Master the Self-Running Agency: Escape 24/7 Work

I didn't start a business to deal with HR issues and finance issues and quality issues and client issues and personnel issues and all the rest of it. These are strategies that apply to every business, like have a plan, know, have a clear niche, build your team, get the systems and processes in place, put a succession plan in place. Those are the points that I'm covering in the book. My concerns is that in September 2022, no one had really heard of AI. No one had really heard of ChatGPT. It's the dream.

Have your own agency, your own marketing agency, clients coming to you all the time, work wherever you want, whenever you want, make tons of money. It's a dream that's peddled on the Internet all the time. And yet once people get into it, they find they've lost all control over time. They're on call 24 hours a day. It's not easier than working for some agency. It's actually 10 times harder. Our guest today is an expert on the world of the agency. Marketing agencies, advertising, public relations, all aspects of marketing and he helps other agency owners. He's author of the Self Running Agency and a master at all aspects of communication, including digital clones, which we'll talk about in a moment. It's my pleasure to bring to the show Rob Dasta. Rob, how are you today?

Hey tj. I am great and it's great to be here as well.

How did you get to the point where you realized in your journey that, you know, maybe you were working too hard, you somehow have to systemize things? How did you learn the principles that you espouse in the self running agency?

I think primarily by making all the mistakes. So back in the early 90s, I was decided to start my own agency. I was a marketing manager for a small company and I thought I could do better than the agencies we were trying to hire. So in my arrogant young youth, I left and started my own agency. And over the next 11 years, kind of was by accident, grew that business to 25 staff, making tons and tons of mistakes. And in the end I sold that business. And part of the reason I sold that business is kind of worn down from running it. We had this big open plan office and people came. I felt like I had that corner desk and people came to my desk with their wheelbarrows of crap every day and piled it up for me to deal with. And I sat there thinking, hey, this is not why I started a business. I didn't start a business to deal with HR issues and financial issues and quality issues. And client issues and personnel issues and all the rest of it. So I then left and retrained and became a coach or I sold the agency and I thought, okay, I need to share all the things that I did wrong and the things that I've learned to help people grow a business that they still love and grow a business that they can sort of systemize to the point where they get the flexibility and freedom that they always wanted when they started a business. I find that a lot of entrepreneurs, I'm sure you've found the same thing. They start their business because they want flexibility and they want freedom, both financial freedom and time freedom.

How much freedom did you have with 25 employees and clients expecting you on call 24 hours a day? I'm assuming zero.

Yeah. And part of that is because the other thing that most entrepreneurs want is control and they don't want to let go of control. This is a big lesson I learned. And so flexibility and freedom goes out the window because they still crave control. Actually, what we need to do is let go of control, but putting the systems in place to be confident that things won't fall apart. When we start the book.

The book is the self running agency. Rob, you must have done something right to expand to 25 people. You had to have gotten some major accounts, a major corporate accounts, paying some big money. And yet the assumption everyone has is, oh, wow, you're rich and successful. You have 25. And a lot of people who are maybe advertising geniuses aren't necessarily good at managing a business, managing a people, managing cash flow. It's certainly possible to have 25 employees and be losing money every single month.

Yeah, absolutely.

How do you, how do you help people juggle that? Because growth for growth's sake isn't really a long term prescription for wealth or happiness.

No, absolutely, absolutely. And one of the first chapters in the book is all about creating a roadmap and your vision. Because the definition of success isn't growing 20% year on year necessarily. It could be a million things. And one thing I learned is, I mean, we kind of grew organically. We weren't, we never had a grand plan. It just happened. And you know, we were in, at the beginning of that whole tech. We worked in the tech sector in the beginning of that whole tech boom. Now I realize that actually when you have to have a roadmap, because you need to know where you're going and you need to make sure that you are really aligned from here with where you're going, both personally and professionally, and it isn't necessarily growing 20% year on year. Some people want a lifestyle business, some people don't want to employ people at all. So they want to outsource to freelancers or offshore work. And so their business that turns we turned over one and a half million pounds. There's their business that turns over one and a half million. Could be them and a bunch of freelancers, someone else's could be a small team of five or six. So I think it starts off by having some very honest, soul searching conversations around what do you want? What do you really want?

Walk us through a typical example in the book. Let's say I am. I've had an agency for three years, but it's really just me. Let's say I live in London and I've got half a dozen clients and I'm making, let's say a quarter of a million dollars a year, which is not a lot of money in a place like London. I mean, you're not living in the fanciest penthouse with that. But I'm doing okay. I find that I am. I'm doing it all myself. Maybe I use a few freelancers, but every single client is expecting my call, you know, me returning their call. And without realizing it, I'm working late at night, mornings, weekends, holidays. How is your book going to help me transition to ideally making more money and working less or at least making the same amount of money and not being on call 24 7?

Yeah, I think the first thing is to decide what you want to be, whether you want to be, have that kind of freelancer mindset, which is what you've just described your business as, or where you want to have that entrepreneurial growth mindset.

And actually, let's assume for this scenario I do want to be an entrepreneur, I do want to grow, but I want to have a life too.

Yeah, yeah. So we've got a bunch of things in place. First of all, we need to get super clear about who your niche or your niche is and who your ideal target customer is. And it can't be everybody, it can't be anyone that wants advertising or anyone that wants PR or so the more narrowed down the niche we can get, the more specialist you are. And the more specialist you are, the higher the fees you can charge. And then you can stop being a busy fool. It's funny, one of the very first blogs I ever wrote when I launched my business back in 2007 was entitled Being a Busy Fool. And it's still the most searched term that I Find that drives traffic to my website. So we don't want to be a busy fool. And what I mean by that is we don't want to be working all hours, you know, answering the phone because everyone wants you, and yet not earning very much money, because let's face it, the business owner is always the last person in line to get paid, not the first person in line to get paid. So we need to put. We need to decide on your niche, we need to have a roadmap, and then we need to start putting the systems and processes in place so that you can delegate work and you can be confident that it's going to be delivered to a good level that represents your brand. And the clients will be happy to work with Jane and Fred and not.

Just you, because for the purposes of our hypothetical, hypothetical, let's say it's luxury brands, things like purses and dresses. So big industry and yet wildly demanding clients who want to micromanage the look and feel of every print ad, of every TV ad, video ad. How do I. How do I really grow? Because I can't just tell the. The founder, you know, a very. I can't tell Stella McCarthy. Oh, you got to talk to my intern now, my freelancer in Indonesia. It's not going to work that way. Right.

I am really convinced by processes. And if we can. I know that sounds very dry, but what I mean by that is if I can say to you, look, Stella, I can get you from here to here, and here's my proven way of doing it. And actually, I'm not the best person to take you through this. My creative director is the best person to work with you at the beginning. And then my account team are the best people to get the best price for your. For your ads. I'm there to kind of help set the strategy and oversee the quality. But I am not the best person. So I'm really convinced that people buy process. So when we are promoting what we do, we really want to promote that repeatable process, because that gives people comfort that we can actually deliver the result that they're looking for. But if all I'm doing is promoting Rob da Costa, and then of course, the client is always going to want Rob da Costa on the account, and the minute someone else is working on it, they're going to feel not very important anymore.

Sam.