Jeff Henry went from bankruptcy to building a HubSpot Diamond partner agency in under four years. He's now VP of Sales for Sales Hub and shares lessons and pitfalls for agency owners, drawing on his background as a rave DJ, stand-up comic, and semi-professional bowler.
Chapters
It's Friday. We made it. Okay, be honest. Raise your hands. Who's hungover? There you go. Yep, all of the employees are hungover. All of the owners are going. I paid big bucks for this. I'm not hungover. So, yeah, really exciting week for us. Or last couple of weeks, we merged with Matt at Sales Hub in Canada and became a diamond partner. And I see that there's a lot of folks in here that either I know or I know you've had agencies for a while, so some of this stuff may be rudimentary to you, but for those of you that are just getting started, these are landmines that I've either done or I've run across in conversations with other folks, with people that are just getting started in business. And it's so important to know what you're doing to really understand why you're wanting to do this, why you're wanting to start a company. And so that's what the bulk of the presentation will be about. So because this is my first time speaking at Inbound, I get to do a vanity slide. I get to be important for a second. My new title is VP of Sales for the US Division for Sales Hub. Been in marketing for 20 years. I was a rave DJ for 3 years, traveled all over the country, had a great time. I was DJ Velveeta because I was the cheesiest. I spent two years as a stand up comic. At the same time I was doing the DJ stuff and I was making two or three thousand dollars a night being a DJ and I was making $150 a week being a comic. So hopefully I will prove out that during this presentation, I didn't stop being a comic because I wasn't funny. And I was a semi professional bowler for one year. And for those of you that really know me and we've had conversations about this, my bowling thumb is bigger than my regular thumb. Now you can tell how important you are at HubSpot as a speaker here at Inbound by the size of your head. There I am, little tiny bean head there. I sent them this great big high res picture. And like a designer, I have degrees in art and English. That's my background, the creative side of things. And so I know as a designer, you don't crop the photo for the person doing the layout. You leave it to them. Let them crop it. This is what happens when you leave it to HubSpot. Don't get me wrong, I love HubSpot. They're awesome. All right, so getting started. Hey, what's up? I've got an idea. Let's start an agency. Yeah, man, let's do that. Woo. A lot of agencies get started that way. A couple of creatives sitting in the back room. I don't like the way you treat us here. Let's just go do our own thing. No idea what they're getting into. Owners in the room. Right, Right. Just real quick. So I know how many of you are owners. How many? You guys are going to think this whole thing is funny, I hope. How many are employees and how many of the owners are just getting started or have been doing it for about a year or so. Maybe two. Great. You folks, for God's sakes, listen to me. All right? Don't do the stupid stuff that I did. Just don't do it. Okay. So you're ready to start an agency? The Entrepreneurial Urge. I think it's great. I think being an entrepreneur is one of the best things in the world. My mom and dad, my dad came home from Vietnam and my mom was a bookkeeper, and so they started a little gas station together, and they figured out that dad could make more money towing the cars.
