#056 Creating a Successful B2B Content Development Agency: An Interview With Paul McKeon of The C...

Welcome to the High Income Business Writing Podcast, helping you propel your writing business.

To a whole new level. And now, here's your host, Ed Gandia. Hey everyone. Thank you for joining me for episode number 56 of the High Income Business Writing Podcast. My name is Ed Gandia and this is the podcast for business writers and copywriters who want to take their writing businesses to the six figure level or the part time equivalent. As a quick reminder, you can find detailed show notes for this episode by going to b2b launcher.com episode 56. You know, successful business writers, freelance writers often get to a point where they have to make a difficult decision. Should you keep operating as a solo business, as a one person shop, or should you scale and build something bigger? Perhaps much bigger. If you know you're not cut out to be an entrepreneur, you just cringe at the idea of building something beyond yourself. Building a business with people, whether they're employees or contractors, and project managing things. You're probably better off as a solo business. And there's nothing wrong with that. I would say that most people fall into this category. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that. Nobody ever said that. If you're going to be a freelance writer, the next logical step is to scale beyond that. But if you think you would love the challenges and the rewards of building a mini content development agency of sorts, this idea might be worth exploring the idea of scaling your business beyond a one person operation. And in this week's episode, I'm going to interview someone who's done just that. His name is Paul McKeon. He's the founder of the Content Factor. And Paul is a B2B tech marketing veteran who has built one of the most respected and successful marketing content agencies in the southeastern United States and really in the US in general, and especially in the tech marketing arena. And in this interview, he's going to share how he built his agency, which just turned 10 years old, by the way, how he works with his writers, what challenges he's faced over the years in growing and and how to determine if this business model is for you. So I think you're really going to enjoy this. Whether or not you've thought about going in this direction. I think this is a really insightful talk. Paul is a super guy, very generous with this information. So let's get right to it and I'll come back at the end with a couple of quick announcements. Hey Paul, welcome to the show. It's great to have you here, Ed.

Thanks for having me on. I appreciate it.

So for those who don't know you are not familiar with your work and your organization, why don't we. Why don't you start by telling us a little bit about yourself and your company, the Content Factor.

Sure, Ed. Well, I'm a 30 year veteran, if you will, of marketing. Marketing, communications and technology. If you've been in Atlanta a long time, you may remember a company called Hays Microcomputer Products. They basically invented the computer modem. And I was an early hire there in the early 80s and worked at Hays for a few years and then left to start an advertising and public relations agency called Crescent Communications. It was primarily devoted to high technology businesses, and we grew that and built that throughout the 1990s. And in 1997, we sold that to Ketchum Public Relations and I became a partner at Ketchum and ran their global technology practice. So that's my background and all throughout those stints, I've always had a lot of writers working for me. Back then it was known as close copy contact. Put the people that are putting the words together in close contact with the clients rather than having a more general account manager. Carry the ball back and forth, if you will. So I've always valued content, always valued writing. And in about 2004, we'd done a lot of digital marketing at Ketchum. I was responsible for that. But I left and I started the Content Factor, which is mostly about creating digital content, if you will.

Okay. And that was about 10 years ago.

Right.

I'm curious, what was your biggest motivation for starting the content factory? That was a pretty big move for you.

It was a big move. And you know, like a lot of things in life, you just kind of fall into it. Somebody asked me to me personally to write their website and I did, and I didn't think anything of it. And they came back about a month later and they said that was the best website writing we've ever seen. And I said, oh, really? Well, that's. I didn't think much about it. So. But that got me to thinking, is there a. Is there a business here? And so we formed a business called the content factor in 2004, late 2004, to create primarily digital content for marketing purposes. So the business got started doing websites, white papers, blog posts, all that sort of thing. And it's grown since then.

So what's interesting here is that most people at that point would either kind of go solo or if they're going to start something, it's going to be kind of a full fledged agency model. But you are very, very focused on developing written content. I think at first. Correct. And it was an agency model, but just with written content.

That's correct and very focused, very niched. And what we wanted to do was sort of bring a professional services approach to content development or contract writing. As you know from your work Ed, a lot of the work gets done by individuals and freelancers, which is fine. And there are many great ones out there and they do fantastic work, but they can only handle so much work. And, you know, if they want to go on vacation or somebody's girlfriend's in town or whatever, then if they're busy, the work sort of stops. So what we tried to do was build a professional services firm where we could go after larger clients, if you will, and not skip a beat and basically build in project management workflow, built in editing and proofing services. So the whole gamut, if you will, of services beyond just what one individual typically does, that was sort of the business. Our value proposition.

Yeah, that makes sense. I think you kind of answered this my next question to some degree, but let me kind of throw it to you in a different way. So one of the things about being a freelancer, right, is that you are the product you're selling yourself. But when you're an agency or a content house, it's no longer about your style or your track record as an individual writer. So can you tell us a little bit more about that and what you've learned about this since you started writing? It sounds like your big value proposition was that you could offer this and it was reliable and you had systems and processes. But tell me a little bit more about clients and when they're used to working with someone individually and they're buying them now, working with someone where they're not really sure what they're going to get in terms of style.

Right now, that's very good. So we have several larger clients where we might have three or four different people on the team. One company that we work for is a company called Blackboard. You may know them. They're the leader in elearning educational software. And right now I have three of my folks working on projects for them. And they don't expect necessarily a different style or method with each one of those people. They expect and get the content factor, style and approach, because that's what they want and that's what they become accustomed to. So that's challenging for me because everybody is a little bit different. Everybody has different strengths and weaknesses. So there's an institutionalization. If you will, albeit on a small scale. We're not IBM or anything, but we have to have standards. We have to, you know, have the same style book. We have to, you know, when we label our documents and brand our documents, they all look the same. And it needs to look like it came from the same mother. So we work hard at that. It's not easy, but the folks that we have working with us understand that. And now, that's not to say that I know that so and so has different skills in one area and not in another. And we deploy them based on the project, but nonetheless, they represent the content factor. And that's what the client. That's what the client is buying, if you will.

That makes sense. So tell me about in the early years. How did you find good writers to get the practice going? And then what types of writers have you found work best with this model?

Well, that's a good question. Of course, early on, folks that I had worked with before or knew, and that's basically how we got started, and some of those are still with me. There's a gentleman that I work with, Jay Tillinghast. I don't know if you know Jay or not, but. No, he's worked with me on and off for 25 years. Just a fantastic work writer. But, you know, that's how we got started. But then it more or less is just networking. And a lot of the folks that work with us now are folks we've met in the last three or four years. And the way we do it, Ed, is to interview people. And then the only way to really find out if there's a, you know, chemistry is to give someone a project. And we do that, and we give folks projects and we test their skills and, you know, not only their writing ability, but their thinking ability. I mean, I think one of my things is the best, best indicator of a good writer is a clear thinker. So we test that and we see how they do. And then if that goes well, then we expand, expand from there. But, you know, there are all sorts of different writers, as you know. So I have a couple people on my team that have reporting backgrounds. They're just fantastic reporters. They've been with newspapers. They can listen, they can pull out a story. They're just wonderful. But if there is no story, which sometimes there isn't, then they're in trouble because their skills are reporting. And then I have other folks who are much better at creating when there's nothing and understanding the significance of something and picking up on something and then riffing that out as a story. So those are just two extremes, but it really all depends on the assignment and the skill level. But we have a variety of people here. They're strong people, they're all experienced, they've been around the block. And most importantly, you can put them on an interview with an executive and they equip themselves well. They come across well. Good listening skills, good interviewing skills, and they won't embarrass the client, which is something that is very important to us.

Yeah, yeah. And that's sometimes difficult to find. Right. Somebody who's not just a great writer, but present themselves well.

Right, exactly. Because that's half the battle. The client, our client is often a marketing VP or somebody, but cannot be on a meeting or a call, and we have to interview somebody, and they count on us for a certain level of, you know, professionalism, but also just astuteness and experience, if you will. So that's. That's a big part of what we sort of try to portray.

So I'm curious, in terms of the mix that you have, are most of your writers working almost exclusively for the content factor, or is it kind of a mix?

It's kind of a mix, and it comes and goes. We have a few that are exclusively working with us now, but then a fair number, and I would say that right now we are working, engaged with eight folks are working with us. And mostly many of those have other assignments or they have some other freelance assignments, but we keep them very, very busy and have for years so that we get preference and they like the assignments. The other thing that I think is important in any business, but with writers is to give people challenging assignments where they're going to learn something or they're going to be able to make a difference. Just cranking out stuff anybody gets tired of. So we make a point to keep it fresh, to mix it up, and to get some challenging assignments, which generally we do.

These are the things that I would never think about. Right. Because. And I'm sure you've learned that along the way, you're not just trying to crank this out and beat people up. They're going to burn out really quickly.

Right. And they're not going to be any good. You're better when you're learning. You're actually better when you don't know something because you put more energy into it. If it's just something you done a hundred times before, then I think you lose something. And that's why I personally like this business, because there's always something Fresh. There's always some new issue or twist or something that you're always learning. So I appreciate that personally.

You have eight writers working with you right now. It sounds like a lot of them have been with you for a while. Can you give me a sense for how often you bring someone new on board? It sounds like you. You try to keep the good people as long as you can.

Yes. Yeah. You know, I would say tough question to answer, but in the last couple of years, maybe we've. We've sort of engaged with three or four new people a year.

Mm.

And, you know, frequently that sometimes that goes someplace and sometimes it doesn't. And it's not always the fault of the writer or the skill level. It could be the fact that the assignment that, you know, was going to be, you know, a huge assignment doesn't materialize, or, you know, the client just gets what he wants and, you know, we don't hear from him. Again, there's different reasons, as, you know, being in the business business yourself, but I would say that three, four, five times a year, I'm throwing out new projects, and that might result in one or two sort of regular folks joining our team. But again, part of it is we have a lot of. Jeff Silver is a guy that's worked with us now for seven or eight years. Jay has worked with us for the same amount of time. We just tend to keep folks around and they like it, and it works well for everybody.

I'm curious about project management. You've alluded to some of that already, but tell me a little bit about how you handle project management within the company.

Sure. Well, there's two people that do it. I do some of it, and then I have a executive vice president, Diane Maxon, who does a lot of it, too. And, you know, we have the requisite Excel spreadsheets, you know, with all of the columns and rows, and we keep track of what stage it's in, who's working on it, where the approvals are, et cetera, et cetera. And we also use Basecamp, if you're familiar with that. Oh, yeah, yeah. So we use Basecamp. And particular with the bigger projects, we'll get some big websites where there might be, gosh, you know, 100 pages to do, and some of them go into five or six versions each because everybody has to look at them. And for things like that, you really need some structure and some collaboration with the client and amongst the various writers on a project like that. We might have. Might have three people working on that. So Excel Spreadsheets that are uploaded and downloaded from Basecamp, our primary tool. But we have other ways to do it as well. But it's probably not as sophisticated as it should be.

Well, I think everyone feels that way.

Yeah.

In terms of. You mentioned earlier that you have a way that you do things and people, clients know that there's a process. So I assume that you have your writers kind of, let's take a white paper, for instance. Well, maybe they're used to going about it a certain way, but if they're working with you, is there a process that they have to follow?

Well, we give them the process up front because, you know, it helps them. And the first thing we, you know. So we would tell people say, well, how long will this take? And we typically will tell a person that a good white paper will take six weeks to two months to do.

And that includes design and everything.

Production. That includes design and everything. And it builds in a lot of time again, for usually we can turn things pretty quickly, but on the client side, even there's different people that have to review things. They have other priorities. So we tend to build in a lot more time for them to review and edit and revise than what they think they need up front. And invariably we're right on that. We go through a very typical discovery phase, if you will, series of interviews, and then we almost never create the outline until after we've done all the discovery. Some folks will already want to do an outline, but we don't know what we don't know. And there's always some great insights or nuggets that frequently could take something like a white paper in a completely different direction. So we do all the discovery, then we do the outlining and the abstracts. We put a lot of emphasis ed right up front into teasers, headlines and abstracts, because on the web it's not the only thing that matters, but it's almost the only thing that matters because people see these things and they're either going to crack it open and fill out the form or spend the time based on that, you know, 10 second review of what's in it for me. So we put a lot of emphasis on that and we kind of write these kinds of papers with that in mind because if nobody opens it or nobody downloads it, it doesn't do anybody any good. True. Anyway, so then we go back and forth on the outline and then by that point the process is fairly well vetted. And the writers don't like to hear me say this, but at that point the WR is The easy part.

No, but I think there's a lot of truth to that. Done that work, the writing does itself.

Right? Exactly, exactly. And yeah, so then there's back and forth on that. And then finally there is the production part of it, which sometimes we do through a partner company. We don't have designers on staff, but we have two good partner companies that do that. And then sometimes the client will do it. It just depends.

And then do you typically have the writer stay in contact with the client during the review process, the revisions process, or are you always involved in the middle?

No, it depends. But frequently it's the writer. And a lot of what we do too, and I is we do art direction. So, you know, we are. While we may not be building the little, you know, infographic y looking image that goes with it, we are, we are art directing it and providing the data and giving suggestions on the style and all that. Because that I think is very important and is becoming even more important. These papers, as you know, are going away from long form narrative styles to more infographic y sort of scannable snackable information. And so a lot of the content is taking that form. So we've gotten pretty good at sort of art directing and getting the research and giving an artist who might not be focused on information as a core skill, they may be focused on colors or design, but giving them the information and working with them to match up the information with the design. So that's increasingly becoming a more important skill for somebody that's in the content business.

Oh, that's great. That's great. I'm sure that's becoming a differentiator for you guys with everything going more visual and attention spans waning. Tell me a little bit about whatever you feel comfortable discussing because I know you have a different compensation model for writers. Can you talk to me a little bit about that?

Sure. What we do is that I've been in the agency business a long time and a lot of times if a freelancer works for an agency, they don't get paid until the agency gets paid. At least that was my experience. Maybe that's changed, but I don't think too much. So if the agency is working for a client and sends an invoice and then that invoice doesn't get paid for 45 days, then the freelancer is on the end of that. And so frequently it could be 60, 90 days from the time the work is done until the check is received. And we don't do it that way. The minute we bill the client, which is usually twice a month. The writers get paid far ahead of when we collect because, you know, I want to have good people working for me and I want to pay them on a regular basis. And we assume the business risk of the client relationship. The writer should not have to do that. So that maybe is a little bit different, maybe not. But people like that, from what I've.

Seen, it is different.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. People like that, they get paid, and I think that's why we've been able to attract and retain some good people.

And so I assume if you're. If you're invoicing every couple of weeks, you're paying the writer based on work to date at that point, essentially.

Right, yeah, it's either. Depends on the client. It's either once a month, we bill, or twice a month. It depends on the client and their payment history, if you will. But.

But, yeah, okay.

So typically a writer is never more than, you know, if they did a piece of work on the first of the month, they're getting a check at the latest on the first or third of the next month. So they're never more than 30 days out and usually much shorter than that.

Yeah, in my experience, it's been. And I haven't worked for a lot of agencies, but I know a lot of writers should do. And that's definitely unusual.

Right.

Switching gears a little bit on you here as we wrap up. There are writers out there who are interested in this kind of model for themselves, meaning they're interested in creating nothing, maybe as big as the content factor, but kind of starting a mini agency of their own. Who would you say this model is best suited for? If you're out there, you're a writer, you're very, very good, and you're interested in scaling your business this way. Who is this for?

Well, I guess one way I'd answer that is again, you can work on the business or at the business. So if you're a good writer, that's great. But if you want to build a business like this or any kind of business, really, you need to have some other skills too. You need to have some selling skills, marketing skills, networking skills. So it's not about just being a good writer at that point. It's about being a good writer, plus knowing how to keep a set of books, if you will. So if you're just a good writer and you're not interested in any of the business aspects of things, don't do it. But if you like business and you know the challenge of starting a business or growing a business beyond just your own, your own book of business, then it would be good. I mean, you have to do things, you may, you have to pick up the phone and ask people for money, you know, and you have to, you know, you have to be a good editor. That's another thing. I mean, I spend a lot of my time editing and you know, editing skills are different than writing skills. So I don't know, you just need to have a bit more of a passion for business than just for writing. And I think then you can do it.

Yeah, it sounds like you would almost be, you're almost as good or maybe even better an entrepreneur than you are a writer.

Yes, yes, right.

That makes sense. That makes sense. So Paul, how can listeners learn more about you, more about the content factor? Where can I send them?

Well, send them to contentfactor.com factor not factoree. And there's a lot of information there. There's information about our teams, there's samples. We're about to do a major update on our website, but there's plenty of information there. And if anybody wants to drop me an email, it's tmcehan p m c k e o ntententfactor.com well, thanks so much, Paul.

I appreciate you coming on today.

Ed, thank you. It's good to reconnect with you and I appreciate the time. Thank you.

Well, there you go folks. For those of you who have been thinking about going in this direction or exploring this idea a little more, it's perfect proof that it could be done. And I think a couple of things that I walked away with is the fact that first of all you have to be entrepreneurial. You know, you don't just, you can't just be a great writer. You know, you have to go out there, you have to hustle, you have to look for business and in fact you have to do this as a solo writer, as a, as a freelance writer. But in this case you're building something bigger and you have writers who are kind of depending on you. Even if they're working with you on a contract basis. You have a pipeline to fill that's much greater than you typically have to fill as a one man shop. The other thing that really came across is the fact that Paul really, really leverages relationships. You know, this is, this is the kind of business to consider if you have relationships out there. Because at the end of the day, I mean, if you really want to get started as quickly as possible and get some great wins that are going to propel you to the next level, you really have to reach out to your network. Not that it can't be done otherwise, but I think that that was definitely part of Paul's success. So if you enjoyed that interview, I want wanted to remind you that the detail show notes are posted@b2b launcher.com Episode 56 if you missed anything, it's kind of a quick summary of what Paul talked about. And I also wanted to remind you that my Products page is now live. So if you've been meaning to enroll in one of my programs on getting clients or launching your business or improving your daily productivity by 30% or more, you can learn more about these programs at B2 to be launcher.com forward/products. And finally, if you enjoyed this episode, I'd be very grateful if you shared it with friends or colleagues who could benefit from it. The easiest way to do that is just to use any of the social media sharing buttons that you'll find on the Show Notes page. So that brings us to the end of the episode. I am your host Ed Gandia. Thanks so much for listening and I hope you have an awesome day.

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