February 9, 2025 • 28 mins
Company: Prospect Future
Owners: Matthew Regenie
Year Started: 2019
Employees: 1 – 10
What happens when your biggest client vanishes overnight? Or when you realize—too late—that avoiding sales is holding your agency back? In this episode of An Agency Story, Matt Regenie of Prospect Future shares the raw truth about the challenges of scaling an agency, the mistakes that cost him years of growth, and the mindset shifts that changed everything.
From losing a whale client to learning the power of rapid execution, Matt’s story is packed with insights every agency owner needs to hear. Tune in for lessons learned, hard-won wisdom, and strategies to build a stronger, more resilient business.
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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):
Welcome to An Agency Story podcast.
I'm your host, Russel.
In this episode, we're joined byMatt Regenie, the driven founder
of Prospect Future, a boutiquemarketing agency based in Fort
Collins, Colorado.
Hear how a 48 hour burst ofpassion launched his business
while losing a major clientbecame a turning point, and how
his transparency and integrityshape everything Prospect Future
(01:04):
does.
In this conversation, Isincerely appreciate how candid
Matt is about his agencyjourney.
Many of the obstacles he hasfaced have become what seems
like rites of passage that somany agencies I have connected
with over the years have alsofaced.
If you're listening out thereand you haven't faced some of
these same things that Mattshares, take warning.
(01:24):
You too might be at risk forlearning too late.
Enjoy the story.
Welcome to the show today,everyone.
I have Matt Regenie withProspect Future with us here
today.
Thank you so much for joining ustoday, Matt.
Matthew (01:36):
Absolutely, Russel, glad to be here.
Russel (01:37):
Glad to have you.
Let's get right to it.
Tell us what Prospect Futuredoes and who you do it for.
Matthew (01:42):
Prospect Future, we're a boutique agency.
We focus on e-commerce companiesas well as home service
companies.
We kind of are the jack of alltrades.
It's something that we're proudof.
It's full funnel marketingapproach.
Websites, paid advertising, alittle bit of SEO, a little bit
of email marketing, whole nineyards.
Realistically, the main reasonwe do that is because in our
mind, everything in marketing isintimately connected.
(02:04):
The more you know about thoseconnections, the better you can
help your clients out.
Russel (02:07):
Everything is certainly more connected than it ever was
before.
Only continues to be more trueevery day that goes by.
We're going to learn more abouthow you do all that down the
road, but before we get thereand you know, not that you're,
got gray haired in a beard oranything, but I want to hear
what young Matt was thinking hewanted to do with his life and
how close did he get?
Matthew (02:27):
I've been all over the place.
I think one of the, the biggestthings about me that's different
from what I hear other peoplehave is I've never had like,
these insane life goals ormassive aspirations.
I've had ideas in terms of, hey,I obviously want to have a
family.
I want to be successful.
Vague ideas of, of what successmeans to me.
I went to school at USC cause Ithought, hey, the bigger the
(02:50):
school, the better the successis going to be.
I eventually found that like,I'm surrounded by people that
might be a little bit toofocused on money.
Truthfully speaking, that was mypersonal experience.
I'm not saying that's accuratefor everyone.
I decided, hey, money isn'teverything, but at the same
time, it's obviously good tohave.
I continued down a career pathwhere I did finance.
I worked for a larger marketingagency and eventually I decided
(03:11):
like, hey, the, the level ofcontrol I want to have in my
life is going to dictate how Ican perform, how I can execute
for clients and how I canbasically bring the most
important elements in my life tothe world, which is honesty and
integrity and logic, so problemsolving as well.
Russel (03:26):
It's a great combination.
I hear a lot about honesty,integrity, but yeah, match that
with some logic.
I imagine that's a good potion.
How do you feel about USC beingin the Big 10?
Matthew (03:34):
This is the thing is, uh, I'm not, I'm not a big
sports guy.
I'm originally from New Mexicoand New Mexico doesn't have any
major sports teams.
My family didn't raise me as ahuge sports, um, watcher.
I played a lot of sports and soI decided, hey, I'm going to go
to USC because I want to becomea big sports guy.
I know that, especially inbusiness, especially in
friendships, it is very valuableto like, have that passion and
(03:56):
that interest.
But unfortunately I never reallypicked it up, so I can't answer
that question.
Russel (04:00):
All right.
Hey, doesn't affect you at all.
Potato patata.
I know you had some experienceat a rather large agency and,
and sounds like some otherexperiences in there as well,
lead us up to the point whereyou actually started your
agency.
Matthew (04:12):
One of the things that I kind of just kept running into
is, I kept trying to improve andlook for new opportunities.
I think, especially as your, asagencies get larger and larger,
they, they do form a level ofbureaucracy that's harder to
overcome.
It's harder to change processesand systems.
Obviously when you get to acertain level of scale, you're
beholden to a lot more than justthe owner or the employees.
(04:33):
You're beholden to lenders.
It just makes it a little bitclunkier to try and move
quickly.
I basically decided like, hey, Idon't feel like I'm providing
the value, and realistically, Ididn't feel great about what I
was doing, um, at that previousorganization.
I decided the best way toaccomplish bringing the
expertise, bringing theintegrity that I want to, to my
clients, is to start my ownbusiness.
(04:53):
That's how I got where I am.
Russel (04:54):
Okay.
And was that a slow roll intostarting your own business or
was it, you know, take this joband shove it, um, I'm doing this
and I'll figure out the rest onthe backside or how did you
actually go about it?
Matthew (05:05):
It was a one night of pure passion, Russel, to be
honest.
Russel (05:08):
All right.
I love it.
Matthew (05:09):
I was trying to move up.
I was trying to make changes andunfortunately they weren't being
met with the, the acceptance Iwas looking for.
I got fueled by that.
I literally built my entirewebsite, wrote all the copy.
Formed my business, did all theresearch in under 48 hours when
I first started out.
I just, you know, continuallygrew it from there.
Russel (05:27):
It speaks to my heart a little bit, cause I mean, I
think we ended up starting thesame way.
It was a Friday night idea andMonday we had a website and
we're calling people to sellwebsites.
I love the jump out of a planeand figure out the parachute on
the way down approach.
It's always fun and exciting.
You made this decision and, andyou stepped out into this.
What were those early days like?
Tell us some of the emotions andthings you were going through.
Matthew (05:48):
The early days were honestly my favorite days.
I think a lot of people mighthave a very different
experience, but I had beensaving, so I didn't have any
major financial concerns when Istarted my own business.
I don't think I got a client forprobably the first two months.
It took, took two and a halfmonths to get my first client.
But the beauty was when you'rethat small and you're operating
as your own entity, yourexpenses really shouldn't be
(06:08):
that high, in my opinion.
You can operate very lean,anything that you can pay for a
service or, um, a provider todo, you could internalize.
It just means that you'respending more time.
It's that time-money trade off.
I had very, very lean expensesstarting out.
I had clients that found meorganically.
They saw my YouTube videos, orthey heard of me by reputation,
(06:30):
or they got referred to me byprevious clients.
Effectively I had a very clearunderstanding of what I felt I
was worth at the time, and whenyou're starting out that early
on with low expenses, you'reactually making a decent amount
of money out of the gate withjust a handful of clients.
I think where it got complicatedis towards the end of year one,
when you start trying to scale,bring on team members, uh,
invest more in your ownmarketing, your own sales
(06:51):
processes.
That's when the revenue toexpenses ratio really starts
kind of tipping in a differentdirection.
Russel (06:55):
It seems like all gravy and icing at the beginning and,
uh, and then, yeah, those, allthose darn expenses that start
to creep up, that complicatesthings.
One of the things that Iremembered you shared previously
was just, let's call it maybeyour mindset or your approach to
sales as being something youdidn't love, or maybe didn't
necessarily like to do.
You can speak more to that, butthat you eventually also, sounds
(07:16):
like you kind of came around hadto change your mindset there.
Talk us through a little bitabout how that journey was for
you.
Matthew (07:21):
Absolutely.
What's interesting is I oftenhear some of the most successful
agencies, they either, theyusually start with a marketing
or sales focused, um, frontrunner in terms of the business,
or they start with both.
They start with one person who'sfocused on sales and one person
who's focused on operations ifit's a two person led company.
I started as an individual withmy agency and I'm much more of
(07:42):
an operations personality.
I have people skills when itcomes to like talking about
what's working, what's notworking, but in terms of like,
really broadening horizons,networking, that type of thing,
never been my, my specialty.
I have this distaste for salesmostly because what I've seen in
my previous job and, and justaround the world, it really
doesn't matter which company itis.
A lot of sales professionalswill make big promises just to
(08:02):
get you in the door, and thenthe execution from the delivery
team just doesn't really hitthose in a lot of regards.
I felt that oftentimes the, theimplementer, the, the person
actually managing accountsshould be doing the sales
because they're going to be themost honest and they know what
the most likely outcomes are.
Again, I didn't really focus onsales early on.
I will say that is by far thebiggest mistake I've made in my
(08:22):
business, is waiting a couple ofyears to focus on sales.
Truthfully, I grew off ofreferrals, word of mouth and
reputation.
If I had built sales processearly on, instead of an
operations process, I think I'dbe in a much different place
than I am today.
Russel (08:36):
I'm honestly a big proponent that less is more.
We can't solve all the world'sproblems in a day, but if we can
solve one-off problems in ameaningful way that kind of put
them to bed and definitely for awhile, then we're doing better.
Not to say we can look ahead andsee everything,.
Once you realized that need andthat shift in yourself what did
you start doing differently?
Matthew (08:55):
I think the main difference is speed to delivery
and time to execution and is oneof the biggest factors in, in
growing.
Like I said, I'm, I'm anoperations mindset.
I build systems, I build tools.
I've built tools and systems formy business that would probably
support a hundred plus personagency.
I'm not that size.
Because I'm preparing for thefuture instead of focusing on,
on right now.
The shift has been all right, ifI have an idea in terms of sales
(09:18):
or outreach or a social mediapost, I film it, I write it and
I execute within a 48 hourperiod.
Otherwise it gets documented andthen it just falls by the
wayside.
That's the biggest change iswhen I, when I do this research,
execute on that research rightaway, rather than trying to
compare all these differentscenarios and get caught in
analysis paralysis.
Russel (09:37):
I love that approach, right?
I think all the times we havethese blinding flashes of the
obvious or just a spark of anidea or, you know, that might
look like.
But then it dies because thenthere's 8 million other things
that get in our way.
I How do you balance givingsomething a, it's full, I guess,
full efforts to see it throughversus lots of new, quick
(09:58):
implementation of ideas?
Matthew (09:59):
I think that has been my biggest struggle.
In some ways I do considermyself a perfectionist.
I think a lot of entrepreneursand business owners feel the
same way, um, especially owneroperators that just never get
out of that stage where they'restill so heavily invested in the
business.
You have to be okay with lessthan great.
You have to be at that 70 to 80percent percentile rather than
(10:20):
that A plus range, because ifyou get caught up in the, hey,
this needs to be perfect, orthis employee needs to hit this
on the head exactly as I wouldhit it on the head.
Again, you just get caught up inmore and more iterations rather
than executions.
At that point, you're, you'replaying a quality game instead
of a quantity game, and as agrowing business within the
first couple of years, I dothink you need to be playing the
(10:41):
quantity game, unfortunately.
Russel (10:42):
Any good scientific process, which you could
probably say a business is,whether we acknowledge that or
not, that you've got to test thewaters in a number of different
areas and then find what, whattests slightly better than the
others and go down that path.
The other thing that, that, uh,I remember being a significant
part of your backstory is youhad a really large client that,
uh, that you ended up losing andeverybody that just heard that
(11:05):
has probably felt that at somepoint in their agency life, but
what happened and how in theworld did you overcome it?
Matthew (11:12):
It's, uh, still brings a tear to my eye to this day, to
be honest.
Russel (11:15):
Sorry, I don't want any tears on the show.
Matthew (11:17):
It was a whale.
It was a luck of the draw, theyfound me type of scenario.
It was, you know, best casescenario, just from out of the
gate.
To this day, they're still oneof the highest billable clients
I have on record.
Unfortunately it turned into aghost scenario and it wasn't for
a lack of communication, lack ofeffort, lack of performance.
I think just something happenedto their business internally and
they, they basically had to shutit down.
(11:38):
The big part with that is youneed to set boundaries for
yourself of, hey.
Here's how far I'm going topursue it.
Here's what I'm going to do if Ireally want to go down a legal
route, but at the end of theday, you do need to put the past
behind you.
You do need to move forward.
That was a great learning lessonof, hey, I did have some, you
know, red flags early on.
It wasn't worth not taking thatclient.
It was great to have thatexperience and obviously help
them, uh, in the ways that I wasable to, but after they left,
(12:01):
it's just, you know, you have tomove on.
You need to focus on what's nextand learn from, all right, if I
wasn't communicating them, withthem in these ways and asking
the questions of, hey, what's,what's your actual profit margin
look like?
What's the business stabilitylook like?
I think a lot of this waslogistics and, and legal issues
that they may have had.
Really digging in a little bitdeeper than just surface level
(12:21):
metrics, uh, can, can makethings like that a lot more
preventable.
Russel (12:24):
We can always do the best work we can do and we can
always do a better job ofvetting our clients, but
sometimes we just can't controla client's business.
In some ways, these are just avery natural order of things.
The only thing is to build ourdefense system, our immunity,
our, our, our sensitive,sensitiveness to something like
this actually happening.
Coming away from that goingforward, how have you built your
(12:45):
fortress around not beingsusceptible that again?
Matthew (12:48):
Honestly, I don't think it, like you said, um, we
obviously don't manage thebusinesses of our clients,
right?
We can drive business to them.
We can help improve theirrevenue, their leads, their
sales, whatever it might be, butat the end of the day, like we
don't have that level of controlbecause most of the times, as an
agency, you're not actually intheir business.
I think the biggest learninglessons isn't operations.
(13:08):
It's not sales.
It's not, uh, trying to preventcertain levels of churn or going
down the legal route.
I think it is you need to try toaccept the wins that you have as
often as possible so that theyovercome the losses.
What I mean by that isoftentimes in our industry,
there's not a ton of gratitudebecause people always want more,
right?
It's, hey, we've, we hit amillion dollars this year.
(13:30):
Great job, and the feedback youget is, all right.
How do we hit 1.
5?
Not, hey, thanks so much forgetting us here.
When you do get that positiveclient feedback of like, hey,
you did, you did an amazing jobthis week or whatever it might
be, internalize that as much aspossible so that when you do
have those troughs, when someoneleaves or you have negative
feedback or whatever it mightbe, you can stay a little bit
more resilient rather thanhaving to, you know, weather the
(13:52):
storm, uh, day in and day out.
Russel (13:54):
It's no doubt that, and I continue to appreciate this
more and more and really evensince I was in an actual agency
is how much is our mindset, uh,is important that is maintained
positive.
Celebrate the wins.
All the things that go into,look, we're going to take our
punches so we've got to makesure we really relish the, the
wins and, and the other side ofthat.
Just for perspective out thereand folks listening that one of
(14:17):
the things they say, and I don'tknow the exact saying, but
basically we don't want anyclients in our business that are
over 20, 25 percent of our totalrevenue.
This idea that, well, if we havesomeone bigger than that, well,
we don't decrease their revenuebecause that has pain as well,
but we have to grow ourselvesoutside of a client being that,
such a huge percentage of ourrevenue.
Probably there's some issues toothat we have a client that would
(14:38):
even be able to be that like,well, what are we selling that
has such diversity and pricingand scope that we have these
guerrilla clients to begin with?
But anything from that end thatyou kind of look back on and
say, oh man, I wish I would haverealized this and worked a lot
harder at getting more clientsor anything from mitigation, I
guess you could say?
Matthew (14:56):
I think what was scary is like you, especially early
on, you view clients like thisas like, this is a VIP.
This client's so importantbecause they are such a high
percentage of our revenue thatwe need to drop other tasks to
focus on them.
We need to make sure thatthey're super happy and go above
and beyond and make sure that,you know, they know the amount
of work we're doing.
And like I said, a lot of thetimes that's not obviously,
(15:19):
that's not always, uh,recognized, and it's sometimes
not always that valued.
I think oftentimes some of theclients with the bigger budgets,
tend to care less about metricsand, because they're not,
they're not fighting for theirbusiness like some smaller
clients might be.
One of the things was, hey, yes,this client's important.
Yes, we need to deliver well onit, but we can't let these other
parts of our business fall bythe wayside because we're
(15:40):
focusing so much on this onething.
We still need to, to give thequality to all our other
clients.
We still need to focus on salesand not take for granted the
fact that we have this revenuenow.
I think that's really what itcomes down to is don't, don't
put them on a pedestalbasically.
Yes, they're important.
Yes, you should treat them well,but they aren't your core
business.
Your core business is everythingelse that you're doing.
Russel (16:00):
It becomes a self fulfilling process.
You feel compelled to thisclient because they're paying a
lot of the bills and they say,jump, you say how high.
You start running more circlesand then you're focusing less
and less on the other parts ofyour business.
Hopefully we've set up some redflags to anyone out there
listening that has a clientthat's, you know, breaks that
20, 25, 30 percent threshold andis inspired to, um, set up
(16:24):
whatever they need to set up,grow their client base and make
sure they don't take their eyeoff the ball with the business.
Anything do we want to add tothat checklist for, for folks
that are in that similarsituation?
Matthew (16:35):
No, I mean, realistically, it just does come
back to sales.
If you have a consistent salesprocess, whether that's cold or
through marketing channels orwhatever it might be, then
you're not going to be asstressed as much when you lose
clients.
I think that's all it is.
Russel (16:48):
I'll say one last thing because I have heard no
shortages of this story of, ifyou think they're going to be
around forever, you're deadwrong.
They will not be.
I've seen entire agencies close,uh, losing a large client.
I've heard no shortage ofstories where someone thought
they were so locked in, had thegreatest relationship in the
world, we're doing amazing work,and six months later that client
(17:09):
is gone.
If nothing else, don't tellyourself that fallacy.
Matthew (17:12):
I do have one actual, uh, extra note if you don't
mind.
Russel (17:15):
Yeah, absolutely.
Matthew (17:16):
I think a lot of agencies, obviously it's easy to
let your temper get the best ofyou.
With that whale client, whenthey left, I was out, I mean, I
was owed an additional largeamount of money that they
basically didn't end upspending.
I think the big thing is theymight come back and I've had
that happen where clients thinkthe grass is greener, they leave
and then they come back.
One of my biggest tips to agencyowners, marketers, account
(17:36):
managers, is don't focus so muchon the short term that you hurt
your longterm success.
Because if you maintain thatrelationship, if you cultivate
it, and if you treat people likehumans.
We all have issues.
We all have bills.
We might have problems thatwe're not aware of.
If you give people the benefitof the doubt as often as you
can, it, I think it will comeback and benefit you.
Russel (17:56):
We all have issues in bills.
That's so, so perfectly wellput.
This is business and asemotional as we might feel about
it, that we need to move on, youknow, nope, don't burn any
longterm bridges.
Great advice there.
Thank you for adding that.
All right, we'll switch gears.
One of the things that I'm justcurious about is, you know,
obviously had, had somesuccesses and some punches so
(18:16):
far, but what, what does theoutlook like for you?
What are you trying to achievehere?
What's the big goal?
Matthew (18:20):
I think the big goal for me is I want to stay
boutique.
I really love the hands onrelationships.
I'm very much integrity first.
The less accounts I have, thebetter it's going to be for
those accounts and for my team,um, as well.
I don't want to be this 500 plusperson agency.
I'd love to get to that 20 to 30person mark, looking at probably
less than a hundred accountstotal, a lifetime.
(18:41):
What that really looks like isbuilding a team that's a lot
more intimate of highly skilledprofessionals, where we can
really dig in and find theissues that people don't know
they have.
Oftentimes with marketers orother agencies, they might get
caught in that cycle where it'slike, hey, I've had this account
long enough to where I'm notreally looking for problems
anymore.
I have this checklist and hereare the things I do.
(19:02):
If you're not looking at it froma full funnel or holistic lens,
there might be big gaps thatwould benefit the work that
you're doing, but because youdon't focus on those areas,
you're, you're not getting thatlevel of prowess or,
achievement.
That's where I'd like to takethings is stay boutique, stay
intimate and really continue tofocus on full funnel.
It has not been the best for mehistorically, cause I think,
(19:23):
again, a lot of people say youdo have to niche down, but my
niche is being a holisticmarketer and I'm trying to
figure out how to really kind ofwork that in terms of my own
marketing and my own salesprocess as well.
Russel (19:34):
I appreciate your transparency on that journey.
I work with a lot of folks that,that is a very part of the
subject and my general approachis look, there's a million ways
we can make this work.
Yes, there are some elements ofwhat the value of niching down
is that makes things easier,right?
This is a business where if wecan make any part of this
easier, we certainly want to dothat.
But there are also ways aroundit that we just take that, that
(19:56):
essence, elements of whatniching down means and, and find
a way that makes sense to us.
That's a journey, not adestination, when we talk about
positioning.
Anything like you feel like wemissed as far as part of your
journey goes, or that'd be worthtalking about?
Matthew (20:08):
I got a couple of tips.
I feel like I've been talkingabout me the whole time.
Is there anything that you've,you know, that's resonated with
you that you're like, hey, like,absolutely this is, this is a
huge downfall or this is a hugearea of opportunity for agency
owners that, you know, youconsistently see?
Russel (20:21):
I think just generally in my approach and agency, I
always often talk about it, isthe most people business of
people businesses, and when youintermix people into things you
have, right, just like DNA, youhave no shortage of
combinations, elements, etcetera, that, that are at play
and work.
I'm kind of almost, in thatsense, anti checklist, because
right, you as an individual oras a principal and owner make up
(20:44):
so many parts of that DNA ofthat agency.
What works for Bob over hereand, um, Jennifer over here, you
know, is not going to work forsomeone over here because of
that very element and how youguys approach your teams
differently and so many thingslike that.
Always just prior to pull outwhere people's strengths and
stories are and take thoselessons as we go.
(21:04):
Not any different than today of,hey, if we've got bigger, big,
mega clients, don't hold ontothem, think you're going to have
them forever.
Build up your business towithstand losing that client,
knowing that that is aninevitability and little things
like that.
So many great parts of yourstory, I think were good lessons
here.
Not to say we can't go for hoursand talk about all the lessons
that we need to learn in anagency, but I'm, I'm curious, is
(21:25):
there anything you want toknow,?
I love turning the tables alittle bit.
Is there anything you want toknow for your own business?
Matthew (21:31):
Sales, obviously, is something I'm constantly working
on, never been a strong suit.
I think one of my other thingsthat I'm really focusing more
and more on is becoming my ownCFO, so to speak, I hired a
bookkeeper early on within thefirst couple of months of
running my business and thought,hey, I'm, I have this
professional in my corner tohelp with my finances, consult
me on taxes, consult me onexpenses and kind of what that
(21:52):
looks like.
Hindsight, it, it is one of thereasons I didn't grow as quickly
as I could.
I think really hunkering downyour expenses and forecasting
what your revenue is going tolook like, forecasting what your
sales are going to look like,that all goes hand in hand with
being the owner and driving asuccessful business.
So if you have any tips on like,hey, here's how you manage your
expenses, your bookkeeping, orhere's how you connect the dots
(22:13):
in terms of your clients, yourclient billables, or the time
spent on each client.
I think that's a huge one thatpeople don't often categorize,
right?
Especially early on, trackingthat time, that would be
interesting.
I don't like to live by anhourly, uh, rate.
It's just not in my nature.
It never will be in my nature.
I'm going to stick pretty firmto that.
But if you have, you know,recommendations on what you
(22:34):
think that should look like,I'd, I'd love to hear them.
Russel (22:35):
That's a really great question.
If I honestly think about, andyou can probably ask any owner
that, you know, a big hurdle or,or obstacle or stepping stone to
a better level of, of businesssuccess, let's say, is really
deeply intimately understandingyour numbers.
I think there's a lot of ownersthat, until they have to or
whatever reasons they go,numbers are boring.
I want to do creative work andall those things.
(22:56):
Guess what?
It's a business.
You're going to run into thatone way or another.
That is an actual need that youhave to accomplish in your
business.
I love what you said there ofwhat we also have to try to get
out of in an agency space isliving by the hour.
Not to say, we live in a worldwhere time is applied to things,
and it's not bad to understandtime.
But if that's all we're billingby, and that's all we're
measuring, then we're running avery finite game in terms of,
(23:19):
you know, what our opportunitiesare for scaling, because we know
eventually no one's going to pay1,000 dollars an hour for, name
your service.
Unless that's highly strategic,they're not going to do it for
social media posts or somethingalong those lines.
But you know, I think you saidit well, you got to have a
forecast.
How far into the future can yousee what you can anticipate to
the best of your ability, that'sgoing to happen to your
(23:40):
business?
I think another piece in thatthat's really important is
understanding accounting.
You don't need to become anaccountant, but understanding
accounting so that you canbuild, most people using
QuickBooks, financial data andreports in a way that you can
look at that report and drivemeaningful information other
than just, hey, we need morerevenue or we need to cut
expenses, right?
Is it broken up into things likecost of goods sold and, um, and
(24:03):
just all, all the ways that wecan see the parts.
We have an overhead problem orwe have, we have a capacity
issue or things like that, thatthe story that your financial
should be able to tell.
That's the part, I mean, I thinkyou're doing a lot of good
things there.
I'm curious if you've gotten tothat place where you're, you're
looking at a PNL and makingstrategic business decisions
from that PNL?
Matthew (24:24):
I'm in the midst of really getting deep on that.
Another kind of negative ofhaving that whale client was,
hey, I have, I got a lot ofmoney that I don't need to worry
about expenses right now becauseI'm covered and I have a lot of
excess.
I wasn't focusing on a lot ofthat planning or a lot of that
accounting.
Truthfully, I kind of looked ataccounting and bookkeeping early
on as, hey, this is for taxpurposes instead of this is,
(24:45):
this is for operationalefficiency purposes.
I highly encourage new agencyowners, new business owners in
general, to really hunker downon your bookkeeping and
accounting within the first sixmonths of running your business
and getting that dialed in,getting really good at that
because I think it will make amassive difference.
Russel (25:01):
Great advice there, and, and, and perspective.
That's what I often run intosometimes that again, not that I
want to ever advocate and say,focus on your numbers, focus up
on your numbers, because thereal keys at the end of this
game is we need to also focus onquality.
We need to focus on building agreat team.
We need great processes that aregoing to create good numbers,
but we have to know the numbersto one can inform the other.
Don't get too sucked in by thenumbers, but make them matter.
(25:22):
Your accounting is more thanjust what you're sending off to
Uncle Sam.
That is a big misnomer that Ithink I run into a lot.
Awesome.
Great segue.
Great twist.
I appreciate that.
We'll get back into the normalswing of things here.
The last big question for you,Matthew, are entrepreneurs born
or are they made?
Matthew (25:37):
I think both.
I was made, I definitely was notborn an entrepreneur.
I have a number of friends wherethey were a thousand percent
born entrepreneurs.
They did eBay when they were 10years old, you know, they sold,
you know, bought Pokemon cards.
They did all the things that hadthat entrepreneurial spirit.
I hundred percent see that insome people.
For me, frankly, I never wantedto be an entrepreneur.
(25:57):
I had friends in college thattook entrepreneurship as a, as
a, as a career trajectory.
I thought, you know, that's notfor me.
I'm okay working in a business,working with others, being under
someone.
I kind of got to a breakingpoint where it's like, you know
what, I, I want this freedom,um, and I'm going to take this
freedom.
With that being said, even ifit's made, I don't think
entrepreneurship is foreveryone.
I think oftentimes employeesglamorize, uh, what it means to
(26:20):
be a business owner.
It's not always that glamorous.
There are a lot of sacrifices.
For me, one of the biggest ones,especially in a business of my
size is you don't get thatcamaraderie that you often get
being a part of a moreestablished business.
Being an entrepreneur, it has tobe a choice.
You have to believe in yourself.
I think that is the absolutenumber one thing to be
successful as an entrepreneur isyou have to believe in yourself.
(26:41):
It's different for everyone interms of whether you're born or
made.
Russel (26:44):
I love that.
What do you said at the end?
You have to believe in yourselfbecause you know, probably
indicative of some of the partswe discussed in this
conversation that you're goingto get kicked.
There's going to be all kinds ofthings that are going to try to
convince you not to believe inyourself.
We have to at least start there,otherwise we're fighting an
uphill battle.
Wonderful thought there.
If people want to know moreabout Prospect Future, where can
they go?
Matthew (27:04):
Prospectfuture.com.
Easy as that.
Russel (27:05):
There you go.
Why say more?
Awesome.
Thank you so much today, Matt,for taking the time out of your,
your business and your day toshare so many wonderful
thoughts, your journeys, yourups and downs, your highs, your
lows, and really appreciate youtaking the time to walk through
that with us today and sharingthat with everyone listening out
there.
Matthew (27:21):
Absolutely, Russel.
Thank you so much for having meon.
This has been a pleasure.
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.
(27:43):
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.
I've had my ups and downs in terms of hiring, uh,
(28:05):
whether that be contractors,part time employees, full time
employees.
One of the earliest, uh, parttime employees I hired, they,
they would come in and becausethe, it wasn't as structured
back then in terms of like, whenthey were supposed to be
working, I was still kind oflearning the ropes of what it
meant to, to hire and setstandards for people.
They'd come in and they bragabout all of these things that
they were doing for the othercompany that they were working
(28:26):
for.
In the meantime, they wereposting posts on our social
media page that had watermarksof their other agency.
It's just one of those thingswhere it's like, you know, it's,
you got to find the right team.
It was just really funny at thetime, cause it's like, people
can have the absolute greatpersonality, um, and talk the
talk, but at the end of the day,like sometimes you do need to do
a little bit more handholdingor, or make sure that you're
(28:47):
focusing on getting them excitedto work with you.
Not just obviously excited forthe paycheck.
Russel (28:53):
Get beyond the transactional.
I always use the term, trust butverify.
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):
Welcome to An Agency Story podcast.
I'm your host, Russel.
In this episode, we're joined byMatt Regenie, the driven founder
of Prospect Future, a boutiquemarketing agency based in Fort
Collins, Colorado.
Hear how a 48 hour burst ofpassion launched his business
while losing a major clientbecame a turning point, and how
his transparency and integrityshape everything Prospect Future
(01:04):
does.
In this conversation, Isincerely appreciate how candid
Matt is about his agencyjourney.
Many of the obstacles he hasfaced have become what seems
like rites of passage that somany agencies I have connected
with over the years have alsofaced.
If you're listening out thereand you haven't faced some of
these same things that Mattshares, take warning.
(01:24):
You too might be at risk forlearning too late.
Enjoy the story.
Welcome to the show today,everyone.
I have Matt Regenie withProspect Future with us here
today.
Thank you so much for joining ustoday, Matt.
Matthew (01:36):
Absolutely, Russel, glad to be here.
Russel (01:37):
Glad to have you.
Let's get right to it.
Tell us what Prospect Futuredoes and who you do it for.
Matthew (01:42):
Prospect Future, we're a boutique agency.
We focus on e-commerce companiesas well as home service
companies.
We kind of are the jack of alltrades.
It's something that we're proudof.
It's full funnel marketingapproach.
Websites, paid advertising, alittle bit of SEO, a little bit
of email marketing, whole nineyards.
Realistically, the main reasonwe do that is because in our
mind, everything in marketing isintimately connected.
(02:04):
The more you know about thoseconnections, the better you can
help your clients out.
Russel (02:07):
Everything is certainly more connected than it ever was
before.
Only continues to be more trueevery day that goes by.
We're going to learn more abouthow you do all that down the
road, but before we get thereand you know, not that you're,
got gray haired in a beard oranything, but I want to hear
what young Matt was thinking hewanted to do with his life and
how close did he get?
Matthew (02:27):
I've been all over the place.
I think one of the, the biggestthings about me that's different
from what I hear other peoplehave is I've never had like,
these insane life goals ormassive aspirations.
I've had ideas in terms of, hey,I obviously want to have a
family.
I want to be successful.
Vague ideas of, of what successmeans to me.
I went to school at USC cause Ithought, hey, the bigger the
(02:50):
school, the better the successis going to be.
I eventually found that like,I'm surrounded by people that
might be a little bit toofocused on money.
Truthfully speaking, that was mypersonal experience.
I'm not saying that's accuratefor everyone.
I decided, hey, money isn'teverything, but at the same
time, it's obviously good tohave.
I continued down a career pathwhere I did finance.
I worked for a larger marketingagency and eventually I decided
(03:11):
like, hey, the, the level ofcontrol I want to have in my
life is going to dictate how Ican perform, how I can execute
for clients and how I canbasically bring the most
important elements in my life tothe world, which is honesty and
integrity and logic, so problemsolving as well.
Russel (03:26):
It's a great combination.
I hear a lot about honesty,integrity, but yeah, match that
with some logic.
I imagine that's a good potion.
How do you feel about USC beingin the Big 10?
Matthew (03:34):
This is the thing is, uh, I'm not, I'm not a big
sports guy.
I'm originally from New Mexicoand New Mexico doesn't have any
major sports teams.
My family didn't raise me as ahuge sports, um, watcher.
I played a lot of sports and soI decided, hey, I'm going to go
to USC because I want to becomea big sports guy.
I know that, especially inbusiness, especially in
friendships, it is very valuableto like, have that passion and
(03:56):
that interest.
But unfortunately I never reallypicked it up, so I can't answer
that question.
Russel (04:00):
All right.
Hey, doesn't affect you at all.
Potato patata.
I know you had some experienceat a rather large agency and,
and sounds like some otherexperiences in there as well,
lead us up to the point whereyou actually started your
agency.
Matthew (04:12):
One of the things that I kind of just kept running into
is, I kept trying to improve andlook for new opportunities.
I think, especially as your, asagencies get larger and larger,
they, they do form a level ofbureaucracy that's harder to
overcome.
It's harder to change processesand systems.
Obviously when you get to acertain level of scale, you're
beholden to a lot more than justthe owner or the employees.
(04:33):
You're beholden to lenders.
It just makes it a little bitclunkier to try and move
quickly.
I basically decided like, hey, Idon't feel like I'm providing
the value, and realistically, Ididn't feel great about what I
was doing, um, at that previousorganization.
I decided the best way toaccomplish bringing the
expertise, bringing theintegrity that I want to, to my
clients, is to start my ownbusiness.
(04:53):
That's how I got where I am.
Russel (04:54):
Okay.
And was that a slow roll intostarting your own business or
was it, you know, take this joband shove it, um, I'm doing this
and I'll figure out the rest onthe backside or how did you
actually go about it?
Matthew (05:05):
It was a one night of pure passion, Russel, to be
honest.
Russel (05:08):
All right.
I love it.
Matthew (05:09):
I was trying to move up.
I was trying to make changes andunfortunately they weren't being
met with the, the acceptance Iwas looking for.
I got fueled by that.
I literally built my entirewebsite, wrote all the copy.
Formed my business, did all theresearch in under 48 hours when
I first started out.
I just, you know, continuallygrew it from there.
Russel (05:27):
It speaks to my heart a little bit, cause I mean, I
think we ended up starting thesame way.
It was a Friday night idea andMonday we had a website and
we're calling people to sellwebsites.
I love the jump out of a planeand figure out the parachute on
the way down approach.
It's always fun and exciting.
You made this decision and, andyou stepped out into this.
What were those early days like?
Tell us some of the emotions andthings you were going through.
Matthew (05:48):
The early days were honestly my favorite days.
I think a lot of people mighthave a very different
experience, but I had beensaving, so I didn't have any
major financial concerns when Istarted my own business.
I don't think I got a client forprobably the first two months.
It took, took two and a halfmonths to get my first client.
But the beauty was when you'rethat small and you're operating
as your own entity, yourexpenses really shouldn't be
(06:08):
that high, in my opinion.
You can operate very lean,anything that you can pay for a
service or, um, a provider todo, you could internalize.
It just means that you'respending more time.
It's that time-money trade off.
I had very, very lean expensesstarting out.
I had clients that found meorganically.
They saw my YouTube videos, orthey heard of me by reputation,
(06:30):
or they got referred to me byprevious clients.
Effectively I had a very clearunderstanding of what I felt I
was worth at the time, and whenyou're starting out that early
on with low expenses, you'reactually making a decent amount
of money out of the gate withjust a handful of clients.
I think where it got complicatedis towards the end of year one,
when you start trying to scale,bring on team members, uh,
invest more in your ownmarketing, your own sales
(06:51):
processes.
That's when the revenue toexpenses ratio really starts
kind of tipping in a differentdirection.
Russel (06:55):
It seems like all gravy and icing at the beginning and,
uh, and then, yeah, those, allthose darn expenses that start
to creep up, that complicatesthings.
One of the things that Iremembered you shared previously
was just, let's call it maybeyour mindset or your approach to
sales as being something youdidn't love, or maybe didn't
necessarily like to do.
You can speak more to that, butthat you eventually also, sounds
(07:16):
like you kind of came around hadto change your mindset there.
Talk us through a little bitabout how that journey was for
you.
Matthew (07:21):
Absolutely.
What's interesting is I oftenhear some of the most successful
agencies, they either, theyusually start with a marketing
or sales focused, um, frontrunner in terms of the business,
or they start with both.
They start with one person who'sfocused on sales and one person
who's focused on operations ifit's a two person led company.
I started as an individual withmy agency and I'm much more of
(07:42):
an operations personality.
I have people skills when itcomes to like talking about
what's working, what's notworking, but in terms of like,
really broadening horizons,networking, that type of thing,
never been my, my specialty.
I have this distaste for salesmostly because what I've seen in
my previous job and, and justaround the world, it really
doesn't matter which company itis.
A lot of sales professionalswill make big promises just to
(08:02):
get you in the door, and thenthe execution from the delivery
team just doesn't really hitthose in a lot of regards.
I felt that oftentimes the, theimplementer, the, the person
actually managing accountsshould be doing the sales
because they're going to be themost honest and they know what
the most likely outcomes are.
Again, I didn't really focus onsales early on.
I will say that is by far thebiggest mistake I've made in my
(08:22):
business, is waiting a couple ofyears to focus on sales.
Truthfully, I grew off ofreferrals, word of mouth and
reputation.
If I had built sales processearly on, instead of an
operations process, I think I'dbe in a much different place
than I am today.
Russel (08:36):
I'm honestly a big proponent that less is more.
We can't solve all the world'sproblems in a day, but if we can
solve one-off problems in ameaningful way that kind of put
them to bed and definitely for awhile, then we're doing better.
Not to say we can look ahead andsee everything,.
Once you realized that need andthat shift in yourself what did
you start doing differently?
Matthew (08:55):
I think the main difference is speed to delivery
and time to execution and is oneof the biggest factors in, in
growing.
Like I said, I'm, I'm anoperations mindset.
I build systems, I build tools.
I've built tools and systems formy business that would probably
support a hundred plus personagency.
I'm not that size.
Because I'm preparing for thefuture instead of focusing on,
on right now.
The shift has been all right, ifI have an idea in terms of sales
(09:18):
or outreach or a social mediapost, I film it, I write it and
I execute within a 48 hourperiod.
Otherwise it gets documented andthen it just falls by the
wayside.
That's the biggest change iswhen I, when I do this research,
execute on that research rightaway, rather than trying to
compare all these differentscenarios and get caught in
analysis paralysis.
Russel (09:37):
I love that approach, right?
I think all the times we havethese blinding flashes of the
obvious or just a spark of anidea or, you know, that might
look like.
But then it dies because thenthere's 8 million other things
that get in our way.
I How do you balance givingsomething a, it's full, I guess,
full efforts to see it throughversus lots of new, quick
(09:58):
implementation of ideas?
Matthew (09:59):
I think that has been my biggest struggle.
In some ways I do considermyself a perfectionist.
I think a lot of entrepreneursand business owners feel the
same way, um, especially owneroperators that just never get
out of that stage where they'restill so heavily invested in the
business.
You have to be okay with lessthan great.
You have to be at that 70 to 80percent percentile rather than
(10:20):
that A plus range, because ifyou get caught up in the, hey,
this needs to be perfect, orthis employee needs to hit this
on the head exactly as I wouldhit it on the head.
Again, you just get caught up inmore and more iterations rather
than executions.
At that point, you're, you'replaying a quality game instead
of a quantity game, and as agrowing business within the
first couple of years, I dothink you need to be playing the
(10:41):
quantity game, unfortunately.
Russel (10:42):
Any good scientific process, which you could
probably say a business is,whether we acknowledge that or
not, that you've got to test thewaters in a number of different
areas and then find what, whattests slightly better than the
others and go down that path.
The other thing that, that, uh,I remember being a significant
part of your backstory is youhad a really large client that,
uh, that you ended up losing andeverybody that just heard that
(11:05):
has probably felt that at somepoint in their agency life, but
what happened and how in theworld did you overcome it?
Matthew (11:12):
It's, uh, still brings a tear to my eye to this day, to
be honest.
Russel (11:15):
Sorry, I don't want any tears on the show.
Matthew (11:17):
It was a whale.
It was a luck of the draw, theyfound me type of scenario.
It was, you know, best casescenario, just from out of the
gate.
To this day, they're still oneof the highest billable clients
I have on record.
Unfortunately it turned into aghost scenario and it wasn't for
a lack of communication, lack ofeffort, lack of performance.
I think just something happenedto their business internally and
they, they basically had to shutit down.
(11:38):
The big part with that is youneed to set boundaries for
yourself of, hey.
Here's how far I'm going topursue it.
Here's what I'm going to do if Ireally want to go down a legal
route, but at the end of theday, you do need to put the past
behind you.
You do need to move forward.
That was a great learning lessonof, hey, I did have some, you
know, red flags early on.
It wasn't worth not taking thatclient.
It was great to have thatexperience and obviously help
them, uh, in the ways that I wasable to, but after they left,
(12:01):
it's just, you know, you have tomove on.
You need to focus on what's nextand learn from, all right, if I
wasn't communicating them, withthem in these ways and asking
the questions of, hey, what's,what's your actual profit margin
look like?
What's the business stabilitylook like?
I think a lot of this waslogistics and, and legal issues
that they may have had.
Really digging in a little bitdeeper than just surface level
(12:21):
metrics, uh, can, can makethings like that a lot more
preventable.
Russel (12:24):
We can always do the best work we can do and we can
always do a better job ofvetting our clients, but
sometimes we just can't controla client's business.
In some ways, these are just avery natural order of things.
The only thing is to build ourdefense system, our immunity,
our, our, our sensitive,sensitiveness to something like
this actually happening.
Coming away from that goingforward, how have you built your
(12:45):
fortress around not beingsusceptible that again?
Matthew (12:48):
Honestly, I don't think it, like you said, um, we
obviously don't manage thebusinesses of our clients,
right?
We can drive business to them.
We can help improve theirrevenue, their leads, their
sales, whatever it might be, butat the end of the day, like we
don't have that level of controlbecause most of the times, as an
agency, you're not actually intheir business.
I think the biggest learninglessons isn't operations.
(13:08):
It's not sales.
It's not, uh, trying to preventcertain levels of churn or going
down the legal route.
I think it is you need to try toaccept the wins that you have as
often as possible so that theyovercome the losses.
What I mean by that isoftentimes in our industry,
there's not a ton of gratitudebecause people always want more,
right?
It's, hey, we've, we hit amillion dollars this year.
(13:30):
Great job, and the feedback youget is, all right.
How do we hit 1.
5?
Not, hey, thanks so much forgetting us here.
When you do get that positiveclient feedback of like, hey,
you did, you did an amazing jobthis week or whatever it might
be, internalize that as much aspossible so that when you do
have those troughs, when someoneleaves or you have negative
feedback or whatever it mightbe, you can stay a little bit
more resilient rather thanhaving to, you know, weather the
(13:52):
storm, uh, day in and day out.
Russel (13:54):
It's no doubt that, and I continue to appreciate this
more and more and really evensince I was in an actual agency
is how much is our mindset, uh,is important that is maintained
positive.
Celebrate the wins.
All the things that go into,look, we're going to take our
punches so we've got to makesure we really relish the, the
wins and, and the other side ofthat.
Just for perspective out thereand folks listening that one of
(14:17):
the things they say, and I don'tknow the exact saying, but
basically we don't want anyclients in our business that are
over 20, 25 percent of our totalrevenue.
This idea that, well, if we havesomeone bigger than that, well,
we don't decrease their revenuebecause that has pain as well,
but we have to grow ourselvesoutside of a client being that,
such a huge percentage of ourrevenue.
Probably there's some issues toothat we have a client that would
(14:38):
even be able to be that like,well, what are we selling that
has such diversity and pricingand scope that we have these
guerrilla clients to begin with?
But anything from that end thatyou kind of look back on and
say, oh man, I wish I would haverealized this and worked a lot
harder at getting more clientsor anything from mitigation, I
guess you could say?
Matthew (14:56):
I think what was scary is like you, especially early
on, you view clients like thisas like, this is a VIP.
This client's so importantbecause they are such a high
percentage of our revenue thatwe need to drop other tasks to
focus on them.
We need to make sure thatthey're super happy and go above
and beyond and make sure that,you know, they know the amount
of work we're doing.
And like I said, a lot of thetimes that's not obviously,
(15:19):
that's not always, uh,recognized, and it's sometimes
not always that valued.
I think oftentimes some of theclients with the bigger budgets,
tend to care less about metricsand, because they're not,
they're not fighting for theirbusiness like some smaller
clients might be.
One of the things was, hey, yes,this client's important.
Yes, we need to deliver well onit, but we can't let these other
parts of our business fall bythe wayside because we're
(15:40):
focusing so much on this onething.
We still need to, to give thequality to all our other
clients.
We still need to focus on salesand not take for granted the
fact that we have this revenuenow.
I think that's really what itcomes down to is don't, don't
put them on a pedestalbasically.
Yes, they're important.
Yes, you should treat them well,but they aren't your core
business.
Your core business is everythingelse that you're doing.
Russel (16:00):
It becomes a self fulfilling process.
You feel compelled to thisclient because they're paying a
lot of the bills and they say,jump, you say how high.
You start running more circlesand then you're focusing less
and less on the other parts ofyour business.
Hopefully we've set up some redflags to anyone out there
listening that has a clientthat's, you know, breaks that
20, 25, 30 percent threshold andis inspired to, um, set up
(16:24):
whatever they need to set up,grow their client base and make
sure they don't take their eyeoff the ball with the business.
Anything do we want to add tothat checklist for, for folks
that are in that similarsituation?
Matthew (16:35):
No, I mean, realistically, it just does come
back to sales.
If you have a consistent salesprocess, whether that's cold or
through marketing channels orwhatever it might be, then
you're not going to be asstressed as much when you lose
clients.
I think that's all it is.
Russel (16:48):
I'll say one last thing because I have heard no
shortages of this story of, ifyou think they're going to be
around forever, you're deadwrong.
They will not be.
I've seen entire agencies close,uh, losing a large client.
I've heard no shortage ofstories where someone thought
they were so locked in, had thegreatest relationship in the
world, we're doing amazing work,and six months later that client
(17:09):
is gone.
If nothing else, don't tellyourself that fallacy.
Matthew (17:12):
I do have one actual, uh, extra note if you don't
mind.
Russel (17:15):
Yeah, absolutely.
Matthew (17:16):
I think a lot of agencies, obviously it's easy to
let your temper get the best ofyou.
With that whale client, whenthey left, I was out, I mean, I
was owed an additional largeamount of money that they
basically didn't end upspending.
I think the big thing is theymight come back and I've had
that happen where clients thinkthe grass is greener, they leave
and then they come back.
One of my biggest tips to agencyowners, marketers, account
(17:36):
managers, is don't focus so muchon the short term that you hurt
your longterm success.
Because if you maintain thatrelationship, if you cultivate
it, and if you treat people likehumans.
We all have issues.
We all have bills.
We might have problems thatwe're not aware of.
If you give people the benefitof the doubt as often as you
can, it, I think it will comeback and benefit you.
Russel (17:56):
We all have issues in bills.
That's so, so perfectly wellput.
This is business and asemotional as we might feel about
it, that we need to move on, youknow, nope, don't burn any
longterm bridges.
Great advice there.
Thank you for adding that.
All right, we'll switch gears.
One of the things that I'm justcurious about is, you know,
obviously had, had somesuccesses and some punches so
(18:16):
far, but what, what does theoutlook like for you?
What are you trying to achievehere?
What's the big goal?
Matthew (18:20):
I think the big goal for me is I want to stay
boutique.
I really love the hands onrelationships.
I'm very much integrity first.
The less accounts I have, thebetter it's going to be for
those accounts and for my team,um, as well.
I don't want to be this 500 plusperson agency.
I'd love to get to that 20 to 30person mark, looking at probably
less than a hundred accountstotal, a lifetime.
(18:41):
What that really looks like isbuilding a team that's a lot
more intimate of highly skilledprofessionals, where we can
really dig in and find theissues that people don't know
they have.
Oftentimes with marketers orother agencies, they might get
caught in that cycle where it'slike, hey, I've had this account
long enough to where I'm notreally looking for problems
anymore.
I have this checklist and hereare the things I do.
(19:02):
If you're not looking at it froma full funnel or holistic lens,
there might be big gaps thatwould benefit the work that
you're doing, but because youdon't focus on those areas,
you're, you're not getting thatlevel of prowess or,
achievement.
That's where I'd like to takethings is stay boutique, stay
intimate and really continue tofocus on full funnel.
It has not been the best for mehistorically, cause I think,
(19:23):
again, a lot of people say youdo have to niche down, but my
niche is being a holisticmarketer and I'm trying to
figure out how to really kind ofwork that in terms of my own
marketing and my own salesprocess as well.
Russel (19:34):
I appreciate your transparency on that journey.
I work with a lot of folks that,that is a very part of the
subject and my general approachis look, there's a million ways
we can make this work.
Yes, there are some elements ofwhat the value of niching down
is that makes things easier,right?
This is a business where if wecan make any part of this
easier, we certainly want to dothat.
But there are also ways aroundit that we just take that, that
(19:56):
essence, elements of whatniching down means and, and find
a way that makes sense to us.
That's a journey, not adestination, when we talk about
positioning.
Anything like you feel like wemissed as far as part of your
journey goes, or that'd be worthtalking about?
Matthew (20:08):
I got a couple of tips.
I feel like I've been talkingabout me the whole time.
Is there anything that you've,you know, that's resonated with
you that you're like, hey, like,absolutely this is, this is a
huge downfall or this is a hugearea of opportunity for agency
owners that, you know, youconsistently see?
Russel (20:21):
I think just generally in my approach and agency, I
always often talk about it, isthe most people business of
people businesses, and when youintermix people into things you
have, right, just like DNA, youhave no shortage of
combinations, elements, etcetera, that, that are at play
and work.
I'm kind of almost, in thatsense, anti checklist, because
right, you as an individual oras a principal and owner make up
(20:44):
so many parts of that DNA ofthat agency.
What works for Bob over hereand, um, Jennifer over here, you
know, is not going to work forsomeone over here because of
that very element and how youguys approach your teams
differently and so many thingslike that.
Always just prior to pull outwhere people's strengths and
stories are and take thoselessons as we go.
(21:04):
Not any different than today of,hey, if we've got bigger, big,
mega clients, don't hold ontothem, think you're going to have
them forever.
Build up your business towithstand losing that client,
knowing that that is aninevitability and little things
like that.
So many great parts of yourstory, I think were good lessons
here.
Not to say we can't go for hoursand talk about all the lessons
that we need to learn in anagency, but I'm, I'm curious, is
(21:25):
there anything you want toknow,?
I love turning the tables alittle bit.
Is there anything you want toknow for your own business?
Matthew (21:31):
Sales, obviously, is something I'm constantly working
on, never been a strong suit.
I think one of my other thingsthat I'm really focusing more
and more on is becoming my ownCFO, so to speak, I hired a
bookkeeper early on within thefirst couple of months of
running my business and thought,hey, I'm, I have this
professional in my corner tohelp with my finances, consult
me on taxes, consult me onexpenses and kind of what that
(21:52):
looks like.
Hindsight, it, it is one of thereasons I didn't grow as quickly
as I could.
I think really hunkering downyour expenses and forecasting
what your revenue is going tolook like, forecasting what your
sales are going to look like,that all goes hand in hand with
being the owner and driving asuccessful business.
So if you have any tips on like,hey, here's how you manage your
expenses, your bookkeeping, orhere's how you connect the dots
(22:13):
in terms of your clients, yourclient billables, or the time
spent on each client.
I think that's a huge one thatpeople don't often categorize,
right?
Especially early on, trackingthat time, that would be
interesting.
I don't like to live by anhourly, uh, rate.
It's just not in my nature.
It never will be in my nature.
I'm going to stick pretty firmto that.
But if you have, you know,recommendations on what you
(22:34):
think that should look like,I'd, I'd love to hear them.
Russel (22:35):
That's a really great question.
If I honestly think about, andyou can probably ask any owner
that, you know, a big hurdle or,or obstacle or stepping stone to
a better level of, of businesssuccess, let's say, is really
deeply intimately understandingyour numbers.
I think there's a lot of ownersthat, until they have to or
whatever reasons they go,numbers are boring.
I want to do creative work andall those things.
(22:56):
Guess what?
It's a business.
You're going to run into thatone way or another.
That is an actual need that youhave to accomplish in your
business.
I love what you said there ofwhat we also have to try to get
out of in an agency space isliving by the hour.
Not to say, we live in a worldwhere time is applied to things,
and it's not bad to understandtime.
But if that's all we're billingby, and that's all we're
measuring, then we're running avery finite game in terms of,
(23:19):
you know, what our opportunitiesare for scaling, because we know
eventually no one's going to pay1,000 dollars an hour for, name
your service.
Unless that's highly strategic,they're not going to do it for
social media posts or somethingalong those lines.
But you know, I think you saidit well, you got to have a
forecast.
How far into the future can yousee what you can anticipate to
the best of your ability, that'sgoing to happen to your
(23:40):
business?
I think another piece in thatthat's really important is
understanding accounting.
You don't need to become anaccountant, but understanding
accounting so that you canbuild, most people using
QuickBooks, financial data andreports in a way that you can
look at that report and drivemeaningful information other
than just, hey, we need morerevenue or we need to cut
expenses, right?
Is it broken up into things likecost of goods sold and, um, and
(24:03):
just all, all the ways that wecan see the parts.
We have an overhead problem orwe have, we have a capacity
issue or things like that, thatthe story that your financial
should be able to tell.
That's the part, I mean, I thinkyou're doing a lot of good
things there.
I'm curious if you've gotten tothat place where you're, you're
looking at a PNL and makingstrategic business decisions
from that PNL?
Matthew (24:24):
I'm in the midst of really getting deep on that.
Another kind of negative ofhaving that whale client was,
hey, I have, I got a lot ofmoney that I don't need to worry
about expenses right now becauseI'm covered and I have a lot of
excess.
I wasn't focusing on a lot ofthat planning or a lot of that
accounting.
Truthfully, I kind of looked ataccounting and bookkeeping early
on as, hey, this is for taxpurposes instead of this is,
(24:45):
this is for operationalefficiency purposes.
I highly encourage new agencyowners, new business owners in
general, to really hunker downon your bookkeeping and
accounting within the first sixmonths of running your business
and getting that dialed in,getting really good at that
because I think it will make amassive difference.
Russel (25:01):
Great advice there, and, and, and perspective.
That's what I often run intosometimes that again, not that I
want to ever advocate and say,focus on your numbers, focus up
on your numbers, because thereal keys at the end of this
game is we need to also focus onquality.
We need to focus on building agreat team.
We need great processes that aregoing to create good numbers,
but we have to know the numbersto one can inform the other.
Don't get too sucked in by thenumbers, but make them matter.
(25:22):
Your accounting is more thanjust what you're sending off to
Uncle Sam.
That is a big misnomer that Ithink I run into a lot.
Awesome.
Great segue.
Great twist.
I appreciate that.
We'll get back into the normalswing of things here.
The last big question for you,Matthew, are entrepreneurs born
or are they made?
Matthew (25:37):
I think both.
I was made, I definitely was notborn an entrepreneur.
I have a number of friends wherethey were a thousand percent
born entrepreneurs.
They did eBay when they were 10years old, you know, they sold,
you know, bought Pokemon cards.
They did all the things that hadthat entrepreneurial spirit.
I hundred percent see that insome people.
For me, frankly, I never wantedto be an entrepreneur.
(25:57):
I had friends in college thattook entrepreneurship as a, as
a, as a career trajectory.
I thought, you know, that's notfor me.
I'm okay working in a business,working with others, being under
someone.
I kind of got to a breakingpoint where it's like, you know
what, I, I want this freedom,um, and I'm going to take this
freedom.
With that being said, even ifit's made, I don't think
entrepreneurship is foreveryone.
I think oftentimes employeesglamorize, uh, what it means to
(26:20):
be a business owner.
It's not always that glamorous.
There are a lot of sacrifices.
For me, one of the biggest ones,especially in a business of my
size is you don't get thatcamaraderie that you often get
being a part of a moreestablished business.
Being an entrepreneur, it has tobe a choice.
You have to believe in yourself.
I think that is the absolutenumber one thing to be
successful as an entrepreneur isyou have to believe in yourself.
(26:41):
It's different for everyone interms of whether you're born or
made.
Russel (26:44):
I love that.
What do you said at the end?
You have to believe in yourselfbecause you know, probably
indicative of some of the partswe discussed in this
conversation that you're goingto get kicked.
There's going to be all kinds ofthings that are going to try to
convince you not to believe inyourself.
We have to at least start there,otherwise we're fighting an
uphill battle.
Wonderful thought there.
If people want to know moreabout Prospect Future, where can
they go?
Matthew (27:04):
Prospectfuture.com.
Easy as that.
Russel (27:05):
There you go.
Why say more?
Awesome.
Thank you so much today, Matt,for taking the time out of your,
your business and your day toshare so many wonderful
thoughts, your journeys, yourups and downs, your highs, your
lows, and really appreciate youtaking the time to walk through
that with us today and sharingthat with everyone listening out
there.
Matthew (27:21):
Absolutely, Russel.
Thank you so much for having meon.
This has been a pleasure.
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.
(27:43):
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.
I've had my ups and downs in terms of hiring, uh,
(28:05):
whether that be contractors,part time employees, full time
employees.
One of the earliest, uh, parttime employees I hired, they,
they would come in and becausethe, it wasn't as structured
back then in terms of like, whenthey were supposed to be
working, I was still kind oflearning the ropes of what it
meant to, to hire and setstandards for people.
They'd come in and they bragabout all of these things that
they were doing for the othercompany that they were working
(28:26):
for.
In the meantime, they wereposting posts on our social
media page that had watermarksof their other agency.
It's just one of those thingswhere it's like, you know, it's,
you got to find the right team.
It was just really funny at thetime, cause it's like, people
can have the absolute greatpersonality, um, and talk the
talk, but at the end of the day,like sometimes you do need to do
a little bit more handholdingor, or make sure that you're
(28:47):
focusing on getting them excitedto work with you.
Not just obviously excited forthe paycheck.
Russel (28:53):
Get beyond the transactional.
I always use the term, trust butverify.
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