April 6, 2025 • 33 mins
Company: Mountaintop Web Design
Owners: Josiah Bussing
Year Started: 2013
Employees: 1-10
Ever felt like you accidentally backed into entrepreneurship? That’s exactly how Josiah Bussing’s journey began. In this episode, he shares how helping his dad fix a website sparked a passion that became Mountaintop Web Design and how he plans to grow his agency while staying rooted in value, ethics, and continuous improvement.
Inside this episode:
- A different way to think about your interview questions.
- Why you should never undervalue vacation as a leadership test
- The difference between providing a service and solving a problem
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
Welcome to An Agency Storypodcast where we share real
stories of marketing agencyowners from around the world.
From the excitement of startingup the first big sale, passion,
doubt, fear, freedom, and theemotional rollercoaster of
growth, hear it all on An AgencyStory podcast.
(00:24):
An Agency Story podcast ishosted by Russel Dubree,
successful agency owner with aneight figure exit turned
business coach.
Enjoy the next agency story.
Russel (00:41):
What do Girl Scout Cookies, terrible websites, and
5:00 AM work sessions have to dowith building a digital agency
more than you think.
Welcome to an agency storypodcast.
I'm your host Russell.
In this episode, I'm joined byJosiah Bussing, founder of
Mountaintop Web Design frombuilding his dad's website out
of necessity to bootstrapping aremote first agency.
(01:02):
Josiah's journey is equal partsheart hustle and humility.
If we dive into what it reallytakes to transfer
entrepreneurial drive into ascalable team, why hiring well
beats trying to force culture,and the hard won lessons of
building systems that let youstep away from the business,
even if just for two weeks.
Enjoy the story.
Welcome to the show today,everyone.
(01:24):
I've got Josiah Bussinng withMountaintop Web Design with us
here today.
Thank you so much for being onthe show today, Josiah.
Josiah (01:30):
Great to be here.
It's a privilege.
Russel (01:32):
it's a privilege to have you.
I do always just start off withan introduction, what does
Mountaintop Web Design do andwho do you do it for?
Josiah (01:39):
We are almost a full service digital marketing firm.
We do things like websitedesign, WordPress websites,
ongoing care and maintenance,website hosting, search engine
optimization, pay per clickadvertising, those sorts of
things.
We don't do social media, sothat's why I say almost full
service, because that's separatearea that we really don't want
to get into.
We focus more on, like, aligningour customers with the problem
(02:00):
that they're solving for theircustomers.
Search intent.
If somebody's, for example,looking for a local furnace
repair company, aligning thatcompany with that search is
where we really focus.
That's where we're primed tohelp our customers.
Who do we help?
We help everyone from coffeeshops to HVAC repair.
Cyber security consultants,realtors.
We serve a huge spectrum ofclients across a whole bunch of
(02:22):
different industries.
It adds a unique challenge, butit's also fun because you can
see the difference, like, thedifferent solutions you can
implement from industry toindustry.
Russel (02:29):
Beautifully put, coming off some of our conversation
that we said we should have hitthe record button before, so
we're going to get back to someof those nuggets, but coming off
a two and a half week stint withsome family vacation, you said
everyone's alive and well,that's always a good sign to
hear, but it sounds like you hada great Thanksgiving.
Josiah (02:44):
Yeah, correct.
One of the benefits of workingwith a fully remote team is you
can pick up and move your officeto wherever you need to be.
I am normally in the Denvermetro area with team across the
country.
For the two and a half weeksaround Thanksgiving, just
because we booked some time withfamily, we picked up and I moved
my office to Michigan.
It's just nice where you cantake some time off and work and
play and shift your schedulearound as need be.
It's a great benefit of theflexibility that you have here
Russel (03:05):
Wonderful.
I got to take advantage I dothat a little bit, but I don't
think I've ever gone anywherefrom two and a half weeks and
just said, yeah, it was a, uh,remote vacation like that.
Maybe a reminder, anyone athome, if you're working
remotely, go, go jet offsomewhere.
Maybe not, for some of you, notfamily.
Don't go stay with family fortwo and a half weeks, but, um,
but, uh, yeah, that's a greatidea.
Great reminder.
Josiah (03:26):
Or find someplace, you know, like a work vacation,
right?
A tropical beach place or remotemountain lodge, something,
something a little morerelaxing, maybe.
Russel (03:34):
But then, tell me this, do you get, do you get upset?
Like, oh, I, you know, I want togo be skiing or I want to go be
on beaching.
I don't want to be working.
Has that ever, have you donethat?
Is that a conflict at all?
Josiah (03:43):
Haven't done that one yet.
I'm sure I would definitelystruggle with that.
I think my challenge is I wantto learn to take more time off
where I'm at those places andjust not working.
That's the goal I'm workingtowards.
Russel (03:52):
Although, maybe I'll say, and I think this in a
couple instances I've done, itis more motivation, like, oh,
I'm going to get up early, I'mgoing to knock everything out so
I can be done by one, versus,oh, I have the whole day, and
I'm going to take the whole dayto get work done if I'm at home.
And then we were talking about,uh, before we also hit record,
you were interrupted by a peskysalesperson.
I'm sure there's a marketinglesson in there but we were just
lamenting about peskysalespeople.
Josiah (04:13):
The classic door to door home service salesperson that
shows up and interrupts your dayand expects you to give them 15
minutes of your time so thatthey can try and sell you a
service or solution that you donot need.
I was on my soapbox a little bitjust talking about how it, it
seems super spammy and not veryhelpful when you have somebody
that interrupts your pattern andtries to force you into
something you don't need.
(04:33):
One of the reasons I likedigital marketing is it tries to
align that service with whenthat customer is actually
looking for it and you provide asolution to that problem.
That feels better and moreethical from my perspective than
just the slimey door to doorsalesperson.
Russel (04:46):
What's funny too is why, why are they, why are they
selling something?
If I need pest control, I know Ican go look up and contact a
pest control company, but whatI'd be more enthralled about,
right, as you see these littlegadgets, they might sell on
TikTok or something like that.
Like a Woosama gadget, you know,5, 000 or something like that.
If someone came to my door andwas selling something like that,
I'd be far more likely to buythat than just some commodity of
(05:08):
pest control.
I've got two things I want tomake sure we get our message out
there today, Josiah, is ifyou're a person and you buy
services from a door to doorcommodity, stop it.
Because you're perpetuatingthis.
Unless it's a Girl Scout ordonation or something like that,
stop doing that.
Number two, if you're going toget in this business, sell me
something interesting.
Don't sell me something I'mreally probably upset that I'd
(05:28):
have to pay for it to begin withanyway.
Josiah (05:30):
I would say even just a better focus on aligning, like,
what is the problem that you'resolving?
Is that salesperson with thesolution If you walk up and the
person's house has gutters thatare hanging off and they're
broken, then yes, sell'emgutters, right?
It's an obvious solution, butlike, when they don't have any
clue what the inside of yourhouse looks like and they're,
you know, asking, are you readyfor a bathroom remodel?
You don't actually even know.
Why try to sell a bathroomremodel when, like, our
(05:52):
bathrooms are remodeled?
Or maybe they're not, but youwould never know that.
That's the challenge is can yousolve a problem for the people
and not just show up and try andshove something down their
throat?
Granted, if it's a Girl Scout,just sell me the cookies, right?
I'm all for just being sold thecookies when it's the Girl
Scouts.
Russel (06:05):
Show up here every day and I will buy a box every day.
Josiah (06:08):
That's right.
Just take my money.
I'll leave it on the porch.
Just leave me a box
Russel (06:11):
Exactly.
Now they don't come door to dooranymore.
They just sit out in front of,like, a Walmart or something
like that.
Josiah (06:16):
Or you have to order it online I think.
Russel (06:17):
Yeah, jeez.
Made Girl Scout cookies moreinaccessible.
But you're perfectly right.
There's a lesson for marketersout there.
I doubt there's too many door todoor salespeople listening, but
stop, don't serve your ads tosomebody that doesn't need those
ads and so how can we identifywho needs them?
But great lesson.
Let's get to some of your story.
I want to hear kind of how yougot in this crazy biz.
I know you had a prettyinteresting origin story a
(06:39):
little bit in, in kind of yourfirst foray into digital
marketing.
What was young Josiah doing toget enthralled with an agency
business?
Josiah (06:46):
Truth is I fell into it.
The best way I could describe itis I was in college at the time
and was trying to figure outwhat life would look like for me
after going to this thing calleduniversity.
I wanted, you know, so far atthat point to get away from
anything entrepreneurialrelated.
My dad's a custom homebuilder.
He's the entrepreneur and he didreally well for a long time.
But right when I was graduatinghigh school was that 2008, 2009
(07:07):
financial crisis, which hit thehome building industry extremely
hard.
Watching him go from plenty to,you know, struggling was a
really difficult time so Iwanted to go pre med.
I wanted to go, like, medschool, get out of anything
economically driven.
I was like, people always getsick so there will always be a
need for that.
Go to college, um, sign up forbusiness classes.
The only thing I can say is,like, it's more of a God thing
(07:28):
that I kind of fell into itbecause I started my business
101 class and I startedlistening to the professor
speak.
I'm like, wow, I was totallymeant to be here right now.
I've looked back on that andjust thought, man, I, if I went
the premed route, like, thatwould be a disaster.
I'm not cut to be a doctor.
That's not my skill set.
That's not where I'm passionate.
I am truly built to be anentrepreneur.
That was something I kind ofaccidentally fell into.
But fast forward.
(07:49):
Started figuring out themarketing side of things, that I
liked business and I likedlearning about business.
I come home from my freshmanyear of college, my dad got a,
one of those nasty, oh, likecopyright infringement notices
from one of the big companiesthat some of the images on his
website that some other websitedesigner had built and has since
disappeared at that point.
He, you know, had the 5, 000dollar fine or whatever it was
(08:10):
from the company.
Didn't know any better, but we,we started looking into, okay,
what does it take to swap theimages out?
We hop in, it's an old HTMLwebsite.
My task for the entire week ofThanksgiving break was to figure
out how to swap HTML images onthe back end of a server I've
never logged into.
It was completely foreign to me.
We figured it out.
We were successful.
We got it done.
My dad, you know, while I wasback at school finishing finals,
(08:32):
he was just fed up with thisthing I get home and he's like,
I'm going to give you anotherproject for Christmas break.
I'm like, okay, whatever.
I'll help you out.
I grew up, you know, the son ofan entrepreneur, you step in and
help out where you need to.
He hands me a really, really badwebsite builder.
One of those static drag anddrop original website builders
of the day that, like, you dragit around and exports the HTML
code.
I build a website that break andstart just tinkering with things
(08:55):
like, okay, how do I get thiswebsite to do this?
Going down that rabbit hole oflike, how do I make it better?
How do I keep making it better?
Time goes on and I keep playingwith this stuff for a while and
I start, for him, going down therabbit hole of like, and I
didn't know what search engineoptimization was.
I didn't know what local searchwas, but I was like, okay, I've
got to figure out how to getmore people come into his
website so I can figure out Howhe can grow his business and how
he can get more visibility.
(09:16):
All of a sudden, like, he startsranking, starts getting business
that start coming from this,right?
I'm just, like, accidentallyhappening into it.
Russel (09:22):
I know you're a little older than teenager mindset here
of like, you know, son, go buildme a website.
Oh, dad, but I'm hearing a lotmore passion, so this doesn't
sound like a parent to do listthat you did begrudgingly.
And who better to have successfor than, than your parents.
Josiah (09:37):
I like a challenge and I think I like figuring out things
like that.
I think somewhere in there, it'sscratched that itch that
entrepreneurs have of like, Ithink I can do something with
this, right?
You start figuring it outbecause that was, that would
have been 20, trying to thinkhere, 2017 or 2018.
I played around with his stuffon the side for a while and
started just kind of helping himas I had free time in college.
I don't think he even paid mefor it, which is fine.
(09:58):
That's what families are for,right?
But eventually, like it, itreally put this idea in my head
of like, I think I can make somemoney doing this.
At that point, like, I was incollege.
You don't need much money whenyou're in college.
You just got a little bit ofgroceries and some rent.
Russel (10:09):
Oh, I know.
If today Russel could live oncollege Russel budget frugality,
uh, I'd be in such a much betterplace.
Josiah (10:15):
Oh, man, it'd be great.
Your budget is so small at thatpoint.
You got roommates, no concerns,no mortgage.
It's great.
But that, that sort of idea gotplanted, right?
I sold my auto mechanic on theidea of a website.
I think he took a flyer on mejust knowing me and I, he's, I
sold him for 250 bucks.
I'd build a new website and walkback in a few weeks later after
hand coding the whole thing.
I taught myself to code duringthis time frame, took all the
(10:38):
photos on my, my iPhone back inthe day, because, you know, that
was all I had access to.
Wrote all of the text, built allof the pages and I think I blew
him away.
Cause I think he was expecting,like, a really crappy website
built by this, like, 19 year oldkid and, like, built like a five
page website that had, like, alist of his services.
I was just trying to figure outlike, what do customers want to
see when they're looking at thiswebsite and how do I put it on
(10:58):
the website so they can find it?
You just figured it out at thebeginning from using some basic
empathy and figuring out what dopeople want to see?
Needless to say, I made no moneyon that project, but it really
set me off on that journey.
Here we are 2024.
We just celebrated 11 years.
I did it on the side for a longtime.
I took a job because I was, youknow, getting married coming out
of college, I needed to be ableto provide for the family.
Just did it on the side as apart time thing and started
(11:19):
putting some fundamental, like,building blocks in place of
things like recurring revenueand building, like, consistent
customer base that then wouldrefer us to other customers.
That just started growingthings.
2020 hit and that was reallywhere things took off and went
to the next level where we couldblow it up.
We basically got to the pointwhere I was working a full time
job during the day and working afull time job at night and in
the morning.
(11:39):
I'd be working from like 5 AM to8 AM on my, you know, my gig.
Popping into the day job,working there until lunchtime,
taking the 30 minute or hourlong lunch and flexing that when
I had a client meeting, tryingto, like, balance both worlds as
best as I could, because Ididn't want to take away from my
day job, right?
That would be wrong, but thenhopping back in and working, you
know, the day job in theafternoon until 4:30 or 5 and
then from 5 until 10 or 11 orwhatever needed to be done for
(12:01):
that project to get done.
Russel (12:02):
That's a tough schedule.
Was it the extra income?
Was it the, the skillacquisition or was it, you know,
that you knew this waseventually going to turn into a
business?
Josiah (12:11):
I would be lying if I said that I knew it would
eventually turn into a business.
I think for me, for a long time,especially from like 2016 to
2018, I didn't actually thinkthat I'd be able to make enough
money doing this to actuallyeven provide for myself, let
alone a team full time.
I hadn't figured that out yet.
I think part of the reason was Iwas charging way too little
money for a website, wasn'tbuilding any recurring revenue
(12:33):
into it, had no sort of ongoingservices and wasn't doing
additional things.
I hadn't figured out the modelquite yet, I guess is the best
way to say that.
I don't know how to describe itbesides the fact of I fell into
it and then I just want to be areally good steward and deliver
a lot of value when that comesin.
People would be referred to meso you wind up with five
projects when you're used toonly doing one.
Okay, well, I want to do a goodjob with each of those.
I want to do what's right bythat customer, by that client.
(12:55):
It just grew out of that.
And then that led to obviouslyto more referrals and more
referrals led to more clientscoming in.
I think it is more of somethinglike I fell into it.
I don't know that I was eververy intentional about that.
That's something that I think ifI, you know, knowing what I know
now, going back 10 years, I,life would look a little
different.
But I mean, it just kind of waslike, hey, I want to do the
right thing.
I want to take good care ofthese clients and serve them
super well.
(13:15):
I think until 2020, maybe late2019, I always thought that
like, I knew I was anentrepreneur, but I figured I
had probably 15 years ofmiserable and, like, making
money and buying the house.
All of those like, the typicalAmerican dream type scenario.
I didn't think that I would bean entrepreneur until late
forties, early fifties.
I figured it was some far offpipe dream.
I didn't think it was anythingthat could ever, like, happen to
(13:37):
me, let alone this early.
Russel (13:38):
You probably didn't have time to think.
You're running 5 AM to midnight.
There's all gas, no brakes, uh,on that kind of schedule.
Josiah (13:45):
It was, one, so 2020 we actually, the funny thing about
this is like halfway through2020, my wife and I were having
a baby in August of 2020.
We had the COVID baby and weknew life was going to look
different.
I intentionally tried to putbrakes on the business.
I was like, okay, as of July1st, I am not taking any more
customers.
I told all of my sales leads atthat point that I'm not taking
(14:05):
any more customers after thisday because we're having a baby.
I need time to deliver theseprojects before we have the baby
so I don't have stress in mylife.
You can see where this is going.
That backfired miserably.
I figured, like, I'd gather oneor two clients, life would be
good, finish out those projects,move on.
I think every single client thatI was talking to or potential
client I was talking to signedup at that point.
So now I'm buried, like tryingto go into sleepless nights
(14:26):
being and, the father of anewborn trying to help out and
take care of the little baby.
That was like, the point where,like, you could just really see,
like, things take off and go inthe right direction for the
business specifically.
Towards the end of 2020, early2021, my wife and I looked at
each other like, we can't keepdoing this.
This is unsustainable.
This is not healthy for us.
It's not healthy for ourmarriage, for our relationship,
for our kids, our kid at thatpoint.
We're like, okay, what, what dowe have to do to take this thing
(14:48):
full time?
We started, like, running thenumbers and it's like, okay,
well, here's our number.
Where are we right now?
We're like, we're only 500dollars a month off.
It's like, I think we can makethat work.
It's like sneakily snuck up onme that it, it had gotten that
big just because I had been sofocused on just delivering value
as opposed to watching themetrics associated with that
necessarily.
April 2021, hopped in full timeand things just blew up from
(15:08):
there.
Started hiring a team threemonths later and we got a bigger
team now continually addingpeople, um, trying to figure out
how to free up my time and getmore results and better results
for customers.
Russel (15:18):
Wonderful origin story there.
You walked yourself right up tohaving a full time uh,
compensation and replacement ofincome in your business, which
so great.
Wasn't a big risky leap, but asyou're sharing that, maybe just
folks listening, that could be agreat sales tactic.
Tell all your prospects tomorrowthat you're not going to do any
more or take on any more work.
Right?
Turn the tables, somebody tryit.
(15:38):
Somebody tell me how it works.
Josiah (15:39):
I thought you were going to go the route of like, you
just got to have another babyand then tell your, tell your
sales leads you're having a babyand you can't go there, right?
It's an expensive way to gainsales leads, I guess.
Russel (15:47):
But maybe you're creating your future army of
business operators You can justgo all in on that effort.
You're running an entirebusiness around baby making.
That could go down a track.
When I hear about thisdedication to burn yourself in
the midnight oil of getting thisclient work done, that you have
a passion for, really just ask,how do I do better?
How I provide more value?
Do you know where that comesfrom or just what, why is that
(16:08):
such an important question foryou?
Josiah (16:09):
I don't know where it comes from.
I just know that it's been therefor a long time, right?
it's something that it's a, it'sa benefit and a curse
simultaneously.
The brain doesn't shut off andit's, it makes it hard to put
healthy boundaries in placewhere it's like, okay, it's 5
PM.
I need to go be with my familyand spend time intentionally
with them there when your brainis just like constantly trying
to solve problems and figure outokay, where's the weakness?
How do I make it better?
(16:30):
As I can remember, it's there.
Even things like when I was inhigh school playing football, we
sold those, like, discountcards, right?
I'm competitive.
That's probably part of it, butit's not necessarily like that
bravado thing of I want to bethe best, but I feel like I'm
competing more with myself oflike, can I do better than I did
last time?
Even with, like, the littlething of selling those football
cards back in the day, like, Ididn't even know that it was a
thing.
We were supposed to sell 25.
(16:50):
The first year I think I sold 45and I got it was like 40 or 50
bucks as like a reward from thefootball team, like, to
incentivize people to sellthings.
Russel (16:57):
Think of all that money you made.
It's like, here's 40 bucks, kid.
Josiah (17:00):
Oh yeah.
I figured out how to, it'sprobably just, like, that
entrepreneurial, like, tick of,like, how do you get in front of
customers and figure out whoyour better customers are?
Cause I figured out very easilythat it was like, okay, if you
go to doctor's offices and lawfirms, you walk in and you talk
to whoever the partner or theowner is, they will buy a card
for every one of their staff onthe spot.
So instead of going door to doorand selling one card at a time,
you walk into an office and infive minutes, you've sold 10
(17:21):
cards.
Russel (17:21):
Definition of work smarter, not harder.
Wonderful.
Genius.
Josiah (17:24):
I guess it's always been there and I, I don't know where,
I mean, my parents have alwaysprobably just done a good job of
teaching us to do what's right.
Work hard towards things and soit's probably just an outflow of
that, but it, it definitely issomething that is very present
in my mind.
Russel (17:37):
I'm just curious.
As time has gone on and right,you've grown your business.
It sounds like an obsession, notin a good sense of the word of
this is constantly somethingyou're thinking about.
Have you been able to eventranslate that or bake that into
the culture beyond just you andyour mindset, but put that into
practice throughout the overallbusiness?
Josiah (17:54):
One of the big things that I think my team hears me
talk about a lot is the valuethat we add to clients.
We were talking about this alittle bit earlier, possibly
even before we hopped on thepodcast here, but just that
question of how do we continueto get better results for
clients?
Not being satisfied with thestatus quo.
There's got to be a healthyboundary in there somewhere and
I'm working to define thatinternally, but like, we'd never
want to be an agency that justtakes money from people for the
(18:16):
sake of taking money from them.
We've all heard the horrorstories.
We've all heard about thoseagencies that do that.
We want to provide a lot ofvalue.
I think it's something you hirefor.
I don't think that's somethingthat you can necessarily teach
as part of, like, a culture.
I think it's something that,like, those people that you
would hire that fit your modeland, like, your team culture
will bring with them that desireto improve and to do better and
(18:36):
to make improvements to things.
I'm going to brag on my team.
For example, I hired a websitedesigner earlier this year, and
you know, she came from anotheragency and when she came in, she
helped us build a projecttracking spreadsheet that will
help us get clearer and betterresults from both the website
design process and the QA thathappens after it.
She just built it.
She didn't ask for permission.
She just came in and said, hey,this is something I built
(18:58):
because I think it would helpus.
She presented it to me.
I loved it.
It's been one of the best thingsthat we've implemented this year
because it's helped us getbetter, more consistent results.
But I think that comes down to,like, you have to hire the
people that have that, like thatsame driver, that same, like,
passion for making thingsbetter.
It is definitely a big currentinside of our organization,
because it is something that wetalk about.
It means sort of nothing's offlimits in terms of work that's
(19:20):
being done.
We are willing to questionanything and try and make even
things that are working workbetter next time.
Russel (19:25):
I kind of say this half jokingly, actually half not, um,
but you know, I, I'm definitelya big believer, you can solve a
lot of challenges in yourbusiness by hiring well.
There's certainly ways you can,you can bake it into the
culture, but a great start is,right.
Finding people that it's alreadynatural to their culture, but an
interview question for people ishow many discount cards did you
sell in your school or sportfundraiser when you were a kid?
(19:46):
Tell you everything you need toknow.
Josiah (19:47):
Just going down that rabbit hole a little bit, one of
the things that I do differentlyafter watching and being in a
typical corporate world wherethey hire people based off of
what they think are bestpractices, but it really is just
whatever bad corporate mold thatthey have.
They all ask the same questionsand it's always the same
questions that everyone'sprepared for, which are
questions like, tell me aboutyourself.
What are your three strengths?
(20:07):
Really basic questions likethat, that everyone has a canned
answer to.
I sort of looked at that and Isaid, okay, we need to do
something different if we wantto hire differently than getting
corporate lookalikes.
One of the big things that I'vefocused on, and I'll give a plug
to Patrick Lencioni, and a lotof the questions that he asks as
part of his ideal team playerand as part of his books, but I
asked very unconventionalquestions as part of the
(20:28):
interview process.
I do that intentionally becauseit filters out a lot of people
very quickly and it helps mefind, like, what I would term as
A players.
I really like our team, I'm verygrateful for our team.
I would say that they're Aplayers because they get a ton
of results and we're a smallscrappy team.
I ask questions like, what's thebest mistake you've ever made?
That's been a fun one that Ilike because it captures both a
humility and it also, it alsoshows does that person have the
(20:51):
ability to assess something thatthey've done and see how it's
made their life better?
I didn't know it would do this,but it also weeds out a lot of
people that give really badanswers.
That are just not cultural fits.
I had one guy that I wasinterviewing.
He literally bragged about nocall, no showing work.
He goes surfing and it's I'm allfor work life balance, but,
like, you got to show up whenyou got to show up.
That's part of the gig here.
Russel (21:10):
All common sense is not so common.
Honestly, I think sometimes it'snot even the cliche question.
It's what is, what is the answeryou're looking for in how you're
looking at that question?
I actually like a clichequestion.
What do you do in your personaltime?
Not just cause I'm trying tofill time, but I want to see
like, you know, they havesomething else they're
passionate about or that they'recurious about.
Can they show kind of some ofthat notion of, hey, yeah, I,
(21:31):
I'm into leather work orsomething like that and I make
wallets and it's like, okay,well, they had to go through a
process to learn that.
They're not apprenticed, theydidn't learn that in college.
They know how to, say, becurious and then go apply a set
of skills to act upon thatcuriosity.
They don't know what the rightanswer actually is so they can't
gamify the system, um, by yourkind of prototypical corporate
(21:51):
response.
Anyway, good stuff.
Awesome.
I want to switch gears too,because I know this is a, maybe
one of the more harderchallenges in the agency world
that that you'd shared earlier.
You obviously have a lot ofskills, talents, abilities as
the owner and right, as you'regrowing a team, you're not only
trying to hire other folks, butyou've got to do some level of
transfer of that, what you'recapable of onto other people and
(22:13):
with a whole system and thateverything comes up on the other
side, uh, as good as we'd hopeor expect.
It sounds like maybe that's theroad you're on currently.
What's that like?
Josiah (22:21):
To explain the road I'm on, I want to kind of explain
like how I would describe mygoals.
This is a little unconventional.
For me, my goals are notnecessarily monetary goals.
That's the backend.
How do you achieve it?
For me, I want to be able totake a two week vacation or four
week vacation and everything isjust done, right?
That's the one thing that yousacrifice when you take and work
as an entrepreneur is a smallbusiness owner.
(22:43):
You don't get the traditionalvacation where you can check
out.
You can punch the clock out andyou're done for 2 weeks.
You have that where you justwear it.
I think we as humans need restand relaxation.
If you go back to biblicaltimes, like Sabbath, that, that
rest is good for us.
It's been proven to spurcreativity and help with better
results.
We need to build that into ourlives.
For me, that's like, my ultimategoal is being able to get to
(23:03):
that two to four week mark whereI can just have things done.
That means I have to put all ofthose roles in place.
Sales, accounting, marketing,account management, all of those
pieces where I can step out ofthat day to day.
I don't have to do those roles.
Somebody else can fill in forme.
That said, part of that is like,trying to scale the agency
because that's it takes revenueto cover those costs and the
expenses of hiring the peopleand the talented people that you
(23:24):
need to do those things.
That's the journey I'm on at themoment is trying to figure out,
one, who's the next hire?
How do you train them?
How do you help them do well andsucceed in their role?
How do you help them do betterthan what you did?
That's the tough thing.
You had sort of hinted at it,taking all of that knowledge
transfer and then putting itinto somebody is really
difficult.
Especially like, right now, I'mworking on the project
management side of helping boostthat side of things and helping
(23:45):
my project manager see theconnections between projects of,
okay, this happens and now weneed to do these four other
things here that I've justpicked up from the last 11 years
of doing these things.
How do you teach that in acondensed format so that within
six months, right, that projectmanager has that same skillset?
That's the big challenge I'mworking on.
Russel (24:01):
Again, I said, not, not uncommon.
I think can be one of thehardest parts about this.
I think sometimes that is just,you know, we can all forget if
we've gone on a journey andwe've learned all these things.
It's very easy to forget all thethings we actually learned and
just recycling to a verygranular level of what are
those, what are also thosethings that we need to transfer?
The way I always like todescribe it is there are gaps,
(24:24):
and they're going to get filledone way or the other.
We've just got to really getgranular about some of those
details to fill in the gaps.
But it makes me think of,there's a good, um, actually had
a previous interview on thepodcast with Jack Skeels.
He wrote a really great bookcalled Unmanaged that gets to
the, the heart of some of thesethings.
I think it helps our mindset ofthe apprentice model of, you
know, we think back old schooltimes, right?
(24:45):
A blacksmith apprentice orsomething along those lines,
like, they spent a lot of timeside by side, learning all those
little nuances about, I don'tknow anything about
blacksmithing, but you know, howto hammer it and set the fire
and blow on it.
I don't know what you do.
But we have to put our mindsetin that almost apprentice like
model.
Not, you know, we're going todocument it and they're going to
read the document and knoweverything they need to know or
(25:05):
something along those lines.
I don't know what, what doesapprentice model conjure up in
your mind?
Josiah (25:09):
Interesting.
The thing that my mind went tois that's, I think that one of
the reasons that the apprenticemodel works is because you're
doing the work together, right?
I think that the challenge,especially with things with
technology is it's very muchindividual devices with
individuals working on them.
That aspect of working togethergets a bit more challenging,
especially when you add thatremote team.
I think that's the thing that alot of companies have seen like
within office versus remote iswhen they go remote, they now
(25:32):
have to be intentional aboutthings like training and
building culture and sharingtimes and like building those
spaces for people to connect,whereas that used to just happen
by osmosis naturally, becausethere was a natural rubbing of
like, people at the water cooleror in the break room.
My first thought was, how do wedo that better than we're
currently doing it?
Guess there's that continualinnovation and getting better at
it that just pops into mind.
But it's also challenging whenyou do have a remote team,
(25:54):
because now it's a Zoom meeting.
It's not just like sitting nextto that person.
Russel (25:57):
Probably really sums up a lot of things that are, are
inherent in a remote environmentis that intentionality of, you
know, you, you can assume somethings in a person environment
will happen via collision andobservation and seeing other
people do it.
But, yeah, it's hard to get in aremote environment so that
requires us to be all the moreintentional about those actual
gaps and nuances and little tipsand tricks that we want to make
(26:18):
sure people get.
It is a journey towards thatround and a lot of that
experience.
I loved even what you sharedbefore of just ask yourself that
question.
Almost to that end of, I don'tknow if this is how you were
thinking about it, you canshare, of, right.
Hey, yes, I want to, or I mightwant to make a certain amount of
money, but that's, that needs tobe over here now.
But a good road to that is, canI take a vacation for a month?
(26:39):
Answering that question mighthelp fill in some of the gaps,
to even allow that to bepossible.
And then if that's possible, youprobably have a little, pretty
good, efficient running machinethat maybe you can turn that
into three months.
Josiah (26:49):
That would be nice.
I'd like to get two weeks first,right?
Start small.
Russel (26:51):
Yeah.
Start with two weeks.
Can you go out of town for twoweeks and then build upon it
from there?
To that point, make more babies,take more vacations.
That's how you grow a business.
That's our takeaways from today.
Josiah (27:00):
I'm an entrepreneur, so I don't think my brain's ever
going to shut off.
I'm not built to lay on a beach,right?
I don't have desire to buildthis massive company and sell it
for, you know, a massive exitand then just go land a beach
with fancy houses.
That's just not me.
It sounds nice to lay on thebeach for four or five days, but
then I get back up and go findsomething to do.
For me, it's, can I, can I havethe flexibility and freedom of a
company that runs itself, that Ican then go maybe start another
(27:23):
company, do something elseservice based where you can
provide a solution to people andinvest more time and effort and
energy into, into people in thatway?
I'm a big fan of providing areally good, high quality place
to work for people and having agood culture where people want
to show up.
There's a lot of really badworkplaces out there so being
able to do that more and moreoften would be a really cool
thing.
Big picture, I'm not, I'm kindof holding these things with
open hands, right?
(27:43):
If it happens, it happens.
If it doesn't, it doesn't.
I'm working towards that.
I'm trying to be a good stewardwith where we're at.
But that, that for me is kind ofthe, the bigger picture and just
spending time with my family.
I want to be able to, you know,my wife and our kids are, my
daughter's now old enough wherewe're starting to talk that
school conversation.
Can we take, our kids to go seeplaces like Washington, DC?
And like, where the battle ofGettysburg was and all of these
historical places I've neverbeen before.
(28:03):
But can we do that as part oftheir schooling and be very
intentional with what we'reteaching them and give them a
good shot of success regardingour team, though?
For us, part of it is, you know,being more efficient with how
we're delivering services.
Continuing to get better resultsfor clients and better, and
better results is always goingto be the name of the game.
Obviously, we've got a big pivotthat is coming with the world,
with things getting automatedand some things that used to
(28:24):
take a lot of effort are gettingeasier, but that also means that
there's more challenges than onthe other side of that to solve.
As we grow, just adding membersof the team that fit the culture
and doing that well, so thatthat new team ever comes in and
is able to, you know, absolutelykill their job in the best way
possible and take stuff off myplate and the other team members
plates.
If we do that enough times andget more experts in each of the
different areas, we should beable to get even better and
(28:44):
better results for our clients.
I'm a fan of being a goodsteward of what you've been
given, whether that's the eighthours of today that you're
working or, you know, the teamthat you have, but just being a
good steward with thoseresources.
Russel (28:54):
Beautiful.
One thing is just heard there iswhat is always a great reminder.
The real end goal for all thishas to be is create the life you
want.
If we can do, bring people alongthat journey and do good things
by others along the way, thenall the better.
We've lived a good life.
We are a business and, andthat's, that really is the most
important part.
Great testament and reminder.
All right, well, Josiah.
We got to wrap up here.
One last big question for you.
(29:15):
Are entrepreneurs born or arethey made?
Josiah (29:17):
Oh man, that's a nature nurture question.
I honestly don't know.
It's probably a combination ofboth, but I feel like it's maybe
a little bit more on the madeside.
I would say there's, there'sprobably a sequences of events
that happened for eachentrepreneur that sort of forced
them down that rabbit hole andhelped them see the world in
that way.
And like have that, that hungerand that drive and that desire
(29:38):
to do something different.
I don't know, the part of methat goes back to the like, are
they born is like, there seemsto be something, I'm going to
say this like tongue in cheek,but like, wrong with us, where
we can't sit still and we can'tlike, just take the world for as
it is.
It's just that desire of like, Igot to go start something.
I got to do something different.
My wife usually makes fun of mewhen I get too much sleep at
night because like, usuallythere's another business idea
that comes out of it.
There's probably an element ofboth as part of that.
(30:00):
But I do think a lot of it islike, probably when you're
growing up being in the rightenvironment where you're, for
whatever reason, there's anevent that causes you to have a
hunger and a drive and thatdesire to make things better or
to do things differently.
I think that's like, thestarting point for a lot of that
thought process and for, youknow, how you get companies that
are innovative and new and like,problems that are being solved
(30:20):
in a different way.
There's gotta be some of that,and I'm not a psychologist.
I don't, I haven't studied that,but I don't know.
That's kind of my personal take.
Russel (30:27):
I'm not a psychologist either, but when you hear enough
from this, from similar typethings from people, a common
theme I hear is right, thatwe're a little crazy or just got
a chip or two loose, uh, thatallows us to do these things
that as well.
I think you're onto somethingthere.
But fascinating answernonetheless.
If people want to know moreabout Mountaintop, where can
they go?
Josiah (30:44):
The easiest place would be just going to our website,
mountaintopwebdesign.com.
All one word, all lowercase,just easy to find us or you can
Google us, reach out to us.
If you have any questions, happyto have any conversations there.
I am here, super easy to talk toyou and get to know, but that's
how you get ahold of us.
Russel (30:57):
Perfect.
And if you just want tocommiserate about door to door
salespeople, Josiah's your man.
He's got thoughts for days.
Josiah (31:03):
Come on over, yeah.
Russel (31:04):
Awesome.
Thank you so much, Josiah, fortaking the time out of your
schedule and talking with peskysalespeople to share so many
wonderful nuggets about thethings you've solved within your
business, the road and journeyyou're on about living the life
you want, and some of thechallenges of getting some other
folks on board with thisjourney.
Really fascinating story andreally appreciate you taking the
time to share it.
Josiah (31:24):
Thanks for the invite and thanks for allowing me to be
here and share my story.
We hope you've enjoyed thisepisode of An Agency Story
podcast where we share realstories of marketing agency
owners from around the world.
Are you interested in being aguest on the show?
Send an email topodcast@performancefaction.com.
(31:46):
An Agency Story is brought toyou by Performance Faction.
Performance Faction offersservices to help agency owners
grow their business to 5 milliondollars and more in revenue.
To learn more, visitperformancefaction.com.
One of the, like, the slightly humorous things that we
(32:07):
do is somewhere in the, in ournew staff members, especially if
they're in design cause it'sreally fun to watch their face
cringe, especially if you're onZoom is to share, I'll, I'll
find and share the files fromour original website that I
built when I first built theoriginal Mountaintop Web Design
website.
That's back when really crappywebsite builder.
I did not have very much designtraining.
(32:28):
I'm not a designer, so you canimagine how that would look, um,
back in 2013.
It's pretty comical and we get apretty good laugh from the team.
I make it okay to laugh becauseI'm laughing at it as well,
because we've improved a lotsince 2013.
Especially when you have like, aprofessional designer that's
taken graphic design classes andunderstand how design is
supposed to look and how awebsite should be balanced.
(32:48):
Seeing the first websites that Ibuilt, I mean, they're bad.
But it's, you get better, right?
That's always been a fun thingthat we do.
Usually there's some laughterabout that, and then I had a
really terrible haircut back inthe day.
That's usually the second thingthat pops up is they're making
fun of the hair that I had.
Russel (33:02):
There's probably got to be an office pool going around
of what's the worst site thatJosiah ever developed.
It's good to, don't takeyourself too seriously and have
a good, fun, historical culturemoment there to boot.
That's a winning combination.
Love to hear that.
Josiah (33:15):
Absolutely.
I think I made one of mydesigner's goals one year to get
the portfolio on our websiteupdated.
It was all her work and not mywork.
It's like trying to get rid ofthe old stuff that Josiah built
cause it doesn't look quite asgood.
Russel (33:26):
Campaign to get rid of Josiah.
That's funny.
Welcome to An Agency Storypodcast where we share real
stories of marketing agencyowners from around the world.
From the excitement of startingup the first big sale, passion,
doubt, fear, freedom, and theemotional rollercoaster of
growth, hear it all on An AgencyStory podcast.
(00:24):
An Agency Story podcast ishosted by Russel Dubree,
successful agency owner with aneight figure exit turned
business coach.
Enjoy the next agency story.
Russel (00:41):
What do Girl Scout Cookies, terrible websites, and
5:00 AM work sessions have to dowith building a digital agency
more than you think.
Welcome to an agency storypodcast.
I'm your host Russell.
In this episode, I'm joined byJosiah Bussing, founder of
Mountaintop Web Design frombuilding his dad's website out
of necessity to bootstrapping aremote first agency.
(01:02):
Josiah's journey is equal partsheart hustle and humility.
If we dive into what it reallytakes to transfer
entrepreneurial drive into ascalable team, why hiring well
beats trying to force culture,and the hard won lessons of
building systems that let youstep away from the business,
even if just for two weeks.
Enjoy the story.
Welcome to the show today,everyone.
(01:24):
I've got Josiah Bussinng withMountaintop Web Design with us
here today.
Thank you so much for being onthe show today, Josiah.
Josiah (01:30):
Great to be here.
It's a privilege.
Russel (01:32):
it's a privilege to have you.
I do always just start off withan introduction, what does
Mountaintop Web Design do andwho do you do it for?
Josiah (01:39):
We are almost a full service digital marketing firm.
We do things like websitedesign, WordPress websites,
ongoing care and maintenance,website hosting, search engine
optimization, pay per clickadvertising, those sorts of
things.
We don't do social media, sothat's why I say almost full
service, because that's separatearea that we really don't want
to get into.
We focus more on, like, aligningour customers with the problem
(02:00):
that they're solving for theircustomers.
Search intent.
If somebody's, for example,looking for a local furnace
repair company, aligning thatcompany with that search is
where we really focus.
That's where we're primed tohelp our customers.
Who do we help?
We help everyone from coffeeshops to HVAC repair.
Cyber security consultants,realtors.
We serve a huge spectrum ofclients across a whole bunch of
(02:22):
different industries.
It adds a unique challenge, butit's also fun because you can
see the difference, like, thedifferent solutions you can
implement from industry toindustry.
Russel (02:29):
Beautifully put, coming off some of our conversation
that we said we should have hitthe record button before, so
we're going to get back to someof those nuggets, but coming off
a two and a half week stint withsome family vacation, you said
everyone's alive and well,that's always a good sign to
hear, but it sounds like you hada great Thanksgiving.
Josiah (02:44):
Yeah, correct.
One of the benefits of workingwith a fully remote team is you
can pick up and move your officeto wherever you need to be.
I am normally in the Denvermetro area with team across the
country.
For the two and a half weeksaround Thanksgiving, just
because we booked some time withfamily, we picked up and I moved
my office to Michigan.
It's just nice where you cantake some time off and work and
play and shift your schedulearound as need be.
It's a great benefit of theflexibility that you have here
Russel (03:05):
Wonderful.
I got to take advantage I dothat a little bit, but I don't
think I've ever gone anywherefrom two and a half weeks and
just said, yeah, it was a, uh,remote vacation like that.
Maybe a reminder, anyone athome, if you're working
remotely, go, go jet offsomewhere.
Maybe not, for some of you, notfamily.
Don't go stay with family fortwo and a half weeks, but, um,
but, uh, yeah, that's a greatidea.
Great reminder.
Josiah (03:26):
Or find someplace, you know, like a work vacation,
right?
A tropical beach place or remotemountain lodge, something,
something a little morerelaxing, maybe.
Russel (03:34):
But then, tell me this, do you get, do you get upset?
Like, oh, I, you know, I want togo be skiing or I want to go be
on beaching.
I don't want to be working.
Has that ever, have you donethat?
Is that a conflict at all?
Josiah (03:43):
Haven't done that one yet.
I'm sure I would definitelystruggle with that.
I think my challenge is I wantto learn to take more time off
where I'm at those places andjust not working.
That's the goal I'm workingtowards.
Russel (03:52):
Although, maybe I'll say, and I think this in a
couple instances I've done, itis more motivation, like, oh,
I'm going to get up early, I'mgoing to knock everything out so
I can be done by one, versus,oh, I have the whole day, and
I'm going to take the whole dayto get work done if I'm at home.
And then we were talking about,uh, before we also hit record,
you were interrupted by a peskysalesperson.
I'm sure there's a marketinglesson in there but we were just
lamenting about peskysalespeople.
Josiah (04:13):
The classic door to door home service salesperson that
shows up and interrupts your dayand expects you to give them 15
minutes of your time so thatthey can try and sell you a
service or solution that you donot need.
I was on my soapbox a little bitjust talking about how it, it
seems super spammy and not veryhelpful when you have somebody
that interrupts your pattern andtries to force you into
something you don't need.
(04:33):
One of the reasons I likedigital marketing is it tries to
align that service with whenthat customer is actually
looking for it and you provide asolution to that problem.
That feels better and moreethical from my perspective than
just the slimey door to doorsalesperson.
Russel (04:46):
What's funny too is why, why are they, why are they
selling something?
If I need pest control, I know Ican go look up and contact a
pest control company, but whatI'd be more enthralled about,
right, as you see these littlegadgets, they might sell on
TikTok or something like that.
Like a Woosama gadget, you know,5, 000 or something like that.
If someone came to my door andwas selling something like that,
I'd be far more likely to buythat than just some commodity of
(05:08):
pest control.
I've got two things I want tomake sure we get our message out
there today, Josiah, is ifyou're a person and you buy
services from a door to doorcommodity, stop it.
Because you're perpetuatingthis.
Unless it's a Girl Scout ordonation or something like that,
stop doing that.
Number two, if you're going toget in this business, sell me
something interesting.
Don't sell me something I'mreally probably upset that I'd
(05:28):
have to pay for it to begin withanyway.
Josiah (05:30):
I would say even just a better focus on aligning, like,
what is the problem that you'resolving?
Is that salesperson with thesolution If you walk up and the
person's house has gutters thatare hanging off and they're
broken, then yes, sell'emgutters, right?
It's an obvious solution, butlike, when they don't have any
clue what the inside of yourhouse looks like and they're,
you know, asking, are you readyfor a bathroom remodel?
You don't actually even know.
Why try to sell a bathroomremodel when, like, our
(05:52):
bathrooms are remodeled?
Or maybe they're not, but youwould never know that.
That's the challenge is can yousolve a problem for the people
and not just show up and try andshove something down their
throat?
Granted, if it's a Girl Scout,just sell me the cookies, right?
I'm all for just being sold thecookies when it's the Girl
Scouts.
Russel (06:05):
Show up here every day and I will buy a box every day.
Josiah (06:08):
That's right.
Just take my money.
I'll leave it on the porch.
Just leave me a box
Russel (06:11):
Exactly.
Now they don't come door to dooranymore.
They just sit out in front of,like, a Walmart or something
like that.
Josiah (06:16):
Or you have to order it online I think.
Russel (06:17):
Yeah, jeez.
Made Girl Scout cookies moreinaccessible.
But you're perfectly right.
There's a lesson for marketersout there.
I doubt there's too many door todoor salespeople listening, but
stop, don't serve your ads tosomebody that doesn't need those
ads and so how can we identifywho needs them?
But great lesson.
Let's get to some of your story.
I want to hear kind of how yougot in this crazy biz.
I know you had a prettyinteresting origin story a
(06:39):
little bit in, in kind of yourfirst foray into digital
marketing.
What was young Josiah doing toget enthralled with an agency
business?
Josiah (06:46):
Truth is I fell into it.
The best way I could describe itis I was in college at the time
and was trying to figure outwhat life would look like for me
after going to this thing calleduniversity.
I wanted, you know, so far atthat point to get away from
anything entrepreneurialrelated.
My dad's a custom homebuilder.
He's the entrepreneur and he didreally well for a long time.
But right when I was graduatinghigh school was that 2008, 2009
(07:07):
financial crisis, which hit thehome building industry extremely
hard.
Watching him go from plenty to,you know, struggling was a
really difficult time so Iwanted to go pre med.
I wanted to go, like, medschool, get out of anything
economically driven.
I was like, people always getsick so there will always be a
need for that.
Go to college, um, sign up forbusiness classes.
The only thing I can say is,like, it's more of a God thing
(07:28):
that I kind of fell into itbecause I started my business
101 class and I startedlistening to the professor
speak.
I'm like, wow, I was totallymeant to be here right now.
I've looked back on that andjust thought, man, I, if I went
the premed route, like, thatwould be a disaster.
I'm not cut to be a doctor.
That's not my skill set.
That's not where I'm passionate.
I am truly built to be anentrepreneur.
That was something I kind ofaccidentally fell into.
But fast forward.
(07:49):
Started figuring out themarketing side of things, that I
liked business and I likedlearning about business.
I come home from my freshmanyear of college, my dad got a,
one of those nasty, oh, likecopyright infringement notices
from one of the big companiesthat some of the images on his
website that some other websitedesigner had built and has since
disappeared at that point.
He, you know, had the 5, 000dollar fine or whatever it was
(08:10):
from the company.
Didn't know any better, but we,we started looking into, okay,
what does it take to swap theimages out?
We hop in, it's an old HTMLwebsite.
My task for the entire week ofThanksgiving break was to figure
out how to swap HTML images onthe back end of a server I've
never logged into.
It was completely foreign to me.
We figured it out.
We were successful.
We got it done.
My dad, you know, while I wasback at school finishing finals,
(08:32):
he was just fed up with thisthing I get home and he's like,
I'm going to give you anotherproject for Christmas break.
I'm like, okay, whatever.
I'll help you out.
I grew up, you know, the son ofan entrepreneur, you step in and
help out where you need to.
He hands me a really, really badwebsite builder.
One of those static drag anddrop original website builders
of the day that, like, you dragit around and exports the HTML
code.
I build a website that break andstart just tinkering with things
(08:55):
like, okay, how do I get thiswebsite to do this?
Going down that rabbit hole oflike, how do I make it better?
How do I keep making it better?
Time goes on and I keep playingwith this stuff for a while and
I start, for him, going down therabbit hole of like, and I
didn't know what search engineoptimization was.
I didn't know what local searchwas, but I was like, okay, I've
got to figure out how to getmore people come into his
website so I can figure out Howhe can grow his business and how
he can get more visibility.
(09:16):
All of a sudden, like, he startsranking, starts getting business
that start coming from this,right?
I'm just, like, accidentallyhappening into it.
Russel (09:22):
I know you're a little older than teenager mindset here
of like, you know, son, go buildme a website.
Oh, dad, but I'm hearing a lotmore passion, so this doesn't
sound like a parent to do listthat you did begrudgingly.
And who better to have successfor than, than your parents.
Josiah (09:37):
I like a challenge and I think I like figuring out things
like that.
I think somewhere in there, it'sscratched that itch that
entrepreneurs have of like, Ithink I can do something with
this, right?
You start figuring it outbecause that was, that would
have been 20, trying to thinkhere, 2017 or 2018.
I played around with his stuffon the side for a while and
started just kind of helping himas I had free time in college.
I don't think he even paid mefor it, which is fine.
(09:58):
That's what families are for,right?
But eventually, like it, itreally put this idea in my head
of like, I think I can make somemoney doing this.
At that point, like, I was incollege.
You don't need much money whenyou're in college.
You just got a little bit ofgroceries and some rent.
Russel (10:09):
Oh, I know.
If today Russel could live oncollege Russel budget frugality,
uh, I'd be in such a much betterplace.
Josiah (10:15):
Oh, man, it'd be great.
Your budget is so small at thatpoint.
You got roommates, no concerns,no mortgage.
It's great.
But that, that sort of idea gotplanted, right?
I sold my auto mechanic on theidea of a website.
I think he took a flyer on mejust knowing me and I, he's, I
sold him for 250 bucks.
I'd build a new website and walkback in a few weeks later after
hand coding the whole thing.
I taught myself to code duringthis time frame, took all the
(10:38):
photos on my, my iPhone back inthe day, because, you know, that
was all I had access to.
Wrote all of the text, built allof the pages and I think I blew
him away.
Cause I think he was expecting,like, a really crappy website
built by this, like, 19 year oldkid and, like, built like a five
page website that had, like, alist of his services.
I was just trying to figure outlike, what do customers want to
see when they're looking at thiswebsite and how do I put it on
(10:58):
the website so they can find it?
You just figured it out at thebeginning from using some basic
empathy and figuring out what dopeople want to see?
Needless to say, I made no moneyon that project, but it really
set me off on that journey.
Here we are 2024.
We just celebrated 11 years.
I did it on the side for a longtime.
I took a job because I was, youknow, getting married coming out
of college, I needed to be ableto provide for the family.
Just did it on the side as apart time thing and started
(11:19):
putting some fundamental, like,building blocks in place of
things like recurring revenueand building, like, consistent
customer base that then wouldrefer us to other customers.
That just started growingthings.
2020 hit and that was reallywhere things took off and went
to the next level where we couldblow it up.
We basically got to the pointwhere I was working a full time
job during the day and working afull time job at night and in
the morning.
(11:39):
I'd be working from like 5 AM to8 AM on my, you know, my gig.
Popping into the day job,working there until lunchtime,
taking the 30 minute or hourlong lunch and flexing that when
I had a client meeting, tryingto, like, balance both worlds as
best as I could, because Ididn't want to take away from my
day job, right?
That would be wrong, but thenhopping back in and working, you
know, the day job in theafternoon until 4:30 or 5 and
then from 5 until 10 or 11 orwhatever needed to be done for
(12:01):
that project to get done.
Russel (12:02):
That's a tough schedule.
Was it the extra income?
Was it the, the skillacquisition or was it, you know,
that you knew this waseventually going to turn into a
business?
Josiah (12:11):
I would be lying if I said that I knew it would
eventually turn into a business.
I think for me, for a long time,especially from like 2016 to
2018, I didn't actually thinkthat I'd be able to make enough
money doing this to actuallyeven provide for myself, let
alone a team full time.
I hadn't figured that out yet.
I think part of the reason was Iwas charging way too little
money for a website, wasn'tbuilding any recurring revenue
(12:33):
into it, had no sort of ongoingservices and wasn't doing
additional things.
I hadn't figured out the modelquite yet, I guess is the best
way to say that.
I don't know how to describe itbesides the fact of I fell into
it and then I just want to be areally good steward and deliver
a lot of value when that comesin.
People would be referred to meso you wind up with five
projects when you're used toonly doing one.
Okay, well, I want to do a goodjob with each of those.
I want to do what's right bythat customer, by that client.
(12:55):
It just grew out of that.
And then that led to obviouslyto more referrals and more
referrals led to more clientscoming in.
I think it is more of somethinglike I fell into it.
I don't know that I was eververy intentional about that.
That's something that I think ifI, you know, knowing what I know
now, going back 10 years, I,life would look a little
different.
But I mean, it just kind of waslike, hey, I want to do the
right thing.
I want to take good care ofthese clients and serve them
super well.
(13:15):
I think until 2020, maybe late2019, I always thought that
like, I knew I was anentrepreneur, but I figured I
had probably 15 years ofmiserable and, like, making
money and buying the house.
All of those like, the typicalAmerican dream type scenario.
I didn't think that I would bean entrepreneur until late
forties, early fifties.
I figured it was some far offpipe dream.
I didn't think it was anythingthat could ever, like, happen to
(13:37):
me, let alone this early.
Russel (13:38):
You probably didn't have time to think.
You're running 5 AM to midnight.
There's all gas, no brakes, uh,on that kind of schedule.
Josiah (13:45):
It was, one, so 2020 we actually, the funny thing about
this is like halfway through2020, my wife and I were having
a baby in August of 2020.
We had the COVID baby and weknew life was going to look
different.
I intentionally tried to putbrakes on the business.
I was like, okay, as of July1st, I am not taking any more
customers.
I told all of my sales leads atthat point that I'm not taking
(14:05):
any more customers after thisday because we're having a baby.
I need time to deliver theseprojects before we have the baby
so I don't have stress in mylife.
You can see where this is going.
That backfired miserably.
I figured, like, I'd gather oneor two clients, life would be
good, finish out those projects,move on.
I think every single client thatI was talking to or potential
client I was talking to signedup at that point.
So now I'm buried, like tryingto go into sleepless nights
(14:26):
being and, the father of anewborn trying to help out and
take care of the little baby.
That was like, the point where,like, you could just really see,
like, things take off and go inthe right direction for the
business specifically.
Towards the end of 2020, early2021, my wife and I looked at
each other like, we can't keepdoing this.
This is unsustainable.
This is not healthy for us.
It's not healthy for ourmarriage, for our relationship,
for our kids, our kid at thatpoint.
We're like, okay, what, what dowe have to do to take this thing
(14:48):
full time?
We started, like, running thenumbers and it's like, okay,
well, here's our number.
Where are we right now?
We're like, we're only 500dollars a month off.
It's like, I think we can makethat work.
It's like sneakily snuck up onme that it, it had gotten that
big just because I had been sofocused on just delivering value
as opposed to watching themetrics associated with that
necessarily.
April 2021, hopped in full timeand things just blew up from
(15:08):
there.
Started hiring a team threemonths later and we got a bigger
team now continually addingpeople, um, trying to figure out
how to free up my time and getmore results and better results
for customers.
Russel (15:18):
Wonderful origin story there.
You walked yourself right up tohaving a full time uh,
compensation and replacement ofincome in your business, which
so great.
Wasn't a big risky leap, but asyou're sharing that, maybe just
folks listening, that could be agreat sales tactic.
Tell all your prospects tomorrowthat you're not going to do any
more or take on any more work.
Right?
Turn the tables, somebody tryit.
(15:38):
Somebody tell me how it works.
Josiah (15:39):
I thought you were going to go the route of like, you
just got to have another babyand then tell your, tell your
sales leads you're having a babyand you can't go there, right?
It's an expensive way to gainsales leads, I guess.
Russel (15:47):
But maybe you're creating your future army of
business operators You can justgo all in on that effort.
You're running an entirebusiness around baby making.
That could go down a track.
When I hear about thisdedication to burn yourself in
the midnight oil of getting thisclient work done, that you have
a passion for, really just ask,how do I do better?
How I provide more value?
Do you know where that comesfrom or just what, why is that
(16:08):
such an important question foryou?
Josiah (16:09):
I don't know where it comes from.
I just know that it's been therefor a long time, right?
it's something that it's a, it'sa benefit and a curse
simultaneously.
The brain doesn't shut off andit's, it makes it hard to put
healthy boundaries in placewhere it's like, okay, it's 5
PM.
I need to go be with my familyand spend time intentionally
with them there when your brainis just like constantly trying
to solve problems and figure outokay, where's the weakness?
How do I make it better?
(16:30):
As I can remember, it's there.
Even things like when I was inhigh school playing football, we
sold those, like, discountcards, right?
I'm competitive.
That's probably part of it, butit's not necessarily like that
bravado thing of I want to bethe best, but I feel like I'm
competing more with myself oflike, can I do better than I did
last time?
Even with, like, the littlething of selling those football
cards back in the day, like, Ididn't even know that it was a
thing.
We were supposed to sell 25.
(16:50):
The first year I think I sold 45and I got it was like 40 or 50
bucks as like a reward from thefootball team, like, to
incentivize people to sellthings.
Russel (16:57):
Think of all that money you made.
It's like, here's 40 bucks, kid.
Josiah (17:00):
Oh yeah.
I figured out how to, it'sprobably just, like, that
entrepreneurial, like, tick of,like, how do you get in front of
customers and figure out whoyour better customers are?
Cause I figured out very easilythat it was like, okay, if you
go to doctor's offices and lawfirms, you walk in and you talk
to whoever the partner or theowner is, they will buy a card
for every one of their staff onthe spot.
So instead of going door to doorand selling one card at a time,
you walk into an office and infive minutes, you've sold 10
(17:21):
cards.
Russel (17:21):
Definition of work smarter, not harder.
Wonderful.
Genius.
Josiah (17:24):
I guess it's always been there and I, I don't know where,
I mean, my parents have alwaysprobably just done a good job of
teaching us to do what's right.
Work hard towards things and soit's probably just an outflow of
that, but it, it definitely issomething that is very present
in my mind.
Russel (17:37):
I'm just curious.
As time has gone on and right,you've grown your business.
It sounds like an obsession, notin a good sense of the word of
this is constantly somethingyou're thinking about.
Have you been able to eventranslate that or bake that into
the culture beyond just you andyour mindset, but put that into
practice throughout the overallbusiness?
Josiah (17:54):
One of the big things that I think my team hears me
talk about a lot is the valuethat we add to clients.
We were talking about this alittle bit earlier, possibly
even before we hopped on thepodcast here, but just that
question of how do we continueto get better results for
clients?
Not being satisfied with thestatus quo.
There's got to be a healthyboundary in there somewhere and
I'm working to define thatinternally, but like, we'd never
want to be an agency that justtakes money from people for the
(18:16):
sake of taking money from them.
We've all heard the horrorstories.
We've all heard about thoseagencies that do that.
We want to provide a lot ofvalue.
I think it's something you hirefor.
I don't think that's somethingthat you can necessarily teach
as part of, like, a culture.
I think it's something that,like, those people that you
would hire that fit your modeland, like, your team culture
will bring with them that desireto improve and to do better and
(18:36):
to make improvements to things.
I'm going to brag on my team.
For example, I hired a websitedesigner earlier this year, and
you know, she came from anotheragency and when she came in, she
helped us build a projecttracking spreadsheet that will
help us get clearer and betterresults from both the website
design process and the QA thathappens after it.
She just built it.
She didn't ask for permission.
She just came in and said, hey,this is something I built
(18:58):
because I think it would helpus.
She presented it to me.
I loved it.
It's been one of the best thingsthat we've implemented this year
because it's helped us getbetter, more consistent results.
But I think that comes down to,like, you have to hire the
people that have that, like thatsame driver, that same, like,
passion for making thingsbetter.
It is definitely a big currentinside of our organization,
because it is something that wetalk about.
It means sort of nothing's offlimits in terms of work that's
(19:20):
being done.
We are willing to questionanything and try and make even
things that are working workbetter next time.
Russel (19:25):
I kind of say this half jokingly, actually half not, um,
but you know, I, I'm definitelya big believer, you can solve a
lot of challenges in yourbusiness by hiring well.
There's certainly ways you can,you can bake it into the
culture, but a great start is,right.
Finding people that it's alreadynatural to their culture, but an
interview question for people ishow many discount cards did you
sell in your school or sportfundraiser when you were a kid?
(19:46):
Tell you everything you need toknow.
Josiah (19:47):
Just going down that rabbit hole a little bit, one of
the things that I do differentlyafter watching and being in a
typical corporate world wherethey hire people based off of
what they think are bestpractices, but it really is just
whatever bad corporate mold thatthey have.
They all ask the same questionsand it's always the same
questions that everyone'sprepared for, which are
questions like, tell me aboutyourself.
What are your three strengths?
(20:07):
Really basic questions likethat, that everyone has a canned
answer to.
I sort of looked at that and Isaid, okay, we need to do
something different if we wantto hire differently than getting
corporate lookalikes.
One of the big things that I'vefocused on, and I'll give a plug
to Patrick Lencioni, and a lotof the questions that he asks as
part of his ideal team playerand as part of his books, but I
asked very unconventionalquestions as part of the
(20:28):
interview process.
I do that intentionally becauseit filters out a lot of people
very quickly and it helps mefind, like, what I would term as
A players.
I really like our team, I'm verygrateful for our team.
I would say that they're Aplayers because they get a ton
of results and we're a smallscrappy team.
I ask questions like, what's thebest mistake you've ever made?
That's been a fun one that Ilike because it captures both a
humility and it also, it alsoshows does that person have the
(20:51):
ability to assess something thatthey've done and see how it's
made their life better?
I didn't know it would do this,but it also weeds out a lot of
people that give really badanswers.
That are just not cultural fits.
I had one guy that I wasinterviewing.
He literally bragged about nocall, no showing work.
He goes surfing and it's I'm allfor work life balance, but,
like, you got to show up whenyou got to show up.
That's part of the gig here.
Russel (21:10):
All common sense is not so common.
Honestly, I think sometimes it'snot even the cliche question.
It's what is, what is the answeryou're looking for in how you're
looking at that question?
I actually like a clichequestion.
What do you do in your personaltime?
Not just cause I'm trying tofill time, but I want to see
like, you know, they havesomething else they're
passionate about or that they'recurious about.
Can they show kind of some ofthat notion of, hey, yeah, I,
(21:31):
I'm into leather work orsomething like that and I make
wallets and it's like, okay,well, they had to go through a
process to learn that.
They're not apprenticed, theydidn't learn that in college.
They know how to, say, becurious and then go apply a set
of skills to act upon thatcuriosity.
They don't know what the rightanswer actually is so they can't
gamify the system, um, by yourkind of prototypical corporate
(21:51):
response.
Anyway, good stuff.
Awesome.
I want to switch gears too,because I know this is a, maybe
one of the more harderchallenges in the agency world
that that you'd shared earlier.
You obviously have a lot ofskills, talents, abilities as
the owner and right, as you'regrowing a team, you're not only
trying to hire other folks, butyou've got to do some level of
transfer of that, what you'recapable of onto other people and
(22:13):
with a whole system and thateverything comes up on the other
side, uh, as good as we'd hopeor expect.
It sounds like maybe that's theroad you're on currently.
What's that like?
Josiah (22:21):
To explain the road I'm on, I want to kind of explain
like how I would describe mygoals.
This is a little unconventional.
For me, my goals are notnecessarily monetary goals.
That's the backend.
How do you achieve it?
For me, I want to be able totake a two week vacation or four
week vacation and everything isjust done, right?
That's the one thing that yousacrifice when you take and work
as an entrepreneur is a smallbusiness owner.
(22:43):
You don't get the traditionalvacation where you can check
out.
You can punch the clock out andyou're done for 2 weeks.
You have that where you justwear it.
I think we as humans need restand relaxation.
If you go back to biblicaltimes, like Sabbath, that, that
rest is good for us.
It's been proven to spurcreativity and help with better
results.
We need to build that into ourlives.
For me, that's like, my ultimategoal is being able to get to
(23:03):
that two to four week mark whereI can just have things done.
That means I have to put all ofthose roles in place.
Sales, accounting, marketing,account management, all of those
pieces where I can step out ofthat day to day.
I don't have to do those roles.
Somebody else can fill in forme.
That said, part of that is like,trying to scale the agency
because that's it takes revenueto cover those costs and the
expenses of hiring the peopleand the talented people that you
(23:24):
need to do those things.
That's the journey I'm on at themoment is trying to figure out,
one, who's the next hire?
How do you train them?
How do you help them do well andsucceed in their role?
How do you help them do betterthan what you did?
That's the tough thing.
You had sort of hinted at it,taking all of that knowledge
transfer and then putting itinto somebody is really
difficult.
Especially like, right now, I'mworking on the project
management side of helping boostthat side of things and helping
(23:45):
my project manager see theconnections between projects of,
okay, this happens and now weneed to do these four other
things here that I've justpicked up from the last 11 years
of doing these things.
How do you teach that in acondensed format so that within
six months, right, that projectmanager has that same skillset?
That's the big challenge I'mworking on.
Russel (24:01):
Again, I said, not, not uncommon.
I think can be one of thehardest parts about this.
I think sometimes that is just,you know, we can all forget if
we've gone on a journey andwe've learned all these things.
It's very easy to forget all thethings we actually learned and
just recycling to a verygranular level of what are
those, what are also thosethings that we need to transfer?
The way I always like todescribe it is there are gaps,
(24:24):
and they're going to get filledone way or the other.
We've just got to really getgranular about some of those
details to fill in the gaps.
But it makes me think of,there's a good, um, actually had
a previous interview on thepodcast with Jack Skeels.
He wrote a really great bookcalled Unmanaged that gets to
the, the heart of some of thesethings.
I think it helps our mindset ofthe apprentice model of, you
know, we think back old schooltimes, right?
(24:45):
A blacksmith apprentice orsomething along those lines,
like, they spent a lot of timeside by side, learning all those
little nuances about, I don'tknow anything about
blacksmithing, but you know, howto hammer it and set the fire
and blow on it.
I don't know what you do.
But we have to put our mindsetin that almost apprentice like
model.
Not, you know, we're going todocument it and they're going to
read the document and knoweverything they need to know or
(25:05):
something along those lines.
I don't know what, what doesapprentice model conjure up in
your mind?
Josiah (25:09):
Interesting.
The thing that my mind went tois that's, I think that one of
the reasons that the apprenticemodel works is because you're
doing the work together, right?
I think that the challenge,especially with things with
technology is it's very muchindividual devices with
individuals working on them.
That aspect of working togethergets a bit more challenging,
especially when you add thatremote team.
I think that's the thing that alot of companies have seen like
within office versus remote iswhen they go remote, they now
(25:32):
have to be intentional aboutthings like training and
building culture and sharingtimes and like building those
spaces for people to connect,whereas that used to just happen
by osmosis naturally, becausethere was a natural rubbing of
like, people at the water cooleror in the break room.
My first thought was, how do wedo that better than we're
currently doing it?
Guess there's that continualinnovation and getting better at
it that just pops into mind.
But it's also challenging whenyou do have a remote team,
(25:54):
because now it's a Zoom meeting.
It's not just like sitting nextto that person.
Russel (25:57):
Probably really sums up a lot of things that are, are
inherent in a remote environmentis that intentionality of, you
know, you, you can assume somethings in a person environment
will happen via collision andobservation and seeing other
people do it.
But, yeah, it's hard to get in aremote environment so that
requires us to be all the moreintentional about those actual
gaps and nuances and little tipsand tricks that we want to make
(26:18):
sure people get.
It is a journey towards thatround and a lot of that
experience.
I loved even what you sharedbefore of just ask yourself that
question.
Almost to that end of, I don'tknow if this is how you were
thinking about it, you canshare, of, right.
Hey, yes, I want to, or I mightwant to make a certain amount of
money, but that's, that needs tobe over here now.
But a good road to that is, canI take a vacation for a month?
(26:39):
Answering that question mighthelp fill in some of the gaps,
to even allow that to bepossible.
And then if that's possible, youprobably have a little, pretty
good, efficient running machinethat maybe you can turn that
into three months.
Josiah (26:49):
That would be nice.
I'd like to get two weeks first,right?
Start small.
Russel (26:51):
Yeah.
Start with two weeks.
Can you go out of town for twoweeks and then build upon it
from there?
To that point, make more babies,take more vacations.
That's how you grow a business.
That's our takeaways from today.
Josiah (27:00):
I'm an entrepreneur, so I don't think my brain's ever
going to shut off.
I'm not built to lay on a beach,right?
I don't have desire to buildthis massive company and sell it
for, you know, a massive exitand then just go land a beach
with fancy houses.
That's just not me.
It sounds nice to lay on thebeach for four or five days, but
then I get back up and go findsomething to do.
For me, it's, can I, can I havethe flexibility and freedom of a
company that runs itself, that Ican then go maybe start another
(27:23):
company, do something elseservice based where you can
provide a solution to people andinvest more time and effort and
energy into, into people in thatway?
I'm a big fan of providing areally good, high quality place
to work for people and having agood culture where people want
to show up.
There's a lot of really badworkplaces out there so being
able to do that more and moreoften would be a really cool
thing.
Big picture, I'm not, I'm kindof holding these things with
open hands, right?
(27:43):
If it happens, it happens.
If it doesn't, it doesn't.
I'm working towards that.
I'm trying to be a good stewardwith where we're at.
But that, that for me is kind ofthe, the bigger picture and just
spending time with my family.
I want to be able to, you know,my wife and our kids are, my
daughter's now old enough wherewe're starting to talk that
school conversation.
Can we take, our kids to go seeplaces like Washington, DC?
And like, where the battle ofGettysburg was and all of these
historical places I've neverbeen before.
(28:03):
But can we do that as part oftheir schooling and be very
intentional with what we'reteaching them and give them a
good shot of success regardingour team, though?
For us, part of it is, you know,being more efficient with how
we're delivering services.
Continuing to get better resultsfor clients and better, and
better results is always goingto be the name of the game.
Obviously, we've got a big pivotthat is coming with the world,
with things getting automatedand some things that used to
(28:24):
take a lot of effort are gettingeasier, but that also means that
there's more challenges than onthe other side of that to solve.
As we grow, just adding membersof the team that fit the culture
and doing that well, so thatthat new team ever comes in and
is able to, you know, absolutelykill their job in the best way
possible and take stuff off myplate and the other team members
plates.
If we do that enough times andget more experts in each of the
different areas, we should beable to get even better and
(28:44):
better results for our clients.
I'm a fan of being a goodsteward of what you've been
given, whether that's the eighthours of today that you're
working or, you know, the teamthat you have, but just being a
good steward with thoseresources.
Russel (28:54):
Beautiful.
One thing is just heard there iswhat is always a great reminder.
The real end goal for all thishas to be is create the life you
want.
If we can do, bring people alongthat journey and do good things
by others along the way, thenall the better.
We've lived a good life.
We are a business and, andthat's, that really is the most
important part.
Great testament and reminder.
All right, well, Josiah.
We got to wrap up here.
One last big question for you.
(29:15):
Are entrepreneurs born or arethey made?
Josiah (29:17):
Oh man, that's a nature nurture question.
I honestly don't know.
It's probably a combination ofboth, but I feel like it's maybe
a little bit more on the madeside.
I would say there's, there'sprobably a sequences of events
that happened for eachentrepreneur that sort of forced
them down that rabbit hole andhelped them see the world in
that way.
And like have that, that hungerand that drive and that desire
(29:38):
to do something different.
I don't know, the part of methat goes back to the like, are
they born is like, there seemsto be something, I'm going to
say this like tongue in cheek,but like, wrong with us, where
we can't sit still and we can'tlike, just take the world for as
it is.
It's just that desire of like, Igot to go start something.
I got to do something different.
My wife usually makes fun of mewhen I get too much sleep at
night because like, usuallythere's another business idea
that comes out of it.
There's probably an element ofboth as part of that.
(30:00):
But I do think a lot of it islike, probably when you're
growing up being in the rightenvironment where you're, for
whatever reason, there's anevent that causes you to have a
hunger and a drive and thatdesire to make things better or
to do things differently.
I think that's like, thestarting point for a lot of that
thought process and for, youknow, how you get companies that
are innovative and new and like,problems that are being solved
(30:20):
in a different way.
There's gotta be some of that,and I'm not a psychologist.
I don't, I haven't studied that,but I don't know.
That's kind of my personal take.
Russel (30:27):
I'm not a psychologist either, but when you hear enough
from this, from similar typethings from people, a common
theme I hear is right, thatwe're a little crazy or just got
a chip or two loose, uh, thatallows us to do these things
that as well.
I think you're onto somethingthere.
But fascinating answernonetheless.
If people want to know moreabout Mountaintop, where can
they go?
Josiah (30:44):
The easiest place would be just going to our website,
mountaintopwebdesign.com.
All one word, all lowercase,just easy to find us or you can
Google us, reach out to us.
If you have any questions, happyto have any conversations there.
I am here, super easy to talk toyou and get to know, but that's
how you get ahold of us.
Russel (30:57):
Perfect.
And if you just want tocommiserate about door to door
salespeople, Josiah's your man.
He's got thoughts for days.
Josiah (31:03):
Come on over, yeah.
Russel (31:04):
Awesome.
Thank you so much, Josiah, fortaking the time out of your
schedule and talking with peskysalespeople to share so many
wonderful nuggets about thethings you've solved within your
business, the road and journeyyou're on about living the life
you want, and some of thechallenges of getting some other
folks on board with thisjourney.
Really fascinating story andreally appreciate you taking the
time to share it.
Josiah (31:24):
Thanks for the invite and thanks for allowing me to be
here and share my story.
We hope you've enjoyed thisepisode of An Agency Story
podcast where we share realstories of marketing agency
owners from around the world.
Are you interested in being aguest on the show?
Send an email topodcast@performancefaction.com.
(31:46):
An Agency Story is brought toyou by Performance Faction.
Performance Faction offersservices to help agency owners
grow their business to 5 milliondollars and more in revenue.
To learn more, visitperformancefaction.com.
One of the, like, the slightly humorous things that we
(32:07):
do is somewhere in the, in ournew staff members, especially if
they're in design cause it'sreally fun to watch their face
cringe, especially if you're onZoom is to share, I'll, I'll
find and share the files fromour original website that I
built when I first built theoriginal Mountaintop Web Design
website.
That's back when really crappywebsite builder.
I did not have very much designtraining.
(32:28):
I'm not a designer, so you canimagine how that would look, um,
back in 2013.
It's pretty comical and we get apretty good laugh from the team.
I make it okay to laugh becauseI'm laughing at it as well,
because we've improved a lotsince 2013.
Especially when you have like, aprofessional designer that's
taken graphic design classes andunderstand how design is
supposed to look and how awebsite should be balanced.
(32:48):
Seeing the first websites that Ibuilt, I mean, they're bad.
But it's, you get better, right?
That's always been a fun thingthat we do.
Usually there's some laughterabout that, and then I had a
really terrible haircut back inthe day.
That's usually the second thingthat pops up is they're making
fun of the hair that I had.
Russel (33:02):
There's probably got to be an office pool going around
of what's the worst site thatJosiah ever developed.
It's good to, don't takeyourself too seriously and have
a good, fun, historical culturemoment there to boot.
That's a winning combination.
Love to hear that.
Josiah (33:15):
Absolutely.
I think I made one of mydesigner's goals one year to get
the portfolio on our websiteupdated.
It was all her work and not mywork.
It's like trying to get rid ofthe old stuff that Josiah built
cause it doesn't look quite asgood.
Russel (33:26):
Campaign to get rid of Josiah.
That's funny.
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