice over guy. On the podcast day, we’ve got Levi McCurdy all the way from the US of A. How are you doing?
Levi McCurdy (Guest)
Great, great, great. Great. Great. It is cold and rainy and dreary here in in Pennsylvania.
Chris Simmance (Host)
Or Pennsylvania is is? That’s where the American all the American vampires live there, isn’t it?
Levi McCurdy (Guest)
It’s not. Yes, yes, we house, we house 90% of the country’s vampires in the state. That’s what we.
Chris Simmance (Host)
Did wonder or something like that? Or or cheese? Everything in America is something or cheese.
Levi McCurdy (Guest)
I think we’re chocolate we have. We have chocolate. That’s our. That’s our.
Chris Simmance (Host)
I mean, that’s a good claim to fame. I definitely know of that brand. So. So let, Levi, you’re the the owner of Pixel & Hammer, give us a big up. Tell us. Tell us what?
Levi McCurdy (Guest)
You do? Yeah, man. So in short, I’m. I was thinking about this and running through it in the shower this morning. But pixel and hammer is basically a digital marketing agency. We help small businesses, nonprofits, larger businesses, anyone who comes to us, and that’s it’s a perfect fit. We will take their website, we will rebrand it, redesign and redevelop it, give it a new back. And give it new life. And just bring it up to date for this year, if not next. And we do that through the the power of WordPress and custom development. And we have an in House team that handles all of that. We don’t we don’t purchase themes, we don’t use, you know, third party software or anything like that. We rely on a few poor plugins obviously.
Chris Simmance (Host)
Go see and.
Levi McCurdy (Guest)
Yelps and gravity forms and stuff like that. Our core is is for the client, so we utilised custom fields and other stuff like that to to make our backends completely and utterly. 100% for the use case of our clients every single time. So I think that’s one thing that sets us apart, you know, not two of our sites are really the same ever on the front end. For the back end. So it’s that’s. Kind of what we. Do the company has been around and in business of this area for the last going on 10 years now and I’ve I’ve been owner and they control and having a blast running it since 2020. And it’s been a crazy three years so far, and I’m. So excited for for what we’re doing.
Chris Simmance (Host)
I I think now’s a good time to be in, in the development business given what’s going on in the world and and and I think you you you’re right using using WordPress as a core platform. It’s a it’s a brilliant place to start or to at least run from a my my old web development business. Almost purely WordPress.
Levi McCurdy (Guest)
Yeah, yeah. What’s insane to me, man, is when when I was in college, all all through college learning the code and the databases and the infrastructure and all that stuff, my professors swore against it. No WordPress, no beings. You’re a developer, you will. Write your own themes. You will make your own plugins you. Will code code code? And WordPress, you’ll never use it. It’s it’s something that you will like. They swear against it because it was basically 99% of everything they were trying to teach. Us in one little package. And then as soon as I get out of College day one of my internship up until just yesterday I’m logging.
Chris Simmance (Host)
So is is that is that is that the developers equivalent of a teacher saying that you’ll never have a calculator? In your pocket.
Levi McCurdy (Guest)
Yes, yes, yes, yes, 100%. I was on here. This kind of dates us a little bit, but this the year was 2012. This I was about halfway through college, almost graduating in 2013. I was on the tail end. I was one of the last classes, one of the last people who was required to take a flash class. Within a bang and then flash and then embedded on the website that we made for the game and but the teacher, the teacher, which is cool shape because she. Just she knew it was a dying. She was one of. Us and like, we basically just told her what we wanted the game to do, and then the teacher coded it and then we had to design it. And then. They came together and then everyone got an Addy because we knew this was obsolete and 20. So it’s it’s very it’s been a very interesting, very interesting ride to see that transition from what our professors and what they thought what is the key and goal in college to now whoop, I’m pretty sure they’ll say professors are working for companies that now use WordPress solely so. The the world change it’s. I don’t know. It does. They’ll never end.
Chris Simmance (Host)
So what do you think’s been one of the biggest successes that you’ve seen in running the agency?
Levi McCurdy (Guest)
Yeah. So so like I said, I took over this business in 2020. The the previous owner had started it with the founders and just over time the stress or you know other opportunities come up. Our previous owner Emily had an opportunity to go work with her husband at his. Company that that she was dying to do so she said hey. Do you want pixel and hammer? And I I’m just I’m an entrepreneur or I have another wedding member. We DJ weddings on the weekends company so so if I’m not making websites, I’m entertaining someone elsewhere, but uh, it’s so I took over in 2020. I said sure, why not? And so I took over January 1st, 2020. And then two months later, it was announced that the world was shutting down to a national panda. And so as you can imagine, it says like my budget, this is what pays the bills. This is what feed my son to this job was like my 9 to 5 paycheck weeks. For the last. Three years and then now January 1st. 2020 I’m. The boss I have to write those cheques I have to process the payroll. I have to get the money. In and sending the money out like everything changes. And then literally two months, if they’re running that the world shuts down. I was scared to death, but I would say that was probably my my biggest success. I pulled in more sales in 2020 through COVID the first year than they had in past ownership. So. It was a.
Chris Simmance (Host)
Pretty, pretty big success out of something pretty devastating then really.
Levi McCurdy (Guest)
Yeah. Well, because yeah, you know, because. I mean, even even we. Didn’t know how. To handle it, obviously you know we’ve. I’ve always said I need an Internet connexion and a Panera Bread to do my job. And that’s been in the case, you know, pandemic or not. But now it’s funny because 99% of the world knows where we’ve come from for the last 10 years, like the whole working from all and then working in the cafes and Starbucks. Now it all makes. Sense. So it’s interesting to me when. When, when that did happen, the cultural shift, I mean just the the shift to zoom allow was was was fascinating to me and I think I mean I. Think that just. Helped having having all of our clients be able to. Just like hey, let’s just hop on a zoom call, we don’t need to stop our website project for this. Portion of our business. You know, it’s all digital anyways. Half of our clients are an hour, 45 minutes an hour and a half awaiting fines. So we are going to see each other in person anyways, so it was certainly a challenge navigating through that pandemic as it I’m sure was for everybody. I am. But jumping into that deep end of the pool. For the first time with just that looming in the background and then making it the best year ever as far as sales and fire retention and and you know everything else that happened that year was was our best. You remember, oddly enough, so.
Chris Simmance (Host)
Which is which is pretty good, pretty good success. I mean I’ve I’ve been speaking to quite a lot of agency owners that I work with and and they used to have it in the they go and speak to a client, the client, they’d be in the sales process and the client say it would be nice to come to see your office as if to sort of say you need a physical office with the physical desk and a physical team. At the same place to do the to, to to win the work. And now it’s it’s, you know, big, big ticket clients you’d you’d make the effort to go see them and things like that. But for the most part, you don’t have to do that. And how I’m. I’m actually meeting quite a lot of my international agency owners by a miraculous. Quest and and and we’re doing quite a lot of our sessions in, in the Metaverse, and it and it’s. And it’s so obviously when you work with web-based businesses, it’s a little bit easier on that adoption curve. But I’ve been finding that something two years ago, if I just said. Hey, do you want to? Try and meet on a virtual reality world they’d have. Everyone would have laughed. Now it’s being adopted quite nicely. I I did a did a meeting this morning where we built A3 year plan for an agency leader on a massive whiteboard in the Metaverse. It was. Like an infant whiteboard.
Levi McCurdy (Guest)
And I’ll feel it is.
Chris Simmance (Host)
Yeah, it’s brilliant. The whole thing’s recorded.
Levi McCurdy (Guest)
What’s interesting to me is I met. I would put myself on the frontline of tech like the day the iPhone comes out. I’ll tell you everything about it. There’s 1234. There’s five Macs in this room right now, and it’s just me. There’s a PC that we’re on, Mac. Like there’s a row caster. There’s 10 microphones. Again, just me. Like, you know, I’m. I’m ready for an apocalypse. And if I need to store 10 other creatives here. At any given time, but. It’s just me and so. Like I’m not, I have not touched. I have not touched the metaverse yet. I’ve seen. I’ve seen the tick tocks have. Are you doing like the the goggles with like your free? Just your free computer screens and that’s how you’re working and coding and checking emails. Wow. And that’s and that’s OK for you. Like, it doesn’t bother you? There’s no, it’s.
Chris Simmance (Host)
The the good thing is I’ve seen here the good. The good thing is those sorts of things, they they get better and easier overtime. You just get you, you get used to it over time. But I think I think the adoption of these things means the technology gets better, which means you then end up going from a I can’t do the work because I can’t see you to a OK let let’s force our way onto zoom and play with all the buttons and you’re on mute all the time to let’s have a a strange conversation in the Metaverse 2. Let’s do an entire three-year strategy. In the Metaverse and and it it works, it works. Really. Really. Well, but then so if you could go back, if you go back in time to not just when you first started, but that build up to starting out and give yourself a piece of advice cause you were taking over an already established running business. So what? What piece of advice would you give to yourself now knowing everything you know, forgetting the pandemic? Obviously because you can’t cheat and share, you know.
Levi McCurdy (Guest)
I would say I I have two. I’ll, I’ll go. Back and then we’ll jump forward and then I. I think that should that should suffice the question. But I would say going back now, and this one’s a little bit might get Flack for this, might not little controversy.
Chris Simmance (Host)
We’ll say we’ll say.
Levi McCurdy (Guest)
I would say my rethinking like college education when it comes to this industry not not necessarily saying and not going to college. It is no, no, no. In 2023 Navy, now that the the best thing to be talking about. You know, I I foresee a very big change with the Metaverse and and AI and everything, robbing in that realm. So we’ll we’ll see if college even exists in 10 years. But you know, I worked for a company once where the person above me went to say just a community. College, where I went to a for profit, public art school, so naturally I paid 10 times as much as she did, but she made three more times than I did in salary. And so when I did that math, it didn’t math for me. The math. With the math and. Day and that kind of like made it click and then of course now. With just you 2 master class your course. This course this guys course that you find off of Facebook, whatever it might be, you can learn it online for free if you sit down or if you ask and look and. Learn. And so I I would maybe have reconsidered that for myself and mainly learn it on my own or in a different way, or. You know, maybe. Not in that professional college semester structure. And then the other thing is when I took over, there was a big, very big discussion between me and my peers and people were still working with all on rebranding and changing the name. I think I think a lot of companies will just ride and die with the thing and the name that they’ve had since the. Very, very ten years ago, 15 years ago. It’s my name. It’s it’s my, it’s. This is what it means and it’s like. But is your company still serving that purpose? Right? And so I think I think if I look back at it, the one thing I would have changed three years ago this we wouldn’t want to be like a name brand like a rebrand and name change. When I took over, but they still have are so great and also name and the legacy behind that bread is amazing. So it’s. Yeah. Well, we’re sure we’ve got there.
Chris Simmance (Host)
You’ve got a good opportunity though. You’ve got a good opportunity if you’re as good as you. You say you guys are, then you could do it and prove that it works for a case study perspective, but that’s that’s that’s that’s another podcast for another time. So is there something that since since taking over, is there something that you guys? Have done which you kind of learned very quickly the hard way and changed and anything that you know it it was spotted quite early on hopefully that it wasn’t going as well as it could do and you and you did something. Got it.
Levi McCurdy (Guest)
Yeah. So this one kind of comes on the aspect of of of the I’m inside of on running and owning the business. So not sure how much value that that will have to listeners hopefully.
Chris Simmance (Host)
Probably quite a lot.
Levi McCurdy (Guest)
OK, perfect. Great. So I I didn’t know you’re the the range of the audience as far as like employee versus owner Fitbit.
Chris Simmance (Host)
Fully. I’ve marketed this well, so it’s only agency leaders think.
Levi McCurdy (Guest)
OK, perfect. Great. So one thing and it seems very simple, but it turned out in the matter of six months to just be a nightmare of a headache. We we had an infrastructure where any new project that came in, we would split payments 33% to start 33 once the signs approved 33 once the site. Launch and and I I don’t remember if we want my team while they’re probably fired now, but there’s someone on my team recommended we do a 5050 instead of. 3333 and so last year, all of our new projects in like the first half of the year until I shut it down started 5050 and that deemed very, very difficult, not just for for billing and organisation. And having to pay each year, each project gets split between the business, the developer, the designer and the project manager. So just getting 5050 payments means like all those, both of those payments are going immediately because everyone’s waiting for their piece of the pot. When we, when we did the 333333. It’s a lot more breathing room because I can take care of the project manager and payment one still have some money leftover to Bri. Take care of the designer and pay Betito still have money left over to breathe. Take care of developer myself, whoever business and payment #3 and still out a little bit money left over to breathe. Whereas that 5050 split took all those breathing Martins away just because everyone was. Already in line waiting. You know, either for the next project or that cut. So it was. It was a very, very small. The very stressful mistake. Because you know there there were times where of all of our designs were done. So my designer had 1234 projects done waiting for those invoices. But I wasn’t getting paid for that portion of the project because my developer needed three months for this. Another three weeks for that, another month for that. And however long those projects lasted, forever long that development. So, so now my designer has to sit and wait for the developer and it it wasn’t, it wasn’t a good structure. Uh and obviously uh. That that’s a risky if that’s a. Rookie mistake then. Then so be it for me. But I had it was it was. It was interesting to to see the same amount of money coming in, but at times it was. It was certainly challenge.
Chris Simmance (Host)
One one thing which is is super hard to get your head around when you first start. Running a business. It doesn’t matter if the same amount is 100% of the money. Eventually the cash flow of that money makes a big impact. So split splitting the payments over a certain amount of time or different milestones makes it a hell of a lot easier. But it also you you might go well, it’s still the same 100% but OK 70% of that money has now been accounted for and paid and. Everything is dealt with. It’s a lot less stressful. We used to do. I can’t remember specifically, so let’s just say it was 50202010 so that the final payment was really low and really easy to commit to, but it was the final payment that got the site live. Then that meant that, for example, that if there’s some snagging issues that are in the warranty or anything like that, you need to get the site live because of utilisation and things like that. You, you say let pay the final 10% site goes live, we’ve got a warranty agreement which will cover those issues over the next six months or six weeks or whatever. But it used to help but mean that we can then. Put one project to bed and the the the developers that were looking after the the kind of the warranties of websites they were then starting their job rather than sitting and waiting for developers who then had doubled the amount of workload and it it worked well for it seemed to work well. I’m not saying it works for everyone either. And what’s something that you did conversely, what’s something that you did almost straight off the bat that that you have either stuck to or has been like a big win that you that you absolutely love?
Levi McCurdy (Guest)
I something something that I did right away and something that I’m doing now and something that it just seems to be a yearly thing for me and I don’t know how other they didn’t see others handle it, but I think it’s worse for me because I’m also a web developer. But I I scrape our website like almost every year. I I love, I love it. And then come November, December I look at it and I’m like this is doing nothing for us. There’s no value here. There’s no. SEO, we need more forms. We need more. Lanes we need. This the design what so I am I. So I I’m I’m I think I think and I think that’s our biggest challenge as a business. I think eternally to be honest with you. It’s just it’s. Just our brand and our site and our blog and our our marketing materials. You know we put obviously we have to market ourselves as how we get our fish. But but when it comes to the the dedication, the time spent, you know on our clients and making sure that they have the best. Keywords and titles and pages and this and that. You know, at the end of the day, year, year, site and year two these kind of faults inside. So and then it’s it’s so that was that was my biggest thing since I’ve taken. Our our our site has completely changed in design twice now. Like I said, once a year, right on cue and I have a new theme and like something ready to go that we’re doing a huge content overhaul now. Subtle, it’s. It’s a blessing and a curse. Our website is it’s it’s just it’s it’s a shame because it’s like. I can’t not do. Anything about it? It’s like, ah, you’re went the belt. So just you’re gonna do it and make it great. Yeah. Thanks.
Chris Simmance (Host)
And and and and the. So a similar kind of problem that quite a lot of agency leaders have. And I think you’ll recognise this partly because of what you said, but perhaps because of other things is it’s like the the risk of shiny things. Like new tools or new new new where you’ve got like 15 microphones. Like you say the the, the the risk of shiny stuff, it takes your attention away like a magpie. It would you you don’t. Know where to focus your attention. Because, OK, I’m going to build my website. That’s a scheduled thing that, that, that goes through there. But I’m going to use this new technology which I need to learn and I need to build this thing and I’ve gotta integrate that and then and then all the shiny things eventually add up to to quite a lot of confusion over time. Yeah, but it is good to make sure that. For anyone selling websites in particular, you’ve gotta make sure that that the site that you’re using is your Mac. Getting collateral is actually a sales piece as well, so it’s it’s vital. So yeah, totally understand that one. So if someone’s listening to this podcast right now and they’re in a similar position to you where maybe they’re being offered to take a a larger stake of or the whole part of a business or indeed. Maybe just looking to start an agency for themselves from scratch. What one thing do you think you’d give them as a piece of advice that they could take away?
Levi McCurdy (Guest)
Yeah, I’d say keep it simple. I’d say just don’t make promises you can’t keep. You know, if you are not, if you are not good at writing blog posts, don’t offer block posts as a service. Then someone asks you if you offer that as a service. You know, we we we’ve made that mistake. Plenty of times before you know it’s it’s it’s really easy when a client comes to you and says, hey, we’ve got a bunch of grant money. Here’s 10 grand for the next year. We need you to post on our Facebook page, write a blog post to this for us, and do this every month. And I’m like. Oh, that’s a lot. Of money. And I’ll do that. I’ll. I’ll figure it out. What? I’ll take a month to figure it out. I’ll I’ll hire someone to rate this post. I’ll buckle down and just make your social post for you, but then it’s not work that we enjoy doing. It’s not work that you know, it gets done on time because we don’t enjoy doing it. And it’s just, it’s. So I I’d say. Don’t be afraid to turn down projects. Something that we pride ourselves on and something that we’ve done this year a lot or not this year with last year a lot which is turning down projects maybe because of time, maybe because of industry, maybe because of they are as a person or you know whatever it is you know we we, we’ve. We’ve put ourselves in a situation where we’re able to do that and I’m I’m super proud of that, that we’ve told. So say yes, everything that comes in. And I said. You just.
Chris Simmance (Host)
Sorry, would you say would you, sorry, would you say to to make that into a single sentence, something like be comfortable with saying no more?
Levi McCurdy (Guest)
Yes. Yeah, yes, yes. Get comfortable with saying no because. That that I learned this year. This year the business Centre was one of the roughest, I think, just because I had to say no to employees who are. No longer employees. Anymore you have clients who are no longer clients and and so. On and so forth, so. It’s that’s that’s the hard part of it. But at the end of the day, you go run yourself into the ground to say yes to everybody and so say no, this is something that I adapted. And when the first time I said it, it was I. I don’t know what, what doing drugs is like. But I would imagine that’s. What if? I would imagine that’s? When I when I saw.
Chris Simmance (Host)
All the cool kids are saying yes to clients.
Levi McCurdy (Guest)
Right. Well, right, let me say when I and the the true story we we had the we cancelled the project the the site was designed coded paid for and we had to tell the client we were done, we walked away and and we were done just because of the way they delivered content. I mean we got a Finder. In the mail of like the 100 loose leaf sheets, I got an e-mail with fifteen other word documents going. I got another e-mail with like just text in the e-mail with edits, so we had stuff everywhere. They weren’t cooperating, so we had to fire them. Unfortunately, at that point in the project. Walk away. That’s I thought you know what I mean. But making that decision for the business and our sanity and everything else was one of the best choices we ever made. The client understood completely. We actually still talked to them, and they still pay us occasionally for things.
Chris Simmance (Host)
Right.
Levi McCurdy (Guest)
And uh, you know, we said. No. And so it it felt great. Yeah.
Chris Simmance (Host)
Did it. You did it. You did it the right way round. So. So, I mean, an excellent piece of advice to end the podcast on really is to say yes, less. Or be comfortable saying no. Right. Yeah, absolutely. Fantastic. Thank you very much for being on the podcast, Levi.
Levi McCurdy (Guest)
Yeah, no, this was this is great, man. I, I I love the accent. I love the name. Everything about it, I I love it. What kind of I? I apologise 1. Thing I did my research. What kind of dog do you have?
Chris Simmance (Host)
Oh, it’s the working Cocker spaniel who’s a terrible gun dog, so he use useless, useless in in America.
Levi McCurdy (Guest)
Yeah. Gotcha. Gotcha.
Chris Simmance (Host)
But uh. But thanks very much for coming on and in the next podcast, we’ll be talking to another agency leader to hear their lessons and things they’ve learned along the way. So thanks very much for coming on.
Levi McCurdy (Guest)
Absolutely. Yeah. Thank you for having me.