124: Discover Your Own Passion, Knowledge and Advantage with Agency Consultant Jason Swenk
Jason Swenk talks to us about creating the resource you "wish you had" that satisfies the criteria of: 1. something you're passionate about, 2. something you're knowledgeable in, 3. an area where you have a unique advantage, and 4. something that is helpful and educates people.
He tells us how he started, grew, and sold an agency, and shares some cutting edge techniques including the early bird list and progressive profiling with thank you pages.
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Transcript
Download transcript (.txt)Robert Plank Show, episode 124 discover your own passion knowledge and advantage with agency consultant Jason Swank.
Hey everybody, and welcome back to the Robert Plank show. This is the podcast where we talk about making money. Today's expert guest is Jason Swank, so have you ever asked yourself, how can I start an agency? How can I scale my agency? How can I generate more leads? How can I find time to do work on the business and not in the business? And what systems do I need in place, or even, how do I position myself to sell my agency? Well, we're in the right place. We're talking to the right guy. We're talking to Mr. Jason Swank. How are things today? Jason,
Hey, man, how's it going?
Super fantastic. And so, you know, this whole, uh, this whole like agency thing, or like web agency, I've, like, I gotta be honest, like, I've heard of thrown around. I've heard this term been used at like, live events. I've been to events where it's like, well, the these talks are for agencies only. But I have to admit, after seeing it thrown around and seeing like a few different I guess agencies, I'm still kind of at a loss as to what exactly an agency is. So could you fill us in a little bit? Yeah.
I mean, it's, it's basically a professional service firm that does marketing or technology for their clients. And so there's so many forms of a digital agency, or, like, you know, the traditional agency, everybody thinks of Mad Men, right? Like, I create the super, super bowl, ads, commercials, that kind of stuff. But on the digital side, there's so many agencies that actually create websites or do just social media or mobile apps, right? Or email marketing, or, you know, whatever it is. And so that's what a digital agency is, so
And is it have to be a team?
I Yes, because if it's just one person, you're a freelancer,
okay, so you could have a two person agency, technically, exactly. Well, cool. So now that we're kind of on the same page with that. Could you tell us about yourself and about your agency and what it is that you do?
Yeah, so back in 1999 back when Al Gore invented the internet, thank you, Al, I worked for a company called Arthur Andersen, who was the paper shredding company of Enron, right and worked for them for about six months. At that time, I was a computer programmer, and I really hated what I was doing, but I didn't know what I could do next. And I was just lucky. My friend looked like Justin Timberlake. So I created a website making fun of NSYNC back in the day when they were popular, and it was called in shit, and it got really popular, and started designing websites for people. Because people were like, Hey, can you design me a website? I was like, Yeah, sure. I was like, $500 and they're like, yes. I was like, Oh, cool. And then the next person comes along, like, $1,000 I just kept going up until someone said no, and just started doing websites for a lot of cool people struggled for a couple years, just because, I mean, we were always profitable, but for the first couple years, I didn't know even what an invoice was. I didn't know how to run a business, or really how to get it off the ground. I didn't have that clarity of where we were going. And then when I started focusing on that, that's when we started, you know, making crossing over the seven figure market and crossing over that mark and all that kind of stuff going forward.
So do you, like, how much of this do you do yourself? Do you just, like, manage a team, or, like, how hands on are you personally? Yeah,
so Well, I sold my agency in 2012 so I ran it for 12 years and and sold it. So now what I do, and I'll explain kind of what I did in the past. So in the very beginning, I was doing everything myself. I was doing project management, I was doing design, I was doing development, hosting, everything, clean the toilets, wash the sinks, feed the birds, whatever it was. And then when I started getting smart, I started hiring people for the things I didn't want to do, or hiring for the things that I wasn't good at, right, right? And just started expanding and grew amazing agency from that. And then, since I've sold, that's why I work with digital agencies. Now, it's just to show them how I started, how I grew, how I sold, and just walk them through the path that I did and create a resource that I wish I had. So
are you saying that? So is that what you do mostly is you get to get these agencies to the position where they can be sold. Or do you kind of also look at these agencies and maybe refine their system and figure out where they could be doing better? Well,
it depends on what they ultimately want. You know, some people, they envision, they think that in order to be successful, I have to get to a point to sell my business one day. And I'll tell you that is farthest from the truth. Because if you truly love what you're doing, why would you sell it, right? You know, and, or, like, if, and they, and even after, like, when I sold my agency, you know, great, I got a great big check, I thought, you know, cool, I'll go buy an island or. Whatever you know, whatever stupid people do, right? But you're so unfulfilled now, because you had all this significance with all your employees, that you had all the contribution, that you were helping them out, helping their clients out, that all goes away after you're sold. So if you're just looking for success, then that's the perfect scenario. But if you're looking for more, which everybody wants more. Everybody needs a feel needed. So I always tell people, Look, if you don't like doing the particular business you're doing now, you can sell it if you want, but you can also create it as an incubator and build other stuff, and you put the right people into place to do the stuff you don't want to do. Which probably leads you to the next question is, is what? Well, why did you sell it? Because I loved what I did. I had a business partner, and we did it for 12 years, and I knew I wanted to do something different. I just didn't know what it was. And we had a 5050, partner split. So I was like, let's, you know, and a bunch of companies wanted to buy us, and we're like, well, let's do it. We don't know what's next. We don't know what is through that door, but it was the best thing I've ever done as well.
So did you know that that that void would be there? Did, I mean, like, like you said you're, you're glad to have, like, the the big payday. But did you like, did you plan, I mean, even at that point, you plan on just taking a break forever, or for a year or, I mean, what was happening at that time?
No, you know, I'm always, I'm a crater, so I always got to be building something, or creating something. Like my wife sees a cool furniture piece, and she'll be like, Man, that's kind of cool. Be like, oh, I can build that. I'll go do it, right? I have to be building something. So I couldn't just sit there. I mean, yes, I could have, I guess I could have just do nothing. But then I think that's when people die, when you just sit around, you know, oh yeah, I don't truly believe in retiring. You know, my dad tried to retire many, many years ago, played, you know, a year of golf, and it was just bored, went back to work, right? And I didn't want and so for a couple years I struggled, because I couldn't find my purpose, of what I wanted to do what I was really good at, what I was passionate about. And you take outside the money, right? You're like, well, I don't care if it makes money or not. I just want to enjoy that's why so many people get into flam three and all that kind of stuff. But I just couldn't figure it out until I was lucky to kind of fall into it, like I fall into everything else.
So I mean, so what happened? So you you had the agency going, and then you sold it off. And then at that point, then you decided that you were going to build back up just some kind of, some kind of training or some kind of coaching for other agencies.
Well, no, I thought the grass was greener on the other side, because I wanted to build the product. So I was like, alright, well, I was always in the service based business, right? I'd sell something, I have to deliver something. So I was like, well, that's it's, you know? I was like, but I would look at people building these technology products and getting huge accolades. I was like, All right, and that was at a time when Instagram just sold for a billion dollars. I was like, well, maybe I need to create an app. So I literally created a phone app on the iPhone, where it takes pictures of everything that you ate, gives you a visualization, shares it out with your friends, and it was going really well, but I just didn't want to take pictures of my damn food anymore. And I was like, if I'm not doing it, I can't be the hypocrite. And I didn't enjoy it. And at that time, I was just lucky enough that I think I did that for about a year, and at that time, I had a couple of my old competition reach out and say, how'd you get clients like Aflac and 18 T and Lotus Cars, and how'd you get the best place to work? And how'd you do this? And I just started helping them out for free, and truly loved it. And then from there, I was like, Well, what if I create this podcast and just interview other friends of mine at the time and just tell us kind of war stories about running a business and an agency and that kind of stuff. And then it just took off from there. And so now I just provide, you know, a resource where I help people get to the next level of wherever they're going within their business.
And that's cool. So could you unpack a little bit about that, like you say you have, like some of your friends asked you how you booked a lot of these clients. Or I see that on your speaking topics and things like that, you talk about how to generate 25 leads every day. So could you give us a little bit of a taste of the agency, I guess, wizardry that you have or I get, I meant even just like a couple of little things you can do, maybe for any agency to help them out.
Yeah. So the biggest thing that agencies are doing wrong is they're looking at the bigger guys, and they're trying to be a me too, agency. And the biggest thing you need to do is pick your specialization. You can't be a jack of all trade, you know, trades you gotta pick down to one, do that extremely well and put out amazing content for that particular audience in order for them to build up trust and authority and all that kind of stuff. And so by doing that, you can start eliminating your competition, right? I tell people I. Are people that help out agency owners, but I don't have any competition. Mike, my competition is procrastination and cat videos, right? Because no one could, no one can be me. No one can produce the stuff or have the style behind my style, and I can't be anybody else, right? You know? So it's all about picking that particular market that you want to serve, understanding their biggest challenges and desires and obsessing over it and creating valuable information that they can go do without you. That's the most important stop doing damn videos about your portfolio and how cool your people are and your culture and all that kind of stuff. No one cares other than the people working for you. Focus on them. The other thing I'll tell you, and this works with any, any kind of business, and you know, my website's a good example of this. Stop focusing on yourself. Going to your website, rather than saying, like, Hey, I've done this, and look at all my accolades and all that kind of BS. Ask a question right off the bat, if you go to my website, and depends on when this airs, there should be a question. Always there's a question. It should say, like, Hey, do you want to know how I started, grew had fun, and sold an agency, and then I and then I say, like, Hey, start here. Even on my about page, the intro that you read was all questions, because that focuses on the person coming to your site and changes the conversation. That's probably one of the biggest things. If you don't take away from anything on this, think about what are the right questions to ask, and how do I ask questions in order to focus on them, and
when you focus on them? Like, how do you reconcile between like, if you're you know, like, making fun videos or making podcast episodes where you help them out. How do you decide between what's just something that I'm gonna give away for free? Like, he's like, What did you say? You said to make something that that's valuable, that they could do without you? How do you how do you decide between that and something that's a trade secret that you probably shouldn't give away? Well, I
would give away. You know, I basically tell people everything, you know. The The cool thing about this particular market is people are lazy. They want to know how to do it, but they don't want to do it themselves, right? And you want to separate yourself from everybody else. So why would you give away your worst tip? Because then everybody's going to think that's your best tip. So if you're like, put out the typical BS ebook saying, Do you want to know how to get more customers download my boring ebook? That's not going to work. But if I put out a video that said, Hey, do you want to know how I converted 80% of my marketing proposals from at&t legal, zoom and Hitachi, I'm gonna walk you through the eight steps, the eight strategies that we used. So you can do that, and you can learn the number one tip for closing and not having a prospect go completely silent after you send their proposal. That's going to be valuable, they're going to watch that video, they're going to take away a lot of stuff. They're going to go execute it. It will work. And then they're going to be like, All right, what's next? I'm in it for the long run, right? I want to help them out in the long run, which they'll come back to me.
So you give them a little bit of a taste. You're saying, Yeah, and you
and the cool thing about this particular market and this strategy, you got to know what you're actually doing, right? There's so many people out there that you know they're, they're 15 years old or 20 years old, and they've never, kind of run a business, or they learned, they took a course and they figured out how to do Facebook marketing. Now they want to do their own Facebook marketing course. Right? People are going to see through that, so that when people kind of tell me, they go, Well, I don't want to give away my best stuff, it's because that's the only stuff they have. So that might be the wrong business to get into. But, you know, that's kind of why I do what I do, and it makes a huge difference. I mean, this business now it's taken me, you know, I ran the agency for 12 years, so factor this in, but in 11 months, I built this particular business selling information and consulting to over a seven figure business. In 11 months, nice by doing this strategy,
and that's cool, and so, so I'm kind of, I'm looking at some of the things that you have for sell, like, I see you have one thing that's like, a collection of documents that agencies could have. I see you have a course on how to generate some leads. So can you tell us about about those products and kind of how they came into being, what they do, yeah,
so I starting out. I really started out consulting first, and I think that's where you need to go before you actually start developing information products or that kind of stuff, because you really got to get a pulse and make sure that your you know your assumptions were right. I was just lucky enough that I was my audience, right? And so the materials I was creating and the lessons I was walking my one on one clients through, I wanted to scale that up, because, you know, coaching and consulting is just not scalable, right? You can only take on so much so many people. And I didn't want to work all the time. I wanted to work less than 100 hours a month. Of at that time. And so I work a lot more now, because I love what I do, but that was the goal. That was what I wanted to prove to everybody that you don't have to work all the time. And so by doing that, I was able to take what I was using for my one on one clients and replicate that. So I started looking at what made our agency successful, reverse engineering it, and then breaking out into systems like I tell the only difference between where people are at now and where they want to go is the systems that they have, and systems outperform talent all day long. And so I just literally started thinking, all right, what systems do I need to put in place or walk my one on one clients through in order to get them to understand and be able to implement how to generate more leads. So that's how I, I created the generate leads every day program where it's basically five systems. It walks you through all that, and it's, it's not just Facebook and that kind of stuff. Yes, that's part of it, but there's a lot of other stuff in there for agencies. And then what I also started doing is looking at all, right? What are all the other stuff that people are struggling with? Like, you mentioned the agency documents. You know, I look back at all the documents we created over the 12 years, there's some key ones that I wish I had in the very beginning, right? And so I was like, Okay, well, what can I how do I build this service ladder, or this offering ladder, right? And saying, like, I don't want to maybe possibly offer, like, you know, the top of the line product. Right off the bat, maybe I need to offer the proposal template or the agency documents to show them that I actually did run an agency, own an agency, and I was successful at it. You go use this, and then you'll come back to me for all the other programs that we have, and then over time as so I think this is almost the second year, or I think maybe crossed over just a little over two years. Now, I just keep adding on based on what people need and how the market changes, and I just keep updating stuff. So that's how I created those programs. And does that help?
Yeah, it does. And looking at the things you have for sale and hearing, like, just the way that you position a lot of these things, like, I know that you had something where you said you're positioning this as, like, you know, you changed up 80% of your lead generation and stuff like that. Like, all the things that you're talking about and selling and even sharing for free. They all seem to be things that they all they all have, like, a real case study, kind of, like you said, like, you use the coaching to get the pulse of these people, and I don't cover the questions and their problems, then you figure out what kind of solutions you personally ended up applying over and over again. So there's, there's the case study and the steps and the proof. I think that, like you said, like, the difference between taking a Facebook course and just kind of kind of watching some generic videos and making your own even more generic or videos, is that with you, you go back and look at, well, reverse engineer you said, you go back and look at all the things that that have worked and just kind of put it into, like, not just, not just the step by step system, but also things that have actually worked. And there's something to that, right? There's something to not just, Well, this has been proven to work, or I've used this, but you say, Okay, I use this for Lotus Cars, or I use this for Legal Zoom. I say, Okay, well, not only, not only do I have like, the real stuff behind the theory, but I also have like, the belief, I guess, that it's worked for you. So now I'm going to, I'm going to go at it full speed as far as implementing it, yeah.
And you just kind of look at yourself and say, What am I passionate about? What do I have knowledge in that other people may not have, and what's my competitive advantage, right? And that's and then, how can I help? I mean, that's really kind of the step i follow in the formula that I follow, right? So I had to figure out, all right, I could go after and do consulting for any kind of business, any kind of service company business, but I wanted to drill down. And so I drill down into a particular market that I knew. And then I wanted to say, in this particular market, how do I separate myself from all the other jokers out there and be my own Joker, right? And say, well, all these other jokers ran a business into the ground or never worked for an agency before. Cool separator. And then I also wanted to think, How can I educate them? That's the reason why I put a cat video on my home page, right? And I do these goofy Darth Vader videos or whatever. I'm trying to separate myself from everybody else, to kind of break that pattern that everybody's used to in their regular kind of, you know, educational videos. And then by doing that, and then them actually getting value from it before they even give you anything, that's the secret sauce.
Oh, yeah. So that way it's almost like they feel like they owe you,
yeah, like, I literally have a Facebook ad running right now that's been running for the past eight months. I haven't really touched it. It literally, is like me. I literally recorded it on my iPad because I wanted to look kind of raw. I didn't want it professional. And I just like, wave in my arms. I'm like, Hey, look at me if you're an agency owner and you struggle with sending out the. Proposal and the client goes dark. Let me tell you how to stop it. And I told them how to stop it right on the video. And I said, Cool, if you like this video, you're probably struggling with getting the budget from people. If you want to know how to get the budget, click the button below. I will ask you for your email so I can spam you later and then do that right and so you're having fun with them.
Oh, yeah. And none of this, none of this old software, like one step is left out, or no click baiting, or any of that. It's, here's this little problem you have. I'm going to fix your little problem now. Here's problem number two, yeah,
exactly, yeah. If you click, if you're using clickbait, Facebook's going to destroy you, and all these other media companies are going to destroy you.
Oh, yeah, I've seen that. They're, they're shutting all that stuff down, which I'm glad, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it cleans up for the rest of us. And it's one of those, like little, little fads, I guess, but, but now it's, it's time to actually help people. And I like that that you broke it down right there into once again, steps right? So step number one is the thing that you're going after your passion. And so it sounded like with your your app, photographing your food, that was something where, like, okay, like that was cool, but not really your passion. And then number two, something where you have knowledge. You had this previous knowledge from doing all the agency stuff. Number three, where you can get a unique advantage. And then number four, be helpful and educate people instead of just showing off. Yep,
exactly. And then the other thing too, and this is really important, it's like, especially when you start out right, you're going to have one thing, okay, you're if it's not right for someone, don't force it. Like, the reason why I've created so many things is because there's so many different stages people are at right. If someone's stuck in their business, the agency playbook is good for the if someone's trying to generate leads, it's perfect like that. Make recommendations on what's actually right for them, not what you want to sell them. And when you actually start coming at it with that, and you literally tell someone, hey, this program is not right for you. If you're trying to get, you know, like, one of my friends, Frank, is really good at this. He's like, if, if you're a get rich person, person, this is not the right program for you. But if you're wanting to put in the hard work, you know, this is an amazing program, right? So it's like, try to push more people away in order to attract more nice
and kind of along those lines a little bit. Do you have any plans, like, with all the products that you have for sale? Do you have any plans for, like, like, a bundle, maybe with all or some, or do you think that the strategy of just kind of making a pick and choose kind of thing is that we're gonna continue to do?
Oh yeah, I'm always putting stuff together. You know? The thing is, is, as you create these programs, you got to create urgency, right? It doesn't matter what the price is, right? People don't make a decision on price alone. They basically make a decision on urgency. And let me prove that point, if I'm about to have a heart attack and I'm going into the surgery, am I going to ask how much it is to save my life? Hell no, right? Urgency. It's the same thing about when you're selling your products, you have to educate them enough and show them the value, but then also create urgency. So you can use this based on, hey, the price is going up, but then you're selling on price. I usually do it by kind of having people jump on an early bird list. So I make all my programs, when they get on my list look like an auto launch, right? So it's basically kind of, you know, everybody goes, does these, you know, Jeff Walker launches, right? And they say, Hey, I just revised the program. You know, jump on the program, and you'll also get my generate leads program for free, or whatever it is. What I have found is when you actually do that, you're going to increase your conversion dramatically. So you'll see the you know, the playbook advertised for a certain amount. If you get on my list and you interact with the campaign a certain way, then you may get an early bird offer, which comes with everything. So it's everything's a test, and every market is different. So you just got to test it out. And you got to figure out, like, like, selling my products is just a gateway for me, for them, to get my, you know, gain my knowledge, but then come to my live events, or work with me one on one, or join, you know, the the live event mastermind that we have traveling around the country. So, you know, it's, you just got to think about, what's the end goal? Where do we want to position people? What's, you know, where are we trying to funnel people to? And you're playing long game. It sounds like big time. I mean, I am so happy at what I'm doing, I don't see myself doing anything different to the day I die. I absolutely, truly never had a cooler job in the world. But, you know, not even close enough to this. And so, you know, I'm definitely. In it for the long haul, because I know I can outlast and outwork anybody out there.
I mean, that sounds like a perfect place to be. So, so as we're starting to kind of wind down this call, do you have any like, aside from all the stuff that you already have set up, do you have any cool, like, upcoming, like, project or idea or something that you're currently working on, yeah,
one of the things I'll tell you, especially you know that can help you out, especially when you're building your campaigns, it's, it's a framework that I've developed on the thank you page. So, like a lot of people talk about, there's no dead thank you page. I truly believe in that. But what I do on the thank you page is different from everybody else, and it's called progressive profiling, thank you pages. So a lot of times when people get on your list, right, and you're just happy someone's on your list and you treat them the same way, eventually you'll send them like an email saying, hey, just tell me a little bit more about yourself, right? So I can send you more relevant stuff. And so I was like everybody else, I do the typical BS stuff, and I get maybe, like, a five to 10% response rate on it. So like, literally, it was 90% of my list that I didn't know who the hell they were, what I should be sending them. And so what I started doing is immediately on the thank you page, I'd ask them one question, and I'd say, tell me, are you an agency owner, freelancer, entrepreneur or agency employee? Radio button. And then as soon as they do that, I pass them to one other page. I'd ask them to say their revenue, are you 300,000 and below? Are you 500 to a million, million above, and so on. And then, based on their answers, I would show them the appropriate thank you page for the offer, right? Because I'm not going to offer a marketing professional my proposal template, right? They care less about that. And then also, they're not going to go into certain campaigns that I have, right? So if they're under 300,000 in revenue, they're not going to be able to get on the phone with me, so I'm not going to offer them My Blueprint Session, or they're not going to be able to jump to my live events until they're over 500,000 Right? Or if they're a marketing professional, I'm not going to push them into an agency campaign so now I can deliver a lot more effective content. And the cool thing you're probably thinking be like, Well, what was your response rate of people going all the way through 94% it blew me away, jeez. And so by doing that, I started doing that maybe eight months ago, my revenue has gone up by 75% my open rate and engagement on email has gone up by like it used to be, like the open rate was, like, you know, the typical BS, 20% maybe 4% will click through, so now it's close to 50% open rate, and I think the click through, or the clicks is like 20% or something like that, something sick, right? Because now I'm serving more relevant content to that audience, and then a lot of people actually put the survey with the lead magnet right, or the opt in, well, that's gonna hurt your conversion, because you're asking more do it after. No one does this, other than, you know, my clients, and they're just crushing it from it. That's
pretty cool. And I mean, like, an easy way to get people to segment themselves a little bit, but I mean, like you said, if they they opt in first, they don't, they don't fill out a big, long, page, long survey as part of opting in. So if they don't want to fill that out, they don't have to. You don't lose them, but just over time and get them to slowly fill that in. That's pretty cool, yeah. And
when I was measuring this over the month, the I use confusions off or, I mean, Infusionsoft, and so their Thank you, pages were not responsive. So that was 94% and most my opt ins come from a mobile mobile device. So that was 94% on a non responsive landing page. Now they're all responsive, so it's probably, if I measure it again, it's probably almost 98% I would think
nice. I mean, that's pretty powerful stuff, and I liked everything that you had to share with us today, not only just like your your story, but also little tidbits of advice anyone can think of and use right away. So could you tell everyone where they can find out all about you and what you do and what you have coming out? Yeah,
so just go to uh, Jason swank.com. Swank is spelled s, W, E, N, K, slash, wahoo, so it's like Yahoo, but a W,
so it's not spelled like Hillary Swank. It's with an E, right? With an E, yeah,
we're not related, but yeah, go to.com/wahoo and I got something special for you. It's links to all the shows and some cool special things for you. Awesome.
I can't wait to check that link out for myself. So thanks for being on the show and everything. Jason and have a good one. Yeah, man, thanks. Thanks for listening to the Robert Plank show. Please subscribe, rate and review us at Robert plank.com/itunes you.
Filed in: Archive 1: 2012-2016 • Interview • Podcast
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