Monthly Expert - Run Your Agency - Easier, Faster, More Enjoyable and More Profitable with Lee Goff
VIDEO: 50:06 mins
AUTHOR: Robert Craven and Lee Goff
In this GYDA Talks, Robert talks to Lee Goff. Lee is an entrepreneur who grew up in Mississippi. He started his first agency, Getuwired, in 2003 in his upstairs bedroom with absolutely nothing and grew it into a multi-million-dollar agency. He retired from the agency in early 2014. Then in June of 2016, sold out the remaining shares to his long-time partners to pursue his passion of mentoring small businesses. Lee now focuses all of his energy on creating and implementing guaranteed ways to make starting, scaling, running, and potentially selling a successful agency easier, dramatically faster and more enjoyable... while still being very profitable.
Lee has developed a way of working that gives entrepreneurs the business and life they deserve. Work smarter by working less – give yourself the time to take care of yourself and your family - therefore, allowing a high quality of life.
Robert and Lee Discuss:
Been there and done it
Are there secrets of success
Is the niche the clever thing to do?
How do you say niche?
Will it ever return to normal?
If it does, what will it look like?
A third digital revolution
What will a fit agency look like?
How to fly by numbers?
How do you know if a business is healthy/fit?
What next for Lee?
What recommendations or pearls of wisdom: find a source of knowledge you can trust.
Transcription:
Robert Craven 00:11
I am absolutely delighted to have with me Lee Goff. He is one of those people who's been there, Johnny, drop got the t-shirt. Moving guy, moving character. Absolutely delighted to have him on the show. So is a big welcome to you, Lee. Hello, and how are you?
Lee Goff 00:29
Great. Thank you so much for having me on, Robert.
Robert Craven 00:31
A lot of the people here are actually from Europe. So tell us exactly where you're from, give us a geographical slot so we can understand exactly where you are.
Lee Goff 00:41
Okay, I'm located just north of Atlanta, Georgia, that's in the southeast part of the United States.
Robert Craven 00:55
Some people won't know who you are. I mean, most people will, because there's kind of a crew of us. help agencies. But for those who don't know you wouldn't be known for and what's the backstory.
Lee Goff 01:08
The thing I'm most known for is being the dad, my full name is Abby's daddy. Okay, so my daughter's Dad, that's my formal name. Now, built a sandwich, most would say that the world's largest Infusionsoft Certified Partner, agency. So we sold more apps and implemented more that CRM on the planet than any other agency out there, excited that business was successful in 2016. And then have dedicated my life to helping other agencies do what I did at Yankee wired, but hopefully, a lot easier. So I'm known for building a big agency selling it and now giving back to the community.
Robert Craven 01:56
Love it, love it. So let's just go straight in because there's a whole bunch of questions that you and I are asked all the time. And this is a bit of a privilege. We can actually pick your brain. And really get to understand your view and kind of what the gap is between what we're agency owners are and what they need to know, I guess, first most obvious question is, do you think there are secrets of success?
Lee Goff 02:31
I don't think they're much of a secret anymore. I think there are, you know, I think that there are wolves, in other words, there are things that successful people do. I'm not sure if they're a secret anymore, though. I think part of the problem is there's so much information out there telling you all these secrets to success that people get inundated with all this information, they're getting sporadic information, they'll read one book, take one idea, another book, another one. And I actually didn't do that, I would find one book and I would just you know, I would mean I would read that book over the course of like six months or nine months. Not that it took me that long to read it. But I was just cherry picking the three or four things I wanted to implement. You know, because guys like me and guys like Robert and other people who write these books, we don't write them for you to just say that you read it, it's on the shelf. It's like a trophy. I didn't anyway, I wrote it. So you can. I hope there's one line or one word or one chapter that can when you go implement it, it changes your life. That's why I wrote my book. And so I think you know, having a long term goal and just being relentless towards that goal, pulling back on shiny objects and squirrel scenarios and just remain focused with that purpose and always serving a higher purpose. There are definitely laws to success.
Robert Craven 03:52
So what does that mean? What is your when you come across? What's kind of advice you hear yourself? What are the kinds of lines you're finding you're trying to locate?
Lee Goff 04:21
The number one thing is you're trying to be everything to everyone. Okay. So you can't do it. I know you want to keep your target audience being and I really can't you rephrase it, you as an individual can serve anyone, but you better know going into it. It's going to become a kind of a hobby business or quality of life business because you're not going to scale that way. You're not going to bring in people off the side of the street and do that very efficiently. So make sure you focus your message and focus your target audience. Focus your ship and meaning pick a niche. A lot of people are terrified to pick a niche they think it's going to limit their opportunities or limit their appeal way to grow. And it's exactly the opposite of that. So it was a mistake I made. And if there is one thing that I can just recommend to everybody out there is pick a niche, hyper focus on that niche and then get a product line that solves the pain points of that niche. Everything else becomes easier if you need to, if you get those two things done in your life, it becomes easier, literally, in business terms overnight, if you get those in place. And I think Robbie and Robert, you've been doing this for a long time. And if you have a centralised, you know, underwater basket Weavers in California hypothetical or super focused niche, there might only be 200 of them, that's fine.
Robert Craven 05:52
To a pink January from Tony Ron, COVID around. And I have quoted kind of almost religiously, having quoted a niche.
Lee Goff 06:10
It's actually my book, I found that the difference is the European say niche we say niche. Yeah, there is the difference, they're the same thing. It's just how we pronounce it over here and how you pronounce it . So I've wondered about that.
Robert Craven 06:26
For people who've heard me recount the story of an agency that I knew, I mean, I've always liked you. So your focus needs to be an expert, you can't be all things to all people. Take a category, the category to the category, really hone down. So you're in that marketplace. We had a client who specialised in wedding venues. When COVID came within three days they lost nighttime. Yeah, there is so yes. Niche? Yes. I guess the thing is, just to have that awareness, no one could deny the candidates coming to know what's going to happen.
Lee Goff 07:21
There are certain, and I use this term all the time, in my coaching, there are certain acts of God, you know, and if you've ever had like a key man insurance, or any kind of, you know, insurance, I promise you and all of them, there's what's called an acapella clause. Well, that's what we're dealing with right now. This is the worst global pandemic in over 100 years, you know, it's our generations, for lack of better term, like our war to moment kind of, you know, we really need to step up and kind of just be there for our communities and our families and things like that. And it's been great to see us all do that. But I'm worried about people making long term business plans during a situation like this, understand the required to meet the requirement to diversify one of my students focused on the restaurant niche heddle 100%. And as you can imagine the same kind of situation, there's about nine and over overnine. Right. They didn't have the QR code to scan, they didn't have any of that stuff. They didn't know about how a QR code was. So he literally pivoted, and it saved his business and something magical happened. A couple of his potential referral partners that we've been attempting to negotiate with and just couldn't get a lot of traction in there, got wind of him doing this and they promoted him to very large restaurant and they owner list. And so now he's got this massive lists, not massive have probably gotten at this point, probably over 500 restaurant owners that have paid him for this course. And he's doing some consulting, he's getting through it, but he's buying units, he's restaurant owners that pay for this work. And so as soon as he turns all of the agency again, he's gonna have those people who love him, it's gonna help him grow. And so during desperate times require desperate actions. I do understand going out and having to maybe pick up work outside of your niche during a situation like this. But I would caution everyone to be careful that if you've built some good traction in a niche and understanding even if at this moment in time, it appears to be dead. Okay? In six months, it will not appear today. Okay. The temperatures gonna start rising, you know, in the northern hemisphere, but anyway, long story short in the snow started getting warm. We now have our third vaccine coming out and so do everything you have to do to survive now go out and pick up those jack of all trades if you have to. Okay, well, better yet to pivot and serve the same sort of audience. It's more digital like and something that they need now. Okay. But don't make long term planning your business model shifts as a result of an act of God because it's the ones that kill us and hopefully go away. Or better yet, we get a vaccine out there, and we will learn to live with things.
Robert Craven 10:18
Along with that example, some of you discovered all the clients, one client asked if they could help with podcasting, and they went, we didn't know how to do that. But we could do that. Now they're doing $25,000 package. Do podcasting is doing three or four a week? Businesses come back in and I think one of the things I'm really interested to know your viewpoint I worry about agencies, who say they're waiting to get back to business as usual. Lee, I mean, do you think that it will, you know, in the fall, next spring?
Lee Goff 11:05
I actually think it's not only gonna go back to normal, but it's going to it's and I wrote an article about this on Forbes magazine. So if you will, third digital gold rush. And I lay out my final why I think that's gonna happen. And it actually started to happen a little bit coming out of the summer, I'm, at least my students were like, crap, we're blown up, the people come out of the woodworks and they don't get cold numbers spiked up. So we're kind of starting to slow down again. But let me explain why I think that not only is it going to come back to normal now, when is the question meaning in certain parts of the world, you know, ice was gonna take a little longer you might even be in 2022, before Iceland effect, you know, it's cold up there. And so they stay inside, and the virus lives on cold surfaces for a lot longer. Now, I'm in the southeastern United States, it's gonna be very hot here in about two months, right? So we'll start getting into the 80s. And it'll be a safer situation and the vaccine. So here's where I'm going with this. All the others conservative and pragmatic business owner for the past 20 years that have been completely ignored digital, they were the ostrich scenarios literally stuck their head in the sand, you know, kind of, you know, rubbing their pills off, or whatever it is, they've refused to address it, they wouldn't they refuse like, I don't need Facebook, as we all know, is a huge percentage of the business community. It's that in the bell curve, thing is the pragmatic and conservative is the red meat is the lion's share, okay? Well, man, they got caught with their pants down. Big way on March 15 2020. They did not have any digital demand systems in place, they could not draw leads, you know, like they had been doing at trade shows or whatever, you know, whatever it might be in the past, they had to aggressively figure out digital. And so that's where they're at. And so they cannot get caught in that situation, again, as the leader of the organisation, and so they are heavily investing in digital. And then, of course, when you look at the amount of money that the government has been pumping into society, at least in the United States, there's been enough money pumped into society to accommodate for two quarters of our entire GDP, implying that the whole world was 100% shut down as if there was no money coming in. But that's not the case there was sticky 50-60-70% of the economy was open. So when you take that amount of money, literally four to $6 trillion, with a T. D trillion that was pumped into the United States economy, okay. And that happened in other parts of the world as well. And while there was still making money, they're flush with cash, I have so many business friends that they are so flush with cash. They know they got burned by COVID on the digital side of things, and they're not going to let it happen again. And so I feel very strongly that not only will it come back towards the end of the year, is going to start coming gangbusters and it's not going to slow down for a while.
Robert Craven 14:10
Wow. It's really interesting. Just before this call, I was talking to some people in Holland in the Netherlands, that relax the culture. I know we shouldn't talk a sweeping generalisation between dangerous but it's okay. Everything's okay. approach to the codes been like that and their approach to the future? Yeah, it's okay. The business kind of rocked a bit, but it's okay. In the UK it's like, Oh my God. What are we gonna do about it? And that real half real glass half empty stuff going on. My point is, the impact of mindset is so interesting. So if you think you're whether it's A soccer team, whatever it is, if you go into the field and think you're gonna get beaten, you're probably right. And I think the mindset of agency owners is really, absolutely fundamental. So just moving on the economy will come back. I agree with you, I think it will be, it's not gonna be the same economy, but it's going to come back.
Lee Goff 15:26
It's not gonna it's actually gonna be better because a lot of these digital services, a lot of these restaurants, for example, GrubHub was put on the map. Are you kidding me? Man, deliveries are making up 10-20-30% of restaurant revenue now that they're not going to stop doing that. It's not that we're gonna come back, we're gonna get back to going out and doing what we do. But we're not going to get rid of things that we like. For me, it's been so much more time with my family, and it's slow, everything slowed down. I love that. I love him, I was forced to slow down. So I'm like, and now that I'm slow down, I love it. I love it, the more time outside, it's just relaxing, you're slowing down. And so that kind of stuff is gonna stick around. I hope.
Robert Craven 16:05
So how do you think agencies will respond to that? Because just think about it. You know, like five years ago, Google was the only gig in town, what do you do? Now, if you just take that performance, now there's five platforms. More importantly, we've got a well educated customer base, and more importantly, that the customers of our customers are well informed. So it's a bit the world is very, very different now. So is it okay, if you're a pure PPC agency to say 2019 as a pure PPC agency, I'm still a pure PPC agency, are going to continue to your pure PPC agency. Is that a strategy that you think's cool?
Lee Goff 17:00
Well, you know, I think that probably depends on the context for the individual agency owner, I'll tell you, what I do. Advise and I have been advising is during conflict this year, right is very much a modality of mindset kind of thing, you know, the only thing I could even compare to the 2008, financial world global financial crisis, and obviously not a very compare comparison, that's nothing compared to what we're going through. But it shook the world up and we all had to become very, very creative. I lost my lead source overnight, okay, I did not have any leads, I had 11 employees. And I mean, I had to pivot in a matter of 30 days or less to get leads coming to survive. So I really do think it's more of a mentality glass half full or empty kind of thing. And so I advise all of my students to reload. Okay, so very rarely do we get any downtime, if you are experiencing downtime. And I will say the majority of the majority of my students are, you know, they're not, you know, at least here in the United States that they're, you know, they're rocking and rolling. We've had a couple of them that were hit with specific travel industry, restaurant industry. Golf club events, things like that. There have definitely been some of those things that have been hit. But other industries like home remodelers and electricians and all that they're all just blowing up, they can't put them out fast, can't put out websites and stuff fast enough. So I think it really kind of depends on your context. If you got hit really, really hard, then you need to pivot you need to figure something out. No doubt about it. Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater, to kind of keep the PPC thing there, keep it going and just have it on the back burner ready to turn back on as soon as the economy kind of starts hearing back up. But if that is happening, reload, this is what I did. I rebranded restructured my product line. I came out with a brand new product line. I literally restructured my entire coaching business because I had a few months where I wasn't. I was doing pro bono coaching for all my students to help them get through the code and help them get through COVID. And so it wasn't, you know, I wasn't working as many hours as I would normally. And so I just put all that time into rebranding and refocusing my message messaging to get more clarity basically in my messaging and so that's what I would advise anybody to do. But don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. It sounds like this. Find out a way to survive and your pro add to your product line. Keep what you got there because it's coming back. And then that way when we come out the other side of this thing now you get to you've reloaded you need to be diversified.
Robert Craven 19:47
I worry that agencies who are being very conservative and saying that I was in 2019, you have 25 staff and we had many clients and the average fee right with this, I worry on two reasons. And I'm worried one that they can't see outside, they can't do what the client really wants. What the client really wants more customers. They care whether it's PPC, or SEO or content or email marketing. I don't think they do. Also worry about the entrepreneur, not being an entrepreneur, entrepreneur doesn't just have one idea, or agency. It's back to that word mindset where they're looking for opportunity, looking for ways to be. And you quite rightly talked about a squirrel shiny object. I'm just wondering what about how to figure out the balance between the shiny objects and the real stuff? How does one figure out how many books to read and listen to how many gurus to listen to?
Lee Goff 21:31
Whew, good question. That's a tough one. That's such a unique journey for everybody. Right? So that's a good question. That's a tough one. You don't have easy wins. Alright, so I will say this, this goes against what a lot of what I call so called gurus and coaches out there telling you, I'm not a fan of reading a book a week, or you know, how a lot of people say 50 books a year, whatever kind of thing. Personally, I think that's ridiculous. And the reason I say that is because again, I did not write my book on the fact that you can say, oh, yeah, read bordered 30 books, and yours is one of the you know, I don't care. I don't know if that makes you feel smarter. I don't know what they do. I don't know what that's about. Okay. I would literally read one or two books a year. I know that sounds insane. But I would, when asked when I read that book, I'm not taking it to heart. I mean, I'm that message in there are those tactics and all that strategy, or whatever it was that I was doing, as a result of that book. You know, I mean, I really dissected it, and really kind of put in systems and processes to make my life better out of it. Right. So I would advise everyone to slow down on the knowledge. That sounds insane. Because right, at the same time, I tell you to hire a coach. Okay, so I'm telling you to slow down on the knowledge that Meanwhile, I'm telling you to hire a coach. So the act of learning to make yourself feel better, a lot of people get caught up in that reaching out to call back on them. Read less, gotta read, Goddess, I'm reading right now. And I was turned on to the gold. I can't believe I missed this is one of most popular one of them. I can't believe I've never listened to it. But I'm actually writing to listen to that right now. And I'm gonna go through that process and do that. So it's a well heeled part of the question, what was the other part?
Robert Craven 23:26
It's just about how to decide how much outside stimulation versus believing your own gut?
Lee Goff 23:34
Well, at first, your gut comes with experience, okay? A lot of people don't tell you this, okay? Your gut is an idiot when you first start, okay, I'm gonna tell you that right now you know what I'm talking about, like, you fine tune your instincts and your gut over time. And you do that by making some dumb ass decisions. And so, at first and phase one, hustle, go, go, go. But don't be afraid of failure. It's a matter of fact, eating is happy every time you fail. That's how you're sharpening the iron. That's how you're fine tuning your instincts in your gut. Eventually, you'll get to the point where your instincts are so good, though, like mine, you know, and yours. Okay. You know, I've been sharpening my instincts for a long time. My instincts are very, very, very good. So whenever you're just getting started, I would definitely trust more about the knowledge and reading and learning and things along those lines. It's going to help you sharpen and help kind of fine tune your instincts. But as you go through the natural maturation of building an agency as you grow, and you figure out what this isn't, what isn't different things for your agency, lean more into your instincts. And so it's one of those things and you're getting started trusting done before. Now that you're up and going, okay, trust your instincts a little bit more because you're gonna find that your instincts serve. Nobody will ever serve you better than your only instinct.
Robert Craven 24:53
Last time we chatted and we're talking about the fact that on a Friday night on your laptop, if you Google, I want to grow my agency kinds of choices of things. From free to ridiculous fees from all manner of people, so then we don't need to talk about them. But what I think I'd be curious to understand if it's not blowing your own trumpet, and I'd be interested to understand what is golf? What makes the golf different from the others, or what is League of approach working helping agents?
Lee Goff 25:42
Honestly, not take away from anybody else, but my passion for their success. And of course, I have a proven roadmap. And so a lot of coaches out there like you, you have a proven system, I have a proven system, a lot of the other coaches were just coming out, and they're kind of fly by night kind of individuals. And again, we're not going to name any names or anything, but if they make it sound really, really easy, they're lying. They're trying to get your game money, because guys like me, and Robert gonna tell you, it's hard. It is hard, anybody tells you that line, I don't know why anybody would ever eat their lawn, you should not want her because they're lying to you. So you know, at the end of the day, I am not here to service 1000s and 1000s of agencies to where a lot of people are, they have what's called a multiplier, okay, the ascension model on the multiplier, where they're doing groups, workshops, and things like that, I am gonna be doing that don't get me wrong, but it's actually more for the one on one connection. I love one-on -one coaching. I love it, I only do about 10 or 12 at a time, maybe detained depending on what else is happening in each coaching relationship. But I get about a 75% if not higher success rate, meaning that whatever the hell we set out to do, we got done. And then people, that's what makes me tick. I don't care to go big again, about 10 days ago, I got my T-shirt a level thing, and I care about being able to help the individual change their lives. You know, that's what really motivates me forward. So I am finding ways to impact more people's lives. multiplier, I'm going to do a lot more than just online workshops and group coaching things like that, I will be doing that going forward. But the reason I selected the path I did is because I wanted to really make a difference, I'd rather change people's lives, that I'm moving in a big, substantial way, then have enough people buy products knowing not as a DBA will never even opened the book or whatever it was. So my passion, I give a damn. Every single thing that I put out if I have not used it, or I don't know the owners, and then it doesn't go out there. So my integrity and my passion towards Mike the owner's success is unmatched. It might be tied by a couple of people you probably included. But for the most part, you know, I mean, out on my heels, my secrets and my passion and my integrity is what I would say separates me from a lot of recruiters.
Robert Craven 28:22
What's the when you're working with an agency? About strategy G agency is about processes and systems in the agency is marketing. Everything, what's your take?
Lee Goff 28:43
It's actually my roadmap. Okay, so it's called the agency success roadmap with an entire programme, and there's over 80 tools and 12 courses. Now these tools and courses are for the business systems, you're gonna to have them whether you want them or not, I'm telling you, you're gonna have to have them hired, you must have a hiring system in place. Gotta have it. Okay, whenever it comes to sales and marketing automation, so how to set up a pipeline how to set up automation gotta have it can't compete on the world today, unless you've got that this is too much of unfair competitive advantage for someone who does have product isation niching down these are business systems that you need to run your business is not going to teach you how to set up Facebook ads. It's not going to teach you how to sell Google PPC campaigns. That's not what it's intended to do. This is intended to give you the real world nuts and bolts and schools and proposal templates and scope documents and legal agreements okay, that you need to run the business side of an agency and that I would say is definitely a unique identifier George Lee and guys like you and there's a there's probably about four or five of us out there that really take a go above the line and do it and do it right okay. And we focus more on the business systems we don't really get into the tactical comp, you know, Like out on Facebook and things like that, at least in my programme, so it's all about, you know, a lot of times people will start an agency because they're good at WordPress, or they love design or whatever it is. So they have that creative skill set, but they never really got the business skills they have, like, you know, the actual accounting, you know, that side of things, right how to set up an LLC, and ink or bat or all these terms, you got to know what these are, because if not, they're gonna cost you a lot of money. You know, you don't get your back paid, you have a problem. That wasn't okay. And so it's just learning how the business systems and things like that it's actually as much as you've taught me, as you put into learning how to design or how to programme WordPress, or how to do Google or Facebook or whatever it is, feels that you did double that time in the business. And you'll see your success go through the roof.
Robert Craven 30:52
Kind of reversing yourself out of the business? Maybe you could just share that and getting on top of it so that you can run the business?
Lee Goff 31:05
Right, you know, so a lot of people hear about fly by wire, it's kind of a popular thing in the aeroplane. And now they got dropped by wire, you know, I think Tesla does that. So whenever you turn, it tells the left wheel to go that way, because there's not an actual physical mechanism that doesn't like, you know, the car. So anyway, I ran my numbers. And it took about two and a half years to untether me from everything. I mean, literally everything was tethered to me. And this is a common scenario, a very common scenario out there, we're moving so fast, we're just getting the job done. We don't think about the long lasting impact sometimes of what we're doing at the time. So now at that time accounting was there for the meat sales instead of the meat project where everything was handed to me. And so we begin the name of the project was we got hit by a bus, you know, what happened if we got hit by a bus, right? So if we got hit by a bus, how old would we be here? And when we initiated that project? The answer was like 30 to 60 days. All my employees, we've been unfolding within about that quick and I was like, I can't have that I can't have it. Now my family, my family members, right? So we went down the path and removed me from one system at a time, right? Whether it be accounting and so we just thought we missed that. And in the end I can't remember what's got a KPI book and some fusion of KPIs and under the power of him, and that's how I did it is we have what's called Real Time KPIs. And then we had what's called monthly reconciled KPIs. And so we made day to day decisions off of the real time, KPIs, we never made long term big decisions, until we got the reconcile KPIs because there was discrepancies in the day in the day to day in the real time, KPS. And so that's what I did, I came up with something and every Thursday between nine to 11, two hours a week, we would review, we will review the KPIs there any business cases they want to, you know, inform me of or sell me home or whatever it was, that's whenever my leadership team would, you know, keep me up to speed on everything would go through all KPIs, I'd have all the hard questions, and I do what I needed to do. And then I left and went back to my lake house. But it was great. It took two years to get there. And it was wonderful.
Robert Craven 33:30
To be clear, cuz that's absolutely fascinating. Really, really, that's all I have to say. So you do one function at a time and then what's going to take?
Lee Goff 33:55
Yeah, actually, very similar to what you just said. So the very first year, we decided to basically get my senior project manager at the time actually, at that time, she might have been director of operations with everyone the title was, but she was the one that I was gonna groom into being the CEO. So we started grooming her into that role. And so basically seven even or more responsibilities and just, you know try not to call him back. And so we went through and with her, you know, we rebuilt the accounting system. We restructured the whole legal structure of the company. So you know, I mean hiring attorneys and hiring CPAs and coming in it took a whole year, a whole year for us to restructure the legal side of restructuring the accounting side and the move me out. Of course, she was the go to person for everything. Project management and operations related. taking out the trash you know, the client happiness, all that fun stuff, you know, I mean, everything that's what she did in the next year. After that, we did the sales and marketing side. And at that time, he was my Vice President of Sales Marketing. We eventually moved him into, like a chief marketing officer, a Chief Marketing and Sales Officer. And then the third year was my technical person. I'm not technical. So there was not a whole lot that I needed to hear. So that just to go over not a whole big deal there. The first two were what forever because I was so tethered and all the whole business. But yeah, that's exactly it. So the first year we put together, you know, we did swaps and smart, so we had a leadership structure. So we know exactly what to focus our energies on. And that first year was all about getting me out of any kind of client work, project work, you know, getting me out of being client facing, and all that fun stuff. So all I dealt with were my leadership team, my attorneys, my CPAs, things like that, right. The next year was removing me from the sales side, because I was still having to deal with a lot of the sales and things like that. And so I got completely out of that. And then after that, we kind of record all the bows with all these KPIs around it, because I couldn't give them total control of our business in July. I could sleep comfortably at night and how do you use API's? I'm not sure what's going on.
Robert Craven 36:28
How'd you ever think if people come to you, and they say, how good is my business? What do you think of my business? What is it that you look at? What is it that you measure?
Lee Goff 36:46
Well, the first thing we measure is, you know, what they want to be when they grow up? Basically, it's the first thing I asked, you know, like you so some people want to get big. They want to be a $20 million agency. Some people like Nah, man, I want to be a half million or agency, but I want to keep half of it. I'll put you under $50,000 in my pocket. So it really kind of depends on you know, where they want to end up in 5,10,20 years. So that's the very first question I ask. Then, after that, I have what's called a health and wellness exam, about 140 pages. It's a combination of Jay Abraham's, mine and numerous of my mentors, different Where do you get your leads wrong? Do you have a referral process and so you know, all these different systems and things like that in place that you actually do something to give them a break. So I'll pick that grade, and then I'll read through all their answers. And then of course, I'll look up for stuff and of course, I interview them. And based upon whether they will quality light meaning they just want to work 40-50 hours but they want to make as much profit as possible. Or that hey, man, you know what, burn the boats 70 hours a week, I'm gonna 20 million I'm gonna be I'm gonna do the quick, the obviously the decisions in those two scenarios are complete, not limited. It's pretty dramatically different. It's almost completely different. It's not completely different. Some of them are that but for the most part are very different. So once we got those answers, and then once I've got the answers of what systems and everything they have in place, it's pretty easy with my experience. Here we go. Okay, look, you know, this is what we need to work on this, this this kind of thing. Now, as far as the valuation as far as a company looking at an agency and kind of seeing, you know, where do they stand on that 1,2,3,4,5 10x multiplier that everybody loves you and tells you is out there. Okay, so let me just go ahead and burst everybody's bubble. The multiplier is not a total gross revenue, it is a profit. Okay. A lot of the coaches out there mislead you, when they say, Oh, you haven't been outrageous? That is complete bullshit. Wow, that's a lot. Don't listen to them in evaluation. Okay, no, Google it, you'll see that I'm right. itself profit and have your accounting systems. So if you can't show on paper that you've paid taxes on $200,000 in profit, then you're not going to get that multiplier. It's not going to happen, I'm telling you it is not now there are things you can do. For example, what is called time to close. What that means is this is as soon as we come in contact with your brand, how long does it take for that lead to close? Okay, now, that sounds simple. Now, well, no, because what they're looking for is a sales system. It can be tailored to the owner, it's got to be somebody that they can pull off to the side of the road, plop into that seat with two weeks of coaching and or videos, showing them how to close these products and give that person two to three weeks or a month worth training. A cold lead and they can close that in. Insert whatever that is an hour or two You are free to FaceTime like they're on the phone do this or this, whatever that number is, is going to dictate if it's a pop, and it's a over a $5,000 product and that lead just came in, I promise you, it's not going to be Kleenex, it's gonna be like 20 or 30x. There'll be foaming at the mouth coming to buy your business. I'm not kidding, they will literally beat the door down. But that's not gonna happen. You're not gonna get a five minute time to close on a $5,000 product. It's not gonna happen. Okay, I'm just telling you right now, it's not I mean, you know, it could be it's gonna be a Tony Robbins, you've already spent $100 million building up your brand positioning. Okay, so trust me, there's, there's 20 years of history there that allows Tony Robbins to do that. You are not and I am not Tony Robbins. Okay. So now, that's one. Now the other is actually employee onboarding. That's a big deal. Okay, because the time that you can get an employee off the street, to the time that it takes them producing profit for your business, big deal people never invest in that he's bringing me in to sit down next to me and watch. Bad, bad as an investor, you're like, No, no, no, no. Because remember, you're the owner, you're the intellectual capital, when you leave. We're gonna teach them how to do it, nobody. So let me system there's got to be videos, you know, all this. This is what you're getting when you come on board. And you aren't, we have this, oh, my gosh, we spent an entire year kicking this thing off and then maintain it going forever, ever hundreds of videos showing you exactly how to do it the geek weird way, not how everybody in the world of the digital industry or the Digital Marketer way I don't give a damn what the Google article says, I don't care. You do it this way. This is how we do this, how we get results for our clients. Okay, Joe foo top funnel, you can drive 1000 hot leads a month into your business, even if you don't have a product to sell them, you can sell the hell out of your business, they'll bring up a product and sell Okay, I promise you they will. So if you can draw 1000 hot leads on selling a back scratcher, I can get you a lot of money for that business guarantee. It's all about the telephone. So it's probably as you know, having those three things in place, you know, I'm saying like where you can have time to close, I mean, the time that a lead comes into the door, because the time that you're taking money from employee training from the time that employee on the side of the street snaps in, and it can be producing profit. And can you drive qualified leads consistently, month after month, in your target audience that's top of the list, those three things will definitely be there. Your legal structure, your accounting structure are gonna be right there with them as well. There's other stuff that comes into play, your marketing database, your in house ability to outreach, so you got to pay all the advertising expenses. Okay, so that's why I'm big on referral partners. You can run up. You know, for example, you were on a podcast, and we pushed it out. I'm hoping to get 100 People can we also be vice versa? So just, you know, that kind of stuff. Right?
Robert Craven 43:07
That's amazing. So what are you, I mean, two questions. First one is what's up, what's next?
Lee Goff 43:20
I just launched my agency sales system workshop. Workshop a long time ago, I absolutely love it. So I'm gonna be rolling out workshops. Going forward, the agency sales system workshop is 100% Digital, so you can go get it. Now it's all digital delivery. One thing, I also have a live workshop that we're gonna be doing every couple of months, where they can come in and exactly with me personally, you get the digital version. And then we also get to come into the lab where I'm helping you put this stuff together and stuff in real time. And then if we haven't done your services, the same kind of situation is going to be coming down the pipe. So the next one is going to be all about a service framework. And it's going to be a workshop, like a two day workshop. I'm also gonna be doing masterminds. I'm so excited about this. I live on the lake, just north of Atlanta, and the 1996 Olympics were in Atlanta. And the part of lake I live on was the Olympic rowing course of all the collegiate rowers, right? And so they remodelled the, what's called the Olympic tower, it's like, right that way and so, so they now have, it's all glass, and I'm going to do what's called the ANC Olympic mastermind. I'm very excited about that. We're going to have about eight people at a time in their four or five agencies. The owner in one year typically, and we're gonna sit in this towers 50 or 60 feet up all glass overlooking the lake for two days doing that, so very excited about that message.
Robert Craven 45:02
The final question is What are your recommendations? What are your pearls of wisdom? What is your one liner?
Lee Goff 45:32
Trust yourself. When I started my agency I always second guess myself should I should I should. You know, and looking back on and a lot of times whenever I've made mistakes is whenever I listen to somebody else, right, that wasn't qualified. Let me rephrase if you get a guy like me or Robert, listen to us, we know what we're talking about. We're not making this shit up. Okay, the other thing I'm saying is, this is proven, okay. It's proven. So guys, like me and Robert, listen, but you hired us to listen to us, we have your best interests at heart. But if you're taking piecemeal little nuggets from all over the place, it's pretty much destined for failure. Okay, so where I'm going with that is this. Find a source of knowledge that you can trust that fits your personality type. I'm an aggressive personality type. So if you're not an aggressive personality type probably don't want to hire me. This is what it is. I cuss a lot. I'm very unpopular. If you get if I hold all my agencies accountable. They don't get it done. I'm right there. I'm like, you know, hey, we're gonna do this or not, we're gonna dance or not. You want to waste time, but don't waste my time. That's all I'm asking. Okay, so find somebody that fits your personality that's done what you want to do. And lean into them and stop listening to all of the white noise naysayers, just if you can tune that out and find one or two good sources, it is life changing. Literally, I'm not kidding. It is literally life changing. And obviously Robert and I would be honoured If you selected us to do and help with you. There are only about five or six of them that I would call reputable credible. Agency coaches. The fun and mentor found that good friend and are still serving the same. Well, I found that one coach mentor, that it really changed my life. And that's not you know, that's not an over or under a statement that is spot on. You know, they're actually I guess I shouldn't say one people case or a couple. Because there wasn't an agency coach time I wonder if you build your app, so you can have it? What are you one of them option? What do you mean, there was no such thing and they wouldn't even exist? So if my mentors were Jay Conrad Levinson for marketing, which is probably the most brilliant marketing advertising brain of our generation, super lucky on that one and then clay mask and his leadership team at a keyboard for yourself over there. And so that's the idea but found there's one or two sources, listen to him, do what they say and and make a big difference.
Robert Craven 48:22
What a great place to start fasting. It's been such a pleasure talking to you again, always energising and it brings me happiness and enthusiasm. Thank you so much.
Lee Goff 48:40
Thank you for having me.