How to Start a Marketing Agency with a Full-Time Job

How do you build an agency that allows you to live the dream that you have for yourself, for your family, for your community, for your team, while at the same time helping your clients knock it out of the park and doing it all profitably? These are the big questions that we tackle here on the Agency Journey podcast. I am your host, Andrew Demski. Now let's get to it.

All right, welcome into another week on the podcast. This week my guest is Jess Schroeder from the Ideas Factory. Jess, you've got, actually, you've got a couple different things going on right now, but first of all, welcome to the podcast. Thanks for being here.

Thanks for having me, Gray. It's great to be here.

People already heard your voice. They got a little bit of a hint of where you might be from, but I bet they're not going to expect the story here. So give us the background, kind of your personal journey and then we'll tie that in with what's going on agency wise.

Yeah, great. Well, as you probably can guess, I'm an Aussie. I'm all the way from down under, but there's a little bit of a switch. I am living in Colombia, in South America, so right now I'm sitting in Medellin and I've just recently started my own marketing agency which is called the Idea Factory. But originally I have come from 15 years of marketing and sales in Australia and working with a little agency called RedTomato on promotional merchandise.

That is awesome. I love. So first of all, a couple things to get out of the way here. Anybody from Australia says Aussie. Anybody not from Australia says Aussie with the S sound. And that's a big, that's a super big mix up. I feel that I, I, for the longest time I said Aussie and then I had a couple of people be like, yeah, if you're, if you actually know what you're talking about, it's not Aussie, it's Aussie.

You gotta have the Aussie mate kind of connection there so that it actually kind of all flows quite well.

And then you said red tomato and everyone here in the States says tomato and that's like a, a famous, like a pretty popular mix up. Like you say tomato, I say tomato.

Exactly. Now we're definitely red Tomato.

That's awesome. Well, good to know the correct pronunciations. So with, I guess we'll start with the Ideas Factory with what's going on right now and kind of some of the directional changes that you're making with the agency right now. So the background There was. Or your background was in promotional products, right?

Exactly. So I started out with Red Tomato about three years ago and before that I was a supplier into the. Into the promotional industry in Australia. So I was lucky enough to get the opportunity to work remotely on Red Tomato from Colombia. My husband's Colombian, so that's the reason why I'm here in Colombia. I did it all for love. And so with the time difference working in Australia and Colombia, I start at 1pm in the afternoon and then work until 9pm at night to be able to catch the first half of Australia's time zone. So I'm a bit of a workaholic, a bit of a passionate marketer and salesperson. And instead of doing coffee with my friends, I decided to start a marketing agency here in Colombia and tackle a different language and a different culture and see if I could help them learn the things that I've learned in Australia and adapt to the business here in Colombia. So that's how the ideas factory sort of evolved, is I had four hours free in the morning and I found that three amazing people to join me. I got a designer, a salesperson and a, like a marketing professional to come into my team and poof, now I have an agency.

Wow, that's awesome. So what has it been like trying to break into the Colombian market? And how is the. So you've kind of made the shift in, at least on that side of things, I think into the digital or are moving into the digital space with agency. How's that been?

So initially I tried to sort of replicate what Red Tomatoes model was. I started out with trying to find my perfect client that had enough income to be able to support promotional merchandise. But what the difference between Colombia and Australia with promotional merchandise is that there and the US is, is that they have a whole industry that supports them. So supplier, it's a distributed supplier model. So an agency is a distributor of the suppliers here in Colombia. It's a free for all. It's all done on price. It's all done on who can get it done quicker. And there's no protection of I go to you with my idea and then you work with me because I've given you that concept that creative strategy doesn't exist. So I was getting price shocked and the quality was terrible and I couldn't produce the results that I was wanting to do. So what I identified is that we could build websites and I could hire web developers and I could control design because I had my own designers and all I had to do was and Then I could hire SEO experts and I could also hire content writers to be able to create stuff and I could control that. Whereas with buying a product and then putting a logo on it and then getting it to that, there were so many touches involved and I just was losing all my margin in fixing up mistakes because nobody had the same kind of attention to detail or quality control that I was so used to in Australia, which is a blessing in disguise because, you know, Australia, I can sell something confidently from China to my client without even seeing it. Well, don't get me wrong, we have a production team that does all those elements, but I could trust the system and the processes that we had in place, and it just wasn't there here in Colombia. And also I'm a foreigner here. I stand out quite a lot. I'm blonde with blue eyes and. And I have a funny accent and my Spanish is quite extraordinary. Maybe we should say that or maybe a little ugly. I'm not quite sure the right way to describe it. But the long story short is here, they're not used to that, giving everyone an equal opportunity to be able to work. So I would also get double prizes. So to me, yeah, so that would up their price by, you know, 50, 60%. So, and then I would go get my husband to do the negotiating for me and he would get it, like, at the right price. So, yeah, so for me, that I didn't want to be that haggler. I didn't want to haggle on every single thing that I was doing. So. And I just ended up having to put my prices up so that I could cut them down to be able to sell. And I was like, I don't want to be this type of salesperson. I want to create solutions for these guys. I don't want to be part of the bottom scrapers. So, anyway, long story short, in the last two months, we've made the switch. I've had a great developer, software engineer. I've got some new great content writers in English and in Spanish. So we're not only just serving. I guess the other thing that's really cool is with the switch to digital, we get to use both English and Spanish or the people can be anywhere. They don't have to be just in Colombia. I've got a couple of clients in Australia that we're building websites for. I've got a couple in the U.S. we're also creating brands and strategy as well. So with the whole brand experience and brand stories that we're trying to create for clients and I like it. It's pretty fun, you know, being a part of the journey for these guys and like now being their preferred marketing supplier.

Right. That's awesome. So as far as being able to start any agency, I feel like it's just a series of hurdles that you have to overcome. It's like, first you need to figure out what are we selling? Then we need to figure out how to sell and get over the sales hurdle. And once you do that, then it's like, well, we sold this, now we got to figure out how do we deliver that and then how do we deliver that repeatedly and profitably and. And all those things. It sounds like, based on your background, that, I mean, in a pretty short time frame that you've been able to get over at least the initial sales hurdle pretty quickly, what do you feel like has been the biggest obstacle or like the hardest, the hardest nut to crack so far in, in the journey and making that switch?

I think it was firstly understanding Colombian culture and, and being able to understand what their needs are. Their needs are a little bit different to what the main difference that I've found so far is that their needs are about now and they're not hugely planning for the future. So setting that seed. And the gorgeous thing about email marketing is that it's so logical. It makes sense. It's like a series of, oh, of course that makes sense. Oh, my God. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so the connections. When you explain to someone that someone now buys after spending, you know, the majority of their time looking at your information on the website, they're not going to call you until they have enough information. They go, ah, so I do need to have a website. Yeah, that's the reason why you need to have a website. It's not because everybody has one. It's because you want to give enough information so they can call you now. And so just putting some basic information in order for them and creating a content strategy that's so much now about what they want the perfect client to do just changes. It just goes, yeah, you get it, you get what I want. And then when you deliver that and then they get the results, that's the cherry on the top, I guess, right?

Yeah, that's. That's always a cool experience, but it is. I think it's hard. I think it's kind of like a. Not like maturity in terms of people, but I think maturity in, like the subject matter and approach and just getting comfortable with it when it finally is to the point where it's easy to explain and it makes logical sense to people.

Yeah.

Kind of first go through a stage. You're like, it's still kind of working itself out in your own mind and brain. And then it's like, okay, now how do all these pieces fit together? And then how can I teach that to somebody else? And it makes sense for them.

Exactly. I think that I'm still pretty new to the inbound methodology, but it's sort of like my aha moment. You know, like, you kind of go, why have I been doing it? Why have I been guessing? Why have I been doing it this way in the past? Because I think that there's lots of articles out there about whether marketing's an art or a science. I think with the technology now that is around that, you know, you got to have a combination of the two and connect with your clients. So once you actually identify who they are, then you're halfway there because it doesn't make sense to give them any other information.

Right. So this might be. We can skirt around this if you don't feel comfortable addressing this, but what do you see in the future here? So trying to balance the two things and there are people listening. That's a very common note or question type that we get is, I'm working a job currently and I'm trying to start a new. Like, I'm doing freelancing on the side. I want to move into this space, but I'm not sure how. And I don't know when the right time to let go is. How are so obviously things at the ideas factory continue to grow. Red Tomato continues to be busy. How do you balance time? What's in the future? How are you thinking about how to approach that delicately and handle it the right way?

You know, that's a brilliant question. I love it. You know, I'm so, so lucky. Justin Reynolds and the team at Red Tomato are brilliant. And, you know, my biggest fans as well as I'm their biggest fans. And the thing I think I love the most about my job is my clients. I'm pre first and pro, almost a salesperson. And my clients mean the world to me. And my clients are brilliant. They have the most amazing stories that I love sharing with the world and getting them going. So for me, it will be a point where hopefully the ideas factory is sufficient and that's where I'll go. But at no point would I ever want to leave Red Tomato on bad terms or not give them the best version of me to replace me. You know what I mean? But, yeah, Justin is an amazing boss in that he just spends so much time on educating his staff and getting them to commit to these philosophies like inbound marketing, so that he can deliver to his clients what they need. So. So, yeah, it is a bit of a tricky one. And like, right Now, I work 16 hours a day. I work a lot, but it's for the greater good. I don't see that being sustainable for 20 years. No. But I do want to be able to make sure that whatever I do is quite open and clear. It took me a little while to actually kind of get the confidence to tell Justin that I was actually starting something new. I was actually really quite nervous about it, but his response was perfect. And he's. Now we work together on how can we both make both of our businesses the best and most successful. There's no crossover with our client base either, especially now that I'm going more digital and he's going more. He's like red tomatoes, completely strategic promotional products. So I guess that's where it works. So I have actual girls here in Columbia that work for RedTomato as well. So I'm part of my dream team. I've got Danny and Marce, which are a designer and also my digital expert, working on the Red Tomato site and working on all the Red Tomato elements as well. So we've got it working really well right now. So we're almost clients of each other.

That's awesome. I think that the key there, or at least where I've seen it go well way more frequently than not, is when there's more communication earlier. So a lot of people are super hesitant and that's really hard. And we've gone through that here with team members, and that's. I think that's part of the reality of the time that we live in. And I think there's the. Like, you. Even though that's going to happen at some point, you still invest in your people. But it's always. I understand that hesitancy to be like, I don't want to tell somebody that I'm working on something else. It might ultimately replace them. Typically, it's. I don't want to have them say, okay, well, let's work on replacing you now. And also, you know, all that income comes off the table that you had. But I do think in most cases, like, the earlier that you get that out in the open and address it, the better, the much better. I've seen that happen for everybody involved. So that's awesome.

Yeah, I guess the beauty about Justin and I is Justin used to be a client of mine when I was a supplier. So we started out as. We had like a business relationship for a long time and then became good mates. And then when I came back to Australia, I was looking for a job and he said, why don't you come from Red Tomato? And I'm like, well, I gotta go back to Columbia. And he's like, give it a go for a little while and then see how you go from there. And I'm still here. So I think. Absolutely correct. If you have the ability to be open and truthful about what you want and what your goals are and then what the goals of the company now, if they align, then that's awesome. Yeah, we've made it work. Like, who would have thought I could sell promotional products from Colombia to Australia And I've been doing it successfully for the last three years, so. Right. I don't know. I don't know. It just works, you know.

That's awesome. Yeah, that's great. So I've got, I've got one last question here before we wrap up. And it is around tools which is like super tactical. This is very different from the rest of the conversation, which is kind of more high level but very tactical. Are there any tools that you guys are using on a day to day basis that might be like, here's some of the tools that we get the most value out of in your client work specifically?

Yeah, we use a great operating system called Common sku. It's. It's been designed specifically for promotional products, but I'm still using it now at the moment with my digital stuff. The guys at Common SKU are amazing. They're just brilliant. Everything about it. It's really easy to use, it's really easy to come through. It's perfect for RedTomato for everything we do. And then the other tool that we use quite a lot is Asana, to be able to share tasks and split them out. So yeah, I would say those are the tools that we're using right now to be able to work efficiently.

That's awesome. Well, cool. Well, Jess, there's a lot more we could dive into, but I'm going to cut things off right now and I would love to check back in with you, maybe bring you back on podcast and see how things evolve here over the Next, well, really 2018 here, the next 12 months. And see it's going to be a very different, different place that you're in, I'm sure a year from now. But it sounds like you're on an awesome path, and I appreciate you coming on and sharing your story.

Yeah, perfect. Well, thank you. It's been great speaking to you, Gray.

Want more great episodes like this one? Hey, I'm Gray MacKenzie, a host here on Agency Journey. I don't know about you, but sometimes I get a little overwhelmed when I find a new podcast. There are so many great episodes and great guests, it's hard to know which ones to listen to first. That's why we put together a list of the top 10 most downloaded episodes of Agency Journey. And you can get a copy of that list, plus all of our notes and takeaways, just by texting the word due inbound to 44222. Again, that's due inbound, all one word to 44222. Standard text rights apply. You don't want to miss these great episodes. Text due inbound to 44222. Now.