Episode 2: Nick Grinberg – Award-winning digital marketing: “We had our website up in 24 hours and our first client 24 hours after that.”
Nick Grinberg drops some knowledge on the importance of branding and gives advice on low-cost high return marketing activities that worked for his business. Nick shares his journey of growing and scaling his business which was recently named Agency of the Year for 2023!
Welcome to The Leap: A Business Journeys Podcast. Hosted by Nathan Soti, our goal is a simple one – to help more businesses succeed!
The Leap is proudly supported by Ethos360 Recruitment and produced by The Content Engine.
Our guest today is Nick Grinberg, Co-Founder and Head of Strategy at Next&Co. Next&Co. are Australia’s top independent digital marketing and media agencies in Australia. It’s amazing chat with Nick, we dove into his personal journey, and he gave us heaps of great insights into what you can do to improve your business.
00:29
Welcome to The Leap: A Business Journeys Podcast where we dive deep into the journey of business owners to learn from their successes and failures. Our goal? It’s a simple one: to help more businesses succeed.
00:48
Nathan: Mate, welcome.
Nick: Thank you for having me.
Nathan: My pleasure, man. I’ve been looking forward to to having you on. Probably. Yeah. I’ve always looked at you as a, I guess, a source of inspiration. I’ve always leant on you for advice, man, so I was keen.
01:15
Nathan: Well, I, I guess today, I think the value that you’d be able to bring is obviously you’ve been on an incredible journey. You are in one of the most successful independent digital marketing and media agencies in Australia. That’s massive.
Nick: Thank you.
Nathan: I didn’t give you the award. So don’t thank me. Given the award for it, I think you know, I’m really keen to unpack the journey, understand the growth of the business, how you got into the space. But also, I think there’s a massive opportunity, like I’ve always leveraged off you for advice, and there’s been little things that you’ve given me that have really transformed my business. So you know, we’ll dive in and, you know, give people some some bits of advice that will hopefully, you know, help them in their business journey. So, mate, tell us about what is Next&Co? Who is Next&Co.? Who are you?
Nick: Awesome.
02:15
Um, so yeah, Next&Co., we are a digital marketing and media agency. We started off in 2010. And back then we had a different name, we’re called Google Maps Gurus. And all we did was Google Maps optimization, we got businesses ranked on the inside the old section of Google Maps for local searches. And fast forward 14 years, we’ve become, you know, full-service independent agency, very focused on performance focused on data marketing, attribution, and, you know, fortunate enough to work with some really, really great brands, kind of medium, medium to enterprise level brands. Work with some very, very smart people and get to do some really, really cool stuff.
03:01
Nathan: Awesome. Can you name drop, like who you sort of work with?
03:05
Nick: Oh, look, over the years, we’ve worked with brands ranging from Harley Davidson, Vanguard, the National Basketball League, Nestle, Caterpillar. Yeah, there’s so many more. And yeah, it’s it’s, been arrived just as well, like, we our roots were small business, right, like, you know, just local businesses like plumbers and sparkies and accountants. And, you know, we learned our trade with more the small stuff before you’re taking on larger, larger brands.
03:39
Nathan: Awesome and you were recent… What was the award you guys recently won?
03:43
Nick: AdNews Agency Of The Year
03:45
Nathan: That’s incredible, that’s like the the pinnacle is the best award, you can win in the industry, right?
03:49
Nick: Yeah. For in Australia, I’d say. So it was it was on my bucket list. Like before I moved on from advertising. I really wanted to win that award. And we were always bridesmaids. We always made finalists, but we got the nod this year, and I was yet not gonna lie. I was super stoked. It’s, yeah, it’s, it’s the team’s done a really, really good job.
04:07
Nathan: Amazing, mate, appreciate that. So, I mean, I’ve had the pleasure of understanding and seeing, you know, the last sort of five years of the journey. Take us back to, I guess where it all started. In terms of like, your entrepreneurial journey, right? Because I always find that you know, people like you and I and people in business, you know, they often start from a young age with little whether it’s a side hustle little online businesses, little ventures that, you know, they’ve they’ve attempted, you had some of those in your earlier days as well.
04:48
Nick: So it all started when my mother Ludemila met my father Eugene. No, but all jokes aside, it really did start with probably my parents. Um, For Alicia Maga, like a why perspective, right, like, you know, kind of being immigrants from the Ukraine, you know, kind of cliche sort of, come here, you don’t have much you kind of like, look at other kids in, you know, in your school that have the brand new Batman toy or have the Nintendo which you couldn’t afford? And you’re kind of, uh, well look, you start naturally asking questions like, like, how can I how, how can I get that? Like, what do I have to do? And, you know, my folks like always just like raised me to, like, just be super super like gung ho about stuff like that I could just, they probably falsely like a sense of overconfidence, almost right?
05:43
Nathan: Under the focus was do well in school
05:45
Nick: Just do well and like, unlike a lot of Australian culture, which is like, like, oh, it’s, it’s all about participation, and everyone was now my parents like f*****g when, like, my mom would like, literally call up my dad, I think was like in year two. And she’d asked my teachers like, “Where was my son ranked in mathematics?” Like, they didn’t have ranks. I didn’t even think they gave like A’s, B’s or C’s back then. But like, my mom just wanted to know. So like, in a sense, that was the bedrock I think of like, some of at least what made myself and my business partner successful is like, we didn’t f*** around, like, we knew we needed to perform. And I knew the difference between performing and non performing. So I guess when I, when I finished school, I went into nutrition and dietetics, which was just a bit of a random choice for me, but I ended up f*****g hating that, like, absolutely just wasn’t right for me, like, hospitals just suck like, you should, that’s where a dietitian mainly operates. And I remember taking a year off, and
Nathan: How did that go down?
Nick: With my parents not too well? And I was like, you know, aside from like, partying and smoking a lot of w***, I, we did my best to try start a few businesses. And digital was just the thing that was popping out at the time. And like, I tried to do like an online auction site. And I’d had this like, online shoe store, and did affiliate marketing for a while, which is like, what you promote other people’s products for a commission. And, you know, just through that I built out this, like, fundamental digital knowledge. And this is like, circa 2007, where, you know, there was no real digital marketers, there was like, digital marketing really wasn’t a thing. And then, you know, I did go back, I did finish my degree, just because I like to finish it. You I was never going to work a day in the industry of dietetics. Went to work at an
ad agency where I met my current business partner, and I kind of got into the more business development side of things, right. So, you know, I started work at the start of the GFC, circa 2000, yet f****** great timing. And I had no base salary. It was comms only, it was, in hindsight, one of the biggest gifts from a developmental kind of perspective, because you just had to hunt for your for your dinner if you didn’t, it’s..
08:30
Nathan: Isn’t it funny that we’re essentially comms only now?
08:33
Nick: Yes, it is. Yeah, you’re right. It’s like a It’s a very entrepreneurial job to have, right, like, so I guess, work that role for two years. And I met my business partner there. And he was, you know, loosely when we started the business at the time, he was the fulfilment side. And I was the let’s go out and get business side. And, you know, because I’d practised that for two years, I was okay to like, pick up a phone and cold call, I was okay to do some email outreach, like,
09:07
Nathan: Because they wouldn’t have really given you anything, right. Like everything that you brought into, they didn’t give you leads or anything like that?
09:13
Nick: No, I mean, that there was like, they were like, a decent agency at the time, they had a rep, they had some clients, but like, I didn’t give a shit about their existing clients. I was out there, you know, using their rap and case studies and stuff, but, you know, still canvassing off my own back, right, like, making those calls making those emails during the networking thing, like, you know, so yeah, I think that was was probably a big advantage. Right? So had a two year proving ground where, you know, I could just practice and that was really good because I like wasn’t you know, one of probably those fundamental questions that any small business owner or startup has is like, Well, how do I get the business and I I think even before we started, I was like pretty confident that even if you switched their brand to mine, that I was like, oh, cool, I’ve done this. Like, it’s there’s, there’s not going to be that materially different. So that was really cool.
10:13
Nathan: Yeah. And I guess what’s interesting there is as well, like, you weren’t really leaving. I mean, always, the biggest challenge is, when you go out on your own, you’re usually leaving the safety and security for base salary. Right? You didn’t have that?
10:29
Nick: No. Yeah. I mean, in reality, I like, I knew I was comfortable in other senses, like, you know, I had support from that. I knew that, like, if I sold a project, you know, it would get done, right. I knew that, you know, if I, if, like, you know, I needed to bounce something off of someone, I’d have people in the team I could speak to, but ya know, insofar as my own personal income, like, it was literally the definition of literally only as good as your last quarter. And yeah, so it just, it just didn’t feel like a big jump, you know, maybe for my business partner did because he had a bass lucky son of a b****. He, at the time, he couldn’t sell the s***.
11:13
Nathan: How did you how did you sell those services during COVID. Like, I mean, not during COVID During the GFC, like I’ve been through COVID. That was difficult, right? Like, no one was hiring or using our services during that, during that period. So I’m guessing GFC was was very similar.
11:35
Nick: It was. So I sold a lot of it like SEO, or search engine optimization, getting websites on the front page of Google. And I did make some cold calls, but I’m going to be 100%, Honest, honest, I was really lazy. So I didn’t really like making cold calls. So what I did was, I got one of the guys, so this agency was like a real tech focused agency. And I got them to scrape me the entire database of the Yellow Pages. So and what I would do is, I would send out emails to the data to the to basically to all these businesses, and how, you know, the emails would be titled something like searching for hairdressers searching for plumber searching for X, like, you’re dynamically insert the category that their business was in, and I’d write these like emails that would seemingly be personalised and they’d be like, “Hi, there, you know, searching for a hairdresser in insert suburb, on the front page of Google couldn’t find your business.” You know, I know your listing yellow, so no yellow pages. So I know you like you care about local advertising. Let me know if you want to have a chat about getting you ranked on the front page of Google, incredibly effective, like that was so fucking incredibly effective.
12:50
Nathan: I mean, that’s smarter than just cold calling, right? Mm hmm. So it sounds like you just build an inbound strategy. Yeah.
12:57
Nick: And like, literally, I would just, whenever I’d need more leads, I’ll just press a button. And within the next week, there’d be like, an extra, like, 40-50 conversations for me to have.
Nathan: Wow.
Nick: And that was cool. Because, like, I think, you know, we were talking about it earlier. We’re now at the point where every, everyone is just being inundated with spam email, it will get you on the front page of Google will do this agencies, agencies agencies, it wasn’t like that at the time. You know, this was a relatively you know, kind of blue you know, blue ocean for me,
13:30
Nathan: That blows my mind 90% of those emails, I get personalised landing my junk mail and a sent to my generic like hello@ethos360.com.au email address and I’m like, How in God’s name would I trust you? When you can’t even like get the fundamentals right of personalising the email and getting into land in my inbox?
13:53
Nick: It sticks out like mass. Yeah, like mass blitzkrieg approach. Like it’s just shocking. Like, it clearly works if you’re like, I know you’re running those like what Prince of Nigeria scams, like you know, you just need some stupid country that’s a scam.
Nathan: You mean that’s a scam?!
Nick: What?! I’m not gonna meet him? I’m an idiot! King Abubakkar
14:18
Nick: Yes, I’ve always I’ve always hated that volume approach. Like, It’s funny, I still do outreach to this day. Like, for example, we’ve, um, we’ve recently expanded into the US or along the West Coast, because actually, our timeline, like our timezone and their timezone somewhat overlap and, you know, you know, we can really easily service like California and whatnot. And we’re still doing a lot of like, email and LinkedIn outreach, and even some cold calls and stuff, but it’s just more personalised, it’s more researched more, what I would consider like Account Based Marketing rather than just like than a one-size-fits-all type message, which a lot of agencies are still doing now.
15:04
Nathan: Let’s pull up there and talk about it because you introduced this concept to me, right. And it brings us easily a client a month, if at least a conversation a week, a client a month where, you know, we have really specific emails that go out to a demographic that we’re targeting, that we have an expertise in, that we, you know, can potentially add value. And didn’t know about it wasn’t doing it before. And so many people, small business owners, they’re not doing it. So can you can you sort of elaborate on what it is how it works? I guess the strategy and I mean, that that sort of that approach using LinkedIn, and shows as well.
16:00
Nick: For context, I guess, to me, email marketing is probably the cheapest form of B2B marketing, you know, not not relevant for B2C because, you know, just very hard unless you’ve got warm lists and have your own customers. Very, very hard to do B2C email marketing, but for B2B, it absolutely works. So I’m a big advocate of cold email marketing, so using it as a tool of outreach. Look, you know, it’s, it’s something that you can we use, you know, LinkedIn, LinkedIn Sales Navigator, to really create segmented lists, like with us, for example, we do a lot of outreach to Heads of Digital, Heads of Customer Acquisition and Chief Marketing Officers. And so we’re building out these bespoke lists we work with, you know, a few partners that help us datamine emails and get the details of those people.
I forget that I’ve pretty much shown you my entire playbook.
17:10
Nathan: Thank you. Do you guys use Dripify to automate the like, or a tool to automate
Nick: We use Lemlist
Nathan: For the LinkedIn outreach, do you use any sort of
Nick: To be honest with you? Like, I don’t do a whole lot of the LinkedIn stuff myself
No, so, look, LinkedIn can be done, but I find emails more scalable.
Nathan:Yeah.
Nick: You know, like, especially like, you know, because if you want to do international growth, like LinkedIn, or LinkedIn, just like, I don’t know, whether it’s like connection requests or emails, there’s always the limits, and you have to pay more. And I think best in class strategy would have email, LinkedIn and cold calls. I think if we’re talking just about, like, what’s next, something that a small business can just do tomorrow? I think email is probably just an easy focus and easy starting point. So yeah, working with a Data Miner, you know, you can get these people’s emails, and then, you know, using a platform like, like a Lemlist, and there’s, there’s a few out there, you know, land in these people’s inboxes. And just, I guess the other thing is, is it’s all about saying compelling s***, right? Like, I don’t think it’s hard to get your email read by a ASX-listed CMO. Right? It’s more about what is in that email? What are you saying? What’s the value proposition? And how well researched? Is it right relative to who they are?
18:48
Nathan: Do you think a dick pic would work?
18:51
Nick: I would say that it would, I would say unfortunately, dick pics wouldn’t even make it because AI spam filters would just
18:59
Nathan: Say there’s so many things you need to know. And that’s why like, no, but I mean, like, you know, you don’t know until I mean, you know, I’ve been lucky enough to leverage off your knowledge and, and know that you can’t send links, you can’t include certain things in there.
19:18
Nick: Joan heard a wild one that a friend of mine who’s in cybersecurity says if you like AI these days will detect like super salesy language like language, just words being like off this is like a limited time offer or, you know, you use the word free too much will actually detect language patterns, and combine it with other things like, oh, it’s an unknown email with some really weird language in their spam, or like, yeah, so you’ve that’s why I always like I always like, I always imagine when I’m writing these emails, I imagine I’m writing to a friend. I like short and brevity is everything. Just keep it short. Like, you don’t want to go through your stuff that you’re like, Oh, we’re going to see all this stuff and I’m Like, you’re not trying to sell your entire business, you’re trying to sell a conversation, get on the phone with me. And I think like, one other thing that I just highlight is, is add value, right? Like, if you’re a digital agency, like, there is so much noise out there, like so much noise, it’s just not good enough to be like, “Oh, hey, we can do SEO or, you know, we can do even an audit on your site” or whatever it’s, you’ve got to think about what does insane value look like? Like, you know, I’m a big believer in the attitude of givers gain. And what we’re always doing is we’re trying to find that, like, what’s that thing that we can give them to start a relationship with us a non commercial relationship, but a relationship? Nonetheless, that’ll get their attention? Right. And that’s been our game since day one. It’s like, what? What’s that kind of like, groundbreaking offer or that groundbreaking in? That’s the way we’ve always thought.
21:00
Nathan: I feel like that philosophy for you stems beyond work, or that philosophy exists in your work because of your personal philosophy.
21:09
Nick: Yeah, absolutely. I just think, I just think it is good to help people, right? Like, why, why else are we on this earth, if not for, like, just helping each other. It’s, it’s, it’s so I heard this, like, theory a while back that, like, I was talking about, like social experiences, and you can have a social experience. And if you haven’t moved more people, you’re not you have that social experience, but then you have you enjoy the social experience more with more people, because it’s sort of, at all this. Now thinking about it, it depends on what kind of social experience but like, there’s a degree of like, like social badge values, like if three people witnessed something, it’s like, you get to exchange the stories of that thing. And, generally, you know, enjoy that thing together. And I just find that helping people, especially if you’re, if you’ve got something in excess, you know, share it, you know, build your table bigger, bring people into your world. And I, for me, like when I think about, like, even doing stuff like this, like I love getting the opportunity to speak about this stuff. Because when a it’s great for my ego, but like, like, it’s just like, you know, nice to know that people can benefit and they care about this potential lifetime of knowledge, you’ve built up.
22:27
Nathan: And that’s the idea behind the podcast, right? Like, I’m super fortunate that I have clients and friends that have been on these journeys, and I get to pick their brain and learn all these thoughts, that sort of things that have helped me and enable my business to grow. And, you know, people aren’t as fortunate they’re isolated, they’re, you know, surrounded by parents that are like, Absolutely not lucky, not, you know, going into business surrounded by friends that, you know, you know, they’re in that it’s that mindset of like, “No, you just you get a job and, and that’s it, you know, so hopefully,..”
23:12
Nick: That influences you, doesn’t it? Like any influence you because you end up like, you know, your attitude to anything is like the average of the people around you. And if you know you don’t have anyone that is like, “hey, like, you can do this, here’s how, you know, yeah, it’s a bit scary, but go for it. Like, what’s the worst that can happen?” Like hear language. If you don’t hear language like that every day and influences like that every day? You don’t go for it.
23:35
Nathan: Yeah. 100% I think the big the big nugget of, I guess wisdom here, you know, for businesses that are in the B2B space, if you are sitting there calling mainline numbers. And if you are sitting there crafting, you know, an email and trying to find that person’s details, and it takes you 15 minutes to do so it’s probably not an effective use of your time. Right. There are tools, there are platforms that you can use to automate that outreach. But the key thing is to make it super personalised and add value.
24:13
Nick: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Like I’ve always been, there was a book that I read a while back. It’s called ‘Blue Ocean Strategy’, and if you’re familiar with it, but it’s like this concept of like, do something new, right, like, blue ocean, like I’m saying that there are single red oceans are like, where companies compete on known factors, like price or speed or, you know, service, right? These are all known factors. Blue Ocean is when someone comes along and is in a blue ocean by themselves where they’re doing something completely different. So like, you know, like a Cirque du Soleil were the first circus to not use animals. Right. And that was a blue ocean or, like an Uber obviously, was the first rideshare company, Blue Ocean. So, you know, I always think, How can I create maybe like mini blue oceans in terms of like an offering? You know?
25:09
Nathan: But you sort of did that, right, you created a mini blue ocean with Prometheus. Right? You were essentially and and it’s it’s a good question to, to understand, you’re not going to create, but that you’re not, but it’s very difficult to create something that hasn’t been done before. Right. But it’s about being able to do something slightly different.
25:33
Nick: Yeah, I think to to it, it’s like, it’s, you could view it as maybe going one step further than your competitors are willing to go. Right. Like..
25:46
Nathan: So where did you take it tell us that that story?
Nick: Um, well, I mean, it is a few over the years, I think, you know, like when we first started, you know, in that original SEO, and I would never do this now. But like back then, we were the first agency say, “Hey, don’t pay us until we get you on the front page of Google.” That in itself was a blue ocean strategy. It is the Cowboys ship now. And we abandoned that once we saw like, we got copied really quickly. And there was a lot of like, bad operators that took advantage of an offer like that to lock people into contracts. And it ended up being being twisted into this pretty bad thing. But at the time, it got us into BoW. Right. It was like we will like just off the back of that, right. Like we started running ads, we started getting a lot of inquiries. And it was like it was wildly effective. More recently, as you said, like working towards a more enterprise audience. We built out Prometheus. So Prometheus is a bit of proprietary ad tech that can essentially tell you how effective your digital media is and how much wastage there is in your media. So, you know, it’s really great for CMOs and, you know, heads of digital to, you know, audit their existing performance in their agencies. And it’s a really great business development tool for us. And we use it internally for our own. You know,
27:12
Nathan: So you’ll look at it and go, “Okay, you guys ran. Call it 100k worth of ads last month, and you were basically putting money and spending money on the wrong shit.”
27:24
Nick: Yeah, so we’ll say out of the 100k, 30k which is about on average, 30%, is wastage. You know, he has wastage that went to like, click fraud, you know, because of bots and shit clicking your ad, he has wastage that went to the wrong audiences. He has wastage that happened because you get bored clicks after midnight, and people were drunk. It’s like, there’s all forms of wastage, whether the thing the click the audience, you bought the impression you bought, just didn’t contribute to the end conversion, or the end engagement or the end thing. And you know, that money can be redistributed to a better usage. There’ll be other parts of, you know, the, the campaign that permeate another part of Prometheus can identify, oh, here’s an area of your campaign that if you pumped in another 10/15/20% budget, there’s scale there. So which is really cool.
28:18
Nathan: So is it like for you when we talk the blue ocean theory? Right? You’re not gonna credit as my own theory now. You know, Prometheus, in as a concept. I mean, no one probably added a title to it. Before that, I mean, that’s essentially what an agency would do. A lot of the time they’ll audit it, but you’ve basically sort of created into something that you can sort of sell and add value with.
Nick: Correct?
Nathan: Yeah.
28:51
Nick: Like, you know, I guess, a while ago, you know, I realised and got advice from some very, very smart people that, you know, agencies are pretty commoditized. You know, there’s a lot of agencies for a lot of smart people doing a lot of good work, you know, and, you know, we really thought about, well, you know, what can what can help us get ahead, right? What, what, really, how do we give ourselves something to materially stand on both through a branding perspective, but also from an operational perspective, that makes us different, because Prometheus has some, you know, big implications. You know, our media managers, the day of an average media manager at Next&Co. wouldn’t be the same as a media manager at another agency because that they have access to this tool, right? So, we really set out to build that tech because it was aligned with our purpose, right? Like, we have this whole agency’s purpose is to be measurably better, which is, you know, in other words, it’s about making sure all the work we do is commercially accountable, right? And this really helped us, we were doing a lot of it manually, we codified it, yeah and made some software out of it.
30:10
Nathan: Crazy. I think that’s yeah, that’s invaluable, being able to sort of, you know, bring something new into, you know, an existing, an existing market. And sometimes it’s just I think talking, like one, like, I’ve noticed in the recruitment space, right, like, people like “Oh, we put up ads ourselves.” And it’s also about educating people sometimes as to, you know, this is what we actually do, like, let me show you, we don’t just put up ads and sift through the applicants. Like we wouldn’t exist. If that was the case like this is these are the systems we use as the automation, we use this. So we reach out to like, we’re trying to find the best person, not just the best person that applied for a job ad.
30:53
Nick: I think we’ve had this conversation, but I think I know you do your finance and sales roles, but you’d really need to get into the agency and marketing space. I think that’s an area
Nick: Yeah, it’s an area where finding the right fit is so important.
31:11
Nathan: I think it’s the I think it goes with every every job every industry, though.
31:18
Nick: Yes, I think some industries have more accepted norms, right, like law firms, right. I’m generalising but you kind of know, if you’re going to go work at like, free hills or you’re going to work at like a Deloitte, you kind of know what you’re in for, in a sense, right? With agencies and marketing roles. There’s like, it’s there’s a lot more variety in the type of culture that you could be stepping into. So helping find the right candidate for that culture, which is critical to that agency’s or marketing team’s success, I think could use up someone’s help.
Nathan: Let’s do it.
Nick: Next&Co. people or No, wait. Next&Co. 360.
32:14
Nathan: Yeah, that doesn’t work outside. Yeah. Ethos&Co. Yeah, Ethos&Co. sort of works.
Nick: Yeah, it could work.
Nathan: But it’s interesting, right. And, you know, it’s, it’s, we laugh about it, but, you know, these conversations that we’re privileged to have, you know, as business owners and people, you know, in certain networks, that’s how shit happens. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? Like, you know, there’s opportunity there, like we’ve got, you know, we understand the process, you’ve got the marketing expertise, and sort of that network in that space, like, you know, keep tabs on
Nick: You never know
Nathan: Watch this is page because something big is coming soon. You know what I mean. But I wanted to go back a little bit because we’re talking about I mean, you know, family, I had a similar upbringing. And I had a bit of a laugh when you know, my brother and I were always looking at you know, these other kids you know, new scooters, new bikes, all this sort of stuff. And we were bugging dad for Christmas for a scooter right and back then there was like, was it the buggy? Can’t remember the brand there was like sort of two scooter brands that they were the two scooter brands that you can basically buy.
33:44
Nick: Razors
Nathan: Razors that’s what I was saying. (..) I got a CX 2000. Do you know what that is?
Nick: Nope
Nathan: Neither.
33:57
Nick: Fresh from Bulgaria.
34:01
Nathan: This was like LD special LD Disney back then. So I don’t know where he got it from. But it’s interesting, because I think I was fortunate. I mean, I saw you know, my dad went out on his own. You know risked it all
Nick: What did your dad do?
34:18
Nathan: Builder.
Nick: Oh, nice.
Nathan: Yeah so.
Nick: He still does it?
Nathan: Retired now
Nick: Oh, cool.
34:30
Nathan: Yeah, it’s crazy times at the moment, right? But, you know, he was like, I got into it the right time. But my God, he worked hard. Like he really set the expectation and set the example for me like what that what it looks like to really work hard and create a business and be successful. Like it was six days it was, you know, he got home for dinner, but then he was working, you know, doing paperwork till 11 up at 5:36. Did that for 20, 30s Right. So for me, I had that that sort of inspiration as an example. Where did your, where did that inspiration come from for you, when your parents were saying, Stay in school, get a good job. And then you started.
35:20
Nick: You know, whilst my parents were like, really, I guess, adamant about what they thought the career path was. They, they still instilled a incredible sense of overconfidence in my ability into me. And, like, I got the confidence to make my own critical decisions. So I suppose I just knew at the time, when I felt I needed to deviate from my path. I just knew, right, and I had all the confidence to jump in like it, you know, my mom wasn’t thrilled when I was, you know, quitting my job to start a business. But, you know, all her prep all of her, the way she raised me, and the way they encouraged me, and the way they kind of built in, I suppose, a little bit of a work ethic. And also like, and this is like, a bit weird, but like, my folks built in a sense of entitlement into me. But it wasn’t, it’s like an entitlement that, like, if you work at something, you are entitled to, you will get it. And it was this, it’s this, I’ve had this sort of a belief and maybe a little bit of an unreasonable one. But it is one that like, I control my own destiny. And if I do what if I really want something bad enough, I can get it with work. What might not come easy, Moto comm might take forever, but I can get it. And that was probably one of the most important lessons that my folks taught me. Yeah, so I don’t know, that answered your question.
37:05
Nathan: No, definitely did. You know, they, they gave you the confidence to be able to, to make the leap. Right. Yeah. And, you know, they, I guess, in a sense back to you, because they, you know, they filled you with, with, with a lot of confidence. Yeah, that you could do it. And, you
37:27
Nick: And you know, it’s like, it’s only a you feel, it’s all these like little, it’s not even one decision, it’s all these like little micro decisions, right that, like, you know, when I look at like, say, going all the way from 2010, when we started to now, there were so many times where, you know, we could have just packed it in or grown or done something else or grown bigger, or, you know, started another service. And you’re like, you, you just, it’s it’s that like, it’s that it’s having that purpose, having that Northstar, and having that I guess that that confidence that gets you from like, wow, you’re at this random point, when you start to, I don’t look what I definitely didn’t set out to do what we ended up doing when I started, you know.
38:11
Nathan: Yeah and I’m keen to, you know, explore it, understand, you know, here’s sort of where you’re at now. And obviously, you know, from revenue perspective, and also like, you know, sort of the exit strategy and, and, but I think I want to go back to alright, so you and John obviously met through work. When did you guys sort of wink at each other and go, let’s get out here.
38:37
Nick: In that back alley on the first night. No, it was it was it was it was about it was about two years in. We both had some pretty shitty annual reviews or who we were felt like we were entitled to a raise that we both didn’t get. And I remember we just went to lunch, after said shitty annual reviews and which, I can’t remember who said this, “you know, we could do this ourselves.” You know, I think it was me because I said I think I could do the selling you just do the work, it’ll be sweet. And, and then literally, like we had our first client, we had our website up within 24 hours, and our first client within 24 hours, like paying us 50 bucks a month. And then we’d quit within I think like we gave our notices within the next couple of weeks.
39:33
Nathan: So you already started on the site.
Nick: Yeah, we’re just like, obviously wouldn’t ever touched any of their clients nothing like you know
39:40
Nathan: Not trying to get you in trouble here. Relax
39:41
Nick: Delete this. I’m out. So yeah, and yeah, so we have
39:50
Nathan: So you have the confidence like I’ve “I’ve brought on clients before, the only difference is it’s a different brand.
39:56
Nick: Exactly, exactly. I Um, and then yeah, like, we just went from there. We did on the cheap, like, you know, like, this is another thing as well, like, we did it on the cheap, like, I’m Jewish, this is part of my DNA, my business partner’s Greek, part of your DNA. Like, we’re just both merchant traders, right? So like, we just, we full jewed out it was fantastic. That is an awkward clip, right?
40:28
Nathan: You have to at the start although it’s hard, right? Like, it’s very rare that you’re gonna have VC funding.
40:35
Nick: It’s like, I reject the fact that you need that, especially for an agency, right? Like, you’re selling intellectual property. You strictly speaking, you don’t need an office, you need an internet connection and a phone plan, right? You just need you selling IP, like whoever does the labour, which will, you know, maybe you do have to hire for that. But with us like, because John just did the SEO, you know, or the Google Maps optimization? I did the sales, it was it. Like, we actually didn’t hire our first staff member till into year three.
Nathan: Wow
Nick: So that was, yeah, it was we made BoW before we hired our first staff member. Yeah, I didn’t even think about that. But yes
41:26
Nathan: That was sort of off the back of that. So the biggest thing for you that that you know, because obviously, I mean, let’s unpack it, right, because you get your first $50 a week.
Nick: A month
Nathan: $50-a-month client
41:43
Nick: Wasn’t the Aldi of internet marketing, it’s dumb.
41:47
Nathan: Was the was the big? How when was it? In that journey that you introduced that, “hey, don’t pay us until you’re on the first page.” Was that that was at that pivotal moment that…
41:57
Nick: That was probably that was probably about like six months in I want to say. Yeah, and then we started running some ads and started just getting away just from the cold email and cold calls. Oh, some of the most fun times, I remember funny enough, because we didn’t have an office, right? Yeah. Do you know our mutual friend Lachlan?
Nathan: Shoutout to last shout out to Lucky.
Nick: You know, we would, we wouldn’t literally, we were in an office together. He had his he was starting his own thing. And we power these giant red bulls and make like 1000 calls and play a lot of table tennis. Super fun
42:38
Nathan: That’s the thing, right? Like you – you got to put in the work man. Like it’s, it’s you pick up the phone
42:44
Nick: It was a genuine dead set on his grind. Yeah, like, I think a lot of salespeople will, like relate to that. It’s just, it was just, it was awesome. It was an honest grind. And we just just built up from there. Give it back to the topic at hand like, yeah, we built up and then it was it was actually probably stupid. Like, we didn’t know what the fuck we were doing. So like from from an account management perspective. So that first hire we made was an account manager. Right? Like, and like, we should have definitely made that hire earlier. Because like, poor job, we’re in our 20s. And like, we’re just like f***, like, John wasn’t going home ‘til like 8 pm at night. And I’m like, “you work motherfu****.” “I want to see my family.” “No, you weren’t motherfu****.”
43:35
Nick: We put into task.
Nathan: So give me, so before you hired so that, you know, you- you use- you sort of redefined and went to market with something different in that like, “Yeah, definitely. We’ll get you on the first page.” That brought in, I mean, I’m guessing you didn’t have to make as many phone calls. You know,
Nick: it just had cut through. Yes.
Nathan: Yeah. Amazing. So, like, what, you know, year one, year two, year three, give me a bit of a feel for like, where you guys run in terms of, you know, sort of, like, number of clients, revenue, in those early days?
44:09
Nick: I think year a year one because it’s like a semi. It was a pre like a small fin year. I think we did like 40k in rev. Then, you know, it was but it was like a really steep climb up. You know, we went from I think 40 to a quarter of a mil to like over a mil then just with going up from there. You know, and then I think when we opened up our doors to media dollars, even the media dollars obviously just passed through it but you know, their revenues kept climbing. Yeah.
44:44
Nathan: Yeah, crazy. So in year three, that was like, “Yeah, we need an account manager.” That was your first hire?
Nick: Yep, that was our first hire.
44:51
Nick: And like we didn’t like here’s the thing, right? We didn’t know anything about running like we would like still we were like more on the digital marketing side of things like, it wasn’t until much later that I’m like, “Hey, we’re competing with advertising agencies, like not just digital marketing agencies and advertising agencies that have these big clients. They have these whole ecosystems of Client Services. And, you know, and producers and project managers, and so we got, like, we had no idea or doing with that. So that took us a while to figure out well, you know, we didn’t necessarily want to bloat our headcount. But at the same time, we’ve got to give a different kind of client experience that’s beyond just you’re talking to one guy that does your SEO, and you’ve actually got a team. So it took us a while to evolve to that.
45:39
Nathan: Yeah. Interesting. And so from there, it was just sort of organic growth year on year, just acquiring new customers. Yeah. You know, clients referring on with any sort of changes in in strategies, or anything that you did that, obviously, it was Prometheus, and that..
46:01
Nick: Yeah, it was, it was a lot of organic growth. We never bought any other agencies never growing through, like an acquisition or anything. That was probably a few, like step changes in terms of like, even quiet, maybe like four years ago, we started booking traditional media, right, like, so not just digital, but TV, radio, outdoor. And all of a sudden, we got opened up to this type of business that have this client that doesn’t have a just a digital agency, that’ll book everything through one agency sort of suddenly got to pitch for that type of stuff, which was a big growth. You know, like…
46:38
Nathan: Was there a reason that you didn’t do it earlier? Like, why was it only four years ago?
46:42
Nick: Honestly, the reason was, was a dumb one, but I always- I didn’t like to do anything, like shit. And, you know, we I thought, why would I try to book billboards or TV spots competing with the large, the PhDs, the OMDs, the publicists. They have buying positions that when they buy so much, they have, you know, discounts that we couldn’t possibly get. Like, I just later learned that, yeah, maybe they do have those discounts, they probably go to their biggest clients. And then we just just by looking at deals and doing our own negotiations, we found that we’re better, right? Just like, you know, we negotiated harder and tried better. And were more clever with the way we placed our media on the in the traditional side of things. Plus e we had that rigour from coming from digital where everything was about attribution and effectiveness, which a lot of traditional media agencies don’t have. Now, we just felt we’re good at it. Just kind of went from there.
47:44
Nathan: Yeah, interesting. And I definitely think, you know, I mean, you’ve been someone, I mean, we’ve ended up as a, you know, sort of referral partnership. Coincidentally. Well, and this is a thing, right? Like, we always talk about, you know, just adding value, right? Like, I’m in recruitment, but I absolutely love to learn about my clients, businesses, I think, you know, you’ve got to really understand them. And a lot of the time the conversations end up, you know, about sort of their marketing, how they generate their leads, do they use an agency? And so many people are disgruntled and unhappy with their agency. I don’t know if it’s because it’s confusing. But I mean, is there something like how can people be aware or what can people keep an eye out for if they’re using an agency? You know, are there any sort of signals or signs you can be like, “Hm, maybe I’m getting fired here”?
48:46
Nick: It’s a really, really good question. I think any agency client partnership, it’s like a marriage, right? Like, or a relationship, at least if you’re not to get married. But you both- both-, look, there is.. The main thing I think, is alignment. Right? If your agency understands that a.) you’re a business and you’ve got commercial goals, and they’re and they’re the agency’s efforts, whether it’s marketing or comms or pay or whatever it is, if they bring you closer to their commercial goals and they can justify the value that they’re delivering for the the money you pay them that’s a good relationship. Like yes balls are going to be dropped, mistakes will always be made, human beings are human beings. So I’m a big believer in working you know, creating a good ways of working with your agency because just like in human relationships, people, the first thing they think of “that’s not working f*** it off”. I’d always think that if both parties are got- you know, they’re approaching with the right spirits, like you always try to fix something up. But look, I think coming back to your original question. I think if you’re a- signs to boot your agency or getting f*****, I mean, I like look, I like to think that there are that the market is weeded out, like agency that are straight f****** people. Right? Like, but if we look at, you know, like, for example transparency, right, like a lot of there are there. I’ve heard stories of like agencies that don’t want to, you know, say, you know, reconcile, like a media invoice or it’d be like, Oh, you, you know, if you spend X in media, like, you know, your agency is not showing you the accounts where that money’s going out or, or the media or the publisher invoices. Like, that’s a flag, right, like, so I think transparency is a really big one. Yeah, other than that, I don’t know if there’s anything like that.
50:53
Nathan: If you’ve got the inkling you’re probably getting.
50:55
Nick: Yeah, it may be like-. Look, sometimes it’s just also a misalignment. Like, you know, we’ve kind of lost clients or we’ve done our absolutely done is just like, look, we’ve we feel we’re in your corner, we we feel like we’re doing the best for you. But it just didn’t work out or just wasn’t a fit. Like, you know, I mean, like in our, when we see that happening, we call it out, we’re like, “Hey, guys, this is what we’re about, these are our values, this is how we conduct ourselves. If this is you, if you like this, or you want to continue with this aligns with you, let’s go. But if not, like no worries, you know, we’ve even broken contracts, like, we’re like, “Hey, we’ll let someone out of a contract. Like, because it’s just like blatant to everyone. It’s not working. And that’s, you know, not worth our time, because it wastes the energy of our people. So
51:44
Nathan: You don’t want to do business with those people that you don’t align with, right?
51:47
Nick: It’s a f***** grind, right? It’s like, you know, and especially when you’re like, when you’re doing something that like, you know, requires so much creative energy. You want the reciprocation of that energy, right? Like, I’m sure you get it when you work with people, and they’re super jazzed to talk to your candidates and hear your advice and pick up your calls versus when it’s not like that, like, you feel that as a human being.
52:12
Nathan: I mean, yeah, we we have like a little internal philosophy that we work with businesses that we would work out ourselves. Yeah. You know, because I can’t sit there and take someone out of a job and put them somewhere where, where it’s not great. You know what I mean? So philosophy is really simple. One thing that I just wanted to just go back to quickly, before..
52:35
Nick: Am I like f****** up your interview flow?
Nathan: No, no.
Nick: We’re going back a lot.
52:39
Nathan: No, no, we’re sort of- we’re jumping. We’re actually allowed to do whatever the f*** we want to do here.
Nathan: That’s the best part about it.
52:49
Nathan: Now, there was something that I mean, obviously, for, for smaller businesses, for new businesses out there, I think the lead generation, the automation, from an email perspective, I think is massive. One thing that you helped me with, I went out when I first started, and I was like, nobody is going to want to do work with a small one man band. So we slapped up a website, it was global reach recruitment, 20 years experience, like, you know, it was it was, it wasn’t us. Right? And we sat down, you’re like, “Who are you? Why do you do this? What do you believe in?” And we redefined our message, our branding, and it’s made it from start to finish from website through the conversations, client candidate experience, the pitch, it all aligns to, why we do it, why we exist, right. But it took us a few years to get it. Right, because I didn’t know you and didn’t, you know, didn’t know what to do. So, like, how can people learn from that mistake and just get it right from the start? Like, how important it is to get it right from the start and how can you get it right?
54:16
Nick: Yeah, well, I think like there’s a degree of inevitability in the first couple of years. We just like I call it the streetfighter phase where you just like f***, like, like, you know, the books going on and you’re just like, Ah, I gotta get every dollar and make sure like, you know, this whole thing works. And so like, you know, to a degree it when you’re in that mentality, like unless you come from a branding background, it’s very difficult to be like, I need to sort my brand out. But look, I think, in general, like most people confuse brand with like, I gotta have this beautiful flash visual identity and a beautiful you know, website and uniforms and whatever the f*** like I’ve always thought and the work we do together was that brand is is about just what’s going on inside? Like, why do you exist? What are your values? What are you trying to achieve and give to, you know, the people you serve like your audience? Because and you know, it’s really great to hear you say that, like, it makes everything easier. Like, I think it’s a really good way of describing. It’s like, whatever, whether I’m communicating on email or I’m talking to someone, you know, having that like, you know, brand codified, having, you know, gives you that like that integrity, right? Because all we did was we talked and like, we essentially bought out your personal values as a human being.
55:37
Nathan: Bevvis. Yeah.
55:42
Nick: F*** yeah. Gotta clip that.
55:47
Nathan: There’s no cutting this, baby.
55:48
Nick: I’m thinking I’m like, “Man, am I gonna regret saying some of this shit, but probably not.”
55:55
Nathan: Can’t get told off by your boss.
55:57
Nick: That’s true. That’s true. I get told off by my wife though, like “you’re f****** embarrassing to me.”
56:04
Nathan: Going back to it, right? So in terms of, you know, it’s about identifying the ‘Why’. Why you’re in business.
56:13
Nick: Because it’s going to make all your comms easier. Like, you know, like, you know, the really great, all of this is based around this TED talk called ‘How Great Leaders Inspire Action’ by a guy called Simon Sinek. Which I highly advise everyone to go out and listen to, it’s like, 18 minutes. And, you know, like, in that talk, he talks about, you know, people do business with those that believe what they believe in, right. So, you know, when you articulate, that you’re, you know, you’re all bad people. And, and, you know, like, when you talk to you that you clearly see you have integrity with that approach. Right? That’s, that’s not faking it. So that’s what people buy, it makes you far easier to buy, right as your as your services. So I just think that branding process, you know, going down and sitting down with someone that can get that out of you, as a business owner, sooner rather than later. And how does that then spill into everything that you do as a business? How does that spill into the way you talk? How does that spill into your visual identity? How does that spill into the way you make productize things and price things? It can just really help.
57:29
Nathan: Yeah, it created so much clarity, and it’s, and now when we go to do something, it’s so much easier, like when we worked with the team here. To put together our video, like they knew straight away, like we didn’t have to mess around with who we’re going to go with because it was like, they know us, they know what we stand for. So then they knew like when we’re putting together sort of like a corporate video and story about who we are, like he knew it was going to be a laugh, it was going to be us and it wasn’t going to be serious. And that’s the thing, it just it makes it,we sat down for an hour and slapped it all together. Because we all just, we knew what we stood for.
58:09
Nick: And that helps you find your tribe, right? Like, it helps you both find the right clients to work with and the people that want to work with you. Because you’re putting your authentic version of yourself out there.
Nathan: Yeah.
Nick: As opposed to some plastic fantastic version of what you think you should be. Because that sh*** it’s just like, even if that works, you’ll burn out.
Nathan: Yeah
Nick: Because you can’t be that you’re not, right? And so
58:31
Nick: I think that’s the thing like you get it right from the start. And as you mentioned, right it’s your work with the right clients, they’re gonna introduce you to like minded people is going to help you build out your tribe and people that are attracted to you from a from a staffing perspective. And it just it works. So you know, as quickly as you can work out that one and be truthful in communicating with your brand, who you are. Yeah, I think that’s really important. Now, I wanted to finish on something. There was a quote that I heard. You’re a podcast guy, ‘Modern Wisdom’. Do you listen to that one? He was. He was on Alex. I started listening to him because he was on.
Nick: I know Alex Hormozi.
Nathan: Yeah, we love him.
Nick: Yeah. He’s good.
Nathan: He was on he was on Alex Hormozi podcast, and I thought this is a good episode. He’s an English bloke, you would have you here if you heard him, you’ll know who he is. And he said a quote the other day and I was like, god, that’s powerful. He said, “tthe magic you are looking for is in the work you are avoiding.”
Nick: Okay.
Nathan: What does that mean to you?
59:46
Nick: The magic you are looking for? Is in the worker avoiding. Okay. I think what you know, not sure what he meant by that. But I think for me personally I know sometimes I want to grow, I want to be better. But I don’t want to put in, I don’t want to do the- eat the f****** frog, like, you know, do the work, you know? Like, you sometimes know that like, “Okay, if I just there’s- I am where I am, you by truism you are where you are based on how you’ve lived your life to that point, right? The decisions you make. So if you’re seeking growth, if you’re seeking something that you don’t have, that comes from stuff you haven’t done.
Nathan: Exactly.
Nick: You know, and in fairness for me, like, I know, like, I know that there should be like, the certain outcomes that I want, like, I know, I look, I want to be fitter, right? But it’s like, oh, f***, like, I’ve got to get more consistent with my training and not eat as much shit. So okay, I know that, right? So yes, there’s a degree of, you know, avoidance there. Right.
Nathan: Absolutely.
Nick: So, yes, that’s really brilliant. That’s a really good quote.
1:00:59
Nathan: Yeah, it sort of blew my mind, I went down that exact same path that you did. And, you know, it’s just kept me thinking. And I think from a work perspective, I almost think about it every day, because it’s like, the magic you are looking for is in the work that you are avoiding. And I know a lot of the time early stage business owners, especially, you know, in sort of B2B service-based industries, it’s picking up the f****** phone.
Nick: Yeah.
1:01:25
Nathan: Do you know what I mean?
Nick: Yes.
1:01:26
Nathan: That’s what you’re avoiding, like, you know, that there’s, there’s potential there. Pick it up, make the call.
1:01:30
Nick: I think you and I got very lucky to probably both like it to be like, extroverted people who don’t mind to do that. Because I so agree with you. I think sometimes, like, I see a lot of startup businesses doing all this stuff. It’s like, “No, you just need a f****** sell. Get out there to talk to people, you know, fall flat on your ass. You know, horrible sales pitches, practice, practice, practice. And then eventually, like, I think everyone gets their I like, I’ve actually think like, funny enough introverts, like the opposite of like, what you and I would be, make some of the best salespeople because they f****** listen. They’ll be “okay, this is what you need, this is what you want. This is what I’ll do for you.” Yeah.
1:02:18
Nathan: I love it, mate, well there’s so much information that we can that I think our listeners will be able to take on board. Again, I’m always super thankful that I’ve got you. You know, someone I can lean on, always ask for advice. And I’ve always super grateful of, you know, generosity and your friendship and our intimate relationship as well.
1:02:42
Nick: Like and subscribe motherf******.
1:02:45
Nathan: Yeah, all seriousness. Yeah, obviously, give us a follow The Leap Podcast. Give us a like, a rating and more importantly, I think, share this with someone who you think would get value out of it. That’s the big thing.
1:03:05
Nathan: Thanks so much.
Nick: My pleasure, man. Thank you for having me.
1:03:07
Nathan: Thanks, brother.
1:03:12
Thanks for listening to The Leap. If you enjoyed this episode, give us a follow or even better, share it with someone who you think will get value out of it. Big thanks to our main sponsor, Ethos360 Recruitment, it is actually just us sponsoring ourselves.
1:03:31
This podcast has been produced by The Content Engine.