From Feast-or-Famine to Recurring Revenue: Mike Schmidt & AJ Rivera's Agency Evolution

Ready to delve into the journey of sustainable agency success? In this episode, Mike Schmidt and AJ Rivera, the dynamic duo behind Agency Coach and the successful digital marketing agency, Anchor Wave, share their inspiring story. From navigating the digital landscape of the early 2000s to building a multi-million dollar enterprise, Mike and AJ's journey is a testament to perseverance and strategic evolution.

Join us as Mike recounts the challenges and triumphs of Anchor Wave's early years, and AJ shares his impactful transition from the corporate giant Intuit to revitalizing sales strategies at Anchor Wave. Their story isn't just about business growth; it's about personal development and leadership.

Discover how Mike and AJ shifted from a feast-or-famine model to one centered on recurring revenue. Learn from their experiences with large, unpredictable projects and the pivotal moment when they realized the stability of smaller, consistent clients. This strategic pivot not only ensured financial stability but also offered valuable insights for agency owners seeking long-term success.

Gain insights into the importance of value-based pricing and effective delegation. Mike and AJ's journey is a blueprint for creating an efficient and focused business environment. Tune in to learn how you can apply their strategies to unlock sustainable success for your agency.

As listeners of this show, Agency Coach is extending an exclusive offer to transform your agency's success with monthly recurring revenue. Discover the strategy that influenced leads, improved conversion rates, increased sales, and enhanced margins. Gain actionable insights and real cash-boosting tips at agencycoach.com/catalytic

Transcript

Dr. William Attaway: 0:00

I am so excited to have Mike Schmidt and AJ Rivera on the podcast today. Mike and AJ are the dynamic duo behind Agency Coach, a coaching team using real-world experience and expertise to propel digital agencies to unparalleled success. Mike started his agency, anchor Wave, in 2003, when digital marketing was in its infancy. In 2003, when digital marketing was in its infancy, his vision of the future turned into a thriving, multi-million dollar 20-member agency that has built over 2,000 websites and hundreds of digital marketing campaigns. Anthony AJ Rivera brought his corporate sales experience to Anchor Wave in 2008. Aj is renowned for his innovative sales strategies and abundance thinking approach, which led the agency to win multiple awards Together in 2017,. Mike and AJ combined their wealth of knowledge and practical wisdom to mentor and guide agency owners worldwide. Their collective mission at Agency Coach is to revolutionize the agency landscape by equipping entrepreneurs with the tools, the strategies and the mindset necessary to thrive in the ever-evolving digital sphere. Guys, I'm so glad you were here today. Thanks for being on the show.

Mike Schmidt: 1:21

Hey, we're happy to be here. This is awesome. Thanks for having us Super excited to be here being on the show. Hey, we're happy to be here.

Intro / Outro: 1:25

This is awesome Thanks for having us. Yeah, super excited to be here. Welcome to Catalytic Leadership, the podcast designed to help leaders intentionally grow and thrive. Here is your host author and leadership and executive coach, dr William Attaway.

Dr. William Attaway: 1:45

I would love for y'all to share some of your story with our listeners. I hit the high points just then, but I'd love to hear more about your journey, particularly as you have developed as leaders through this entire process. How did y'all get started?

Mike Schmidt: 2:12

Yeah, I think if you would have told me all the lessons and issues and opportunities to learn and grow and become a better leader at the very beginning at 2003, I don't think I would have had the guts to go through with it. Aj's famous for saying in our world that business is one of the most rich and productive grounds for personal and leadership development that you could possibly experience. Like there's lots of ways to improve, but you put yourself out there in business in a situation where you're having to figure it all out. I mean it's quite a lot of growth. So when you think back to what was happening in 2003, google was not the top search engine, facebook wasn't there, youtube wasn't a thing. We weren't carrying around those smartphone devices in our pockets.

Mike Schmidt: 2:47

So, safe to say, you know Anchor Wave, our agency, started as a web design agency, web design company and you know it's the. You know me starting this. You know starting shortly before graduating from the university as really mostly an excuse to not move back to California where I grew up and stick around Tucson as a guy who knew how to build websites. But in 2003, there wasn't very many companies hiring web designers here in Arizona, here in Tucson, and so I had to kind of figure out my own path, my own way, and I didn't go to school for business, I didn't go to school for any sort of leadership, and so it was very much just a let's see how this goes and how it works out.

Mike Schmidt: 3:30

So safe to say that you know one way or another. Through the punches and the highs and the lows, you know, aj and I have been able to build a business that has, today, runs without us, and we can focus our full time attention on coaching, digital marketing, marketing, agency owners who want to create more time and financial freedom for themselves, who, honestly, are maybe trapped by the very businesses that they've created. They're trading their time for money and they're trying to figure out hey, I started this business, but it sure feels more like a job, it feels like a business that's creating upward mobility for me, and so that's what we've taken on is our life's charge and passion in communicating the leadership roles and lessons and marketing tactics and strategies and team building and all the stuff that's come with it. All the stuff that's come with it, all the times we've, as I said before, punched in the face, all the lessons that we've, the mistakes that we've made into helping other people hopefully avoid some of those things.

AJ Rivera: 4:34

Yeah, so my background was obviously in a corporate environment. Like you mentioned, I've been working for Intuit and kind of grew up in Intuit. I got hired there when I was 21 years old, was quickly managing a team of like 40 people that were well beyond my age. It was like 30, 40-year-old people and I'm sitting here like why the heck am I like managing all these older guys? Some of them were like some of them I don't think were that into the idea but needless to say, I was successful at making that happen.

AJ Rivera: 5:03

But as I grew and as I continued to climb that corporate ladder and into it, I was what I call successfully discontent. I was making a lot of money, I felt really good about what I was doing, but I didn't really understand how the work that I was doing was contributing to something bigger. I was a very small cog in this huge machine, which is how you sometimes feel in a corporate environment, right, and I was looking for something where I could have a more clear idea of how the work that I was doing was actually impacting somebody. You know I had tried to start my own web design agency on the side while I was working at Intuit. Me and a buddy who was in sales were like cool. I was just kind of messing around with websites on the side and he was in sales. I'm like, well, why don't?

Intro / Outro: 5:48

you go sell websites and I'll build them right.

AJ Rivera: 5:50

But he had a full-time job, I had a full-time job, so we got a couple and then we both kind of realized like we're not really into this. But when I saw Mike post a position for web strategist at Anchorwave strategist at Anchor Wave I was like this looks interesting Again at this point it was 2008, still kind of early in all this thing, and it was in Tucson and I was kind of intrigued by it. I went and checked out the website. I'm like looks like they've got some stuff going on. Let me go check this out, because what he was hiring for was what he put was a web strategist.

AJ Rivera: 6:18

And I'm like I know a lot about web strategy. At that that time I was managing the online communities for like QuickBooks and TurboTax and Quicken and you know kind of grew up in all of that stuff and I'm like if he needs help with web strategy, I'm all about that, Right, I can help people with that. What I didn't know is that what he was really hiring for was a sales position.

AJ Rivera: 6:36

He just kind of disguised it as web strategy, Right, and I would have said website sales or digital marketing sales, like there's no way I would have ever applied, because at that time, my thinking about what a salesperson was was not very, very good. Right, I was thinking like this sleazy sales guy that's on the car lot, that's like trying to convince people that they need to do something. I'm like that. That just wasn't me at that time, right, but he was spot on, because what I was doing when I went there was exactly what he said. Right, I'm meeting with people, I'm understanding what their needs are and understanding what their motivations, what their goals are, and I'm making recommendations on how they could accomplish those things by changing their strategy online. And then it's either like you want that or you don't. Right, it's a very consultative sales process, and so, while he tricked me into it, I'm glad he did it.

AJ Rivera: 7:25

We got a ton of success in doing that, and the added bonus in all of this was that, since I grew up in that corporate environment, there was a lot of training and business acumen and different things that I was able to bring into the business that Mike just didn't have exposure to. He was straight out of college into this thing and, man, I applaud the heck out of this guy for getting it to that point without that stuff, because that's like the hardest part, right, is getting this thing off the ground. I got to come in when it was already going 40 miles an hour and got to get it to go faster, but like he did the work of getting it to that point.

Dr. William Attaway: 7:57

So good. You know, I think that a lot of the people listening are going to look at you too, or listen to you too and say, wow, that's amazing. Like look at their trajectory, that's, that's something. But they're still in the early days, you know, they're still in the early stages. Some of the folks who listen to the show, they might be looking at you and thinking, oh yeah, you just skyrocketed, like everything was just, was just up and to the right right. You didn't have the same challenges I have to deal with. You didn't have to deal with the stuff I do.

Mike Schmidt: 8:33

I'm curious what you would say to that if they were to say that to you directly? Yeah, you know, it's funny because there are so many things that you know. So the person who's listening is like you know, I'm just getting started or I haven't yet reached the. I've been doing this a while and I haven't reached the level of success. You know we're just a little bit further ahead down the road, but, trust me, the story that you're telling yourself about the current situation you're in is very good at that story. I know that story. Maybe I invented that story, depending on you know we are. We are kind of considered grandpas as it relates to digital marketing these days, which is funny. We were on a podcast, by the way, and somebody said you know what In 2003, I was in diapers. I was like man, I'm like okay, so so Okay.

Dr. William Attaway: 9:24

If you're a grandpa, I'm not going to even go there.

Intro / Outro: 9:27

I'm just going to. I'm just going to leave that alone In 2003,.

Dr. William Attaway: 9:30

I'd been married for years.

Mike Schmidt: 9:31

So so it's like um, the thing is that we were what, what are? What was happening then is we were in what is referred to as the feast or famine business cycle. Right, it's periods of time where you have, uh, you know, you're doing some marketing, you have lots of cash, lots of projects coming in, you're high fiving Cause it's like, okay, I'm really doing this, right. But then what happens? You stop marketing, right, and you're busy in fulfillment, and then you're the project ends and you're wondering where the next projects is going to come in from. So you go from feast to famine pretty quickly. There's these cycles going back and forth. And I'll tell you what I'm equally as proud of this as I am ashamed is that we reached our first million dollar year doing it the hard way, which was not building any recurring revenue. So that means that AJ and I were out there hitting the streets, selling the projects, doing the thing, and every month, at the end of the month, we get to the top of the hill reaching these big goals. And guess what happens on the first of the month Boom, sales goals reset. Why? Because we have team and people and bills and expenses that, gosh, they want to be paid every two weeks. That's nice, right, but where's that money coming from? And so we built a rather you know my opinion large and successful business that was fulfilling our life needs and goals.

Mike Schmidt: 10:46

Except for the fact it was stressful as all hell right. It was nasty because we were constantly in this pressure of this thing going on. So much so that at one point my accountant called me one day after getting back from a long weekend vacation I'd taken. Tuesday morning I walk in. I got a voicemail from him. He said to me Mike, come on over now. It was just weird, like why was my accountant calling me? He knew I was out of town. He was actually down the office complex from us. So I walked into his office and I was like hey, what's up? He said, hey, grab the door, close it. I was like, okay, red flag Number two the accountant Tuesday, right after I get back from vacation.

Mike Schmidt: 11:22

Now he's telling me to close the door. Now, he's roughly my age and we're buddies, and so that was just weird. Close the door, he says Mike, there's not enough money in the account to cover payroll this week. I was like at that moment, time slowed down, Started to get that tunnel vision and I might have been looking cool on the outside and easy and calm, but on the inside I was like this panic wreck, Like I don't know what's going on. And so what happened was I made a decision that moment like I don't want to be in this position anymore. Right, Well, we figured it out. That's long story short. We figured it out. But the thing is that we had clients that would come in that we get these big projects. We had no recurring revenue to speak from, and our biggest client like the story that best illustrates this that I think a lot of folks can relate to is the time that we sold the local casino here and it was like a big high five project. Yeah 100%.

AJ Rivera: 12:20

Like I had been working on trying to close this client for like eight months. Right, it was a big casino in town. It was brand new and I was whale hunting. I was trying to go after that bigger project because I was tired of having to reset every month at zero and I thought if we could put a bunch of money in our bank account then we wouldn't have all of this stress. And we closed that deal. We're high-fiving. It was a six-figure website deal, by far the biggest website that we'd ever sold. We see that money going to the account.

AJ Rivera: 12:48

We were super proud of it. We wanted to make sure that we put our best foot forward. We went and got extra resources, we built this thing out and we launched this incredible site. We won awards for it. Everybody was happy. We were in the paper, there's all these cool things that were going on.

AJ Rivera: 13:02

But guess what? Three or four months later we're looking at our financial reports and I'm like why does it feel like we're pretty much in the same position we were three or four months ago. We just had the biggest influx of cash in our business than we've ever had. Yet it's gone again and we're in the same boat. Where. Now I feel like I got to go out there and I got to get a Hail Mary to figure out how the heck we're going to make payroll again. And I went to our accountant at that time and I'm like this isn't like mapping for me, like how did we get all this money in our account? And then, like we're right back in the same position that we were. And there was one report that she ran that like completely changed our lives and it was a report of our top 20 customers for the past four years. Right, and guess what I was expecting? I thought for sure, number one on that list was going to be the Casino Del Sol, right, and I looked at the top of the list and I'm like what? I'm like they're not there, like there must be something. I scroll down and they were like number 19. Right, they were. They barely made the top 20. But guess what? Guess who was number one? It was an orthodontist who had been paying us two grand a month for the last four years. It was this AC company that had been paying us 1,800 bucks for the last four years. It was a roofer that had been paying us and every single person on the top of that list were people that were paying us monthly recurring revenue Because we had started to dip our toe in that.

AJ Rivera: 14:23

We started to offer that, but it was never my focus when I was out there doing sales. I was going after the biggest, baddest project I could find, right, when I should have been focused on these guys, because these were the ones that were actually supporting our business. And so that's when the light bulb went off. As much as it hurt to see that, it also made me feel really good because I felt helpless when I was like where am I going to go find another six-figure website? Right, you just don't find those all over the place. It's not like I can go to a chamber event or networking event and find the next project that's like that, right. But guess what? I could go to any of those events and find an orthodontist and find a roofing company, and find an AC company. And so that's when I was like I had this sudden rush of like dang, I could make this happen, right, I just got to go find more of these guys and that's going to fix everything.

AJ Rivera: 15:09

And so Mike and I made a decision in that moment like no more upfront projects. I mean, I'm not saying we don't ever do them, but it wasn't going to be the focus of what I was trying to do, right, like, instead of $10,000, $20,000, $30,000 website, we should have been high-fiving the $750 SEO agreement. Right, that's what we should have been doing. And so we shifted our focus as much as we could to the recurring services and within a year, our lives changed, because at the beginning of the month, we had built enough recurring revenue that our expenses were paid and our payroll were paid.

AJ Rivera: 15:41

I didn't need to do another single sale in order for those two things to happen. And all the other sales the rest of that thought were just the icing on the cake. And not only did that allow us to sleep at night and not have to do these crazy Hail Marys or not have to be in desperation mode, it allowed us to work on projects that we wanted to work on, the things that we always would put on the back burner because I can't work on that. I got to go find another sale, right? Or you know, the things that we knew were problems in our agency, that we were just like kind of overlooking and hoping they wouldn't blow up because we didn't have the time to focus on them. We now had the time to focus on those things because we didn't need to be in desperation mode all the time.

Dr. William Attaway: 16:23

You've said several things as you've talked that just resonate so much with me In talking so, many of my clients are agency owners in various stages, from early days up to eight-figure entrepreneurs. You can't lead all of that the same way. The mindset has to shift as you go. I'm curious as you have built your agency, or as you built it, your mindset had to shift too. You know you've described one of those right this shift from going after the whale sales to understanding the power of MRR. But you had to shift even beyond that. You had to do what I think is one of the hardest things for an entrepreneur to do and what most don't do, which is why they become the lid on their organization. You learned how to take your hands off. You learned how to delegate. What was it that caused that to be a step in your journey? Was there a moment, a catalytic moment, that really you were like, wow, you know what the business has to scale, but I don't scale. What was that moment?

Dr. William Attaway: 17:28

like for you.

Mike Schmidt: 17:33

Yeah, if I think back to the earliest moments of being faced with the choice of delegating and letting go of certain things, my main thought was why on earth would I pay somebody else to do the thing that I can do? Why would I be sharing my money with this other person when you know what? It's not going to take that long. It's just this little update or this. It's just. It's just, it's just. And you know what, these little things. In time, I started to realize that it was like these little grains of sand of small things turned into these big boulders of things that were holding me back, and what I realized was the reason I was hesitant to let go was not just the money by itself. It was the fear of someone else not doing it the right way, and then I'd have to do it again. Worst case scenario I just paid you to do this thing. You messed it up. Now I got to do it and I still got to pay you, and so what I really focused in on was the reality was that I was not charging my clients enough to be able to delegate, because I felt like all I was doing was taking the money that was coming in my pocket and putting it into your pocket. And what's the point of that?

Mike Schmidt: 18:42

I think too many, a lot of businesses, but especially agency owners, because they're so resourceful I think agency owners are some of the most resourceful people on the planet we just figure it out. If somebody comes to us, they're like you know what, can you do this? You're like, yeah, I got this, I'll figure it out. We, you know right or wrong. We chase the shiny objects and we learn the thing and we understand it. And then we apply, apply, apply. But that, they say, a strength overused, becomes weakness, and the weakness I had is that I knew so much and I was charging so little that I had no margins to hand over.

Mike Schmidt: 19:14

So the belief that I had to change might be a little counterintuitive, because it wasn't about just getting better at delegating and handing things over or trusting people more that like, okay, I'm going to give you a shot. It was actually believing that I deserve to be paid based off the value that I provide and not the time that it takes. And that's the mistake that folks are making. So imagine if you're trading an hour of your time for a certain amount of money. Well, if you get faster or better or stronger and any of those things. It actually takes you less time.

Mike Schmidt: 19:45

Well, then you end up charging your clients less, and then we're putting this weird situation where it's like I know that it took me only 15 minutes to do that, but it used to take me an hour, and now I'm getting paid for 15 versus an hour and I should charge them an hour. But then I feel guilty because I'm a good person and I told them it was an hourly thing, right? So, if you know, I was just stuck at the time of selling hourly and that's just the wrong way to look at it is that you deserve to be paid based off of the value that you provide, not the time that it takes, and it took me some time to figure out how to understand and calculate what is the value that I'm actually providing to someone. If I'm helping a business let's say it's a local carpet store If I'm helping them bring in these $20,000 carpet jobs and they used to get one or two of them a month and now they're getting six or eight of them what kind of value am I providing to them? Is that worth more than the 15 minutes it took me to do that thing. That was a part of that process, and so it was understanding, first and foremost, I deserve to be paid by something value to provide enough time. It takes, but it was also making sure that I was able to then use that time and be able to hand things off.

Mike Schmidt: 20:54

If folks are having trouble delegating and I'll tell you what guys still sometimes I struggle with this the stuff that sometimes we teach as coaches, we start to realize we're like, yeah, I still still versions of struggle with this, and I think that's one of those things is how can you slice off, take this big job, how can you take the smallest piece and give it to someone that's so small they can't mess it up. The trick is, though it's probably so small, you're like, well, why would I hand that off? Why would I give them that thing? Because I could just do it Right, and it's about training yourself to make sure that you're you're focusing in on on the active delegating, even if it doesn't really do much for you, right? It's that repetition.

Dr. William Attaway: 21:43

That's really good. So so you built this agency agency. The two of you built this to a point and in a healthy, sustainable way, so that you are then able to step back from it. You found the freedom that entrepreneurs seek so often. We talk about financial freedom, we talk about location freedom, and those are important, but this is time freedom, right? This is the freedom now for you to focus on something else. And you've built Agency Coach. Tell me about that.

AJ Rivera: 22:09

Yeah, I think one of the things Mike and I had in common. It's funny because I mentioned how earlier on I tried to start a web agency myself and I remember one of the first times I went into Mike's office I saw this binder. It was from SitePoint I don't know if you remember that site and both of us bought this thing because it was like it was the only thing you could buy. I think at that time it was like sit on the shelf right there. So we both found this shortcut right that we thought was going to be amazing and what it was was like there's a sample website proposal in there, there's a sample contract in there. There may have been like a couple email templates for marketing and things like that. And it's interesting because when I saw that I'm like dude, I have that same thing. I bought that thing. It's like 300 bucks, but guess what After that-.

Mike Schmidt: 22:54

We always tell the story and now we can actually pull it out. There you go. There it is From 1999 or something like that. It still exists. Boom, there you go.

AJ Rivera: 23:02

And I'll tell you what. We've always hired coaches to help us out. We've always believed like, hey, we want to learn from something, we don't want to figure everything out on our own. But the coaches that we were hiring were general business coaches and they never really understood what we did. And it was like they had success in this other industry and like we're trying to talk to them about digital marketing stuff and they kind of got it, but they really didn't and it was just, it was a mess, right. Like we never had somebody that we could just like go buy something that they did and like stick it into our business, right. Like it was always like us having to translate some theoretical concept into agency talk and agency world and then making it work, which is a lot harder to do, right, and I think both of us felt like, man, we've got, we figured this out the hard way. It took us forever to do it, it shouldn't take people 20 years to be able to step feet out of their other business. And like we have some things that we could share with others. Right, and we can give them those shortcuts that we didn't have so that they can go a lot faster. And you know, we both believe that we kind of stepped our foot into that, even before leaving the agency. You know, we had we'd launched our first course for agency coach while we still had one foot definitely heavily in the agency, and we saw a lot of success with that. We saw hundreds of people, thousands of people, that were leaving video testimonials thanking us for that and it's just super rewarding, right.

AJ Rivera: 24:22

Like in Tucson, like I mentioned before, I wanted to have a closer connection with the people that we were helping and I certainly knew a lot of business owners and a lot of them love us and they're thankful for the work that we did.

AJ Rivera: 24:32

But we were like impacting Tucson, right. And then with this thing, it's like we were having a more global impact. Right, we were helping agencies here and in Canada and Australia and New Zealand and Europe and all these people from all over the world saying, hey, I took this thing that you gave me and I used it and it's working and it's producing a result for me and for my clients. And my clients are just like this is wild, this is crazy, right, and so we wanted more of that and we're like that's just one trick in our bag of tricks right. We've got a whole lot more. We just didn't have the time at that time to really do that right, because we were still running the agency. But once we decided it was time to let go of that, then we're like cool, now let's teach them all this other stuff that they can put in their business as well.

Dr. William Attaway: 25:14

You know, one of the things I want to commend the two of you for is the open handedness that you are exhibiting, not just today. I mean the generosity that you're showing today and sharing so openly and freely from your story. That's fantastic, but agency coach is a prime example of an open handed approach to helping other people. Hey, you know, I believe that there is no such thing as a wasted experience in your life. I think every experience in your life has contributed to making you and I who we are today. But I don't believe those experiences are just for us. I believe those experiences are also for the benefit of those around us If we will be a conduit of those experiences and not just a reservoir.

Dr. William Attaway: 26:00

I think what you have created with Agency Coach is a fantastic example of a conduit of those experiences and not just a reservoir. I think what you have created with agency coach is a fantastic example of a conduit. Hey, this is what we learned and we're still learning, but we want to share it with you. We want to hold our hands open. Yeah, would that be accurate?

Mike Schmidt: 26:12

Yeah, you're, you're, you're definitely right. Um, you know the? The thing that I thought I I think super interesting. You say we're still learning, right. So being out of the day to day operations of our agency while still owning it for the last several years, it's given us a chance to study from the outside what worked.

Mike Schmidt: 26:32

I kind of I falsely believe that, like everyone had sales processes as good as, and everyone had marketing and lead generation and client fulfillment and team management, I just assumed they just had their own flavor of it, but it turns out that that's actually what most folks struggle with and the learning continues inside of us, studying our own business and also the agencies that we get to work with closely. What's also funny is we're operating, know, we're operating this coaching business, and this is also an opportunity for us to continue to learn and discover things about things. And so, while many of the things that we've learned in the agency space has made its way, you know, into our coaching, it's also been really fascinating and really fulfilling to see what we're learning in the coaching space and how it applies backwards into the agency as well. It's a conduit, as you put it, but the conduit is flowing in lots of different directions, just because you don't have to make the same mistake as us, right? In fact, I hope that you could just even maybe folks listening today, maybe you've learned a perspective on things that will help them avoid a pitfall that they've had.

Mike Schmidt: 27:46

The mistakes and the lessons can be learned by someone else and passed down, and I think that's incredibly useful and I wish that I would have embraced that sooner and earlier in my career. Certainly, I've worked with business coaches early on, but there's also, I think because I mentioned earlier agencies being very resourceful right Tend to be resourceful people. Well, I think with that, we tend to be lone wolves sometimes, where we kind of blaze in our own path, doing our thing their own way. We don't want to look at what the competition or other people are doing, and I think that that's a mistake, right, and it's something that I've had to change my approach over the years, recognizing that I don't have to figure it out on my own and there's other folks that are smarter than me, that are willing to help me, and it's my job to listen.

Dr. William Attaway: 28:33

You know there are a lot of masterminds and coaching programs around. I'm sure you're more than aware of this. What differentiates agency coaching?

AJ Rivera: 28:43

I think for us and this might be in addition to the question you asked before about why we did this is that when we were still at Anchor Wave, there were some agency coaches that were starting to pop up here and there, but what we found when we looked into it is that many of them never, really ever even had a successful agency, right? Or some of them did, but it was in the early 2000s and they sold it, and now it's 2015 and they're still trying to teach you the stuff there. I'm like if we were teaching the stuff we were doing in 2003 today, this is not going to work, right.

Dr. William Attaway: 29:14

And so, like you got the binder, you got the binder right there, right here.

AJ Rivera: 29:18

Exactly. Yeah, we should take another look at that. Maybe there is some stuff that's funny, but you know, we always kind of felt like this, like man. It's funny, but you know, we always kind of felt like this, like man. It's like how can these people be an integrity going out there and coaching is something that they've never accomplished? Right.

AJ Rivera: 29:35

And Mike and I went into this feeling like man, we've got the agency, we've got the case that we've got the role model of what we built, that we feel really proud of Right, and this operating system that exists over here that we want to put into other people's world and see if it works Right, like we didn't know, we didn't know if it was actually going to work, but like once we start to see it work with one person, then two people then it starts to like we're like oh my God, we really have something here Right.

AJ Rivera: 29:55

And so I think that that's probably the biggest thing that I would say differentiates us is that we actually have, have and had a working agency that we still own Right of working agency that we still own right, and many people that are getting into this. I think when people enter into business right, it's because they want time and financial freedom and, mike said it before, most people end up owning a job, not a business right, and so we're two still pretty young guys that were able to figure this out and we want to share that with other people so they can actually reach that goal of being a business owner, an entrepreneur, someone that owns something that can run without them.

Dr. William Attaway: 30:31

So you have to constantly be learning, and you've spoken about that a number of times already. This conduit runs two ways. You're learning as well as teaching. How is it that you are staying on top of your game and by that I mean agency coach and your agency are going to need you both to lead at a higher level a year from now, five years from now, than you do today.

Mike Schmidt: 30:53

How are you continuing to develop and grow with the leadership skills that your team you know, putting ourselves in the rooms of really smart people has been a really key piece.

Intro / Outro: 31:08

You know, they say if you're the smartest person in the room.

Mike Schmidt: 31:09

You're in the wrong room.

Intro / Outro: 31:10

You want to be the dumbest person in the room.

Mike Schmidt: 31:11

That's right. And AJ and I constantly find ourselves being dumb in places and it's the best ever. It's like, hey, what are you doing? How's that work? Let me figure that out. And I think that's just a really key thing for us personally is putting ourselves in places where we can learn those things and bring that into our businesses right. But that's also like a that's a culture thing that we've instilled in our own businesses, right, like the leadership team all the way down to the folks that are just getting hired in our agency, for example. You know it's all of their job to grow the business and to bring their unique perspective on things. And I'll tell you a quick story that I think illustrates it really well.

Mike Schmidt: 31:51

A bunch of years ago, I was sitting across the table from a gal that still works for us. Her name's Brittany, and Brittany came from the hospitality industry and she was working. She came to work for us in a digital marketing capacity and I said Brittany. I said, hey, I need you to make create the process for something we were working on, and she kind of just like stared at me for a second and said she's like, really, you want me to make that up. I said, well, yeah, because you do it every day, I need you to create that thing. And she's like, oh man, she's like I got I got to tell you, mike, like you know, back at my old job and the hospitality thing, she's like it was a big, it was like Marriott or Hilton or something, some big hotel chain we all know Right. And she's like if I would have done that there, I would have got fired, right, because they had all their processes, all their systems, everything laid out and if we deviated that was a big problem.

Mike Schmidt: 32:41

I was not allowed to make those decisions. And the fact that you're asking me to do this, well, one, I'm like a little uncomfortable doing it. She said. But she's like it's really cool that you want me to do this because I know I can do this. I'm like that's what I'm talking about. So here's the thing, brittany. I said everything here. You see, we made it up. We made it up Like the way we serve as clients, the way we market ourselves, the way we do everything, the way we deliver websites. We made it up. I'm like you see this color white on the wall I think it was orange at the time. See this orange. I'm like somebody made that up, somebody chose that color, like the desks that we've got here, the monitor on the desk, like somebody made that choice and decision at some point. It wasn't bestowed on us and like handed down. It may seem like that or feel like that to you because there's lots of decisions that have been made already, but guess what? We're not done.

Intro / Outro: 33:27

Making shit up but we got to keep doing that, and I need you to do that.

Mike Schmidt: 33:31

So, from a leadership perspective, it's about involving the folks that are around you to weigh in and be a part of those things. And sometimes those folks are in smart rooms. They're the dumb person in a smart room and at a certain point you get to this growth trajectory where you need to not only delegate the work, you need to delegate decision making. Right, that's a whole nother game like 4D chess. Going on, it's like no longer am I making the decisions, I'm having other people make the decisions, and you better be ready for that when that comes, because it'll never come if you don't trust the people around you and empower them to use the things that they know and make the decisions. And I love that story because Brittany is an awesome team member of ours. She continues to crush it and she's continued to make shit up, which is the best part.

Dr. William Attaway: 34:24

That's so good. Empowering your people, entrusting your people with the ability to create and lead that's what we get to do as leaders, because a non-leader never makes a leader. Only leaders can do that, and that's what you guys are doing. I think that's so fantastic. You're constantly learning. You're constantly growing. Is there a book that has made a big difference in your journey that you would recommend to the leaders who are listening? Hey, if you haven't read this, you need to put this on your list.

Mike Schmidt: 34:57

Yeah, I mean, I got two in mind that just popped up for me. So yeah, we're like the book. You just asked the two right guys. We're like nonstop recommending, recommending.

AJ Rivera: 35:09

it's like oh hey, you got this situation, here's what you want to read, right you want to go first, I'll do ones that that have just impacted me 100 like the first one's miracle morning by hal alrod um.

AJ Rivera: 35:22

It's not necessarily a leadership book, but I think it's a book that can be the catalyst for a lot of personal development. I always used to be an early riser, but I can't say I did much productive with the time that I spent, and so this book is all about how to structure your morning in a way that you do some very simple things that really create a bunch of momentum that allow you to go into your day. If you're able to get through these things in the morning, everything's downhill. From that point, like I kind of feel like I'm coming into the office like with a cape on. I'm like in Superman mode already. I'm like bring it on Right, like come at me with whatever you've got, because there's nothing that's going to get in my way. And so miracle morning, definitely, definitely, definitely do that book. There's a lot of other ones.

Mike Schmidt: 36:08

Yeah, I'll say E-Myth by Michael Gerber. It's a really popular business book and it's about understanding the difference between the doing of the work and running of the business. And that was a huge point of distinction and a pivotal moment for me reading that book. And it's one of those books I like to revisit again and again because I always learn different things and at different stages I recognize where I'm being too involved in the business versus working on it. And then the other one that popped in that probably nobody listening here has ever read but it's like made a big impact on me and it's the worst.

Mike Schmidt: 36:38

Just so you know, fair warning, this is like the worst title for a book ever. It's written by Pat Croce. He was the thingy on the Mavericks and, I think, some basketball team, uh, and a bunch of other businesses. He was like a physical therapist who was really successful chain of physical therapy, I think. Anyways, the name of the book is called lead or get off the pot. It's like a terrible name but it's such a good book and I one day I hope to meet, meet the guy and tell him like the he made quite an impression on me, not because the name of the book, but what's inside of it, which is basically understanding how to take a big problem and break it down into its action steps and understanding exactly what needs to happen in each stage along the way, and just like I mean, it's so simple, but sometimes it's a simple stuff that really gets you. You're like, okay, life really can be this straightforward and simple. I just need to, like have the permission to actually act on it.

Dr. William Attaway: 37:34

So that one was a. That one's a good one for me, so good, you know I. I know people want to stay connected with you guys and continue to learn from you. I could talk to you for another hour and I imagine our listeners are the same. What's the best way for people to get in touch with you and continue to learn from you?

Mike Schmidt: 37:48

Yeah, well, first thing I'd love to do is drop a link and maybe, if you want to put this in the show notes, agencycoach. com/ catalytic. What I'm going to do is so we were talking about monthly recurring revenue, right. We were talking about the casino story, where we had these big, big projects, right, and there's one strategy that we implemented that helped us influence leads. It improved our conversion rate, it helped us charge more for each sale, it helps us sell more to our existing clients and it improved our margins right, and so it's not often you can get one strategy that does all five of those things. Usually, like, one strategy will hit leads or something else, and so what I'll do is I'll link to that training there. That's a free training you can take a look at to help understand how to do that and to share a bit more of our stories, and I'd be shocked if folks who listen to that don't walk away with things they can do in the next couple of days. That will mean real cash in their pocket, right then. So if you're a digital agency owner and you want to create more time and financial freedom, you want monthly recurring revenue to be greater than expenses, which is what AJ was talking about earlier. That'll be great, a great thing for you to start with, and I'll be agencycoach. com/ catalytic. We'll put it there. My Instagram is at Mr Mike Schmidt and happy to chat with anybody that's got further questions from today. I'm always on there hanging out, so and it is really me on there chatting, so happy to happy to chat with you guys.

AJ Rivera: 39:13

Yeah, mine is. Instagram is ant1832. One of those old school weird ones.

Dr. William Attaway: 39:22

This has been so fantastic. I so appreciate again your generosity in sharing so freely and the resources that you're sharing with. Our listeners always appreciate it. I know folks are going to want to jump on that.

Mike Schmidt: 39:34

Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for having us. We're glad to be here. Thank you, appreciate you so much.

Dr. William Attaway: 39:42

Thanks for joining me for this episode today. As we wrap up, I'd love for you to do two things. First, subscribe to this podcast so you don't miss an episode, and if you find value here, I'd love it if you would rate it and review it. That really does make a difference in helping other people to discover this podcast. Second, if you don't have a copy of my newest book, catalytic Leadership, I'd love to put a copy in your hands. If you go to catalyticleadershipbookcom, you can get a copy for free. Just pay the shipping so I can get it to you and we'll get one right out.

Dr. William Attaway: 40:18

My goal is to put this into the hands of as many leaders as possible. This book captures principles that I've learned in 20 plus years of coaching leaders in the entrepreneurial space, in business, government, nonprofits, education and the local church. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn to keep up with what I'm currently learning and thinking about. And if you're ready to take a next step with a coach to help you intentionally grow and thrive as a leader, I'd be honored to help you. Just go to catalyticleadershipnet to book a call with me. Stay tuned for our next episode next week. Until then, as always, leaders choose to be catalytic.

Intro / Outro: 41:01

Thanks for listening to Catalytic Leadership with Dr William Attaway. Be sure to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts so you don't miss the next episode. Want more? Go to catalyticleadershipnet.