The One Problem that Processes and Systems Can’t Solve

Hey, what's up, everybody? Welcome into another Agency Vision episode. It's myself, Gray, and I'm here with. Let me find the shortcut to switch over. There's Andrew. Here's Split screen. We found it. How you doing?

What's up? I'm great today. How are you doing, bro?

I'm good. Hey, you put together the topic for today's Agency Vision and I really liked what you got into and that's something that we need to hit on. The agency world is like, buzzing with I need systems and processes. Actually, I just saw a tweet from Pete Caputa last night talking about how depend, like the dependencies of different types of businesses and how marketing is so dependent on processes. And you had a thought here that you shared yesterday that I liked. What's the main question here?

The main question is, what are processes and systems? Every business needs them to operate. It's required to have the business operate. But how do you get them? Like, how do you get to a point where you have processes and systems in place that you can feel confident in? Things that actually help you sleep better at night, are they something that can just be copied and pasted from one team to another? I feel like there's this thought or this feeling that there's some magic swipe file somewhere that I just haven't opted into yet that has all of the checklists that I need. And if I just download that thing and I look at that, that that's magically going to solve all of my business problems. And I think that that is if we dug into that, whatever the insecurity is beneath that is the same insecurity or motivation that. And it's not necessarily a bad thing. It's good to work smart, not hard. But it's the same motivator that gets people to. To join, like the HubSpot program or to buy someone's Facebook ad. Course that's targeting everyone on Facebook right now, like, download my agency, I'll build it for you kind of thing. It's that desire to just get to a certain point. And that desire is okay for a little bit, but that's not going to sustain a real business for the long term. Want to kick off with this idea is just that systems and processes are required, but how do you get to that point? Can they be copied and pasted? How does it all work? How do we, most importantly, get these things to work for us as owners so that we don't need to be in the business all the time, but that these processes and Systems are there to ensure a certain level of consistency, predictability in the client success without our oversight needing to look over the shoulder of our teams. Being able to check in on the client every week or a couple times a week. You know, how do we do that as owners? That's the theme here, bro.

Yeah, that makes sense. You said something that I want to maybe chase for a second. Yeah, those things might work for a little while, but the lasting impact or they won't. They won't continue to work. What's the rationale or how do we break down why that's not going to be. Why that's not sustainable in the long run?

Yeah, because those. You can piggyback with those models, right? Like, you can take and get like a short jump. It's like a jolt of energy. Like, if you go to the store and you get a double shot and you chug that espresso down, like, that's going to give you a bolt of energy to maybe move forward for an hour or two, but there's going to be a crash after that. The same thing is true with, like, those swipe and deploy processes that are out there. They're going to help you for a little bit. They'll help you gain a little bit of clarity. But the one problem that does not help you solve is what is your proven process? Right. Like there's. What we need to be going after is what do we do that nobody else does? Or how do we solve a costly problem that our prospects are feeling? That's where the operational conversation starts from, is like, what's the. Who are we serving? What's the problem that they're stuck in right now? What's the process that we go through to help them solve that problem? If that's the same exact flow we need to go through, whether we're building a marketing plan for a client or if we're building an operational plan for an agency? We've got to know what's the problem that we're solving and who are we solving that problem for? And the focus from the beginning isn't necessarily on the processes and the checklists, but it's on where are they trying to go? And that's where so many of us have missed the boat. And that's where we missed the boat for so long is we're looking for the checklist. We're looking for the magic system that gets me to a certain revenue point. But we lose sight of what does this client need right now and how do I master that journey? And once I've mastered that journey and created that process of how I deliver results for them. Now we can come back and say, okay, how do we define this? To boil it all down, it's being an entrepreneur, it's finding a pain in the market that needs to be solved. Bring that solution to the market. And with the agency world as polluted and saturated as it is right now, it's not a question of like, should I niche? It's absolutely, you need to. But more than just niche, you need to figure out what is the audience that I want to serve and not just bring all of my presuppositions to that audience and say, okay, here's what you need. You need Facebook ads, you need LinkedIn advertising, you need direct outreach, you need inbound marketing, you need blogging, podcasting, Facebook groups, whatever it is. No, you need to leave all of that clutter behind and serve that audience and figure out where are they trying to go based on their situation, what are the things that they are trying to accomplish? We've got to do that deep homework first and know those people really, really well. And maybe that's going back to your most successful case studies and looking at those and plucking one or two of those out and replicating that success. Or maybe it's tapping into an industry that you have a passion for but haven't served any clients in yet and just really investing in understanding what's the problem that they're feeling right now and go deep there. Be an entrepreneur, solve a real life problem. Because your job as the owner here is to map that journey from struggle to triumph for your prospect for your client. Then systems and processes come in and allow that journey to be walked without you being the guide every single step of the way.

You've got a dichotomy of thinking here between the entrepreneurial solve the problem path and the I need processes to like. We either go down the route of I need to first figure out what the problem that I'm solving is, who I'm solving it for, and then how do I map that and standardize that and build my process around that. The other way that we go, just to play this out in terms of what this looks like literally every single day in the conversations that we have is the people who are trying to figure out how do I produce this cheaper and faster, because that's the only differentiator that I have. I'm blogging because that's what my presupposition said I need to do. So what's the blogging checklist that I need so I can do it cheaper and faster so we can still make money on something that is really hard to charge a premium for versus going the other way. What you're recommending and saying, hey, we need to figure out what the pain is. How exactly do we solve that pain? How does that happen to what we have? And then how do we standardize that and systematize that solution that we have, which at that point may be the time to plug in and learn from other people. It's not that checklists or templates or other people's examples are a bad thing. It's just, are you choosing to prioritize this? Are you putting it in the right way? And then are you taking point on? I'm going to review what they have and use it as a jumping off point rather than someone else did it. I'm not that good at this. Let's plug it in and hopefully this will be the magic potion that we need to deliver better results.

I think that this also plays into a larger conversation around the timeline or the view or the scope that digital agencies have. In our world, technology moves so fast. Like, five years ago feels like an eternity. But when we think about building a successful business here, like, we need to be thinking 30 years from now, 50 years from now, 80 years from now, 100 years from now, what will this business be? Who will it be serving? And if all we do is focus on the tactics of, like, all we do is SEO, or all we do is web design, or we do inbound marketing, or we do Facebook ads, that stuff's going to be completely obscure 100 years from now. But if we instead think of ourselves as all you and I do is help agency owners build a business that thrives without them being involved in it, that's it. At the end of the day, that's all that we do. And for you out there, all you do is help a certain type of company achieve a certain type of result without a certain type of frustration. If that's how you think about yourself, then your subconscious mind is always churning, how do I help them get there faster? How do I remove the friction from that journey? All of those things. Instead of saying, okay, for this new client, I need to go learn this new industry, apply all these deliverables that I've never used before, I need to stretch my team a little bit farther. You're building custom solutions for everybody rather than thinking and dwelling on standardizing, perfecting, and mastering one path. Because if we could just like flip our flip A switch, snap our fingers and transfer a belief or a perspective. That would be it for me if I could be on calls with people and just like, say, hey, if you can get yourself in a spot where you're mastering one path instead of trying to master every single client engagement, the colors of the world look different to you at that point. Like, everything changes from that point on. Your marketing changes, your sales change, your delivery changes, your internal team culture changes because you're fixed on the client. That's how you build something that's sustainable. That's how you build something that lasts beyond you and can thrive without you, is starting first in that point. And then, like you said, the checklists flow in after that and can accelerate that path to growth. But they are an aid at that point and not the solution in and of themselves.

So when we talk to the agencies who are struggling right now, they've got a service, and usually it's more diverse than they wish it was. The way they might tell us that their agency, what their agency is, the first glance at it, whether it's filling out a form or whether it's a conversation, hey, what does your agency do? We're an SEO agency for this, or we're an inbound agency. And then say, okay, well, how does that. Once you dig in and figure out what does that look like on a daily basis, how many of those specific clients do you have or you have Normally, if you just ask, how many clients do you have? Oh, you got 40. How many exactly? The type of clients that you just described. Well, three of them are. Well, what are the other 37? You know, it's all something different. So they feel super scattered and hence the. Like, there's just all this chaos and distraction and clutter going on. And so there's. And there's no way to have standardized processes. When you've got 38 different types. You get three standardized retainers and 37 various other arrangement clients. Yeah, it's pretty tough to have any type of standardized journey there, and hence the hunt for systems and processes. So if I'm in that boat right now, what's the right first step? Like, where do I begin? Do I ignore systems and processes, or do I need to get a baseline in place so that I can take care of some of this work so I can get it off my plate and then try and come back? What's the right order?

The right order depends on where you're at. If you're at a spot right now where you feel like you're drowning, then first, you need to buy yourself some mental space. So you need to put some basic processes in place, capture how you do what you do today. What's the process for client A, the process for client B, the process for client C, and prioritize that from the stuff you're doing the most frequently down to the stuff you're doing the least frequently. That's the very first step. That exercise will buy you capacity within the first two to three weeks. If you're diligent about it and if you want to talk, if you need help with that, talk to us. We can walk you through that process. But that's the first thing. You need capacity as an owner to be able to think and work on your business. But know that as you're developing those processes, as you're setting up that project management, as you're building things that are repeatable for the clients that you have right now. That is a temporary fix. It's a band aid on a bullet wound. What you need long term is to look at your most successful clients, pick your top two or three, grade them, and figure out which of these successes do I want to go out and duplicate? And just focus on bringing in more clients like the clients we've had in the past that we've done really good work for, for, or that we want to do really good work for. And start there more aspirational. It's a little bit harder to do that because you don't have that solid case study and expertise to actually lean on. You're operating on more hypotheses out of the gate. But, you know, some people don't have that case study with a client that they really want to be working with moving forward. That those are the first two steps. You need space. So sometimes you need to put those like stopgap measures in place so that your team can help with your clients. One of our clients is going through this process right now and said that the biggest takeaway that they've had so far, the biggest impact they've had so far is their project manager talks to them once a day rather than 20 times a day. Just think about, you have 19 less interruptions in your day. Think about that impact of how much you can work on your business because of that, because of these stopgap measures that you've put into place. It doesn't mean that the next 10 clients are going to function the same way as the current 10 clients you have right now, by no means. But you now have the capacity to think about, how am I going to run this a little bit differently. Instead of being stuck on that treadmill, just burning a lot of calories but not actually getting anywhere.

I never heard that treadmill analogy. Look at you. No, you're exactly right. I think that's where it starts. And then the fear, obviously a huge part of why we. That part, I think is the easier part. But the next part that you're talking about of actually mastering solving a costly pain for a specific audience, that part is where there's fear that holds us back from both. Like this fear of spending time developing our own systems and processes because we know that we're scattered. We know that we're not experts in it right now. Maybe we're not doing the right thing. But then the huge fear comes from when we start to narrow down and actually do something focused. That's where. And you ask anybody. Let's go look at any example of anyone who's ever been successful, who's been the most focused on mastering one thing until the end and stuck with it. And how successful are those people compared to the people who just can't say no to anything? Yeah, dude, it's so odd. We all can see it in other people, but it's scary to do it ourselves. Listen, don't be afraid of that fear. Press into it and understand most of those fears are legitimate. Like, I don't know where I should go. I don't know who I should focus on. I don't know how I'll handle situations where I've got a good fit or a client that right now I would love to have and maybe they'll come to me after this, but they don't fit into that. What I thought they'd be. There's all kinds of legitimate fears there. Don't be afraid of that and use the appropriate resources to overcome that. Don't be afraid to work with a coach or go through our program or go through working with other agency owners who've made this switch before. There's got to be. It's not really optional like you were saying. This is a. If you're going to build something huge, like unless you have some legs that 99.9% of agencies don't have. This is the path of least resistance forward, but the path of greatest fear at the beginning.

Yeah, that's good, dude. Let's wrap it up right there.

I like it. All right. Hey, thanks for tuning in today. Always fun to spend time with you. Any other updates from your end? What other good news do we have for people? Hey, we've got Agency Journey Live coming up. What's the date on that? Wednesday, April 17th.

That's right, bro. It's coming fast, man. Three weeks away.

Hey, let's jam on that for three minutes here. The guest list. Now, I should have my notes in front of me. I should remember exactly what order we're going in, but we're going to run through this. 9:00am Steve Percikoff.

Yep.

Does that sound right? Art of Sales Academy. This one's going to be really fun talking about and especially for people who live in the content and inbound world. This is going to push you and be really good, really good content. In terms of generating new sales appointments.

Yeah.

With your exact ideal fit prospect.

Yep. And offer two essential ingredients. How do you do? How do you do? Effective outbound.

Yep.

And be attractive to people. That's what Steven's gonna be. That's what he's the master of. He's gonna be talking about that. Next we have Mike.

Yeah. So Mike Michalowicz, he's written a couple different books. Right now I am on one of his follow up lists for Clockwork. Those are the emails that I'm getting literally every day. I'll make sure to ask him about his email frequency. Like Clockwork, but author of Profit first as well, which is a book I read in January. And so he's going to come on, we'll be talking about how to build a business that's profitable from day one. And then we've got. Let's see. I'm even intimidated to say his name. No, I'm not actually. At 11:00am Eastern, this is all Eastern time, the times that we're giving out here. But David Baker, is he, he's the 11 o'.

Clock. Yep.

I really need to keep like a little note card in front of me or something. So that's all. Excited for that conversation. Around all things agency, but especially the business of expertise. The exact stuff that we're talking about here is his exact stuff. I. Because I'm not wired to completely ignore what people think about me, I have a huge crush on the way that David carries himself and thinks for himself, says what he pleases. All right, next three. Josh Pigford. That's a little different one. Tell me about why Josh is coming on.

Tell why.

Who is he? Yeah, yeah.

Josh Pickford. He's the CEO of Barometrics. So comes from the SaaS space, but has a lot to say about the founder's journey and just the, the path that we walk as owners of businesses to build Companies that can thrive. So he's not an agency owner specifically, but he's going to speak to owners, and so I'm really excited about that. And then after him, we've got Mark Schaefer coming in. Mark Schaefer is the author of Known the Towel of Twitter Social Media Explained. He's got a lot of different books out there, but he just came out with Marketing Revolution, which if you. If you join us for the last Agency Journey Live, you heard John McTigue really, really hitting up that book. I just got it in the mail this week and I'll be reading it, and I'm really excited to dig into that. He's gonna be talking about how do we help our clients build more human centric marketing? Like how to. The most human company wins is Mark's mantra. So how do we help our clients do that and how do we do that ourselves? That's gonna reinforce exactly what we're talking about here today. Gray is like, you don't lead with your deliverables. You don't lead with how you solve problems. You lead with what's the problem that my client is stuck in right now, and how do I spend all of my time mastering the solution to that problem and shortening their path to the outcome that they're looking for. And then, last but surely not least, we've got Jeremiah coming in. He's the CEO of Simple Tiger, and he's going to be talking about his client journey or his agency journey, how he got his SEO for SaaS agency up and running. And they're humming right now, really excited for them. They. They are three months out in terms of their, like, new client ramp up right now. So they've done a lot of really good things, honing and streamline their operations, getting their sales dialed in. Just a really good story on the power of focusing on one problem, solving it, and kind of the opportunity that that can bring to your door. So it's gonna be a fun day. Dude, we're gonna be rolling.

I'm really excited. I have a little confession here. You ever have this time when we're on the podcast and for half a second. Okay, I'll be honest, it was probably 10 seconds. Kind of zone out for a second when you're talking. Mark Schaefer's book that just came. You're welcome. It just came out is Marketing Rebellion. And so I'm zoned out as you're saying it and then back.

Revolution.

Did he say revolution or rebellion? But when you weren't paying attention, you're not really geared up to jump right in and say it. There we go. Marketing rebellion.

Sorry, Mark. Go to Amazon and buy it. So you're ready for our conversation on April 17th.

Hey, speaking of going to Amazon and buying things, some personal news.

Yes.

From last weekend. Oh, here we go. Pull it off the bookshelf.

My wife, Rachel, launched her very first book called Anxiety Interrupted, and she sold out Amazon in, like, four days, which was awesome. Sold out our local Barnes and Noble in about an hour. She's cranking, dude, like, it's amazing. People are coming out of the woodwork. It's so cool to see people sharing it online and stuff. Rachel's a writer by trade that doesn't, like, just like. She is an amazing. She uses words in a very beautiful way to convey. What hits me about Rachel's writing is like. You're like, yes, that's what I've been feeling. And I've never been able to communicate to anyone before, but you just did it for me, so thank you. This has been launch week for Anxiety Interrupted, so I'm learning a lot about what it takes to launch a book right now. And she's doing good stuff.

That is awesome. So congratulations to Rachel. This is, I think, her third book and her first one done through a publisher. And with the official book launch and everything else.

Well, this is the third. You write books, but they don't go anywhere right away. So this is the first one that actually left the nest. She's got a couple in the nest that are still being nurtured. But, yeah, this is the first one out live and the first ISBN. That's what got her really excited.

There we go.

The librarian in her.

She's like, oh, I have an ISBN now. That is awesome.

Yeah.

Well, good. Well, we'll wrap up right here. Thanks for jumping on with us. We'll talk to you all soon. Have a great week. Crush it and enjoy the weekend.