November 11, 2024 • 61 mins
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In this video, Keaton Walker interviews Matt Coffy, a successful agency owner who recently sold his business. Prior to the sale, Matt's agency was generating around $200,000 per month in revenue. The interview covers Matt's journey from starting his agency to eventually making the Inc 5000 list in 2023, which was a major milestone that led to his decision to sell the business. Matt brings a unique perspective as both a business owner and musician, balancing his agency work with his passion for performing in a band.
Timestamps:
00:00-Teaser  Â
01:18-Getting into the agency space  Â
06:18-GHL!  Â
08:07-How the partnership worked  Â
12:20-Partnership done right  Â
14:39-Having fun with your business  Â
18:10-Agency Journey Stories  Â
28:29-Matt's income stream  Â
35:29-Coolest Case Study  Â
38:57-Charging for the services  Â
41:15-Rule of thumb in marketing  Â
45:19-Answering repeating questions  Â
53:18-Matt's Sales Numbers  Â
1:00:10-BonusÂ
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#SMMA #GoHighLevel #AgencyLife
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Matt (00:00):
I'm doing like 400, 000 a month now.
You started with us, youweren't even over 100.
So, we knew wequadrupled this business.
That's the horror story.
Is me crossing theborder of being too
nice and too forgiving.
When I first started theagency, I hired prisoners,
and they would call everysingle small business.
And basically pawn theminto a meeting with me.
I don't know what they do.
(00:20):
Maybe they threatenthem over the phone.
Who knows my story is uniqueand I'd probably, you'll
hear it and go, Oh, thatwill never happen to me.
Well, you don't know.
You
Keaton (00:27):
never know.
How's it going?
Everybody.
Welcome back to another episode.
Absolutely.
Just excited to be herewith Matt coffee today, who
recently sold his agency.
200 K a month before theysold that stick around for
the juicy details on the.
You know, sale numberand all the nitty gritty
of how that worked out.
(00:49):
Um, as you can see, if you'rewatching on YouTube, uh, Matt
is also in a band and, um, verymusical as well, if you will.
Uh, and I'm sure we'll talkabout how that blends in
with business today as well.
Matt, thanks for being on
Matt (01:06):
my pleasure.
Thanks for having me.
Yeah.
And I'm excited to talk aboutwhatever you want to know about.
I'm an open book and sometimes alittle too loud of an open book.
Okay, recording is still live.
Um,
Keaton (01:21):
so take us back to, uh, how'd you get into the
agency space where you'reworking a job before?
How did this whole thing start?
Matt (01:30):
Yeah.
Like most entrepreneurs,uh, accidental, right?
So, uh,I can remember the day I was,
I worked at Sprint, uh, as aregional manager for a long
time, uh, and was one of their,you know, knock around guys that
was doing, you know, was thebest of the best of the best.
So I always went on thetrips and all that crap.
(01:51):
And I enjoyed that sort ofarchitecture of having, hey, Uh,
you know, it's, it's meritocratis to a degree because once you
hit the corporate ceiling ofdumbness, which is basically
the people in front of youcan, can block you because
of political juggernauting,you get to a certain point
where I was just basicallypounding the table of my boss's
(02:12):
boss and saying, this is thedumbest story I've ever heard.
Why are we doing it this way?
It's just dumb.
And, uh, you know, that.
Kind of got me to the pointwhere I'm like, I'm just done.
I'm like, I took my last, uh,instead of taking the trip,
I took the money and I leftand I was, and I said, you
know, I've read the four hourwork week and all the rest
of that happy, uh, horseshit.
(02:35):
And he just said,okay, I'm done.
I'm out of here.
Now, what happens now?
Well, I just went on a tearof doing consulting work
and it wasn't related toanything with marketing.
It was just being like me.
I would go out and talkto customers and find out
what their problems were.
In this particularcase, it was all.
Telecom and wireless related,and I would renegotiate
(02:56):
their contracts, take moneybased off of what my work
was involved with that.
And I did that and I actually,um, picked up some work
and, and started to do some,some, you know, not, not
a lot of money, but enoughto pay for some bills.
And I was like, okay, well maybeit's not so bad being consulted.
Um, that wasinteresting for a while.
(03:18):
And so I, you know, I also builta website for the business and
I sat one day in my dentistchair and my dentist is like,
you know, I need to get awebsite and this, I said,
well, I'll build it for you.
And so that was the firstmarketing thing that I ever did.
And so that was in 2012.
(03:39):
And after that I started tojust do more and I had a knock
for it and hired some peoplebecause I'd worked for, you
know, these large companiesI knew, uh, geo arbitrage.
So I understood, you know,getting some resources in
the Philippines and India andall the rest of these places.
So.
I had gotten resourcestogether and built a
little team by 2013, 2014.
(04:00):
I was up and running, um, andI never, you know, sales and
stuff like that really wasn'tmy, uh, problem, uh, getting
clients cause I, I wasn't afraidto pick up the phone, just
call people and just get onthe phone and deal with them.
I was, that's not, you know, I'ma very forward, um, front man.
That's the best way to do it.
Um, but so I got to a certainpoint where like, I need
(04:23):
someone to manage this thing.
And of course, that's whenI put out the calling all
cars, calling all cars, meeta good operations manager.
And that's when obviously it's2014 when, or ish, when Chase
Buckner stepped into my world.
And I hung up on him first.
I'm like, what?
You're in Mexico?
No, bye.
(04:45):
And, uh, he kind of, youknow, called me back like,
no, you guys, that's not,that's not what you think.
I'm actually, I'm a Phillyguy and you know, whatever.
So, um, eventually, you know,we came to a conclusion and,
and, and we built a pretty,pretty sizable agency.
And, uh, you know, that lastedfor quite a while, uh, until
I think around, you know, 2000and well, right before COVID
(05:09):
and then, you know, thingskind of flattened out and
then it grew again after COVIDand, uh, you know, I ended up
making the Inc 5000, uh, in2023, which was interesting
because that was my goal.
And, uh, I said, if I didn't
Keaton (05:23):
catch that
Matt (05:24):
making 5, 000 to get to the Inc 5, 000.
Oh, great.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So that was my goal.
My goal was like, Hey, ifI, if I can get this to the
Inc 5, 000, I'll sell it.
And that's exactly what I did.
So that's sort of the fiveminute tour of the agency.
Keaton (05:40):
Great.
There's a lot of
Matt (05:41):
in between parts, which I'm sure we'll talk about.
Keaton (05:43):
Yeah.
So I'm sure a lot of peoplewill be interested in
this Chase Buckner story.
So you just put out a job ad.
He ended up finding itbecause he's from Philly,
but his wife's from Mexico.
So he was living in Mexico.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, he was ateacher down there.
Okay.
And did you, you werelike, great, you have
(06:04):
tons of experience.
You're coming on board.
You get equity day one.
How did you work out thatpartnership long term?
Matt (06:11):
Well, I never really did partnership deals with anybody.
I didn't actually feelthat that was necessary.
It was more like
Keaton (06:19):
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Matt (08:07):
It was more like he was looking for a place to, cause
he had, uh, swung the bat on acouple of agencies himself and
it, you know, it's difficult.
You can't really dothis from Mexico.
From a sales perspective,it's tough because Mexico's
not buying down there.
I mean, they're buying, but it'snot like up here where it's like
there's a bazillion businessesthat need help down there.
It's more like, youknow, who, you know, and
what do you, whatever.
(08:28):
And he, and he attempted that.
And I think what he ended upsaying to himself was, If I
could hitch my wagon, someonewho can do sales and do,
you know, really start theconstruction of like, Hey,
go out and make it happen andbring customers in, I'll do the
heavy lifting on the backend.
And so he became sortof the web guy slash
operations manager over time.
And, um, you know, as I said,like it grew pretty quickly
(08:50):
once he was, Uh, part of thepicture, because that left me to
have lots of time to do sales.
Right.
And I think at the end of theday, you know, you kind of
look at, um, you know, what,what transpired from there.
I mean, we even had in 2016, wehad a, an event, like we brought
everybody down to Mexico, allof our partners and some of our
customers and had a huge event.
(09:11):
And then, you know, the,this, this stuff was pretty.
To me, it was just part ofthe growing of an agency
from, you know, again, the000, 60, 000, you know,
get to a million, then,you know, go on from there.
It was just like each yearwas a little bit more,
and it, both Chase and Ihad the same exact goal.
(09:32):
Idea, which is we reallywanted a lifestyle agency.
You can see behind me,I do that business.
I'm fans and do the,you know, jump around on
stage and, and have fun.
Um, but I think the goal forme was always to not build
some behemoth of hundredsof, you know, people in,
in a big responsibility.
(09:52):
I was like, look, if I canplay gigs every weekend and
we can get this thing to runand I can pay my bills and I
can take care of, you know,building some equity into some
properties and some get themoney in the stock market.
And like, you know, have areal life and not have to be
like consumed by this business,then it's, then it would work.
So chase was sort ofin that same ballgame.
And you know, when he leftin 2019 to go for, uh, the
(10:16):
position at high level, Iwas like, dude, awesome.
I'm so excited for you.
Like make it happen because weneed you to do it because we,
we, we started that whole trainin 2018 or 2017, trying to.
Be the poster boy for,um, doing that same model
with active campaign.
I mean, we were like thenumber one active campaign
(10:36):
reseller and we're on alltheir videos on their homepage.
And we were like, Hey man,you got to get the SMS
going and you got to makeit all in one communications
plane and all this stuff.
And then we went to ever genius.
Eventually we transitioned tothem and that company blew up.
Cause they couldn't handlethe, uh, the, um, the
technical piece of it.
(10:56):
They didn't have enoughbandwidth or whatever, but
everybody moved to high level.
Like we all went, we werecustomer number one 11.
That's how far back it goes.
Like we were rightthere in the beginning.
I think you were too.
Um, so, you know, we, we allknew each other, like, you
know, this is Sean's littlereview management thing that
we, you know, migrated tothis monster behemoth that
we're talking to today.
(11:17):
So, you know, it was just,we, it was a kind of family
thing at that, at that point.
And so Chase was like one of thefirst guys to come aboard and
really, you know, help, I think,evangelize, you know, this whole
business too, in that space.
And then again, I,this podcast is.
Not about, I think theevangelization of, of high
(11:37):
level, but it's, it's morelike the echelon of this
agency business becoming morerelevant because that was
the first kind of time when,Hey, it all came together.
We had the thing, we hadthe reviews, we had the,
you know, all that stuff.
Everything was nowfinally in one spot so we
could grow efficiently.
And, and we had reallytried to do that.
In fact, the company namedtoday, profit engines.
(11:59):
Was based on trying to buildprofit engines, which was
this platform is high levelbecause that's what we were
trying to do was to getall this stuff together.
And now it comes obviouslyfrom my company now it's
different because we're, it'smultifaceted and it's, it's a
lot different now than it wasobviously, you know, 2015, 10
years ago, you know, different.
So I hope thatanswered your question.
(12:19):
I went a littlebit further than I.
Keaton (12:22):
Great.
Uh, my, the, the point I wastrying to get to, I, I think
a lot of people were kind ofon that upwards trajectory,
know they're good at sales, butneed someone for the backend.
Are nervous to bring ona partner and operations
man or someone like that.
And I was just curious howyou got the incentives, right?
Because that, I mean, youfound Chase Buckner, who
(12:42):
is one of the, the nicestguys in the world and just
a pleasure to work with, butwhat advice do you have someone
who's maybe in that similarposition that you were when
you were looking for him?
Matt (12:55):
Okay, so I wasn't really looking for him particular.
I was looking for anybodywho wanted to, you know, in
that my little tribe, right?
So we had fun.
I mean, we were fast and loose.
It was fun.
You know, it was, it was meantto be, um, a comedy show.
(13:16):
I mean, it was, we had a lot offun and we would sit around and
tell jokes and however off coloryou could get was the better guy
who would do the better joke.
And we would have, youknow, we'd have again, we,
we made our own events.
And, but I think what, whatI would say is just find
someone you can, you, youreally want to work with
and be, be, you know, likeChase and I are best friends.
I mean, it's like, youknow, these are cool people.
(13:37):
I just find cool people.
Incentives shouldn'tbe about money.
Ventures should be about like,Hey, what can we build together?
That's really cool.
And that we like towork with each other.
I mean, sure you could throwout a lot of money and you could
probably stab somebody withthat, but that's not my gig.
And I never wentafter the money.
I never sit here and go, okay,well, what Mercedes can I buy?
(13:57):
It was about what could we do?
How could we?
How could I get you tosurf more with me, Chase?
How could I, how couldwe, you know, get down to
Mexico so that we can hangout and do stuff together?
So it was all about justbuilding a relationship.
And if you could dothat with someone, the
money comes after you.
You know, money will come withit because if you work together
really well, you don't evenneed equity in that stuff.
(14:18):
It's just like, let's just dothis together and we'll split
up the cookies as they come in.
And, you know, sometimesit doesn't need to
be an equity deal.
It could just be like, I'lljust keep paying you more.
If we get paid more,let's do a profit split.
It's not hard.
Just do that.
And that's simple forpeople to understand.
We grow it's meritocrat us.
We'll all win.
Just keep putting the tabin slot B and I'll keep
(14:39):
getting new customers.
Keaton (14:40):
Yeah, that's a great nugget.
I, uh, I was listeningto a podcast with the
founder of base camp.
If you know them, uh, softwarecompany has been around forever
and he was saying some peoplewill reach out to him and
they'll be like, Hey, we wantyou to advise on this Uh, it's
going to be 5 percent of thecompany in order to advise.
And he's like, you know, uh,the accounting headache isn't
(15:00):
actually worth it for me.
So why don't I just liketell you what to do?
And then like, ifyou sell someday, you
just take care of me.
And he's obviously comingfrom a place of extreme
financial security where thattype of deal makes sense.
But I, it's interesting becausewe, it's like that nitwit meme.
Have you seen it?
Where the one end, the guy'scrying, the other end, the
(15:20):
guy's crying, uh, and the guyin the middle is like, Just
so like Zen, because he'sdoing, he's not trying to go
to one extreme or the other.
And the one extreme hereis like, I have to figure
out all the equity.
I have to geteverything perfect.
We have to decide it on day one.
Um, and the other end islike, we're not going to do
anything, which, you know,turns into a lot of beginners
(15:43):
end up getting screwed over.
I've heard a lot ofstories like that.
Um, if you're super advancedand you want to do that,
it doesn't matter to you.
If the, the money comes.
Sure.
More power to you, but you'rein the middle here where you're
like, let's just have some fun.
You know, we'll split themoney as it comes through.
And uh, if you want to leavesomeday, that makes sense.
(16:04):
And I'm happy for you.
It's great.
Well, it's just being
Matt (16:08):
like a nice human being.
Like it's just like, look, ifyou're nice and you're a good
person and you want to justbe helpful and you want to be
cool, like it will come back.
It's a mirror.
Like do the things that makesense, that make people happy.
Who cares about the money?
Because that's just an,an out shoot of like
experience of life.
Like as you get older, likeI'm a hundred years old now,
(16:30):
I know you can kind of tell,but you know, the certainty
of death is there and youbetter have a good time.
So get people that are funto be around that you're
not stressed over and.
If you're doing good work,you'll just get paid for
your resource and yourintelligence and your wisdom.
(16:52):
Um, and trying to dickaround with trying to put
percentages and say, I mean,sure, maybe it's just not
my bag, but I would ratherhave someone say, I want you
just to hang out with me.
Like my customers arelike, dude, when can I
get you back on a call?
Cause they wantme back on a call.
I don't sit there andgo, Oh, that's going
400 for that hour, no.
I mean, it's just like, I'llsend a message, say, dude,
(17:14):
like, yeah, like I need tocharge you another thousand
bucks a month for like,cause you're killing me.
He's like, yeah, yeah, whatever.
Like it's not, it's notabout like trying to,
to, to skewer somebody.
It's about being reallyhonest and truth worthy with
your customers and tellingthem what the deal is and
say, you know, it's my time.
(17:34):
So if, again, I'm in a differentposition too, than I was when
I was doing agency stuff.
I understand that.
If you have no money andyou're trying to, you know,
get to a certain orbit levelof paying your bills or
paying your bills plus payingyour mortgages, plus keeping
your wife happy, whatever,um, you know, I get it.
You're going to have obviously,you know, we did a lot of work
(17:55):
with getting people on board andwe had price plans and all that
stuff and all the agency stuff.
Sure.
Uh, but at a certain point,you kind of get to a level
where it's like, you reallyhave to think like, as you get
further down this pathway, like.
You better like what you'redoing and you better make
sure that you're doingit with the people that
you like to do it with.
Keaton (18:12):
Yeah.
Very important.
So I'd love to hearsome, some tales.
You've been in the agencyspace longer than probably
99 percent of people thatare in the agency space.
So, um, I'm sure you havesome horror stories and some
really cool case studies.
Um, let's start withthe horror story.
(18:32):
What's like the worstThing that ever happened to
you as an agency owner orlike the client
from hell, you know,
Matt (18:43):
clients from hell never really bothered me.
It was when they called meis when they bothered me.
Right.
So it's always seems to bethe, the, the least happiest,
the most happiest time forme for them to call, but
their least happiest moment.
Um, I was one time,this is fascinating.
I'll tell you multiplestories, but I'll give you
(19:04):
one that, that stands out.
Cause I thought it was rather.
unique.
So I have all my kids with me.
We're down at Universal Orlando.
I just got offthe Simpsons ride.
I was feeling great.
This is like the bestthing I've ever been on.
And I get a call on my phone.
I'm like, what, what isthis guy calling me for?
And all I hear is justscreaming and yelling and
(19:25):
screaming and yelling.
And I'm like, great timing.
Um, so apparently what hadhappened was that we left his
Facebook, sorry, his Google adaccount on for multiple, let's
just call it multiple daysand years and in weeks, uh,
(19:45):
without it connected to anythingand it was running wide open.
So I had 15, 000 of charges onhis credit card that were not,
um, appropriated very nicely.
So I had to, you know, I hadto basically swallow a big pill
while it was, um, in the, oneof the happiest places on earth.
And I'm, my wife waslike, like, what was that
person talking about?
Nothing, nevermind.
Let's go on that ride.
(20:08):
So that happens and it, youknow, things happen like that.
So I would say that one stuckout to me because it was unique.
Uh, there are other funnierthings that happened.
Like, you know, I've, I'vegot on the phone with people.
Who I'm working with and they'vesent me, uh, pictures of them
in the bathtub naked, whichI thought was pretty cool.
(20:29):
I'm like, that's aninteresting, I've closed
people without my shirt on.
That's another thing.
And these are all, causewe dealt with med spas.
These are all female clients.
So not like guys, pictures,naked, nothing wrong with that.
Listen, whateverfloats your boat.
But, um, you know, I thinkthe goal is to, to, to enjoy.
(20:49):
So I don't, you know, thereare lots of horror stories of
maybe things that aren't to me.
I'm just, they're just partof business, but the horror
stories for me were probably,um, for me having to fire.
People or fire clients.
Those are the heart.
(21:10):
Like I have a really, reallyhard problem when clients
come to me honestly, and theysay, Oh, if you just give me
another chance, I'll pay you.
I promise.
I promise.
I promise I will giveyou, and I always give
people the opportunity.
And much to my detrimentand my team hated me for it
because I crossed the bordersof like insanity trying to
help clients out becauseI'm too much of a nice guy.
(21:32):
I'm too much of a giver.
I'm too great.
I have too much gratefulnessin my heart and always
give them the chance to, ifthey're serious and they're
being honest with me andI can usually tell, and
sometimes it doesn't work out.
And sometimes I crossed myteam too many times that
that border probably was,that's the horror story is.
Is me crossing the border ofbeing too nice and too gentle
(21:56):
and too forgiving of peoplein general, uh, and allowing
things to happen where welost money because I'm just
too, too much of a nice guy.
And that, that's trulythe horror story because
that hurt my employeesthat hurt our morale.
And I, and I, and I honestlycouldn't do anything about it
because it's just my nature.
And I always telleverybody, I'm not a robot.
(22:17):
I'm not an autocrat.
I'm not a, you know, guywho's just going to sit
there and, you know, sendpeople to collections.
I'll try and work it out.
I'll always try and getsomething where people leave
me and they say, you know what?
I mean, if they want to screwme, they want to screw me.
That's just goingto happen anyways.
But I think people who knowme, they'll even come back
(22:37):
and say, you know what?
You did the fair thing.
Keaton (22:41):
Yeah.
So what are these crazyclients that you should
have fired earlier?
Matt (22:48):
Well, I mean, Sometimes, well, see,
this is the funny thing.
I actually enjoy clients thatare really annoying because
I will literally mind bendthem and they know I will.
In fact, some of our hardestclients would stop calling me
because I would start to doYoda tricks on them and use
NLP and change their mind.
(23:09):
And they would go, I don'tknow what you're doing, but
whatever Yoda trick you justdid, I click because I would
change their mind about,because now they would call
me and they would know they'dbe sold into something.
So they stopped calling meand they would call my team.
All of the clients that weremean, obnoxious, we were
up here in New Jersey andpeople are rude, mean, and
(23:32):
by the way, I don't fit intothe category of that, but
I, I kind of know the talk.
I'm tolerant of lots ofthings and I don't mind
people yelling and screaming.
swearing and sayingobnoxious things.
And, but, but at acertain point, it
doesn't really impact me.
And, and, you know, people cantry to emotionally sway me.
(23:54):
People have told meall sorts of things.
I mean, I don't need to getinto the demographics of people
who have done this to me, butthere are those people who
might be on steroids, lifta lot of weights and call up
when they've had a bad day andstart railing me really hard.
And I basically cansay, okay, are you done?
And I let them run andlet them run like a dog.
(24:16):
You just let them bark and barkand bark and bark and bark.
And then they eventually runout of gas and they go away.
And then you come back andyou start to upsell them.
That was my trick.
Cause I'd be like,I got that done.
So let's talk about the nextthing that we're going to do.
In fact, some of mycustomers would get on the
phone and the first thingthey'll say is, please
don't try and sell me first.
Because they know that's comingbecause they know that if
(24:37):
they're going to talk to me, ifthey want something from help
for, for, to help that I'm goingto be like, that's great, but
we're going to talk about whatwe're going to do next too.
And that's prevented, that'snot a lot of prevent events.
And so now they, again,they would get tucked to
the account managers, butto answer your question, I
think most agencies go throughthe pain points of dealing
with challenging customers.
(24:58):
And it's typically over money90 percent of the time, where
there is something that happenedthat they want to be paid.
Back for what they wantto credit or they want
whatever they want.
They want some sort ofthing and that's where, you
know, I, I turned a judgeand jury and you hopefully
don't go to legal with it.
But those are, those arethe real challenges, right?
(25:18):
With any, you know, wehad the right letters
and all that stuff.
Those are the thingsthat nobody wants to do.
And frankly, I try and avoidthose things as much as I can,
because I think the goal is justlike, it's not worth the money.
So I just basically, youknow, either write it
off, try to make a deal.
And get them out of my hair.
Cause those are the, thoseare the real stories.
Um, again, if you want togo through funny stories
(25:39):
about naked girls and allthe rest of the stuff, I can
tell you all those stuff.
I don't, to me, those arejust, you know, part of agency
life and being, you know,in, in where we are in space.
But I think the concept wouldbe for anybody who's out
there is listening to this,uh, is to protect yourself by
understanding the customer and.
If you want to take on a hardcustomer, cause you probably
(25:59):
have to, because you're maybeyou're, let's just call it.
You have to, because you'rejust, you need the money.
Um, can just consider whatyou're doing for your life.
If the customer wouldn't be likesomeone you'd hang out with.
Be wary.
Keaton (26:15):
It's really interesting.
Cause there was this oneorthodontist that, uh, was
just a nightmare client for us.
And I sold my agency and thenlike was coaching somebody very.
Quickly after that.
And this orthodontist wasfrom a specific country.
That's rare to be from.
(26:37):
And they were also innew England somewhere.
And I was like,the guy came to me.
He's like, Oh yeah,it's really cool.
Cause I'm from this country too.
And like, she'spretty close by me.
I knew he was in new England.
I knew where she was fromand I was like, don't do it.
I promise you don't do it.
And it's in thosesmall niches like that.
(26:58):
Um, yeah.
It's funny how many, likethe clients get around.
Like if they've worked withfive or 10 agencies, it's
a little bit of a red flag.
Um, and, but it's just, it'sfunny to be able to swap
stories and tell people like,no, definitely don't talk
to them because, uh, notgoing to work out for you.
Matt (27:17):
Sure.
I mean, there's categoriesof, uh, cultures that are
difficult and I've worked withthem all and had them all and
lost them all and sold themall and got them back again.
I mean.
It's really just sort ofdependent on the, it's
not even the culture.
It's just the person.
If the person is, is justbent, they're just bent.
(27:38):
And you know, I, the peoplehave good days and bad
days and, or bad monthsand good months and weeks,
especially in cash and carrybusinesses that we dealt with.
I mean, one bad week andit's all over and they just
fold up like a cheap suit.
So
Keaton (27:54):
that's really right.
Function.
Like I tell my clientshere, what you can
charge as a function oftheir take home income.
And your fee, like they'retaking home a hundred
thousand dollars a year andyou're going to charge them
three grand a month total.
That's like almost halfof their monthly income
(28:14):
that they're risking.
And that's going to, that'sgoing to be the, the level of
the screeching on the phone isgoing to match how much, uh,
of that monthly income is, isbeing risked on your services.
And if it goes great, great.
If it doesn't go great, then.
You know why they'rescreeching so loud.
Um, anyway, going back tostories, I'd love to hear,
(28:37):
well, first of all, I don'tactually know who you were
selling to and what the majorityof your revenue was in terms
of services and, and niches.
So let's do that.
And then I'd love to diveinto some case studies
that were, uh, cool.
And, and what youlearned from them.
Matt (28:51):
Yeah, sure.
Uh, when I firststarted the agency.
I did not do an itch.
I hired prisoners inMinnesota at a work release
facility to call localcompanies, 25 bucks an hour.
Best thing I ever did.
It was still with me.
Uh, and they would callevery single small business
(29:12):
and basically pawn theminto a meeting with me.
Uh, I don't know what they do.
Maybe they threatenthem over the phone.
Who knows?
But I got lots of meetings andI went out and saw every single
business you could think of.
I mean,
Keaton (29:23):
you didn't train these guys at all.
You literally hired prisonersand didn't train them and
said, just give me meetings.
Matt (29:29):
Didn't I said, but just tell them that you, that they
need marketing and that I'mcoming over three o'clock
on Wednesday, make it up.
I didn't know any better.
I could care less.
Cause I knew as soon as Igot in the door, I would
sell them something.
But that was pretty cool becausewhat I did was I went and saw
every single niche there was.
I mean, I saw like a tensilestrength company, like they,
(29:50):
they measured this, thestrength of the hair, you
know, and a paint manufacturingcompany, oil companies.
Doctors, dentists,um, everything.
Um, garage door companies,uh, manufacturing
companies and everything.
(30:10):
So I got an open door to lotsof niches, which is really cool
because I actually love that.
That reminded me oflike when I was a boy.
And the twenties of my age,and that's exactly what I did.
I just, you know, I was on thephone calling random companies,
going in and trying to sellthem telcom and wireless
stuff back in the day whenit was the nineties, early
(30:31):
nineties or mid nineties.
And I saw everybody, you know,and this is the same thing.
So I was able to see everybody.
And I actually justkind of like stuff.
I like going to see people andtalk about what they're up to.
And I kind of likebusiness and like anything.
So anyways, that didthat for a while.
And then, uh, at a certainpoint that was my, my company
customer boom, which was.
(30:52):
The basics of all,we did everything.
We just did general businessand this whole niche business.
I mean, I'm not going totalk about like picking
niches and stuff like that.
Cause I have, I have my, I'lltalk about it later maybe,
but, um, I think you shouldjust do stuff until you, until
you like something, right.
And so, yeah, I mean, so.
(31:12):
So we did, I did that forwhen the chase had joined
me and then we'd startedto grow a little bit more
and I started to do more.
Um, I'd say, you know,varied niches that I found
that were interesting.
So, you know, we started todo more, um, medical stuff
and, uh, I ended up doinglike some conferences, right?
(31:33):
So we, we, we said, well,you know what, let's
build a secondary brand.
We'll call it practice bloom andwe'll start this medical niche.
So I started to goto spine convention.
We had a lot of spine surgeons.
Uh, because they all talkedwith each other and I was
getting pulled into their,uh, to their business.
Keaton (31:48):
Um, and then we're mainly like websites
and SEO at this point or
Matt (31:52):
whatever, websites, SEO.
We were doing card stock.
We were doing, you know,like I even put the sign on
a building, like whateverthey wanted in marketing.
Really?
It didn't really matter to me.
If they needed it, we'd figureit out and do it and deliver it.
Not the most efficientthing, but again, back in
those days, it didn't reallymatter because we were just
trying to, you know, get to amillion bucks at that point.
(32:13):
So once we started practicebloom, that was the first
indication that we had,um, a, um, a sort of an
idea of doing medical.
Now, just in the middle ofthis, uh, as I said before,
we, we actually became a whitelabel company for a while or
just because we had resources.
So a lot of agencies knowme and they'd say, can
you guys do what you'redoing for that guy for me?
(32:34):
So we did a lot of whitelabel stuff for a while.
It lasted for, we had acompany called agency bloom
and that's actually why wewent to the, uh, Mexico and
started a little event causeeverybody was doing events.
And so we got, you know, ouragencies down there and we
had a party and that was fun.
Let me tell you, there's,there's some NS not safe for
(32:56):
work photos from that one.
Uh, but anyways, Um, Oh no, wehad a, we had a pool, a couple
of pools on our, in our house,in our, uh, on our front deck.
And, um, I actually playeda gig down there, which
was actually really cool.
Cause I brought my guitar playerdown with me and we, we, I
actually played at the wrongbar, which is really funny.
(33:19):
I went up.
And I thought the band wasthere that was gonna be
our backup band for that,for the gig the next night.
And I just started playing withthese guys and, and, you know,
everybody's like, No, you'renot playing here tomorrow night.
You're playing atthat other club.
I'm like, Oh, sorry, guys.
But you're good.
Keep on stage.
Keep doing it.
You're getting everybody going.
And Chase is like in this, hewas there and he's like looking
at the audience like, I didn'tknow you're actually good.
(33:40):
I'm like, yeah, it was, it wasactually the whole crowd started
because their band was, therewas kind of lame and I was like,
got everybody going anyway.
So I'm, I was trying to saythat, you know, so we moved,
eventually we stopped doingthe reselling of, of I think
the white label becauseit wasn't really our bag.
We liked it, but itwas, it was way, way,
way, way too much work.
(34:00):
Cause now you're threesteps removed from the
client, from the clientand became a big cluster.
Anyways.
So now we started practicing,started doing, um, all
these medical things.
Yeah.
And by about the time whenChase was leaving 2019, we had
really edged into cash and carrybusinesses, which were med spas,
uh, and chiropractors and weightloss centers and all this stuff.
(34:21):
And so we started to do this.
And by the time Chase had left,we kind of were leaning into
just that niche medical ingeneral and going into med spas.
and sort of, uh, as theyears went by 2020 to
2021 22, it became all medspas and weight loss and
cash and carry IV centers.
(34:41):
All this stuff that, you know,today I look back and I go,
you know, it was interesting.
I mean, I didn't, I wouldhave never thought when I
started that I would evencare about this stuff.
Uh, meaning that, youknow, how far does a
needle go in for Botox?
And I knew every singlething you could possibly
imagine in the med spaworld that, and every.
Um, and we still, again, Istill do a lot of consulting
(35:05):
now in that area, justbecause I've just so, I
don't know, I've had, I don'teven want to know how many
customers we've had is a lot.
And so to answer your question,I think as the, as the days
went through, you know, pickingthat going towards that medical
direction was interesting.
Although we still kept a lot ofthe same clients in the base.
(35:25):
So the base is about 30percent mixture of clients
and then 70 percent medical.
Keaton (35:31):
I see.
And tell us, like, what's oneof your coolest case studies
that you guys helped someonego from, like, struggling to
very successful or kind ofsuccessful to very successful?
Oh, there's
Matt (35:43):
so many.
I mean, literally, becausewe've been around for so long.
Um,I think the one that, I mean,
we're doing some really coolstuff now, which we can talk
about if you want, but I thinkwhat was, what was interesting
was, Looking at somebody'sstuff, like going to an original
location and the guy was sortof a difficult guy to go with.
(36:06):
He was a horrible drunk.
And, um, we really helped,um, take his business
from a one location unit.
And built it into,uh, six locations.
He sold equityinto the business.
He built an e commerce storeand he's filthy rich now.
That's all I can tell you.
(36:26):
Like after about one, uh,yes, MedSpot plus an e comm.
Uh, he, he basically builtan e comm store as well.
Cause he was able toget, uh, best pricing
from the manufacturers.
Of all the products thatsupported the industry
and resold it to allthese other people.
And he, he also built a train.
We also built atraining center for him.
(36:48):
I mean, it was just amazing.
Like we, we really, we reallystarted like this generation
of events that happenedfor, um, him to become, uh,
valuable, uh, to his, his world.
Keaton (37:01):
And, uh, what made the difference, like what
was the difference betweenhim being very successful and
some of your other clientsJust kind of maybe having.
More mediocre results
Matt (37:11):
when things came together and all this hit at once So you
had your SEO working you hadyour ads working in Facebook.
You had your ads working inGoogle We were doing a ton of
organic posting for him We'redoing Instagram strategies like
it all just hit all of a suddenand I watched him and in one
day I was having lunch with himthe guy who ran this med spot.
(37:31):
He's like I'm doing like400, 000 a month now.
I'm like, wow, likeyou started with us.
You weren't even over a hundred.
So we knew we quadrupledthis business, but we also
helped with so many things.
Um, you know, callcenter employees, like
hiring, helping him hire.
There was just so much involved.
And again, it wasn't just me.
(37:52):
It was the team, um,that, you know, was
helping him and multiplepeople were helping him.
But the reality was, is thatthis is just like, you know,
during the time, again, whenthere really wasn't high
level, we had to Jerry rigall this stuff together.
Right.
So we had active campaign,we had tech strategies and
we had all this, you know,it was, it was difficult.
(38:13):
So I mean, he was paying us arelatively decent amount per
month, but inevitably, you know,again, he sold and, you know,
I don't know who owns it now.
Again, I don't run that businessanymore, but, um, it was a
good example of, you know,Uh, really quickly getting
multiple channels working,firing on all cylinders and
(38:33):
really starting to skyrocket.
And it was funny because youtalk to his competitors and they
thought this guy was a monster.
They thought it was like, Oh,that's like a national brand.
Like, I'm like, Nope, it'sjust him and his wife and
you're just killing it.
You just, you just don'tknow what we're doing in the
background to make him kill it.
So.
So again, these are allthese history lessons that,
you know, how do you builda brand and, and now, you
know, sort of comes right backto what I'm doing now with,
(38:57):
you know, with helping othercompanies and stuff like that.
But anyways, savethat for later.
Keaton (39:00):
Yeah.
How do you charge forsomething like that?
Like you're like, we'lldo absolutely everything.
And it's this retainer or,yeah, like again, these
retainers are getting up
Matt (39:10):
near 6, 000 a month for working on all these things.
Or more depending onwhat we needed to do.
Again, you know, this is, thisis sort of how it happens.
Like if you're, you're,you're being a good person,
they don't want you to leave.
Uh, they want you to justkeep doing what you're doing
cause they're making hay.
(39:31):
So as long as you're doingthe right things and creating
a windfall for somebody, theytypically don't complain.
They may complain.
On things that you'dsay, like, what, what
are you talking about?
Are you looking at this?
And then they justdon't understand what's
happening sometimes too.
So,
Keaton (39:48):
so it's really interesting because I feel
like the beginner understandingof marketing is you just end
up back where you started.
Like the beginnerunderstanding of marketing
for me is like, they'reeverywhere, I see their brand.
Like they must be doing so good.
And then you start learningabout marketing, you know,
this like cost per clickand add relevancy scores
(40:11):
and all this other stuffthat doesn't matter at all.
And at the end of theday, you've just proven
that pretty much all thatmattered was being seen on
every platform constantly.
And all of a suddenyou create this.
Like, wow, there, youknow, this instant brand
recognition, this, like,they're definitely the best
(40:31):
in the business kind of thing.
And I don't know, I justthink there's too much in
the, the SMMA space, if youwill, there's too much of
this like scientific, Hey,you're going to give me.
2k retainer, and we're goingto spend a thousand on ads.
And I'm going to bring youthis much every single month.
(40:52):
And that's how it works.
Let's do it.
And in reality, it's like,if I'm a business owner and
a marketing agency pitchesme that today, I own a
local business, I'd be like.
I don't really think it'sgoing to be every month.
I need someone who's creative.
I need someone who's going to gothe extra mile to do something
(41:14):
that will help us stand out.
Not just use some templates.
What would you say to that?
Like the beginner agencyowner doesn't really
understand that concept.
How, where elsedid you see that?
And what's your take on, youknow, the businesses that
you're working with now?
What do you tell them to helpthem understand the long tail
of marketing, if you will?
Matt (41:35):
So this is a tale of two cities.
One city is a customer whocares and one is a tale of
a customer who doesn't care.
Depends on which one you get.
The customer who cares,absolutely what you
just said was spot on.
Creative, something different,unique, everything like that.
The customer who doesn't careand is not even paying attention
(41:56):
to what you're talking about,just likes what does it cost and
how much do I need to pay you?
Same thing with the band.
We can play a gig and we canhave a club owner who loves
us to death, is super excited.
We're coming and,you know, is so.
Excited that we playedand you guys are awesome.
We can't wait to see you guysagain And we can have a festival
(42:17):
owner who just hands us a checkand says whatever like i'll see
you next week I'll see you nextyear Again, it's the same thing.
It depends.
So you, you, you markand you work with these
customers differently, right?
So depending on what youwant to do, I mean, you,
sometimes you just have totell them like, yeah, it's
a thousand bucks a monthand you're going to pay me.
And that's it and move on.
And, and that depends.
So you're, if your customeris engaged with you, sure.
(42:39):
You want to go into thatstuff because that's what
they're going to want.
But if the customer justwants to get past the point
of just getting somethingdone, and by the way, none of
these, there's nothing goodor bad about either one, it's
just different ways to take.
So if the customer just wantsto get it done and they just
want to pay you, just letthem pay you and get it done.
And just don't make a bigdeal out of it and don't
try to oversell and overcustomize and over creative.
(43:00):
Maybe that's justwhat they want.
You know, sometimes givethe customer what they want.
It's the right answer.
Keaton (43:09):
Makes sense.
It's just, uh, it's the agencybusiness is fraught in many
ways in terms of scalabilityand you know, like the simpler
you keep it, you, you build it.
Once you sell it a milliontimes, like that's what every
agency owner wants to do and itcan do very well for businesses.
(43:31):
But.
I just, I think the life thatyou breathed into that business
is inspiring and, you know,giving people permission to
be like, Hey, you want tocolor outside the lines a
little bit on this client?
And like, Charge them moreand really get deep on it.
Maybe that's a business youwant to run five, 6, 000 a
month clients that are allvery invested in you having
(43:55):
creative ideas and excitedabout what you're doing.
Maybe that's more funfor you than a hundred
businesses that, right.
It
Matt (44:04):
could be an end.
Well, that's what I'm saying.
Like it can be.
And Like I have customerstoday that they don't care.
They never talk to me.
They don't want to talkto me They just want me
to do what i'm doing.
Just keep whateveryou're doing Just do that
and don't talk to me.
I don't want to know you.
I don't want to see you I'llpay your bill every month and
I have some of the customerswho are with me every day
saying What can we do tomorrow?
Right?
And so that's cool, too LikeI I like both I I have no
(44:26):
problem with putting people intoplaces where they fit Now, you
know, could we have a generalargument about scaling on this?
A hundred percent.
I didn't scale that practicebloom company on that model.
I scaled that practice bloommoney, um, model on one
product, one service, one,one network, one channel.
Look, Ralph Burns, Michiganmodel, which is Ralph's friend
(44:49):
of mine, childhood friend, asa matter of fact, we traded
bikes when we were kids.
That's how, you know,we're go back, but, but he,
it's the Michigan method.
One thing, one,one, one, one, one.
Just do that one product, oneservice, one thing, and just
sell that and leave that.
Give it to the sales guy.
Give it to the SCSR.
This is how it's sold.
Buy it or don't buy it.
Goodbye.
(45:09):
And we would put on 40 customersa month doing that stuff.
Sure.
You can do that, but isthat what you want to build?
And what I foundout was, Oh boy.
Does that come with itsown set of circumstances
that you might not want, or
Keaton (45:21):
you may want, I don't know.
Yeah.
Uh, so another question I havefor you, there's people that
I'm friends with, you know,periodically I'll check in,
uh, where we see each otherat a conference or something.
And it's kind of likewhere they were last year
is where they are now.
And there's no, they're kind of,they're still asking, they're
asking the same questions.
(45:42):
I had happened to mea couple of weeks ago.
Someone asked me aquestion, two months go by.
They shoot me the same question.
And I literally just scrolledup in our conversation.
I was like, this is the answer.
Just like reply to that.
Right.
Oh, sure.
Absolutely.
And clients like that.
Yeah.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
I just, I feel likeyou kind of have this,
(46:04):
this like duh energy.
If that makes sense.
So I ask you, I askedMatt coffee, like, how
do you get clients?
Well, duh, you just like hirethe prisoners, Pam, 24 an hour
and like walk into the business.
And I am, I've just hadso many conversations
with agency owners.
They're like, I just,I can't get meetings.
I can't do it.
I don't know whatI'm doing wrong.
(46:26):
I'm stuck at 5k a month.
I'm stuck at 2k amonth, whatever.
And I, it's, it's kind of like.
I think I've grown more cynicalover time where I'm just
like the people who crush ittend to crush it pretty fast.
And this may not be theright opportunity for you.
If you're going slower,I'm super happy for it.
(46:47):
Like I have a friend who, who,uh, I mentioned him in another
podcast recently, but he went,he just hit 10 K a month.
He's been at the agencyfor like four years.
He was doing some otherfreelance work at the time.
He's like, we can do apodcast and we'll call it
zero to 10 K in four years.
Perfect.
I love that.
And there's, there's thatthere's totally room for that.
I wish more people feltlike that was okay.
Matt (47:08):
Yep.
Keaton (47:08):
Um, but from when he started taking it seriously,
this friend, he was bookingmeetings, he was getting
huge PR opportunities.
It's in the UK.
He's become a household namein his niche, even without
a super massive agency.
And it's, it's all justthis intuition of like,
Oh yeah, if I need to getclients, I need to appear.
Like I know what I'm doing.
(47:28):
And so he got featured in amagazine and he's, you know,
produced some good content andkind of like push that out.
Um, what advice do you have forthat person who maybe doesn't,
it's not coming easily to them.
It's not, they, theyhear go hire the
prisoners at 25 an hour.
And they're justlike, Matt's crazy.
Like I would never doanything like that.
(47:48):
I don't have the money.
I don't know what to do.
I'm just frozen at my keyboard.
Well,
Matt (47:56):
there's two answers to this.
You want the PC answer oryou want the non PC answer?
Non PC, always.
Stop being a pussy, okay?
That's the answer.
And whoever is listeningto this now, shut up.
Like, you little complainingbaby, grow some balls and
do something with your life.
And go away.
(48:16):
I mean, come on.
It's too short.
We are too short of asentence of life here.
If you are just gonna sitthere and complain that you
can't get what you want, goand do that, but don't, Bye.
Like make a big deal out of it.
Like, just agree that youare, you are just uniquely
unqualified to do anything.
(48:36):
Like, if that's what your lifeis, then you really should
look towards maybe perhapslooking at a job, right?
Cause that's good.
Like we need peopleto work for us.
So that's what you, butif you want to be an
entrepreneur, so here's thenon PC answer, you're going
to have to skill yourself up.
You're going to have to takethe time to learn things.
(48:57):
That would actually take time.
You're going to have to notwatch YouTube for hours and
upon hours, you're actuallygoing to have to execute.
So the biggest challenges isthat people just, and again, I
get probably called out a lotabout this is that people don't
have any idea how much timeit takes to actually do this.
(49:19):
It's real work.
And it's difficult and it'shard and you have to stay up
and do stuff and neglect thingsthat you'd like to do and those
those times like the 12 hourdays that I spent getting up at
the morning and six o'clock inthe morning working on this and
Working all through the nighttill eight o'clock at night and
then skipping all of my friendsand not being able to Do the
(49:40):
things that I wanted to do andkept me in this molehole here
Forever are the reason why I wasable to put seven figures in the
bank because that's that's life.
So if you want to be complainingand you can't do the things
you can then go complain or nonpc Keep that conversation to
(50:01):
everybody's head or do the realthing which is to put the work
in and you know where to do it.
It's this thingcalled the internet.
You can figure it out.
You're not stupid.
You, you, you, most peoplewent to college in high
school You know, you didn'tcrawl from under a rock.
There are ways to do this.
There are people likeKeaton and other people
that will train you.
(50:23):
But my point, and I'll saythis the last, get someone
who's accountable for you.
If you need someone tokick your ass, come see me.
I will personally kick yourass and make you do the work.
I will make you feellike an idiot if you
can't get your work done.
And that's what I've doneto some of the coaching
clients that I've had.
I've actually got them to acertain point where I cornered
them and said, are you serious?
(50:44):
Are you being the personthat you don't want to be?
Are you being a person that isInequivocably just an an idiot.
Why do you want to do thisthen and sometimes people
need that realization?
Whether they're children whoneed to be spanked whether
they're adult teenagers Whoneed to be told they can't
do what they just did becauseit's dangerous for them Or
(51:05):
whether they're an entrepreneuragency want to be that wants
to get to a million dollarsBut somehow can't get off
the couch and turn the tv offAnd sometimes you just need
to have that realization.
So that's sort of like havingsomeone to help you with
fulfillment of being personallyresponsible, maybe what you
actually need, whether it'sme or somebody else who can
(51:27):
hold you accountable for youractions and have you show
up and maybe embarrass you alittle bit about how poorly
you've been able to basicallyget your time management done.
And these are very,very basic things.
I am nowhere near somesort of rocket scientist.
I barely made it out of college.
However, I have chutzpahand that makes me a little
(51:49):
bit different than mostof the players out there.
Meaning I have no problem goingand doing stuff because I like
to actually get involved and dostuff and get and be in front of
things and try and help people.
I mean, my mantra has alwaysbeen to live louder and
I've written songs about it.
I'm going to haveanother brand about this.
(52:09):
If you're willing to, to livelouder or my case of living
louder, your life will changelike dramatically, like
really dramatically, like I'veput myself into a position
where I can pay for my kids,colleges, houses, whatever.
I don't have to worry about,I mean, I'm not grandstanding,
but I don't have to worryabout the things that I used
(52:30):
to have to worry about becauseI changed my perception.
Keaton (52:36):
Um, that's a new tagline for you.
Mac coffee, I'll give youa swift kick in the ass.
Matt (52:42):
Oh, it's been
Keaton (52:42):
said
Matt (52:43):
before.
So believe me,
Keaton (52:44):
podcast anymore.
That's great.
And if I could just, justfor anyone listening, the,
I heard the summarize thisweek and I really like it.
The world only cares aboutwhat it can get from you
and boohooing about notbeing able to do exactly
(53:05):
what you want right away.
Is not going toget you very far.
There comes a time when businessbecomes a little more fun.
You can pick and choose,but at the beginning,
it's just all about whatpeople can get from you.
And if you're not getting sales,you're not getting meetings.
You're probably talkingabout things in terms of.
instead of what you canprovide for someone else.
(53:25):
Um, all right, man, let'sclose out with the sale.
Um, how did it come aboutand what are the numbers
that you're willing to share?
And what did you learn?
Matt (53:40):
You know, I've been approached, so let's go
back like 2022, right?
I, I started to thinkabout selling in 2022.
Um, because we were startingto get out of COVID, things
are starting to move forward.
I could see the niche would beinteresting for somebody who
might be in the medical niche.
And I said, well, we've gota bunch of these customers
and we're able to, you know,sales guys running numbers now.
(54:01):
And, um, I talked to a bunch ofbrokers and just like anybody
else, I did lots of homework.
In fact, I had a customer whowas a broker, which was great.
So I got the inside baseball andI understood how it all worked.
And.
You know, I did all thenecessary things and I won't
go through the Iterations ofgetting the numbers together and
all the things that you shouldbe doing if you're thinking
about selling But yeah I meanbooks have to be cleaned and
(54:23):
you know your numbers have tobe in line you have to have
all your figures and facts andyou know ability to present on
a dime with every number thatyou know that should be in your
Head that you should know offthe top of your head to be able
to present to anybody who justcome So that was all kind of
done in 2022 2022 And in 2023,I started to get offers, right?
(54:45):
So I started to get,uh, Lois and they ranged
between, I don't know, seven50 to 1.2 million, right?
And, and they wereall different.
They were really cool offers.
Some were five years, somewere three years, some
were you, you have 20%down, some were 70% down.
And I had conversationswith lots of other
(55:07):
larger agencies who wereinterested in purchasing
us or merging with us.
And, uh, we, we got a coupleof agencies really close.
So I had lots of like, I dateda lot, you know, I date, I
dated a lot of, of people and,um, as we got closer to the
turn of 2023 to 2024, uh, wewere getting pretty close,
(55:32):
I was getting pretty close.
With a potential merger, whichI thought was a really good
idea because we're very it wasa lot of synchronicity and it
would be an easy transferenceand I won't mention names
because I don't think it'sfair to say, uh, and my story
is unique and I probablyyou'll hear it and go, Oh,
that will never happen to me.
(55:52):
Well, you don'tknow, you never know.
Um, and to me, I was like,it just happened that way.
So I was, again, Ihad LOIs in the table.
I had a broker workingfor me, bringing me deals.
We were going throughit one by one.
Uh, and, um, during that latesummer of 2023, um, my second
(56:14):
command, uh, had purchased aproperty in, uh, New Mexico.
And, uh, she, she, 100 acres,you know, big, huge property.
And.
The Forest Service wentout, uh, to prevent forest
fires and burned all theproperty, uh, fire lines
between the properties.
(56:35):
Um, but it didn'twork out so well.
In fact, it burnedthe whole town down.
So, so her property wasburned to the crisp,
including animals and housesand whatever, everything.
Right.
So she got a settlement fromthe government and she came
to me and said, look, letme, let me work this out.
Let me buy the company.
And so we worked it out and Iwanted seven figures on the dot.
(56:55):
I said, I, I, I'm cool with it.
Let's just.
Call it seven figuresand call it done.
And we kind of worked it outwhere, you know, it, it kind
of equal to the same thingwhere I took a portion of
the customers and, and gota, got a sizable high six
or close, you know, sizablesix figure check, and then
the rest were customers thatwould make up the difference.
(57:17):
And, and we both wentaway unhappy, but happy.
In fact, I wasn't goingto do the deal because.
I felt it was too thin, butwe, we moved some of them,
some more customers to my way.
And, you know, I ended upwith a base of customers
around 30 grand a month.
And so that was, I'mlike, okay, cool.
Like that's another three.
So I'm fine.
Like I was like, look, itputs me into production.
(57:39):
I took a couple of myemployees and that's it.
It's not really thatmuch that there really
isn't a lot of the story.
It just was a lucky deal.
I got the lottery ticket tosell to my second command
because of the fact thather property got burnt down.
Yeah, I don't think thatwill happen to most people,
but I was going to sellanyways, it was, it wasn't
her, it would have beenvery, there was enough deals
on the table that somethingwas going to fall through.
(58:01):
Like it was getting close.
I was getting that 1.
2 over three years or, andI was like, okay, like we're
getting close and it was justa matter of like, what were
the terms of the deal wereand, you know, I think a really
cool thing was, and then thiswill hopefully help somebody.
I like the fact weclosed in 30 days.
That was it.
(58:21):
We said, let's do it.
30 days, we were done.
Lawyers, everything.
We mutually got alawyer together.
We agreed on all the terms.
There weren't, itwasn't perfect.
It wasn't, it took us 60days to unwind everything
and pay each other back forwhatever we forgot about.
But it was done in 30 daysand I think that really helped
both of us move on quickly.
(58:42):
And, and again, I lovemy second command.
She was awesome.
And, and I stilllove her to death.
She was just a great person.
And I, you know, Ireally enjoyed working.
I, I love my team.
I love the whole thing, but Icommitted that if I made the
ink 5, 000, I was going to selland I kind of wanted to do it
because I needed to move intomy next phase, which is what
(59:02):
I'm doing now, which I think Ireally enjoy a little bit more.
I don't have 30 peoplereporting or reporting to
managers that report to me.
And I enjoy, I enjoy it.
Things I'm doing, it'snot as lucrative right now
yet, but you know, giveme another six months.
This is, you know,beginning stages.
I said, we just cracked the,the egg open of this agency
and, or this business andit's starting to bloom and
(59:23):
you'll see me everywhere.
And you know, it's, it'll,it'll become relevant.
I'm speaking next weekat high levels event.
And that'll bring insome people that might be
interested in working with us.
So we've got some reallycool things, you know,
popping and I'm excited.
We're doing a lotof cool things.
We're doing stuff that isavant garde, you know, with AI.
And I know you'reinvolved in this as well.
(59:44):
And, and it's really cool whatyou can do today for customers
that, and, you know, whetheryou want to do small businesses,
large businesses, uh, SAS.
I mean, there's, there'sjust opportunity.
And again, you know, there's,there's, there's just a
matter of like cool customers.
That's it.
I just want to dealwith cool people.
(01:00:04):
That's it.
And if the customers are cool.
We'll get along like gravy.
And if they're not cool,I'll just be like, Oh man.
Like it's just not,it's not worth my time.
I'm I don't know.
I'd rather do something
Keaton (01:00:15):
very cool.
So if someone wants toreach out to you, they
just head over to coffee.
com.
Matt (01:00:21):
No, just go to, um, you can certainly
all my socials out there.
Just find me, you know, my,obviously my, my brand is profit
engines and go to the website.
You can look it up online.
You can look for me.
because obviously my band's moreprominent than than me because
it's gotten more interest thanmy little world over there.
(01:00:41):
But that's going to change.
I feel like within six monthsI'll have a pretty sizable
organization and brandthat's making a lot of noise.
But yeah, go to profit enginesor, you know, hit me up on
any of the social medias.
If you can't find me, um,Keaton, I'll give you a link.
If people are interestedin connecting, right.
It would like tohave a conversation.
Keaton (01:01:01):
Awesome, Matt.
Thanks so much for coming on.
Uh, very valuableperspectives here.
And, um, we already toldpeople where to find you.
So head over thereand, uh, you'll get a
swift kick in the ass
Matt (01:01:15):
only if you need it.
I'm doing like 400, 000 a month now.
You started with us, youweren't even over 100.
So, we knew wequadrupled this business.
That's the horror story.
Is me crossing theborder of being too
nice and too forgiving.
When I first started theagency, I hired prisoners,
and they would call everysingle small business.
And basically pawn theminto a meeting with me.
I don't know what they do.
(00:20):
Maybe they threatenthem over the phone.
Who knows my story is uniqueand I'd probably, you'll
hear it and go, Oh, thatwill never happen to me.
Well, you don't know.
You
Keaton (00:27):
never know.
How's it going?
Everybody.
Welcome back to another episode.
Absolutely.
Just excited to be herewith Matt coffee today, who
recently sold his agency.
200 K a month before theysold that stick around for
the juicy details on the.
You know, sale numberand all the nitty gritty
of how that worked out.
(00:49):
Um, as you can see, if you'rewatching on YouTube, uh, Matt
is also in a band and, um, verymusical as well, if you will.
Uh, and I'm sure we'll talkabout how that blends in
with business today as well.
Matt, thanks for being on
Matt (01:06):
my pleasure.
Thanks for having me.
Yeah.
And I'm excited to talk aboutwhatever you want to know about.
I'm an open book and sometimes alittle too loud of an open book.
Okay, recording is still live.
Um,
Keaton (01:21):
so take us back to, uh, how'd you get into the
agency space where you'reworking a job before?
How did this whole thing start?
Matt (01:30):
Yeah.
Like most entrepreneurs,uh, accidental, right?
So, uh,I can remember the day I was,
I worked at Sprint, uh, as aregional manager for a long
time, uh, and was one of their,you know, knock around guys that
was doing, you know, was thebest of the best of the best.
So I always went on thetrips and all that crap.
(01:51):
And I enjoyed that sort ofarchitecture of having, hey, Uh,
you know, it's, it's meritocratis to a degree because once you
hit the corporate ceiling ofdumbness, which is basically
the people in front of youcan, can block you because
of political juggernauting,you get to a certain point
where I was just basicallypounding the table of my boss's
(02:12):
boss and saying, this is thedumbest story I've ever heard.
Why are we doing it this way?
It's just dumb.
And, uh, you know, that.
Kind of got me to the pointwhere I'm like, I'm just done.
I'm like, I took my last, uh,instead of taking the trip,
I took the money and I leftand I was, and I said, you
know, I've read the four hourwork week and all the rest
of that happy, uh, horseshit.
(02:35):
And he just said,okay, I'm done.
I'm out of here.
Now, what happens now?
Well, I just went on a tearof doing consulting work
and it wasn't related toanything with marketing.
It was just being like me.
I would go out and talkto customers and find out
what their problems were.
In this particularcase, it was all.
Telecom and wireless related,and I would renegotiate
(02:56):
their contracts, take moneybased off of what my work
was involved with that.
And I did that and I actually,um, picked up some work
and, and started to do some,some, you know, not, not
a lot of money, but enoughto pay for some bills.
And I was like, okay, well maybeit's not so bad being consulted.
Um, that wasinteresting for a while.
(03:18):
And so I, you know, I also builta website for the business and
I sat one day in my dentistchair and my dentist is like,
you know, I need to get awebsite and this, I said,
well, I'll build it for you.
And so that was the firstmarketing thing that I ever did.
And so that was in 2012.
(03:39):
And after that I started tojust do more and I had a knock
for it and hired some peoplebecause I'd worked for, you
know, these large companiesI knew, uh, geo arbitrage.
So I understood, you know,getting some resources in
the Philippines and India andall the rest of these places.
So.
I had gotten resourcestogether and built a
little team by 2013, 2014.
(04:00):
I was up and running, um, andI never, you know, sales and
stuff like that really wasn'tmy, uh, problem, uh, getting
clients cause I, I wasn't afraidto pick up the phone, just
call people and just get onthe phone and deal with them.
I was, that's not, you know, I'ma very forward, um, front man.
That's the best way to do it.
Um, but so I got to a certainpoint where like, I need
(04:23):
someone to manage this thing.
And of course, that's whenI put out the calling all
cars, calling all cars, meeta good operations manager.
And that's when obviously it's2014 when, or ish, when Chase
Buckner stepped into my world.
And I hung up on him first.
I'm like, what?
You're in Mexico?
No, bye.
(04:45):
And, uh, he kind of, youknow, called me back like,
no, you guys, that's not,that's not what you think.
I'm actually, I'm a Phillyguy and you know, whatever.
So, um, eventually, you know,we came to a conclusion and,
and, and we built a pretty,pretty sizable agency.
And, uh, you know, that lastedfor quite a while, uh, until
I think around, you know, 2000and well, right before COVID
(05:09):
and then, you know, thingskind of flattened out and
then it grew again after COVIDand, uh, you know, I ended up
making the Inc 5000, uh, in2023, which was interesting
because that was my goal.
And, uh, I said, if I didn't
Keaton (05:23):
catch that
Matt (05:24):
making 5, 000 to get to the Inc 5, 000.
Oh, great.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So that was my goal.
My goal was like, Hey, ifI, if I can get this to the
Inc 5, 000, I'll sell it.
And that's exactly what I did.
So that's sort of the fiveminute tour of the agency.
Keaton (05:40):
Great.
There's a lot of
Matt (05:41):
in between parts, which I'm sure we'll talk about.
Keaton (05:43):
Yeah.
So I'm sure a lot of peoplewill be interested in
this Chase Buckner story.
So you just put out a job ad.
He ended up finding itbecause he's from Philly,
but his wife's from Mexico.
So he was living in Mexico.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, he was ateacher down there.
Okay.
And did you, you werelike, great, you have
(06:04):
tons of experience.
You're coming on board.
You get equity day one.
How did you work out thatpartnership long term?
Matt (06:11):
Well, I never really did partnership deals with anybody.
I didn't actually feelthat that was necessary.
It was more like
Keaton (06:19):
hey guys Just jumping in here to give you a quick word
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Matt (08:07):
It was more like he was looking for a place to, cause
he had, uh, swung the bat on acouple of agencies himself and
it, you know, it's difficult.
You can't really dothis from Mexico.
From a sales perspective,it's tough because Mexico's
not buying down there.
I mean, they're buying, but it'snot like up here where it's like
there's a bazillion businessesthat need help down there.
It's more like, youknow, who, you know, and
what do you, whatever.
(08:28):
And he, and he attempted that.
And I think what he ended upsaying to himself was, If I
could hitch my wagon, someonewho can do sales and do,
you know, really start theconstruction of like, Hey,
go out and make it happen andbring customers in, I'll do the
heavy lifting on the backend.
And so he became sortof the web guy slash
operations manager over time.
And, um, you know, as I said,like it grew pretty quickly
(08:50):
once he was, Uh, part of thepicture, because that left me to
have lots of time to do sales.
Right.
And I think at the end of theday, you know, you kind of
look at, um, you know, what,what transpired from there.
I mean, we even had in 2016, wehad a, an event, like we brought
everybody down to Mexico, allof our partners and some of our
customers and had a huge event.
(09:11):
And then, you know, the,this, this stuff was pretty.
To me, it was just part ofthe growing of an agency
from, you know, again, the000, 60, 000, you know,
get to a million, then,you know, go on from there.
It was just like each yearwas a little bit more,
and it, both Chase and Ihad the same exact goal.
(09:32):
Idea, which is we reallywanted a lifestyle agency.
You can see behind me,I do that business.
I'm fans and do the,you know, jump around on
stage and, and have fun.
Um, but I think the goal forme was always to not build
some behemoth of hundredsof, you know, people in,
in a big responsibility.
(09:52):
I was like, look, if I canplay gigs every weekend and
we can get this thing to runand I can pay my bills and I
can take care of, you know,building some equity into some
properties and some get themoney in the stock market.
And like, you know, have areal life and not have to be
like consumed by this business,then it's, then it would work.
So chase was sort ofin that same ballgame.
And you know, when he leftin 2019 to go for, uh, the
(10:16):
position at high level, Iwas like, dude, awesome.
I'm so excited for you.
Like make it happen because weneed you to do it because we,
we, we started that whole trainin 2018 or 2017, trying to.
Be the poster boy for,um, doing that same model
with active campaign.
I mean, we were like thenumber one active campaign
(10:36):
reseller and we're on alltheir videos on their homepage.
And we were like, Hey man,you got to get the SMS
going and you got to makeit all in one communications
plane and all this stuff.
And then we went to ever genius.
Eventually we transitioned tothem and that company blew up.
Cause they couldn't handlethe, uh, the, um, the
technical piece of it.
(10:56):
They didn't have enoughbandwidth or whatever, but
everybody moved to high level.
Like we all went, we werecustomer number one 11.
That's how far back it goes.
Like we were rightthere in the beginning.
I think you were too.
Um, so, you know, we, we allknew each other, like, you
know, this is Sean's littlereview management thing that
we, you know, migrated tothis monster behemoth that
we're talking to today.
(11:17):
So, you know, it was just,we, it was a kind of family
thing at that, at that point.
And so Chase was like one of thefirst guys to come aboard and
really, you know, help, I think,evangelize, you know, this whole
business too, in that space.
And then again, I,this podcast is.
Not about, I think theevangelization of, of high
(11:37):
level, but it's, it's morelike the echelon of this
agency business becoming morerelevant because that was
the first kind of time when,Hey, it all came together.
We had the thing, we hadthe reviews, we had the,
you know, all that stuff.
Everything was nowfinally in one spot so we
could grow efficiently.
And, and we had reallytried to do that.
In fact, the company namedtoday, profit engines.
(11:59):
Was based on trying to buildprofit engines, which was
this platform is high levelbecause that's what we were
trying to do was to getall this stuff together.
And now it comes obviouslyfrom my company now it's
different because we're, it'smultifaceted and it's, it's a
lot different now than it wasobviously, you know, 2015, 10
years ago, you know, different.
So I hope thatanswered your question.
(12:19):
I went a littlebit further than I.
Keaton (12:22):
Great.
Uh, my, the, the point I wastrying to get to, I, I think
a lot of people were kind ofon that upwards trajectory,
know they're good at sales, butneed someone for the backend.
Are nervous to bring ona partner and operations
man or someone like that.
And I was just curious howyou got the incentives, right?
Because that, I mean, youfound Chase Buckner, who
(12:42):
is one of the, the nicestguys in the world and just
a pleasure to work with, butwhat advice do you have someone
who's maybe in that similarposition that you were when
you were looking for him?
Matt (12:55):
Okay, so I wasn't really looking for him particular.
I was looking for anybodywho wanted to, you know, in
that my little tribe, right?
So we had fun.
I mean, we were fast and loose.
It was fun.
You know, it was, it was meantto be, um, a comedy show.
(13:16):
I mean, it was, we had a lot offun and we would sit around and
tell jokes and however off coloryou could get was the better guy
who would do the better joke.
And we would have, youknow, we'd have again, we,
we made our own events.
And, but I think what, whatI would say is just find
someone you can, you, youreally want to work with
and be, be, you know, likeChase and I are best friends.
I mean, it's like, youknow, these are cool people.
(13:37):
I just find cool people.
Incentives shouldn'tbe about money.
Ventures should be about like,Hey, what can we build together?
That's really cool.
And that we like towork with each other.
I mean, sure you could throwout a lot of money and you could
probably stab somebody withthat, but that's not my gig.
And I never wentafter the money.
I never sit here and go, okay,well, what Mercedes can I buy?
(13:57):
It was about what could we do?
How could we?
How could I get you tosurf more with me, Chase?
How could I, how couldwe, you know, get down to
Mexico so that we can hangout and do stuff together?
So it was all about justbuilding a relationship.
And if you could dothat with someone, the
money comes after you.
You know, money will come withit because if you work together
really well, you don't evenneed equity in that stuff.
(14:18):
It's just like, let's just dothis together and we'll split
up the cookies as they come in.
And, you know, sometimesit doesn't need to
be an equity deal.
It could just be like, I'lljust keep paying you more.
If we get paid more,let's do a profit split.
It's not hard.
Just do that.
And that's simple forpeople to understand.
We grow it's meritocrat us.
We'll all win.
Just keep putting the tabin slot B and I'll keep
(14:39):
getting new customers.
Keaton (14:40):
Yeah, that's a great nugget.
I, uh, I was listeningto a podcast with the
founder of base camp.
If you know them, uh, softwarecompany has been around forever
and he was saying some peoplewill reach out to him and
they'll be like, Hey, we wantyou to advise on this Uh, it's
going to be 5 percent of thecompany in order to advise.
And he's like, you know, uh,the accounting headache isn't
(15:00):
actually worth it for me.
So why don't I just liketell you what to do?
And then like, ifyou sell someday, you
just take care of me.
And he's obviously comingfrom a place of extreme
financial security where thattype of deal makes sense.
But I, it's interesting becausewe, it's like that nitwit meme.
Have you seen it?
Where the one end, the guy'scrying, the other end, the
(15:20):
guy's crying, uh, and the guyin the middle is like, Just
so like Zen, because he'sdoing, he's not trying to go
to one extreme or the other.
And the one extreme hereis like, I have to figure
out all the equity.
I have to geteverything perfect.
We have to decide it on day one.
Um, and the other end islike, we're not going to do
anything, which, you know,turns into a lot of beginners
(15:43):
end up getting screwed over.
I've heard a lot ofstories like that.
Um, if you're super advancedand you want to do that,
it doesn't matter to you.
If the, the money comes.
Sure.
More power to you, but you'rein the middle here where you're
like, let's just have some fun.
You know, we'll split themoney as it comes through.
And uh, if you want to leavesomeday, that makes sense.
(16:04):
And I'm happy for you.
It's great.
Well, it's just being
Matt (16:08):
like a nice human being.
Like it's just like, look, ifyou're nice and you're a good
person and you want to justbe helpful and you want to be
cool, like it will come back.
It's a mirror.
Like do the things that makesense, that make people happy.
Who cares about the money?
Because that's just an,an out shoot of like
experience of life.
Like as you get older, likeI'm a hundred years old now,
(16:30):
I know you can kind of tell,but you know, the certainty
of death is there and youbetter have a good time.
So get people that are funto be around that you're
not stressed over and.
If you're doing good work,you'll just get paid for
your resource and yourintelligence and your wisdom.
(16:52):
Um, and trying to dickaround with trying to put
percentages and say, I mean,sure, maybe it's just not
my bag, but I would ratherhave someone say, I want you
just to hang out with me.
Like my customers arelike, dude, when can I
get you back on a call?
Cause they wantme back on a call.
I don't sit there andgo, Oh, that's going
400 for that hour, no.
I mean, it's just like, I'llsend a message, say, dude,
(17:14):
like, yeah, like I need tocharge you another thousand
bucks a month for like,cause you're killing me.
He's like, yeah, yeah, whatever.
Like it's not, it's notabout like trying to,
to, to skewer somebody.
It's about being reallyhonest and truth worthy with
your customers and tellingthem what the deal is and
say, you know, it's my time.
(17:34):
So if, again, I'm in a differentposition too, than I was when
I was doing agency stuff.
I understand that.
If you have no money andyou're trying to, you know,
get to a certain orbit levelof paying your bills or
paying your bills plus payingyour mortgages, plus keeping
your wife happy, whatever,um, you know, I get it.
You're going to have obviously,you know, we did a lot of work
(17:55):
with getting people on board andwe had price plans and all that
stuff and all the agency stuff.
Sure.
Uh, but at a certain point,you kind of get to a level
where it's like, you reallyhave to think like, as you get
further down this pathway, like.
You better like what you'redoing and you better make
sure that you're doingit with the people that
you like to do it with.
Keaton (18:12):
Yeah.
Very important.
So I'd love to hearsome, some tales.
You've been in the agencyspace longer than probably
99 percent of people thatare in the agency space.
So, um, I'm sure you havesome horror stories and some
really cool case studies.
Um, let's start withthe horror story.
(18:32):
What's like the worstThing that ever happened to
you as an agency owner orlike the client
from hell, you know,
Matt (18:43):
clients from hell never really bothered me.
It was when they called meis when they bothered me.
Right.
So it's always seems to bethe, the, the least happiest,
the most happiest time forme for them to call, but
their least happiest moment.
Um, I was one time,this is fascinating.
I'll tell you multiplestories, but I'll give you
(19:04):
one that, that stands out.
Cause I thought it was rather.
unique.
So I have all my kids with me.
We're down at Universal Orlando.
I just got offthe Simpsons ride.
I was feeling great.
This is like the bestthing I've ever been on.
And I get a call on my phone.
I'm like, what, what isthis guy calling me for?
And all I hear is justscreaming and yelling and
(19:25):
screaming and yelling.
And I'm like, great timing.
Um, so apparently what hadhappened was that we left his
Facebook, sorry, his Google adaccount on for multiple, let's
just call it multiple daysand years and in weeks, uh,
(19:45):
without it connected to anythingand it was running wide open.
So I had 15, 000 of charges onhis credit card that were not,
um, appropriated very nicely.
So I had to, you know, I hadto basically swallow a big pill
while it was, um, in the, oneof the happiest places on earth.
And I'm, my wife waslike, like, what was that
person talking about?
Nothing, nevermind.
Let's go on that ride.
(20:08):
So that happens and it, youknow, things happen like that.
So I would say that one stuckout to me because it was unique.
Uh, there are other funnierthings that happened.
Like, you know, I've, I'vegot on the phone with people.
Who I'm working with and they'vesent me, uh, pictures of them
in the bathtub naked, whichI thought was pretty cool.
(20:29):
I'm like, that's aninteresting, I've closed
people without my shirt on.
That's another thing.
And these are all, causewe dealt with med spas.
These are all female clients.
So not like guys, pictures,naked, nothing wrong with that.
Listen, whateverfloats your boat.
But, um, you know, I thinkthe goal is to, to, to enjoy.
(20:49):
So I don't, you know, thereare lots of horror stories of
maybe things that aren't to me.
I'm just, they're just partof business, but the horror
stories for me were probably,um, for me having to fire.
People or fire clients.
Those are the heart.
(21:10):
Like I have a really, reallyhard problem when clients
come to me honestly, and theysay, Oh, if you just give me
another chance, I'll pay you.
I promise.
I promise.
I promise I will giveyou, and I always give
people the opportunity.
And much to my detrimentand my team hated me for it
because I crossed the bordersof like insanity trying to
help clients out becauseI'm too much of a nice guy.
(21:32):
I'm too much of a giver.
I'm too great.
I have too much gratefulnessin my heart and always
give them the chance to, ifthey're serious and they're
being honest with me andI can usually tell, and
sometimes it doesn't work out.
And sometimes I crossed myteam too many times that
that border probably was,that's the horror story is.
Is me crossing the border ofbeing too nice and too gentle
(21:56):
and too forgiving of peoplein general, uh, and allowing
things to happen where welost money because I'm just
too, too much of a nice guy.
And that, that's trulythe horror story because
that hurt my employeesthat hurt our morale.
And I, and I, and I honestlycouldn't do anything about it
because it's just my nature.
And I always telleverybody, I'm not a robot.
(22:17):
I'm not an autocrat.
I'm not a, you know, guywho's just going to sit
there and, you know, sendpeople to collections.
I'll try and work it out.
I'll always try and getsomething where people leave
me and they say, you know what?
I mean, if they want to screwme, they want to screw me.
That's just goingto happen anyways.
But I think people who knowme, they'll even come back
(22:37):
and say, you know what?
You did the fair thing.
Keaton (22:41):
Yeah.
So what are these crazyclients that you should
have fired earlier?
Matt (22:48):
Well, I mean, Sometimes, well, see,
this is the funny thing.
I actually enjoy clients thatare really annoying because
I will literally mind bendthem and they know I will.
In fact, some of our hardestclients would stop calling me
because I would start to doYoda tricks on them and use
NLP and change their mind.
(23:09):
And they would go, I don'tknow what you're doing, but
whatever Yoda trick you justdid, I click because I would
change their mind about,because now they would call
me and they would know they'dbe sold into something.
So they stopped calling meand they would call my team.
All of the clients that weremean, obnoxious, we were
up here in New Jersey andpeople are rude, mean, and
(23:32):
by the way, I don't fit intothe category of that, but
I, I kind of know the talk.
I'm tolerant of lots ofthings and I don't mind
people yelling and screaming.
swearing and sayingobnoxious things.
And, but, but at acertain point, it
doesn't really impact me.
And, and, you know, people cantry to emotionally sway me.
(23:54):
People have told meall sorts of things.
I mean, I don't need to getinto the demographics of people
who have done this to me, butthere are those people who
might be on steroids, lifta lot of weights and call up
when they've had a bad day andstart railing me really hard.
And I basically cansay, okay, are you done?
And I let them run andlet them run like a dog.
(24:16):
You just let them bark and barkand bark and bark and bark.
And then they eventually runout of gas and they go away.
And then you come back andyou start to upsell them.
That was my trick.
Cause I'd be like,I got that done.
So let's talk about the nextthing that we're going to do.
In fact, some of mycustomers would get on the
phone and the first thingthey'll say is, please
don't try and sell me first.
Because they know that's comingbecause they know that if
(24:37):
they're going to talk to me, ifthey want something from help
for, for, to help that I'm goingto be like, that's great, but
we're going to talk about whatwe're going to do next too.
And that's prevented, that'snot a lot of prevent events.
And so now they, again,they would get tucked to
the account managers, butto answer your question, I
think most agencies go throughthe pain points of dealing
with challenging customers.
(24:58):
And it's typically over money90 percent of the time, where
there is something that happenedthat they want to be paid.
Back for what they wantto credit or they want
whatever they want.
They want some sort ofthing and that's where, you
know, I, I turned a judgeand jury and you hopefully
don't go to legal with it.
But those are, those arethe real challenges, right?
(25:18):
With any, you know, wehad the right letters
and all that stuff.
Those are the thingsthat nobody wants to do.
And frankly, I try and avoidthose things as much as I can,
because I think the goal is justlike, it's not worth the money.
So I just basically, youknow, either write it
off, try to make a deal.
And get them out of my hair.
Cause those are the, thoseare the real stories.
Um, again, if you want togo through funny stories
(25:39):
about naked girls and allthe rest of the stuff, I can
tell you all those stuff.
I don't, to me, those arejust, you know, part of agency
life and being, you know,in, in where we are in space.
But I think the concept wouldbe for anybody who's out
there is listening to this,uh, is to protect yourself by
understanding the customer and.
If you want to take on a hardcustomer, cause you probably
(25:59):
have to, because you're maybeyou're, let's just call it.
You have to, because you'rejust, you need the money.
Um, can just consider whatyou're doing for your life.
If the customer wouldn't be likesomeone you'd hang out with.
Be wary.
Keaton (26:15):
It's really interesting.
Cause there was this oneorthodontist that, uh, was
just a nightmare client for us.
And I sold my agency and thenlike was coaching somebody very.
Quickly after that.
And this orthodontist wasfrom a specific country.
That's rare to be from.
(26:37):
And they were also innew England somewhere.
And I was like,the guy came to me.
He's like, Oh yeah,it's really cool.
Cause I'm from this country too.
And like, she'spretty close by me.
I knew he was in new England.
I knew where she was fromand I was like, don't do it.
I promise you don't do it.
And it's in thosesmall niches like that.
(26:58):
Um, yeah.
It's funny how many, likethe clients get around.
Like if they've worked withfive or 10 agencies, it's
a little bit of a red flag.
Um, and, but it's just, it'sfunny to be able to swap
stories and tell people like,no, definitely don't talk
to them because, uh, notgoing to work out for you.
Matt (27:17):
Sure.
I mean, there's categoriesof, uh, cultures that are
difficult and I've worked withthem all and had them all and
lost them all and sold themall and got them back again.
I mean.
It's really just sort ofdependent on the, it's
not even the culture.
It's just the person.
If the person is, is justbent, they're just bent.
(27:38):
And you know, I, the peoplehave good days and bad
days and, or bad monthsand good months and weeks,
especially in cash and carrybusinesses that we dealt with.
I mean, one bad week andit's all over and they just
fold up like a cheap suit.
So
Keaton (27:54):
that's really right.
Function.
Like I tell my clientshere, what you can
charge as a function oftheir take home income.
And your fee, like they'retaking home a hundred
thousand dollars a year andyou're going to charge them
three grand a month total.
That's like almost halfof their monthly income
(28:14):
that they're risking.
And that's going to, that'sgoing to be the, the level of
the screeching on the phone isgoing to match how much, uh,
of that monthly income is, isbeing risked on your services.
And if it goes great, great.
If it doesn't go great, then.
You know why they'rescreeching so loud.
Um, anyway, going back tostories, I'd love to hear,
(28:37):
well, first of all, I don'tactually know who you were
selling to and what the majorityof your revenue was in terms
of services and, and niches.
So let's do that.
And then I'd love to diveinto some case studies
that were, uh, cool.
And, and what youlearned from them.
Matt (28:51):
Yeah, sure.
Uh, when I firststarted the agency.
I did not do an itch.
I hired prisoners inMinnesota at a work release
facility to call localcompanies, 25 bucks an hour.
Best thing I ever did.
It was still with me.
Uh, and they would callevery single small business
(29:12):
and basically pawn theminto a meeting with me.
Uh, I don't know what they do.
Maybe they threatenthem over the phone.
Who knows?
But I got lots of meetings andI went out and saw every single
business you could think of.
I mean,
Keaton (29:23):
you didn't train these guys at all.
You literally hired prisonersand didn't train them and
said, just give me meetings.
Matt (29:29):
Didn't I said, but just tell them that you, that they
need marketing and that I'mcoming over three o'clock
on Wednesday, make it up.
I didn't know any better.
I could care less.
Cause I knew as soon as Igot in the door, I would
sell them something.
But that was pretty cool becausewhat I did was I went and saw
every single niche there was.
I mean, I saw like a tensilestrength company, like they,
(29:50):
they measured this, thestrength of the hair, you
know, and a paint manufacturingcompany, oil companies.
Doctors, dentists,um, everything.
Um, garage door companies,uh, manufacturing
companies and everything.
(30:10):
So I got an open door to lotsof niches, which is really cool
because I actually love that.
That reminded me oflike when I was a boy.
And the twenties of my age,and that's exactly what I did.
I just, you know, I was on thephone calling random companies,
going in and trying to sellthem telcom and wireless
stuff back in the day whenit was the nineties, early
(30:31):
nineties or mid nineties.
And I saw everybody, you know,and this is the same thing.
So I was able to see everybody.
And I actually justkind of like stuff.
I like going to see people andtalk about what they're up to.
And I kind of likebusiness and like anything.
So anyways, that didthat for a while.
And then, uh, at a certainpoint that was my, my company
customer boom, which was.
(30:52):
The basics of all,we did everything.
We just did general businessand this whole niche business.
I mean, I'm not going totalk about like picking
niches and stuff like that.
Cause I have, I have my, I'lltalk about it later maybe,
but, um, I think you shouldjust do stuff until you, until
you like something, right.
And so, yeah, I mean, so.
(31:12):
So we did, I did that forwhen the chase had joined
me and then we'd startedto grow a little bit more
and I started to do more.
Um, I'd say, you know,varied niches that I found
that were interesting.
So, you know, we started todo more, um, medical stuff
and, uh, I ended up doinglike some conferences, right?
(31:33):
So we, we, we said, well,you know what, let's
build a secondary brand.
We'll call it practice bloom andwe'll start this medical niche.
So I started to goto spine convention.
We had a lot of spine surgeons.
Uh, because they all talkedwith each other and I was
getting pulled into their,uh, to their business.
Keaton (31:48):
Um, and then we're mainly like websites
and SEO at this point or
Matt (31:52):
whatever, websites, SEO.
We were doing card stock.
We were doing, you know,like I even put the sign on
a building, like whateverthey wanted in marketing.
Really?
It didn't really matter to me.
If they needed it, we'd figureit out and do it and deliver it.
Not the most efficientthing, but again, back in
those days, it didn't reallymatter because we were just
trying to, you know, get to amillion bucks at that point.
(32:13):
So once we started practicebloom, that was the first
indication that we had,um, a, um, a sort of an
idea of doing medical.
Now, just in the middle ofthis, uh, as I said before,
we, we actually became a whitelabel company for a while or
just because we had resources.
So a lot of agencies knowme and they'd say, can
you guys do what you'redoing for that guy for me?
(32:34):
So we did a lot of whitelabel stuff for a while.
It lasted for, we had acompany called agency bloom
and that's actually why wewent to the, uh, Mexico and
started a little event causeeverybody was doing events.
And so we got, you know, ouragencies down there and we
had a party and that was fun.
Let me tell you, there's,there's some NS not safe for
(32:56):
work photos from that one.
Uh, but anyways, Um, Oh no, wehad a, we had a pool, a couple
of pools on our, in our house,in our, uh, on our front deck.
And, um, I actually playeda gig down there, which
was actually really cool.
Cause I brought my guitar playerdown with me and we, we, I
actually played at the wrongbar, which is really funny.
(33:19):
I went up.
And I thought the band wasthere that was gonna be
our backup band for that,for the gig the next night.
And I just started playing withthese guys and, and, you know,
everybody's like, No, you'renot playing here tomorrow night.
You're playing atthat other club.
I'm like, Oh, sorry, guys.
But you're good.
Keep on stage.
Keep doing it.
You're getting everybody going.
And Chase is like in this, hewas there and he's like looking
at the audience like, I didn'tknow you're actually good.
(33:40):
I'm like, yeah, it was, it wasactually the whole crowd started
because their band was, therewas kind of lame and I was like,
got everybody going anyway.
So I'm, I was trying to saythat, you know, so we moved,
eventually we stopped doingthe reselling of, of I think
the white label becauseit wasn't really our bag.
We liked it, but itwas, it was way, way,
way, way too much work.
(34:00):
Cause now you're threesteps removed from the
client, from the clientand became a big cluster.
Anyways.
So now we started practicing,started doing, um, all
these medical things.
Yeah.
And by about the time whenChase was leaving 2019, we had
really edged into cash and carrybusinesses, which were med spas,
uh, and chiropractors and weightloss centers and all this stuff.
(34:21):
And so we started to do this.
And by the time Chase had left,we kind of were leaning into
just that niche medical ingeneral and going into med spas.
and sort of, uh, as theyears went by 2020 to
2021 22, it became all medspas and weight loss and
cash and carry IV centers.
(34:41):
All this stuff that, you know,today I look back and I go,
you know, it was interesting.
I mean, I didn't, I wouldhave never thought when I
started that I would evencare about this stuff.
Uh, meaning that, youknow, how far does a
needle go in for Botox?
And I knew every singlething you could possibly
imagine in the med spaworld that, and every.
Um, and we still, again, Istill do a lot of consulting
(35:05):
now in that area, justbecause I've just so, I
don't know, I've had, I don'teven want to know how many
customers we've had is a lot.
And so to answer your question,I think as the, as the days
went through, you know, pickingthat going towards that medical
direction was interesting.
Although we still kept a lot ofthe same clients in the base.
(35:25):
So the base is about 30percent mixture of clients
and then 70 percent medical.
Keaton (35:31):
I see.
And tell us, like, what's oneof your coolest case studies
that you guys helped someonego from, like, struggling to
very successful or kind ofsuccessful to very successful?
Oh, there's
Matt (35:43):
so many.
I mean, literally, becausewe've been around for so long.
Um,I think the one that, I mean,
we're doing some really coolstuff now, which we can talk
about if you want, but I thinkwhat was, what was interesting
was, Looking at somebody'sstuff, like going to an original
location and the guy was sortof a difficult guy to go with.
(36:06):
He was a horrible drunk.
And, um, we really helped,um, take his business
from a one location unit.
And built it into,uh, six locations.
He sold equityinto the business.
He built an e commerce storeand he's filthy rich now.
That's all I can tell you.
(36:26):
Like after about one, uh,yes, MedSpot plus an e comm.
Uh, he, he basically builtan e comm store as well.
Cause he was able toget, uh, best pricing
from the manufacturers.
Of all the products thatsupported the industry
and resold it to allthese other people.
And he, he also built a train.
We also built atraining center for him.
(36:48):
I mean, it was just amazing.
Like we, we really, we reallystarted like this generation
of events that happenedfor, um, him to become, uh,
valuable, uh, to his, his world.
Keaton (37:01):
And, uh, what made the difference, like what
was the difference betweenhim being very successful and
some of your other clientsJust kind of maybe having.
More mediocre results
Matt (37:11):
when things came together and all this hit at once So you
had your SEO working you hadyour ads working in Facebook.
You had your ads working inGoogle We were doing a ton of
organic posting for him We'redoing Instagram strategies like
it all just hit all of a suddenand I watched him and in one
day I was having lunch with himthe guy who ran this med spot.
(37:31):
He's like I'm doing like400, 000 a month now.
I'm like, wow, likeyou started with us.
You weren't even over a hundred.
So we knew we quadrupledthis business, but we also
helped with so many things.
Um, you know, callcenter employees, like
hiring, helping him hire.
There was just so much involved.
And again, it wasn't just me.
(37:52):
It was the team, um,that, you know, was
helping him and multiplepeople were helping him.
But the reality was, is thatthis is just like, you know,
during the time, again, whenthere really wasn't high
level, we had to Jerry rigall this stuff together.
Right.
So we had active campaign,we had tech strategies and
we had all this, you know,it was, it was difficult.
(38:13):
So I mean, he was paying us arelatively decent amount per
month, but inevitably, you know,again, he sold and, you know,
I don't know who owns it now.
Again, I don't run that businessanymore, but, um, it was a
good example of, you know,Uh, really quickly getting
multiple channels working,firing on all cylinders and
(38:33):
really starting to skyrocket.
And it was funny because youtalk to his competitors and they
thought this guy was a monster.
They thought it was like, Oh,that's like a national brand.
Like, I'm like, Nope, it'sjust him and his wife and
you're just killing it.
You just, you just don'tknow what we're doing in the
background to make him kill it.
So.
So again, these are allthese history lessons that,
you know, how do you builda brand and, and now, you
know, sort of comes right backto what I'm doing now with,
(38:57):
you know, with helping othercompanies and stuff like that.
But anyways, savethat for later.
Keaton (39:00):
Yeah.
How do you charge forsomething like that?
Like you're like, we'lldo absolutely everything.
And it's this retainer or,yeah, like again, these
retainers are getting up
Matt (39:10):
near 6, 000 a month for working on all these things.
Or more depending onwhat we needed to do.
Again, you know, this is, thisis sort of how it happens.
Like if you're, you're,you're being a good person,
they don't want you to leave.
Uh, they want you to justkeep doing what you're doing
cause they're making hay.
(39:31):
So as long as you're doingthe right things and creating
a windfall for somebody, theytypically don't complain.
They may complain.
On things that you'dsay, like, what, what
are you talking about?
Are you looking at this?
And then they justdon't understand what's
happening sometimes too.
So,
Keaton (39:48):
so it's really interesting because I feel
like the beginner understandingof marketing is you just end
up back where you started.
Like the beginnerunderstanding of marketing
for me is like, they'reeverywhere, I see their brand.
Like they must be doing so good.
And then you start learningabout marketing, you know,
this like cost per clickand add relevancy scores
(40:11):
and all this other stuffthat doesn't matter at all.
And at the end of theday, you've just proven
that pretty much all thatmattered was being seen on
every platform constantly.
And all of a suddenyou create this.
Like, wow, there, youknow, this instant brand
recognition, this, like,they're definitely the best
(40:31):
in the business kind of thing.
And I don't know, I justthink there's too much in
the, the SMMA space, if youwill, there's too much of
this like scientific, Hey,you're going to give me.
2k retainer, and we're goingto spend a thousand on ads.
And I'm going to bring youthis much every single month.
(40:52):
And that's how it works.
Let's do it.
And in reality, it's like,if I'm a business owner and
a marketing agency pitchesme that today, I own a
local business, I'd be like.
I don't really think it'sgoing to be every month.
I need someone who's creative.
I need someone who's going to gothe extra mile to do something
(41:14):
that will help us stand out.
Not just use some templates.
What would you say to that?
Like the beginner agencyowner doesn't really
understand that concept.
How, where elsedid you see that?
And what's your take on, youknow, the businesses that
you're working with now?
What do you tell them to helpthem understand the long tail
of marketing, if you will?
Matt (41:35):
So this is a tale of two cities.
One city is a customer whocares and one is a tale of
a customer who doesn't care.
Depends on which one you get.
The customer who cares,absolutely what you
just said was spot on.
Creative, something different,unique, everything like that.
The customer who doesn't careand is not even paying attention
(41:56):
to what you're talking about,just likes what does it cost and
how much do I need to pay you?
Same thing with the band.
We can play a gig and we canhave a club owner who loves
us to death, is super excited.
We're coming and,you know, is so.
Excited that we playedand you guys are awesome.
We can't wait to see you guysagain And we can have a festival
(42:17):
owner who just hands us a checkand says whatever like i'll see
you next week I'll see you nextyear Again, it's the same thing.
It depends.
So you, you, you markand you work with these
customers differently, right?
So depending on what youwant to do, I mean, you,
sometimes you just have totell them like, yeah, it's
a thousand bucks a monthand you're going to pay me.
And that's it and move on.
And, and that depends.
So you're, if your customeris engaged with you, sure.
(42:39):
You want to go into thatstuff because that's what
they're going to want.
But if the customer justwants to get past the point
of just getting somethingdone, and by the way, none of
these, there's nothing goodor bad about either one, it's
just different ways to take.
So if the customer just wantsto get it done and they just
want to pay you, just letthem pay you and get it done.
And just don't make a bigdeal out of it and don't
try to oversell and overcustomize and over creative.
(43:00):
Maybe that's justwhat they want.
You know, sometimes givethe customer what they want.
It's the right answer.
Keaton (43:09):
Makes sense.
It's just, uh, it's the agencybusiness is fraught in many
ways in terms of scalabilityand you know, like the simpler
you keep it, you, you build it.
Once you sell it a milliontimes, like that's what every
agency owner wants to do and itcan do very well for businesses.
(43:31):
But.
I just, I think the life thatyou breathed into that business
is inspiring and, you know,giving people permission to
be like, Hey, you want tocolor outside the lines a
little bit on this client?
And like, Charge them moreand really get deep on it.
Maybe that's a business youwant to run five, 6, 000 a
month clients that are allvery invested in you having
(43:55):
creative ideas and excitedabout what you're doing.
Maybe that's more funfor you than a hundred
businesses that, right.
It
Matt (44:04):
could be an end.
Well, that's what I'm saying.
Like it can be.
And Like I have customerstoday that they don't care.
They never talk to me.
They don't want to talkto me They just want me
to do what i'm doing.
Just keep whateveryou're doing Just do that
and don't talk to me.
I don't want to know you.
I don't want to see you I'llpay your bill every month and
I have some of the customerswho are with me every day
saying What can we do tomorrow?
Right?
And so that's cool, too LikeI I like both I I have no
(44:26):
problem with putting people intoplaces where they fit Now, you
know, could we have a generalargument about scaling on this?
A hundred percent.
I didn't scale that practicebloom company on that model.
I scaled that practice bloommoney, um, model on one
product, one service, one,one network, one channel.
Look, Ralph Burns, Michiganmodel, which is Ralph's friend
(44:49):
of mine, childhood friend, asa matter of fact, we traded
bikes when we were kids.
That's how, you know,we're go back, but, but he,
it's the Michigan method.
One thing, one,one, one, one, one.
Just do that one product, oneservice, one thing, and just
sell that and leave that.
Give it to the sales guy.
Give it to the SCSR.
This is how it's sold.
Buy it or don't buy it.
Goodbye.
(45:09):
And we would put on 40 customersa month doing that stuff.
Sure.
You can do that, but isthat what you want to build?
And what I foundout was, Oh boy.
Does that come with itsown set of circumstances
that you might not want, or
Keaton (45:21):
you may want, I don't know.
Yeah.
Uh, so another question I havefor you, there's people that
I'm friends with, you know,periodically I'll check in,
uh, where we see each otherat a conference or something.
And it's kind of likewhere they were last year
is where they are now.
And there's no, they're kind of,they're still asking, they're
asking the same questions.
(45:42):
I had happened to mea couple of weeks ago.
Someone asked me aquestion, two months go by.
They shoot me the same question.
And I literally just scrolledup in our conversation.
I was like, this is the answer.
Just like reply to that.
Right.
Oh, sure.
Absolutely.
And clients like that.
Yeah.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
I just, I feel likeyou kind of have this,
(46:04):
this like duh energy.
If that makes sense.
So I ask you, I askedMatt coffee, like, how
do you get clients?
Well, duh, you just like hirethe prisoners, Pam, 24 an hour
and like walk into the business.
And I am, I've just hadso many conversations
with agency owners.
They're like, I just,I can't get meetings.
I can't do it.
I don't know whatI'm doing wrong.
(46:26):
I'm stuck at 5k a month.
I'm stuck at 2k amonth, whatever.
And I, it's, it's kind of like.
I think I've grown more cynicalover time where I'm just
like the people who crush ittend to crush it pretty fast.
And this may not be theright opportunity for you.
If you're going slower,I'm super happy for it.
(46:47):
Like I have a friend who, who,uh, I mentioned him in another
podcast recently, but he went,he just hit 10 K a month.
He's been at the agencyfor like four years.
He was doing some otherfreelance work at the time.
He's like, we can do apodcast and we'll call it
zero to 10 K in four years.
Perfect.
I love that.
And there's, there's thatthere's totally room for that.
I wish more people feltlike that was okay.
Matt (47:08):
Yep.
Keaton (47:08):
Um, but from when he started taking it seriously,
this friend, he was bookingmeetings, he was getting
huge PR opportunities.
It's in the UK.
He's become a household namein his niche, even without
a super massive agency.
And it's, it's all justthis intuition of like,
Oh yeah, if I need to getclients, I need to appear.
Like I know what I'm doing.
(47:28):
And so he got featured in amagazine and he's, you know,
produced some good content andkind of like push that out.
Um, what advice do you have forthat person who maybe doesn't,
it's not coming easily to them.
It's not, they, theyhear go hire the
prisoners at 25 an hour.
And they're justlike, Matt's crazy.
Like I would never doanything like that.
(47:48):
I don't have the money.
I don't know what to do.
I'm just frozen at my keyboard.
Well,
Matt (47:56):
there's two answers to this.
You want the PC answer oryou want the non PC answer?
Non PC, always.
Stop being a pussy, okay?
That's the answer.
And whoever is listeningto this now, shut up.
Like, you little complainingbaby, grow some balls and
do something with your life.
And go away.
(48:16):
I mean, come on.
It's too short.
We are too short of asentence of life here.
If you are just gonna sitthere and complain that you
can't get what you want, goand do that, but don't, Bye.
Like make a big deal out of it.
Like, just agree that youare, you are just uniquely
unqualified to do anything.
(48:36):
Like, if that's what your lifeis, then you really should
look towards maybe perhapslooking at a job, right?
Cause that's good.
Like we need peopleto work for us.
So that's what you, butif you want to be an
entrepreneur, so here's thenon PC answer, you're going
to have to skill yourself up.
You're going to have to takethe time to learn things.
(48:57):
That would actually take time.
You're going to have to notwatch YouTube for hours and
upon hours, you're actuallygoing to have to execute.
So the biggest challenges isthat people just, and again, I
get probably called out a lotabout this is that people don't
have any idea how much timeit takes to actually do this.
(49:19):
It's real work.
And it's difficult and it'shard and you have to stay up
and do stuff and neglect thingsthat you'd like to do and those
those times like the 12 hourdays that I spent getting up at
the morning and six o'clock inthe morning working on this and
Working all through the nighttill eight o'clock at night and
then skipping all of my friendsand not being able to Do the
(49:40):
things that I wanted to do andkept me in this molehole here
Forever are the reason why I wasable to put seven figures in the
bank because that's that's life.
So if you want to be complainingand you can't do the things
you can then go complain or nonpc Keep that conversation to
(50:01):
everybody's head or do the realthing which is to put the work
in and you know where to do it.
It's this thingcalled the internet.
You can figure it out.
You're not stupid.
You, you, you, most peoplewent to college in high
school You know, you didn'tcrawl from under a rock.
There are ways to do this.
There are people likeKeaton and other people
that will train you.
(50:23):
But my point, and I'll saythis the last, get someone
who's accountable for you.
If you need someone tokick your ass, come see me.
I will personally kick yourass and make you do the work.
I will make you feellike an idiot if you
can't get your work done.
And that's what I've doneto some of the coaching
clients that I've had.
I've actually got them to acertain point where I cornered
them and said, are you serious?
(50:44):
Are you being the personthat you don't want to be?
Are you being a person that isInequivocably just an an idiot.
Why do you want to do thisthen and sometimes people
need that realization?
Whether they're children whoneed to be spanked whether
they're adult teenagers Whoneed to be told they can't
do what they just did becauseit's dangerous for them Or
(51:05):
whether they're an entrepreneuragency want to be that wants
to get to a million dollarsBut somehow can't get off
the couch and turn the tv offAnd sometimes you just need
to have that realization.
So that's sort of like havingsomeone to help you with
fulfillment of being personallyresponsible, maybe what you
actually need, whether it'sme or somebody else who can
(51:27):
hold you accountable for youractions and have you show
up and maybe embarrass you alittle bit about how poorly
you've been able to basicallyget your time management done.
And these are very,very basic things.
I am nowhere near somesort of rocket scientist.
I barely made it out of college.
However, I have chutzpahand that makes me a little
(51:49):
bit different than mostof the players out there.
Meaning I have no problem goingand doing stuff because I like
to actually get involved and dostuff and get and be in front of
things and try and help people.
I mean, my mantra has alwaysbeen to live louder and
I've written songs about it.
I'm going to haveanother brand about this.
(52:09):
If you're willing to, to livelouder or my case of living
louder, your life will changelike dramatically, like
really dramatically, like I'veput myself into a position
where I can pay for my kids,colleges, houses, whatever.
I don't have to worry about,I mean, I'm not grandstanding,
but I don't have to worryabout the things that I used
(52:30):
to have to worry about becauseI changed my perception.
Keaton (52:36):
Um, that's a new tagline for you.
Mac coffee, I'll give youa swift kick in the ass.
Matt (52:42):
Oh, it's been
Keaton (52:42):
said
Matt (52:43):
before.
So believe me,
Keaton (52:44):
podcast anymore.
That's great.
And if I could just, justfor anyone listening, the,
I heard the summarize thisweek and I really like it.
The world only cares aboutwhat it can get from you
and boohooing about notbeing able to do exactly
(53:05):
what you want right away.
Is not going toget you very far.
There comes a time when businessbecomes a little more fun.
You can pick and choose,but at the beginning,
it's just all about whatpeople can get from you.
And if you're not getting sales,you're not getting meetings.
You're probably talkingabout things in terms of.
instead of what you canprovide for someone else.
(53:25):
Um, all right, man, let'sclose out with the sale.
Um, how did it come aboutand what are the numbers
that you're willing to share?
And what did you learn?
Matt (53:40):
You know, I've been approached, so let's go
back like 2022, right?
I, I started to thinkabout selling in 2022.
Um, because we were startingto get out of COVID, things
are starting to move forward.
I could see the niche would beinteresting for somebody who
might be in the medical niche.
And I said, well, we've gota bunch of these customers
and we're able to, you know,sales guys running numbers now.
(54:01):
And, um, I talked to a bunch ofbrokers and just like anybody
else, I did lots of homework.
In fact, I had a customer whowas a broker, which was great.
So I got the inside baseball andI understood how it all worked.
And.
You know, I did all thenecessary things and I won't
go through the Iterations ofgetting the numbers together and
all the things that you shouldbe doing if you're thinking
about selling But yeah I meanbooks have to be cleaned and
(54:23):
you know your numbers have tobe in line you have to have
all your figures and facts andyou know ability to present on
a dime with every number thatyou know that should be in your
Head that you should know offthe top of your head to be able
to present to anybody who justcome So that was all kind of
done in 2022 2022 And in 2023,I started to get offers, right?
(54:45):
So I started to get,uh, Lois and they ranged
between, I don't know, seven50 to 1.2 million, right?
And, and they wereall different.
They were really cool offers.
Some were five years, somewere three years, some
were you, you have 20%down, some were 70% down.
And I had conversationswith lots of other
(55:07):
larger agencies who wereinterested in purchasing
us or merging with us.
And, uh, we, we got a coupleof agencies really close.
So I had lots of like, I dateda lot, you know, I date, I
dated a lot of, of people and,um, as we got closer to the
turn of 2023 to 2024, uh, wewere getting pretty close,
(55:32):
I was getting pretty close.
With a potential merger, whichI thought was a really good
idea because we're very it wasa lot of synchronicity and it
would be an easy transferenceand I won't mention names
because I don't think it'sfair to say, uh, and my story
is unique and I probablyyou'll hear it and go, Oh,
that will never happen to me.
(55:52):
Well, you don'tknow, you never know.
Um, and to me, I was like,it just happened that way.
So I was, again, Ihad LOIs in the table.
I had a broker workingfor me, bringing me deals.
We were going throughit one by one.
Uh, and, um, during that latesummer of 2023, um, my second
(56:14):
command, uh, had purchased aproperty in, uh, New Mexico.
And, uh, she, she, 100 acres,you know, big, huge property.
And.
The Forest Service wentout, uh, to prevent forest
fires and burned all theproperty, uh, fire lines
between the properties.
(56:35):
Um, but it didn'twork out so well.
In fact, it burnedthe whole town down.
So, so her property wasburned to the crisp,
including animals and housesand whatever, everything.
Right.
So she got a settlement fromthe government and she came
to me and said, look, letme, let me work this out.
Let me buy the company.
And so we worked it out and Iwanted seven figures on the dot.
(56:55):
I said, I, I, I'm cool with it.
Let's just.
Call it seven figuresand call it done.
And we kind of worked it outwhere, you know, it, it kind
of equal to the same thingwhere I took a portion of
the customers and, and gota, got a sizable high six
or close, you know, sizablesix figure check, and then
the rest were customers thatwould make up the difference.
(57:17):
And, and we both wentaway unhappy, but happy.
In fact, I wasn't goingto do the deal because.
I felt it was too thin, butwe, we moved some of them,
some more customers to my way.
And, you know, I ended upwith a base of customers
around 30 grand a month.
And so that was, I'mlike, okay, cool.
Like that's another three.
So I'm fine.
Like I was like, look, itputs me into production.
(57:39):
I took a couple of myemployees and that's it.
It's not really thatmuch that there really
isn't a lot of the story.
It just was a lucky deal.
I got the lottery ticket tosell to my second command
because of the fact thather property got burnt down.
Yeah, I don't think thatwill happen to most people,
but I was going to sellanyways, it was, it wasn't
her, it would have beenvery, there was enough deals
on the table that somethingwas going to fall through.
(58:01):
Like it was getting close.
I was getting that 1.
2 over three years or, andI was like, okay, like we're
getting close and it was justa matter of like, what were
the terms of the deal wereand, you know, I think a really
cool thing was, and then thiswill hopefully help somebody.
I like the fact weclosed in 30 days.
That was it.
(58:21):
We said, let's do it.
30 days, we were done.
Lawyers, everything.
We mutually got alawyer together.
We agreed on all the terms.
There weren't, itwasn't perfect.
It wasn't, it took us 60days to unwind everything
and pay each other back forwhatever we forgot about.
But it was done in 30 daysand I think that really helped
both of us move on quickly.
(58:42):
And, and again, I lovemy second command.
She was awesome.
And, and I stilllove her to death.
She was just a great person.
And I, you know, Ireally enjoyed working.
I, I love my team.
I love the whole thing, but Icommitted that if I made the
ink 5, 000, I was going to selland I kind of wanted to do it
because I needed to move intomy next phase, which is what
(59:02):
I'm doing now, which I think Ireally enjoy a little bit more.
I don't have 30 peoplereporting or reporting to
managers that report to me.
And I enjoy, I enjoy it.
Things I'm doing, it'snot as lucrative right now
yet, but you know, giveme another six months.
This is, you know,beginning stages.
I said, we just cracked the,the egg open of this agency
and, or this business andit's starting to bloom and
(59:23):
you'll see me everywhere.
And you know, it's, it'll,it'll become relevant.
I'm speaking next weekat high levels event.
And that'll bring insome people that might be
interested in working with us.
So we've got some reallycool things, you know,
popping and I'm excited.
We're doing a lotof cool things.
We're doing stuff that isavant garde, you know, with AI.
And I know you'reinvolved in this as well.
(59:44):
And, and it's really cool whatyou can do today for customers
that, and, you know, whetheryou want to do small businesses,
large businesses, uh, SAS.
I mean, there's, there'sjust opportunity.
And again, you know, there's,there's, there's just a
matter of like cool customers.
That's it.
I just want to dealwith cool people.
(01:00:04):
That's it.
And if the customers are cool.
We'll get along like gravy.
And if they're not cool,I'll just be like, Oh man.
Like it's just not,it's not worth my time.
I'm I don't know.
I'd rather do something
Keaton (01:00:15):
very cool.
So if someone wants toreach out to you, they
just head over to coffee.
com.
Matt (01:00:21):
No, just go to, um, you can certainly
all my socials out there.
Just find me, you know, my,obviously my, my brand is profit
engines and go to the website.
You can look it up online.
You can look for me.
because obviously my band's moreprominent than than me because
it's gotten more interest thanmy little world over there.
(01:00:41):
But that's going to change.
I feel like within six monthsI'll have a pretty sizable
organization and brandthat's making a lot of noise.
But yeah, go to profit enginesor, you know, hit me up on
any of the social medias.
If you can't find me, um,Keaton, I'll give you a link.
If people are interestedin connecting, right.
It would like tohave a conversation.
Keaton (01:01:01):
Awesome, Matt.
Thanks so much for coming on.
Uh, very valuableperspectives here.
And, um, we already toldpeople where to find you.
So head over thereand, uh, you'll get a
swift kick in the ass
Matt (01:01:15):
only if you need it.
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