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Season 2 – Episode 3: Jon Payne – Founder Noisy Little Monkey

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Season 2 – Episode 3: Jon Payne – Founder Noisy Little Monkey

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 and on the podcast today we’ve got Jon Payne again. How you doing, Jon?

Jon Payne (Guest)

I’m good. Thank you. Chris, how are you?

Chris Simmance (Host)

Really good. Really. Good. And I’ve just made you nervous before we started recording, so I’m really hoping to keep pushing on that a. Little bit to see. What happens? So John, very quickly before we kick off for anyone who’s been really naughty and not listen to season one and missed your fantastic first episode. And can you just give everyone a reminder of? Who you are and who Noisy Little Monkey are.

Jon Payne (Guest)

Yes, so Noisy Little Monkey are well, we’ve changed slightly, actually. Yeah. So we are an SEO and HubSpot consultants, yeah.

Chris Simmance (Host)

And the big change?

Jon Payne (Guest)

Like well, like. Yeah, it is a big change. So yeah, specialising obviously in acquiring traffic at acquiring traffic and leads using SEO and we’ve got some partners in content at PC as well and then nurturing and converting those leads into customers using HubSpot and doing sales trade.

Speaker

Cool. So.

Chris Simmance (Host)

Who are you?

Jon Payne (Guest)

Ohh yeah, I’m John Payne. I am the co-founder along with the marvellous Nicola Payne, my wife and managing Director, and yeah, we founded the business 14 years ago and. Yeah, we’ve had some ups and downs. I think last time I talked to you, we were kind of thought we were in a we’re in a pretty serious down that it turned out we were in the middle of a very serious down and and we feel like we’re we. Hit the bottom and the bouncing up.

Chris Simmance (Host)

At the right time as well, because now’s the time to to double down on League Gen SEO and things like that. And I think it, yeah, this it sounds like a really good decision to to to go further into SEO and the HubSpot stuff for sure, especially with with them the prove that you can do it. Kind of need right now from a value point of view and you know, tell a client we can do ex where you can prove it now. Because you’ve got systems behind it. Or So what? What? What’s been some of the the major things that have happened in the last year in within the agency, what have you done that you’ve adapted to?

Jon Payne (Guest)

So one of the things that probably had been an underlying problem for a couple of years is our content department that’s rather grand name for a business of about 16 people. But our content team were really being carried by the. SEO and HubSpot side of the business, hmm. So between SEO and HubSpot, they were making about 8090% of the revenue and content. While it was fun, wasn’t making much money and anything that came in, that was content always had an SEO, a big SEO element.

Chris Simmance (Host)

Or yeah, yeah.

Jon Payne (Guest)

HubSpot setup element so that’s the big. That’s the key change that we’ve made is we’ve. Gone through the pain of getting rid of some of our very good friends, people who’ve been with us for 11 years on a couple of occasions, getting rid of some of our very good friends. When their their their role was they really not really making this selling money, in fact he. Was losing the. Business money.

Chris Simmance (Host)

Yeah, I I I I I I know from experience how sad that can be and it’s it’s hard personally it’s also hard professionally as well to sort of square the circle of you know we’re here as a team and then then you have to make decisions but it’s. The one thing I always remind the agency leaders that I work with is, you know, you got to look at it. It is a business. And the continuity of the business relies on making money. And and if there’s things that are not making money or make money less valuable, then you have to make a change because there’s more people to that you need to keep in post and pay their bills. Or, you know, and all that sort of stuff. And so just hold, you know, holding on and holding on sometimes does more damage, and it’s really it. It sounds awful to sort of look at it from a, you know, you can’t afford it. You gotta get rid of it or a it’s costing more money than than we want it to make, but it’s still it. It can be painful regardless, cause you’re dealing with people and like you say. Friends that you’ve had, that that’s happen. To and it’s, it sounds like like you say you. Know doing the pivot as has has had some good yield from it already which is which is nice and you know seeing you with a smile means that something. Something could happen. I’m hoping and you know you, you, you, you did your you did an event last year I think. Was it may last year, almost a year. OK.

Jon Payne (Guest)

I remember when it was another cover of I think there’s eight, yeah, probably April, April may, digital gaggle. And that was it. Our yeah, marketing meet up for yeah, marketers and that kind of stuff across the SW went really well actually, in fact. It made money. Which was great. Don’t do it to do to make money. Yeah, but yeah, it was like a a small retained client jumping on board and paying us all at once.

Chris Simmance (Host)

That’s awesome.

Jon Payne (Guest)

Yeah, which was great. It enabled us to make to to give a. For the next one, we’ll give a a slightly superior experience, which is that’s it. Like the improved experience, the experience is already pretty damn good. But it is, yeah. No, it’s not tough.

Chris Simmance (Host)

That’s useful. I I’ve got a feeling a theory with events that the events that go into them with the perspective that they have to make money, AKA a business that is the business for events. They often end up. You often do the well. We’ll save a few quid here or make a few quid there. Which sacrifices something along the way. Whereas if you look at it from a this just just just shouldn’t cost us too much. Money or it shouldn’t cost us any money. And then you make decision as it means you get good speakers, you get good hospitality, good menu, good food, etcetera, all that sort of stuff. And then that means everyone has a great time. And if you do make a couple of quid, you can use that to reinvest and make it better the next time, and so on and so forth. And it’s it’s a really nice way of doing it. And and as soon as you start thinking, how can we make more money out of this, you’re going.

Jon Payne (Guest)

Down the wrong track. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Well, and, you know. Anybody who knows us knows that we set the business up because we wanted to share knowledge now as much as anything we wanted people to be able to when we were in the deep, dark days of seas, we wanted to to, to stop bad seos doing that. Work by encouraging people to learn how to do stuff better. Learn how to. Do it in. House, or at least you lose a better agency. And by telling. Them how to do it in house? Often they chose us as the agency because they could. See the workings of how we work. Yeah, and. And we’re doing that funnily enough, you know that we we that works with HubSpot as well. And I thought actually have thought big software company and and actually really sharing organisation. They’re gonna be really good at choosing partners who do that? Of course. For they’re just, they’re a software sales company. So they, yeah, they’ll shift software so. We fit a lot, fix a lot of broken instals. Because it goes role and but we’ve we’ve given away all of this knowledge. So yeah, it’s it’s working really well and we’ll never try and make money from the events. Umm, unless someone comes along and tries to buy it from. Us for an extraordinary amount of money. And then. We will and if. You’re listening? Yeah, exactly.

Chris Simmance (Host)

So lots of. Lots has happened in the industry as well, not just in in noisy little monkey. In the last year, what’s been kind of like the big standout things that you’ve seen emerging or changing in the industry that you’re either adopting or working on avoiding and what’s what’s been going on.

Jon Payne (Guest)

I guess. The the The big standout changes for us have been around people in that. Good people are even harder to find and and by harder to find. I obviously mean much more expensive and and I don’t say hard to fight but but yeah. You know, everybody’s. Yeah. And you know that’s, you know, we’re paying our guys more as a result. So it’s just, you know, it’s a good thing around so good. People are harder to find and there is in the market. There is a belief that. A freelancer is as good as a as an agency and I would umm, but a lot of the time that is true. Like freelancers can be as good as an agency depending on the project you put them on. Yeah. If you’re putting on a project then they need where it needs lots of people or lots of, you know, the client needs loads of management. Then actually, yeah. Starting to get. You’ll see. Start diminishing returns, so there’s a lot of good freelancers about and that’s kind of muddying the water. I think during selection process for, you know, agencies and stuff. But equally, there you’re seeing a lot of freelancers who are going ohh, I’m not quite as busy as I was post pandemic.

Chris Simmance (Host)

Yeah, there’s there’s a few sides to this, isn’t there? Where there. So I’ve noticed and I’ve seen from other agencies that they’re competing against other freelancers for the same pitch and and I think that’s that’s fundamentally got some issues going on there. And that’s whether the agency should be pitching for it, because it’s a freelancer type job and that it’s coming across their desk because someone doesn’t know who to give it to as a as a. A request for proposal or a freelancer believes that they can deliver the scale or the scope that an agency can deliver, which is worrying because that then usually suggests that it’s being outsourced to an even further third. Party and which then, you know, should be worrying and and. And I always hoped that by this time in in the the digital maturity of of of digital marketing that the people who spend the money would be a little bit more aware of what the value of the money they’re spending is. But it still hasn’t quite gone through even at enterprise level. You see these sorts of things. One thing I have noticed, and I don’t know what you’ve what, whether you’ve seen this, but around COVID time when lots of people were were being put on furlough and they were spending a lot of time outside of work, they started spinning up their own little freelance side hustle stuff. And that was great. They made a few. They thought I’m good enough. I’m gonna go alone. Left Agency went freelance 18 months. Two years later, they’re now going back into agency. More or less where they left. Yeah, but at a slightly higher price because the fees have gone up for most most roles, but the. The the the worry I’ve got for for those sorts of people is that they’ve had a taste of freedom. So they’ll be harder to lead. UM, because they’ve got their own ways of doing things, which they’ve had to adopt in order to run a freelance.

Jon Payne (Guest)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that’s probably legitimate we. I don’t think. We’ve ever employed someone who’s I know we have. Actually, yeah, employed the next three. Lots of ones they didn’t like it make it past probation because there’s good point. Yeah, they were. You know, they were really good at what they did. But you need. Yeah, you need everybody to be pulling in the same direction. And if someone. Yeah, they’re. They’re so convinced that they’re the star player or actually their way is the better way might be the better way, but it’s just not the better way. When. You’re a big gang of you.

Chris Simmance (Host)

Yeah. Well, there’s, there’s the.

Jon Payne (Guest)

Yeah, something happened.

Chris Simmance (Host)

There’s a process that needs to be followed in agencies, not just because it’s necessarily the perfect way of doing something. It’s because you need to be able to create it repeatedly for all clients to to make sure everyone gets the same value. Everyone gets the same. You know, it’s really hard to kind of just have a do SEO. Process, which is that that’s all it is, because then it becomes a lot harder for, you know, someone leaves to pick up and where where they left off, things like that. And and it’s also quite hard for someone who’s set themselves in their own ways and to. Be approached with a challenge that they’re not quite emotionally ready to take, so you know if I came to you with a challenge about how you do something, you’d be quite emotionally stable enough hopefully to take on that challenge and go actually know. Here’s why I think this and you then have a conversation where one of you. Comes to a conclusion that goes they are. Guys. Right. And and that’s a lot harder when you’ve kind of gone it alone for a little bit and but people have to learn and integrate and change if they if they wanna go you know grow this, this, this, this industry won’t look like it does now in in 2345 years time I don’t think at all so. With all of the things that are happening in agency around agency in the industry and things. Like that. What? What have what are the? How have you grown as a leader in the last year? Because I remember we talked when we talked last year. You were saying that, you know, taking a step away from some. Of the the the, the, the. Doing bits with the team and leading them more was kind of what you wanted to do. We’re not gonna mention the other thing because we talked about it five times and I think I. Put it in all of the tweets. But what? What? What’s been what’s been kind of like your core kind of professional growth? Over the last year.

Jon Payne (Guest)

But that’s funny, because actually, we’re. I think we’re at a stage in our lives where I’ve at that stage in our lives, stage in the the businesses life or I’m jumping back in and being much more clients services which I was able to when we had a bigger team. Who were losing me money? I was able to do as much work. And you know headcount, oh, that’s great. And then? We can’t believe that we like like Nick and Nick. Let me. Yeah. Carry on for so long, but her fault. But it’s just like. She’s normally really. Good at spotting that stuff. But so yeah, the the I think that probably the the biggest change. For me personally, and Nicola actually, and he’s that we have become. Much more. Cold in our decision making or when I say hot when I when I say colour, I don’t mean we’re deliberately trying to make people sad, but we’re actually rather than being being emotional about it, we’re gay. Yeah, we and and this is something that that, yeah, it’s looking after #1, which is a particular a lot of agency. Keep folks struggle with that, I. Think because they enjoy. Being around other creative people, but. Actually, if you’re not. Focusing on making sure that there’s money in the bank for the for the next six months and there’s money in your person. Your bank for the next six months, a year and we’re going into the potentially even more troubled waters that we’re facing. You know, you’re already on a rocky stability. You have to focus on. How how am I going to? Get paid. Who? You earn my mortgage and then after that I can worry about other people’s mortgages.

Chris Simmance (Host)

But really and and I think that you can be emotionally intelligent in your decision making without having to be emotional. And and that’s a that’s. That’s the strength. It’s hard to do and and and and I I often find that in agency because things move quickly or because they’re perceived to move quickly, everyone just moves quickly in decisions and reactionary type things happen and reactions are usually emotionally led or visceral and whereas if you. I often say to people you go slow to go fast. My grandmother used to say less haste, more speed, Christopher, and so basically stop rushing and you’ll get there faster. And and when you start thinking about, OK, this doesn’t have to be decided right now or this doesn’t have to be responded to right now. Let’s look at this more objectively. Let’s talk about it once we’ve made a decision, let’s have a a separate amount of time and. You can be. This passionate in how you deal with things, but obviously layer in the right emotional intelligence, I think. Where people find it hard to do, it’s one of two things. One, they’re constantly in the fight or flight mode style of of leadership, which. Is a lot of agency leaders, sadly, or they’re just really good at doing the doing and they never really meant to be the leader and. And that’s that’s really hard. To to to as the conclusion to come to sometimes. But you know that’s when I I spoke to to an agency leader the other day and he felt cornered on a on a 1 to one. Team are fully remote, so you don’t get huge amount of personal time. Felt cornered on a 1 to one and accidentally gave a huge pay rise like a. A large one. By accident, not because they were due one, but because in the process of react, react, react just when. Ohh yeah yeah this is the amount rather than. Like this is what you’re being paid now and didn’t know what the difference would be. And that’s made huge problems, because now that person’s kind of shouldn’t really have been gloating, but did mention it to someone else in the team who was also remote, which then caused the knock on impact. That meant that that one large pay rise has now potentially snowballed into several. And and all of that was because it was a react right now. Yeah. And rather than say, hey, I need to have a look at the numbers. I’ll come back to you this afternoon or tomorrow morning or next week. Yeah, it doesn’t make a difference. A couple of days. If you’re paid monthly. And says but hey, you know and and and I think leadership is a leadership is not some it’s you can learn the principles but you’re not you can learn you can be taught to manage. You can’t really learn to lead it’s it’s it’s hard. So you’ve just got to have mechanisms in place. To do the stuff that helps you take a step back away from trying to lead because you know if, if if you slow things down. You you then have that less emotional response to something which, which can seem cold, but actually it isn’t. It’s just the right way of doing it. That’s how other businesses work. Real ones. Yeah, I think the CEO of Barclays worries when he has to have these conversations. It it it, it’s or she. I don’t know who it is now anyway.

Jon Payne (Guest)

There it is. They fail do.

Chris Simmance (Host)

They uh. But when when that person has to make a difficult decision, they make a difficult decision based on the shareholders and the share value and they layer in how that’s going to be perceived personally. But they can’t. Let it drive the decision.

Jon Payne (Guest)

It’s what the the one of the funny things that’s come out of. So January was when we we made five roles redundant and and and which is a significant portion of our team because we’re small and be perfectly filled. We’re even smaller more perfectly filled now. But actually for for all of January. I was in flight fight or flight mode.

Chris Simmance (Host)

OK, imagine.

Jon Payne (Guest)

Then, well, the whole and of course the rest of the team because they were like, well, was that no, they look we didn’t. Yeah, exactly, exactly. And then. February still kind of crazy. Although I was calm because I, like almost was in Zen mode but. Come March, everybody. We was we we said to everybody. Look, we need to we we need to be really steady about what we do we we umm we were trying to make a few mistakes in January and February and and we actually talked about that slow down. Have conversations with people. Allow yourself time to breathe and see what happens and if yeah, everything’s got better and everybody’s everybody’s lots calmer.

Chris Simmance (Host)

Yeah, and and it. And and it does take time. It’s like ripple effects style. You gotta wait for it to to to ease off a little bit. So if we were to talk in 12 months time, season three, should we say? And I would say, John, did you get that thing done? What’s the thing that you’re going to work on in the next 12 months for the for the agency?

Jon Payne (Guest)

So it is. It’s repositioning us. I’m really glad you said pivoted. I feel like we’ve taken 8 weeks to not quite get there. So I don’t think it pivots fair appreciate you pretending.

Chris Simmance (Host)

Remember, 8 weeks is a lot quicker than big organisations or almost any organisation truly does. Do a pivot.

Jon Payne (Guest)

I feel like they should pay you a retainer. This kind of stuff. Because you just make. Great fun. I don’t know why more people don’t pay you a huge well for this.

Chris Simmance (Host)

They do and they should. And if you’re listening to this, you know where to find me.

Jon Payne (Guest)

But yeah, so we will have external and internal messaging absolutely clear on that. We’re a SEO and a HubSpot consultancy because and people have been doing consultancy for ages because we coach and mentor our clients on on. On how they can be better yet, we’re still perceived as. Once we’ve done that, they go oh, and then and then let’s let’s have all of the stuff off of you please. And and none of that guys like doing that which is you know why we don’t have that anymore. So the weird thing is, is we’ll always be an agency because that’s the kind of service the the kind of space we’re in. Yeah, we’ll be. Yeah. So I think people will know that we are. Primarily HubSpot agency consultancy excuse me with who can drive traffic for SAT. Through. Yeah, what? I was thinking is maybe I don’t know this sounds, but I’m sounds a bit. BS But but maybe we’ll be positioned as a SEO and sales enablement comes and see, but it’s that sounds a bit. I’m not going. To swear, but it sounds a bit crappy.

Chris Simmance (Host)

Yeah. And I I I can’t. It’s it’s hard. Obviously when you’re having these kinds of conversations, I always, I always fall back to. A confused mind doesn’t buy, and so if they don’t get it in a single sentence then it’s not right.

Jon Payne (Guest)

Yeah, that’s brilliant. So we won’t be there.

Chris Simmance (Host)

So in 12 months we’ll be talking about the right positioning for the right audience with the right message. And I think that’s a really good, really good target. I mean, it’s a it’s a good amount of time to get it done properly as well, and it’s and it is a big thing because. It makes or breaks many businesses.

Jon Payne (Guest)

Yeah, and and the, the, the, it. The joy of it is we’ve still got incoming leads cause we’ve got a reputation and. We’ve got another agency. So we’ve got lots of traffic coming from organic which converted into leads. So we’re still getting late. We’re still getting inquiries. So there’s not too much, and they’re only they’re coming in for the same stuff as they always do have. Which is actually and HubSpot. So yeah, we’ve got. Some breathing room and because, as I said last time, I think because my wife is a brilliant managing director, we have lots of money in the bank so.

Chris Simmance (Host)

That’s that’s what you need.

Jon Payne (Guest)

You need a.

Chris Simmance (Host)

Good one of them and a lot. Of that. So thank you so much for coming on a second time, John, and hopefully we’ll speak before the years out. Definitely wanna talk. See how you got on with that next year for everyone listening in season three. So thanks very much.

Jon Payne (Guest)

That’d be great. Thanks so much for.

Chris Simmance (Host)

Having me, Chris, thank you. In our next episode, we’ll be visiting another agency leader to see how their last year has been. So thanks very much for listening everybody.