DeepSpecialization_Greg Hickman_EP 62_Audio_Edited_V1
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Corey Quinn: [00:00:00] Welcome to the deep specialization podcast, the show where we blend focus, strategy, and client intimacy in order to scale and simplify our businesses and our lives. I'm your host, Corey Quinn. Let's jump into the show today. I'm joined by the founder of alt agency, Greg Hickman. Welcome Greg.
Greg Hickman: Thank you very much for having me, man.
Corey Quinn: Super excited that you're here. So you've built a seven figure, I believe a seven figure advisory business. That is based on sort of a counter to the hustle culture. And you have sort of a really unique go to market for how you built your, your agency advisory business and how you coach others. So I'm super excited to, to bring you on and to, you know, have others hear about your approach.
Corey Quinn: But as we kind of kick things off here, could you just tell us a little bit about yourself and what AltAgency is and who you serve?
Greg Hickman: For sure. So Greg Hickman, I live in Denver, Colorado, [00:01:00] father of two husband to one. And, oh, I guess, I guess father to three, we have a dog, big mountain biker, love being outside and integrating my, my business and my life.
Greg Hickman: All agency is a fundamentally a consulting and training company. We kind of blur the lines, which is the way A little bit about what we're going to talk about, I think today, which I think is kind of a pathway that a lot of service providers, agency owners have an opportunity to go in, but at its core, we are a training organization with, with consulting.
Greg Hickman: Who do we serve? We serve really agencies, freelancers and service providers. Most people self identify differently as you know, and I'd say 85 plus percent of our clients are sub 1 million. We have a smaller subset that are above a million, but really those folks that are trying to in the grow and grow, grow and [00:02:00] quote unquote scale phase of their business.
Corey Quinn: Okay. So why is it curious to hear? Why is it quote unquote scale? What does scale mean?
Greg Hickman: Well, I think it means different things to a lot of people, which is why I put it in air quotes for those that are listening to audio only. I think in, if you're on, if you spend any time online, I mean, you won't, you can't scroll through social media without.
Greg Hickman: Seeing, you know, scale this, scale that, and it often, often, not all the time, seems to be tied to a specific revenue number as if it were some magical destination that you can arrive at. And I think, I think it's more about scalability. Like how scalable are you? It's on like a continuum versus like you've arrived.
Greg Hickman: Yeah. And yeah. Inside of at least the market that I work, work in, you see a lot of the, you know, online internet marketer type people that talk about scaling up and they're referencing [00:03:00] like 30 K a month and I just, I find that semi comical. As you know, most small to medium sized business in the United States goes up to, I believe like 50 million a year from a business and up to like hundreds of employees, which sounds way more scale than most of the content that you see in the marketplace when using that word.
Greg Hickman: And so. I always like to call out, I think words are important and when we choose words, we should use our words as correctly as possible. So if, if we're speaking about, I can have more leverage, you know, make more with less. I think that's what most people are trying to talk about when they talk about.
Greg Hickman: Scale, but that's really leverage. Hence my air quotes.
Corey Quinn: Sure. And so, and so is it fair to say that what you're really focusing in on is helping business owners, entrepreneurs, these consultants and agency founders to really develop and build more leverage into their [00:04:00] business?
Greg Hickman: Absolutely.
Corey Quinn: That's awesome. So what's your role there as the founder?
Corey Quinn: Like what does your day to day look like?
Greg Hickman: It's a great question. So we were just having a conversation about this in one of our training calls. So, I mean, I'm pretty much the vision, you know, I'm still actively involved in vision leading the team. We have a small, but mighty team. We actually downsized our team middle of last year.
Greg Hickman: And so I'm wearing a couple more hats than I normally had been wearing the last few years. So I play creative director. You know, marketing, I'm part of the sales team and I'm one of the facilitators and consultants inside of the delivery, which is like my favorite, favorite thing to do. So thankfully I'm, I, I would say that I, I enjoy all of the hats that I wear right now, but there are definitely some that I will need to be removing again in the near future.
Corey Quinn: Sure. That's, that's the, the story of a, of a founder entrepreneur it's, [00:05:00] it's always a process. So when did alt agency start? When did you start this?
Greg Hickman: So my original agency, which was called systemly launched in the middle of 2015, the deliverables and the offering that we now have as alt agency started in 2017, but we rebranded to alt agency from systemly in.
Greg Hickman: Going into 2020. So as a name, as a brand alt agency came about 2020, like Jan one, we rolled out kind of the, the brand change, but we had been doing the work that we had been doing inside of the training and the offers that we currently have had been operating fundamentally since. Early 2017.
Corey Quinn: And at systemly, were you effectively working with agencies then, or was it different types of businesses?
Greg Hickman: Yeah. So that was interesting. It's because a lot of where I'm at now sort of happened [00:06:00] accidentally in a very serendipitous way. So I systemly was fundamentally like a small marketing automation. Implementation boutique, if I could call it that. I mean, we were super small when we got started. I mean, there was two of us, we grew to 13 people, most of which were full time.
Greg Hickman: And we served Infusionsoft users now called Keep. So we were very specific on, you know, Infusionsoft users and the majority of our clients were categorized as authors, speakers. Coaches or course creators. They were people out on stage selling books and then had courses. They were people, you know, doing, you know, weekly webinars that were selling courses and or coaching programs.
Greg Hickman: And so we were behind the scenes of, of people like John Lee Dumas from entrepreneurs on fire, building out literally all of their end to end marketing systems, people like Chris Ducker, who's really big on personal branding. We worked with Dan Martell, we [00:07:00] were kind of behind the scenes in his early days.
Greg Hickman: So we had the chance to be behind the scenes of like really amazing entrepreneurs in this online service space. And I simultaneously had been very active about documenting my own journey through blogging, posting on social media. I had a podcast at the time with a co host of mine named Justin, who the podcast was called.
Greg Hickman: Originally it was called, yeah, it was called zero to scale. And it was about us chronicling our journey of both building our productized service businesses from zero up to in the beginning, it was like, let's capture 20 K a month, but then we both hit 20 K a month and we're like, let's just go to, you know, a seven figure run rate.
Greg Hickman: And that was like a, we ended that podcast around a hundred episodes, but because of that podcast and just the chronicling of my, my experience, I started getting a lot of freelancers, service providers that were like, Hey, like we see that you're building these sales and marketing [00:08:00] systems, like. We feel like we need that too.
Greg Hickman: Like we need the repeatability of, of leads and all that stuff. And our sales process isn't like systematic. And we dove in to start, like, I'm like, let me do a little bit of an experiment and work with some of these people and we hop in and like immediately. You know, I was like, all right, well, like, what are we systemizing?
Greg Hickman: Like, what do you sell? And no, no one could answer the question. And I was like, well, like, how, like, what do you sell someone? And they're like, well, it's a retainer. I'm like, well, what's included in a retainer? And they're like, whatever the client needs. I was like, okay, well. Now I understand why you have no systems because everything is ad hoc and bespoke.
Greg Hickman: And so I had to start coaching people and I didn't, I didn't call it coaching at the time. I didn't even know what I was. I was just, how do I help you formulate what your offer is? And so that it. Is contained and productized and that kind of became the launching pad of like most of a key piece of our intellectual property [00:09:00] that like became this done with you kind of.
Greg Hickman: Coaching program, training program. So it was by dabbling, you know what, I don't know if you've ever said this, but in that early stage of like validation in your service and things like that, you know, I was like, Hey, I'm staying focused, like work, work, work. Course creators, authors, speakers, and coaches, and we're building these funnels for them.
Greg Hickman: And you hear the, like, you can't necessarily prevent an audience from starting to follow you. And so like the noise just got loud enough from the service providers were like, we want help. Like people were subscribing to my email newsletter and they were like, how can I work with you? I was like, well, we only work with these people.
Greg Hickman: And like, you say that enough times at the point where you're like, Hmm, maybe, maybe I should try this and experiment and we did. And then it was like, I actually really enjoyed working with those folks better. And really the reason was, [00:10:00] is when like you look at all of the, my background, my experience and what I enjoy doing, it was really difficult for me to market myself when I was always behind the scenes building other people's businesses.
Greg Hickman: I always needed those clients. To tell their story. I needed their story in my marketing. And once I started working with like other service providers, I had stories for years. Like, I mean, I can reflect back to graduating out of college and even my internships in college. Like I've been in the service based agency, like world since college.
Greg Hickman: Right. So I just have so much more intimacy with the problems that they were having than the author. Like I had never. I've never published a book, you know, it's like I couldn't relate. And my marketing just never felt like it landed until I started telling my own story that resonated with that market.
Greg Hickman: And that's where I was like, [00:11:00] man, this is so much, it feels just more in alignment. And that's, that's kind of what was another tipping point for me with, with.
Corey Quinn: You know, it's interesting you say that because on this show, I interview a lot of successful agency founders who have taken a vertical focus and have had some, you know, some measured success as a result of that.
Corey Quinn: And time and time again, the topic of, you know, why this vertical and in majority of the cases, almost all the cases. There is some level of affinity or care or empathy for the buyer or for the, for not only the person that they're servicing, but also that industry, like they care about the future of that industry.
Corey Quinn: They want, they want to be a part of the solution of the, of the betterment of that industry. And that, and that care is the thing that comes across in the marketing that comes in the delivery that ultimately drives. [00:12:00] It's the success and the word of mouth and all the good things that come from this focus.
Greg Hickman: I totally agree. And I think that to add to that, I mean, building a business in my opinion is extremely hard and challenging. I'm sure there's people that say it's simple and easy, but it's been nothing short of the most it's been the best self and self improvement, personal development program I've ever been a part of.
Greg Hickman: Right. And the, that interest, the affinity for these people. Is a key factor in, I think, longevity and like the willingness to power through the, the dark and challenging times, you know, the number of agency in a box things that are out there, which are great for getting started. Like, I'm not trying to. To poo poo on any of that.
Greg Hickman: But like, we've had so many people come through our world. They're like, we serve chiropractors and like, we're stuck. And I'm like, well, why chiropractors? And like, well, because someone said that they have [00:13:00] money and like, they have zero interest in those people. And it's like, I, I always said early on, and I made this mistake in my first go at building an agency is like fall in love with the problem, not the solution and like, And you can take that even further, like fall in love with the person that you're serving.
Greg Hickman: Right. But like, I genuinely love the problems and helping the people that have the problems that, you know, agency owners have that because I was one of them. And so like that never gets old to me. It hasn't, and their problems continue to evolve. But if I was like, Oh, I can do lead generation for chiropractors.
Greg Hickman: Like if I don't like chiropractors and their problem becomes not leads, I'm sort of in a tough spot, you know, like, am I going to be that motivated to try to figure out the next pathway? Probably not. So I think it's a key to longevity as well.
Corey Quinn: So when you're, when you're coaching agencies who are [00:14:00] ambitious and they're, they're, they're interested in, in growing, is this part of, The way that they should grow and how early should they be considering this concept of sort of care or affinity?
Corey Quinn: Like what, at what stage does that come, come up?
Greg Hickman: To me, it's as early as possible. I mean, I think there's, so we kind of have this, this framework called the five stages of evolution. And it's like at the bottom, it's a pathfinder then Voyager navigator, trailblazer, and pioneer. And to me, pathfinder is like your quintessential startup.
Greg Hickman: Like The, the, that period of time is you're trying to validate your market, your audience, your business model, and things like that. And in order to do that, in my opinion, like you kind of got a date around, you got to try a different, try a couple of different things. Like, well, did you like that? Did you not like that?
Greg Hickman: Did you, were you able to get them the results that they wanted? Did you enjoy it? And so I feel like there's, there is a period of time where you just have to kind of. Date around and [00:15:00] try different things to figure out your sweet spot. I mean, even having come from the agency world, you know, I was really big in mobile marketing when I came out into working for myself and I was way ahead of the curve on when a lot of that hit.
Greg Hickman: And. It was a slog, to be honest, like no one cared about it. The people that I was dealing with, like, I was like, mobile is the answer. And they're like, we still haven't figured out email. And that was like the, where the problem solution piece kind of, kind of hit. But I mean that I learned a lot from trying to get that thing off the ground and then finding this market fit of like, wow, I can help these people.
Greg Hickman: I care about these people. I'm interested in these people. Like, I'm going to go all in with these people, but I still, I still dated around, like each of the, each of the different clients, early days had a different agreement, a different offer. And I was like, wow, I never want to do that again. And I want to do more of this.
Greg Hickman: And so I just kept refining. So I do think that period of time is necessary. I think it unfortunately [00:16:00] lasts. Well forever for some people. I mean, I got off the phone with a 2 million a year agency yesterday that had been basically stuck at 2 million the last three years, they have no ideal client profile and their biggest problem is we don't know how to get more people coming to us.
Greg Hickman: It's like, well, who do you want coming to us? They're like, well, we work with everybody. And it's like, that's, that's a problem. Yeah. And so like, I understand that it's okay to like work with a wide variety of people, but like in the early days. having that specificity, whether it's verticalized or whatnot, like it just makes everything simpler because it allows you to say yes to the right people and no to the wrong people.
Greg Hickman: And most people early days are just chasing money. And by saying yes to everything, they're capped. Just by saying yes to everything. And so I do think the faster you can get there, what deems validation. Everyone has a different definition of that. But to me, it's like, if you can get [00:17:00] 10 of a similar looking client to buy a very similar outcome, and you've been able to get most of them, the result that you promised, that's probably validation enough should all agencies
Corey Quinn: productize their services.
Greg Hickman: I don't like the word should for most situations. I'm very bullish on it. When I hear the challenges that the people that we serve have, it is a key part of the solution for them.
Corey Quinn: What does it solve? What is, what does productizing solve?
Greg Hickman: Well, I think first and foremost, it is the, you know, solving a specific problem for a specific person.
Greg Hickman: So it's like you are selling a result. You're not selling time or deliverables secondly on that, because you're selling a result and an outcome, you can have a very repeatable process to get that person, the result, [00:18:00] which means you create efficiencies, which often tends to lead needing less people and higher profit margins.
Greg Hickman: So I think it gives, I think it gives a really healthy container for That fundamentally solves the problem of both scope creep and scope seep, which is the, like the key issues that most agencies run into when they're not profitable or they're having difficulty scaling. And so like, just by like having you, you say, Hey, this is what it is.
Greg Hickman: Here's how it works. Here's how long, this is the problem it's going to solve. And this is exactly what's included. And what's not, I think it just, it's like the forcing function of. You've set standards and now you just need to keep them within this container and you'll be okay, quite frankly,
Corey Quinn: where does sort of client strategy fall into that
Greg Hickman: meaning?
Greg Hickman: Can you elaborate?
Corey Quinn: Sure. So some, some agency founders and owners, you know, they [00:19:00] come in with more of a bespoke approach where they say, well, you know, you tell us your problems and we'll find a solution for you. Like, can you, can you combine this sort of strategic. Approach with a productized solution.
Greg Hickman: I reserve the right to change my mind on this, but currently I think no, here's why.
Greg Hickman: So like, I do think if like you've, if you come from everything we do as bespoke, what I hear a lot of people preach, which is definitely a step in the right direction is like the, the paid audit, right. Which is like fundamentally that's. Hey, the audit, you conduct the same steps to do the audit that that could be argued that that's productized.
Greg Hickman: But if the output of that just goes to, well, anyone that accepts, if the, if the output of the, the, the audit leads to client, a gets one thing, client B gets something different. Client C gets something different. I think you've just delayed the problem. Like it's a bandaid, like, yes, [00:20:00] you've collected money, hopefully for the paid audit.
Greg Hickman: Because you should. And so, yes, that was repeatable, but if you still take every single client on the backside of that audit and every one of them needs something different, you have the same problem. It's just later in the experience, you know? So when it comes to the strategy, like if we think about at least the way that I've always sort of walked through the definition of like productized, it's like, you're just solving a predefined problem, right?
Greg Hickman: And so I'm just going after people that already have a problem that I know how to solve. So like my solution has the strategy woven in and I'm just looking for a fit. Do you have this problem that needs this strategy? Yes. Cool. Let's let's get the solution going. I don't need to do an audit. Right? Like
Corey Quinn: it's like.
Corey Quinn: Yeah. Now it's almost like the strategy is finding out what problems we need to focus on.
Greg Hickman: Right. Exactly. Which is, I mean, I've heard simply [00:21:00] that some people define strategy as like knowing what to say no to.
Corey Quinn: Yeah.
Greg Hickman: You know? So it's like That's different.
Corey Quinn: That's a different kind of, that is a good definition for strategy, but it's in the, in the context of an agency where it's like, yeah, you know.
Corey Quinn: We'll come in for five grand and we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, you know, we'll figure out what the strategy is. Effectively what you're doing in there is you're going in looking at everything and trying to find like, where's the, where's the big problem that's gonna, you know, if we, if we resolve this, then it's gonna, you know, fix the problem either a hundred percent or some, some, you know, in some major way.
Greg Hickman: Yeah. And I'll say there's 100 percent exceptions to the rule. I will say that like back to the, like, should I had a, a guest on my YouTube channel, he's in the like home renovation space and they charge 25 grand for this marketing blueprint, which is basically the strategy, right? Hey, here's what to do. If you'd like us to do it for you, here's the price.
Greg Hickman: If you'd like us to do it with you, here's the price. And so like, they [00:22:00] kind of lean into that, but this gentleman, Like his dad owned a home renovation biz. Like from the day he was born, he grew up and he was the working in his dad's business. And so like he actually codified every single piece cause he was doing it in his dad's business.
Greg Hickman: And so his agency, like every component for these people. Was standardized and was systematized inside the delivery. Like, and there, there, he just naturally had boundaries on what was included in what wasn't, but they executed a very diverse, robust marketing plan that I would argue a lot of other agencies try to do.
Greg Hickman: With way less success. And I don't know if that goes back to like the affinity. I mean, like he grew up in it. It was like, it's like basically in his blood, no one's better suited to do that than him. And so like, for him, like that was an advantage. I just don't see that happening as often anymore.
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Corey Quinn: You've been doing this specifically since about, as you said, 2017, as we're recording Institute 2024, which seven years, what are sort of for you and your business? What are some, how would have been some of the major growth milestones along the way?
Greg Hickman: Oh yeah. Well, so the first one was honing in on that specific market.
Greg Hickman: I mean, we very quickly. If you ask a lot of my close friends and peers, they're like, Greg, you know how to reinvent yourself like overnight. And so like, I went from a decade of being the mobile guy to being the funnel guy in like six months. And so I've been able to kind of reimagine myself. And so when I went [00:25:00] all in on kind of the infusion soft audience, like became certified, was speaking on their stages multiple years in a row, was working with some of the biggest infusion soft accounts that I've worked with.
Greg Hickman: In that market word got around really, really quickly. And so I think like that focus talking about my journey and creating content for those people was like that unlocked a whole new level of like deal flow opportunity than I had never seen before. So the, that I think specialization unlocked. That for me, the second thing was figuring out paid ads.
Greg Hickman: I always tell this story at a good buddy of mine. We had, we had like kind of a similar service, different market. And it was Thanksgiving of, or we were approaching black Friday of 2017. And I had been spending like a hundred or 150 bucks a day on ads. Like. Pay dad into like a webinar funnel that led to an appointment and it was pretty steady results.
Greg Hickman: And I was like, dude, you're doing like the [00:26:00] same thing, but like your results are like exponential. Like what's the difference. And he's like, I spend a thousand dollars a day. You spend 150. And I was like, oh man, I'm like, I was terrified to spend more. And he's like, Do this, double your budget. He's like, go to, he said, just go.
Greg Hickman: He's a go to 500 and I was like 500 a day. I was like, it's two days before Thanksgiving. Like all the costs are up and he's like, just do it. I'm like, all right, fine. I wimped out to go to 500, but I did go to like two 50 or 300 and like literally overnight, like. All of our volume in everything doubled.
Greg Hickman: And I was like, Oh, this is how you play the game. And then like really got into understanding acquisition and the funnel metrics and like looking at ad spend as an investment, not a, not an expense. And that like, once we got to that, I started building confidence, confidence in like our sales process, getting more clients [00:27:00] and.
Greg Hickman: Like just a huge jump in growth from that, the adding the done with you offer. So, I mean, we had kind of been pretty isolated in our, you know, we were building webinar funnels. Like we, we did all the things automation into, we only did webinar funnels as like the entry point. Cause that's what all of our clients wanted.
Greg Hickman: And on the backend, we had like kind of a retainer model type thing. Forcing and we originally started, we got to 25 K a month by just going right into a retainer, but it also strangled us. So like another unlock was charging 15 to 25 K upfront for this one specific outcome and then converting a smaller percentage of those into ongoing was another like Lift in like how we were able to make money and then reinvest that back into the business, which is another, like something that I actively preach is not selling.
Greg Hickman: Most service providers shouldn't sell directly into an MRR relationship, AKA [00:28:00] retainer, despite them wanting to, I think it's a big, big no, no. And not that you can't have it. I'm a huge fan of MRR, but I think you should start with something different. Again, there's always edge cases and. Scenarios where it makes sense, but for most people having like a, an upfront thing.
Greg Hickman: And so when we started like landing five or 10 clients a month, even when we went from like two to five and they were paying 20 K pay in full, I mean, the ability for us to go hire more help and reinvest really started to accelerate versus. Just getting someone to come in and pay 2k a month, which is what that backend was.
Greg Hickman: Yeah. So we just had more cashflow. So that was another big one. Then the done with like going to one to many, and that was another accidental situation. We were at capacity working out. I was working nights, weekends on vacations while we were pregnant. My wife was pregnant at the time and I had this prospect.
Greg Hickman: I'm like, man, I'd love to work with you. But like, I. [00:29:00] Literally, I, we're not at the place where I'm ready to hire somebody else. And none of us have capacity to take you on. Like we can slot you in like two, three months from now. And he just asked me this question. He's like, can you just show me how to do it?
Greg Hickman: And I was like, what do you mean? And he's like, well, do you like, can you just like screen share and show me what you've built in infusion soft? I'm pretty good with infusion stuff. Like I'll build it. I was like, sure. And he's like, well, how much? And so at the time we were chart, like our entry point for done for you was like 15 K and I was like 7, 500 and he was like done.
Greg Hickman: And he like gave me his credit card right then and there. And I was like, what just happened? I have no, like, I don't even know what I'm, giving him yet. And then I like went and looked at all the stuff that we had built. And I like two or three calls, I walked him through and I said, Hey, shoot me an email if you have any questions.
Greg Hickman: And like, that was like version one of like me leveraging prebuilt assets. The, at that time I'd probably built. 1500 [00:30:00] webinar funnels, you know, it's like, like I knew how many emails needed to be where I was like, I just gave him templates. I gave him like almost all of it was 85 percent built before he even got started.
Greg Hickman: And I could click with infusion soft. If you were a partner, I could like import all that stuff right into his app. So like a ton of value. Ton of value. So I was like, click, boom, here's what you need to customize. Here are the templates on what you need to customize and where like the automation already works.
Greg Hickman: You don't even need to touch it. Like if you do, it'll probably break. So don't touch it. And then I was like, wait a minute, we could do this for everybody that can't afford the high level. And so then I went and I said, I'm launching this new group, 2, 500 bucks. I'm going to walk. 10 people through launching this webinar for your business that sold instantaneously.
Greg Hickman: I was like, Whoa, there's something to this. And there was a lot of people that couldn't afford the done for you. And we're willing to do the work that now I was able to tap into that. We're just sitting on my email [00:31:00] list because they were interested, but they couldn't afford to me. And then there was also the people, and this was the surprise one.
Greg Hickman: There were all the people that were really established. That didn't want an agency because they had someone in house, but the someone in house was junior. And so they needed my expertise. They're like, you've done this 1500 times. This person can get around Infusionsoft blindfolded, but like, they don't know what to build.
Greg Hickman: Tell us what to build. And so it worked for the people that were like, I want what you have, but I don't want it how you're going to give it to me. And that was another like, Oh, and then we started getting higher. Like I positioned it for those people too. And we started getting those people that like, just wanted the know how.
Greg Hickman: Right. And that was where like the whole selling your expertise came from. So those are kind of like the major milestones. I'd say
Corey Quinn: a lot to unpack there, but I wouldn't, before we do, I wanted to ask in addition to all these major milestones for your business, You know, as a leader of a company, what [00:32:00] were the big milestones in yourself?
Corey Quinn: Like, how did you have to change as you evolved over the years as a leader?
Greg Hickman: Yeah. And I'll be honest, I'm still very much actively dealing and doing this. I think, I think me being a leader has been the hardest, the hardest development, but A few things came to mind when you asked one was working through other people, finding the balance between like, not just creating a bunch of taskmasters, but people that can make decisions and how do you work through others to get things done?
Greg Hickman: So that was something that I think I figured out as the team was growing, how to, I think really, and maybe this is just, Time versus being a leader. But what phased me in 2017, like does not throw me off now. [00:33:00] Like, I feel like I've done enough hard things and experienced enough obstacles in the business.
Greg Hickman: Like have my back against the wall, a lot of uncertainty, and I've always found a way to get through it that I don't panic or have like big emotional swings. Like I used to. And that obviously helps keep the team focused and not distracted. And so like being able to keep my cool has allowed me to show up more for them because then they don't lose their cool.
Greg Hickman: It was very just, it was like a handoff. Yeah. Yeah. Like I said, I mean, it was a handoff. Like I'd freak out and panic and I'd tell everybody. What I'm thinking very prematurely and then everyone else is panicking. Like, they're like, are we going to lose our job? I'm like, what, what are you talking about? No, but I totally set myself up for that.
Greg Hickman: So I think I learned a lot of. You know, when to share how much to share. And that also very much being a [00:34:00] leader is more about being an example versus telling, right. I mean, like, I think we have a pretty good communication as a team, but. If you, if I can make sure that they look and see what I'm doing, and if they were to try to emulate that, I think we'd be good.
Greg Hickman: And so trying to stay true to that has been, I mean, obviously an ongoing journey, but someone's always watching, right? Someone's always going to read, someone could read the Slack message incorrectly. Based on how you intended to say it. So being careful with your words, thinking things through slowing down, really like, honestly, like I've slowed down decision making I've slowed down how fast I communicate certain things, which maybe you can chalk up to patience.
Greg Hickman: Overall, again, cause I think I've just had enough reps in a lot of things that I'm currently dealing with that I can now control that hopefully that answered the question.
Corey Quinn: Yeah, I [00:35:00] know. And along the way, as you were sort of going through this evolution, were there any resources that were helpful in, in helping you to kind of.
Greg Hickman: Oh, yeah, I had a running tally, but it, it's definitely north of a quarter of a million dollars invested in coaches, consultants, programs, trainers, books. I mean, it's probably closer to three 50, honestly, at this point. So yeah, a lot of mentors getting feedback. I love feedback in the beginning. I didn't take feedback as, as well, which another thing I, I'm really good at hearing constructive criticism and someone calling me on my, on my stuff.
Greg Hickman: And I, I, I mean, I try to invite it as much as possible. And I think that's why I get, I get into some of those programs with Certain people. So that's been huge. And then also I had worked with a similar and like similar to coaches, but like on the personal side, I had worked through a program that really had me hone in [00:36:00] on like how I show up as a husband and then how I focus on my health.
Greg Hickman: And I thought I was buying into like a business program to be honest. And it was one of the best investments I ever made. And it was like so much of how we show up and take care of our bodies, our mind, our relationships. Trickle down to how we show up in the business, you know, people are like, Oh, you don't have business problems.
Greg Hickman: You have you problems. Right. And I think that that's very much true in a lot of cases. So understanding and taking care of those things and prioritizing those things has also been really, really helpful along the way.
Corey Quinn: That's beautiful. You talk about the importance of solving the right problem in the right order.
Corey Quinn: What does that mean?
Greg Hickman: Yeah. So, I mean, I kind of talked about those five levels earlier for, for people listening, Pathfinder, Voyager, Navigator, Trailblazer, Pioneer, and like, to me, those are different stages of growth that most of us go through and you need to focus and solve certain problems at each stage to kind of, and have certain things in [00:37:00] place that position you to go to the next level.
Greg Hickman: Like a simple example is like, you know, As someone who runs in, you know, and works with other agency owners, like the number of times you hear someone say, well, you know, you need to create a system for that or an SOP for that. I mean, is that an all time high? And it's like, yes, those are helpful, but if you haven't validated who you serve and what you sell, you have no business creating a system for anything.
Greg Hickman: Like that is out of sequence. Right. And if, you know, like for us. Something that we really believe in is scaling through monetizing expertise, not just through growing headcount, which is kind of, for me, that navigator into trailblazer category. And if you haven't delivered your service enough and refined it and streamlined it and standardize it enough, I think it's really difficult to do what I did, where it was [00:38:00] like.
Greg Hickman: Went from doing it for people to just like, let me show you how I say that. I didn't know what I was going to give them, but like, I had done it 1, 500 times, right? Like I'd built this thing 1, 500 times. Like I was able to very quickly walk him. I'm like, Oh yeah, I do this. I do this. I do this. I do this. I use this.
Greg Hickman: I use that. Here you go. Like, let me explain why I do these things and why it's important. Like it all was just up here and came flowing out. And so I think it's very, you know, one of the things that I do think every agency service provider should do is have multiple income streams, but. At the right time, if you do not have, you know, incoming lead flow, your cashflow is not stable to a certain point you're, you know, volatility in your sales, like I feel like there needs to be some level of stabilization and consistency and lead sales, client results, and income.
Greg Hickman: And it needs to be running smoothly [00:39:00] enough for the one core thing that you do before you go and start trying to add on other service offers, um, or other income streams. So I think people jump the gun on like, I'm going to launch a consulting version of this thing and they just haven't done it enough.
Greg Hickman: And if they do it too soon, they just feed into the existing operational drag that's slowing them down. So that's kind of what I mean. Like the two biggest mistakes is the person who's just getting started. Modeling the person who's eight years ahead of them and, or the person who's like been stuck at 30 K a month.
Greg Hickman: And they haven't started doing the new activities that are going to be required of them at the next skills. Yeah. Like what got you here? Won't get you there. Right. That doesn't mean you stop doing all the stuff that got you here, but you need to start adding, adding stuff.
Corey Quinn: That's beautiful. Great. You've been sharing so much wisdom here with the audience.
Corey Quinn: What would be your parting advice, particularly for agency owners who are struggling with, I have scaling here, [00:40:00] but I'll say, you know, creating more leverage in their agency. Yeah. Well, how would you advise that, that agency owner?
Greg Hickman: Yeah. So, I mean, I'm going to kind of end or at least share a framework.
Greg Hickman: Hopefully we can, if we close on it or if there's more questions, I'm happy to answer more questions on it. But, We have this framework or model called clients, members, and customers. And this kind of ties in, builds off of that multiple streams of income. So many service providers I've found that they, their only source of income is like selling their labor to do the thing, which is fine.
Greg Hickman: There's nothing wrong with that necessarily, but it does get you to the point where, all right, well, if I want to hit this goal, I need X more clients. And to serve those X clients, I need X more. Why people and the more and whether it's COVID or the season or just most human beings, I'm, I don't find a lot of service providers that are like, yeah, I want to build like a 50 to a hundred person team.
Greg Hickman: Like they don't, many of [00:41:00] them want. At least that I've come across want lean mean. And if that's the case, I've found that if you do the work and you're specialized enough and you've done it well enough, long enough with consistency and results, you're likely sitting on some methodology or approach that can be delivered in a different way from how you currently serve your clients that is far more leveraged, far more standardized at a more affordable price point for.
Greg Hickman: A majority of the type of market that you probably serve that can easily be a seven figure income stream on its own. And that's that members like taking all, you know, from serving the small subset of clients for however long and distilling that down into like, A few key things that, you know, everybody needs and creating a productized service, a coaching program, a training program, a consulting [00:42:00] offer that solves a specific problem where you can deliver it in a combination of videos, worksheets, one to many facilitation is like, I think a huge opportunity for any business.
Greg Hickman: Experienced service provider. And if you do that, I mean, you're a good example of some of this. Like you have a method, you have an approach, people that have those can write a book, right? To me, a book is like the customer income stream. There's no fulfillment. I mean, outside of you writing the book, like.
Greg Hickman: People can buy that no humans involved, very low, like a lower price point, but also does a lot for getting people indoctrinated to you. And so if you can think strategically around your core expertise in your market, you can design a very powerful offer suite, having at least one [00:43:00] offer for clients, one offer for members and one offer for customers that can get you to really high income and high profit with.
Greg Hickman: Not necessarily adding a ton more people or adding a ton more hours because of the modality of delivery that, again, if you don't have a lot of expertise, this will be hard, but the people listening to your show are probably sitting on, I've been making this joke. You're, you probably have a hundred thousand dollar income stream at a minimum sitting inside your Google drive folder right now, you know, like the assets, the templates, the.
Greg Hickman: The approaches, the frameworks, like we, most of us have it if you've been in the game long enough. And so I've just found that having those three ways to drive business and not becoming overly reliant on any one of them creates a lot of diversity and back to the longevity. One quick story on this. We had a client, Tim, [00:44:00] who.
Greg Hickman: Traditional marketing agency consultancy for the nonprofit sector, faith based nonprofit sector. And he had been working with us. He developed that front end, eight week experience, taking them through one very specific outcome that they all wanted. But he would upsell them into a 80 to 100 K a year retainer that was then bespoke.
Greg Hickman: And we helped him take what he was doing in that retainer and turn it into a 20, a 30 K a year, like hybrid offer. Like there's some training, there's some in person events, there's, you know, group facilitation, office hours, things like that. And COVID hit and like many other businesses, like a lot of people started letting go of agencies, bringing things in house.
Greg Hickman: And I mean, he came out of, out of COVID saying if he didn't have that 30, 000 offer that was consultative [00:45:00] training done with you, he would have been out of business. Like, cause everyone pulled back on their retainers. He had a lot of people, he saved a lot of clients that were paying 80 grand a year. Drop down to 30.
Greg Hickman: Cause they're like, we're going to use, you know, Jimmy in the marketing department, who's like a junior, who's 30 grand a year. We're going to have him just execute on the playbooks that you're just giving us in this program. Instead of you doing it, we'll use our affordable labor and we'll at least get through what we're doing.
Greg Hickman: This time, and we had a lot of clients that had similar stories of like, if I didn't have a way to sell people on something that allowed them to do more of the work, because they didn't want to go hire the big contracts or the big teams to do this stuff, they would have been in a difficult spot. And I think, you know, there's an opportunity for most agencies.
Greg Hickman: I've been making this joke lately and I'll end on, I'll kind of wrap this up. I know I'm kind of going on a tangent, but like, I think most agencies are [00:46:00] incentivized to be mediocre because the ones that are the best that continue to raise their price will always hit a point where the clients like, I can do this more affordably in house.
Greg Hickman: In fact, it probably is better, not, not even just from a price perspective, speed, you know, agility, like the ability to adapt and take care of things at the drop of a dime for some things that a lot of the agencies listening to offer is better for them to have in house if they're capable of doing it.
Corey Quinn: Right.
Greg Hickman: And so if you're really good, you'll hit a point where they want to bring that in house. If you had a
Corey Quinn: first hand.
Greg Hickman: Yeah.
Corey Quinn: If you had an offer
Greg Hickman: that helped them bring it in house, you'd probably extend the relationship for another six to 12 months. Why not show them how to do it? I call that the transition offer.
Greg Hickman: Right. And so like, that's like, and so there's people like that, obviously, if you suck, you'll get fired. So it's like, if you suck, you get fired. If you're too good, they bring it in house. And so you kind of got to be like, [00:47:00] Good, but not too good to, to, to, to, to be in a game where you now have, you know, again, exceptions of the rule, but like the 12 to 24 to three year, you know, LTV is, I see dwindling in the, you know, in the agency space, especially for the, the full service guys, right?
Greg Hickman: Like they're, they are looking for more specific things. So by having those three income streams are starting to think through like, Hey, how can I. Deliver the same outcome in a different way than I currently do. That's maybe done with you or through a two day workshop, train them how to do it. I think you'll start to create a new pathway for, and thinking on like, how can I grow this thing to double while not doubling head count?
Greg Hickman: It's such a great
Corey Quinn: question. It's such a great question. And I think it's one that, You almost need to confront the agency owner to get them to actually think along those lines. Cause [00:48:00] it's not, that's something that people think about on a daily basis. They're just thinking about how do I get more clients, right.
Corey Quinn: And do more of the same.
Greg Hickman: Yeah. And the, I mean, I'll tell you, the clients are thinking this too, right? Like. My, before I broke out on my own, I finished client side at Cabela's outdoor retailer, and we hired big and small consultancies like sapient. I mean, huge Bain, like we've worked with, like we worked with those guys.
Greg Hickman: Every single contract, we were like, Hey, we need you to add this line item called training, and you're going to teach. Our team internally, everything that you're doing right now, because we're not going to work with you forever. Like we were straight up, like right in the beginning, like we need a line item for you to at least train us for six to 12 months and be there for us to ask questions, come in once a quarter for us to like go deep on certain things.
Greg Hickman: And it's like, Hey, that's a, we're paying you for it. Like, we're not trying to like, you know, Steal your stuff. But like, we just want you to know that [00:49:00] our goal is to be able to have this capability internal, and we're going to pay you to give us that capability. And I think again, that happens more at the larger companies, but I think any growing.
Greg Hickman: If you work with like midsize businesses, like, I think you're going to start to see people wanting to have some of these things in house again, which is great for us, like people are like, Oh no, I'm going to lose clients. It's like, this is actually better. They'll pay you maybe not as much, but they're paying you for stuff you've been doing for 20 years and it's fairly easy to like, to transfer to them, which eliminates all of the real expense, the overhead of having to deliver it.
Greg Hickman: So it's going to be super profitable. Like that's a great income stream. So like start thinking about that. Yeah. It's leveraged for sure.
Corey Quinn: Last question. Yep. What's your motivation?
Greg Hickman: Ooh, what's my motivation. I mean, right now I'm pretty motivated by [00:50:00] seeing our clients hit some of these milestones of, Oh my God, there was a sale that I didn't do.
Greg Hickman: Someone sold on my behalf. Oh my God. Leads are coming into my business. Without me chasing them, clients enrolling in their services easier. It's like, I'm a lot of the things that I've been able to just experience, like the feeling of. Watching a client get signed up while you were on vacation without your laptop.
Greg Hickman: Like I want, I'm motivated by having more of our clients have like feelings like that, like moments, moments like that, because I've heard you've heard them too, like the, the horror stories. I haven't taken a vacation in 12 years. Like, that's like, that like crushes me. Like how, like, you gotta go take care of yourself and your family.
Greg Hickman: So that getting them to hit, hit, hit. And experience those moments is a huge motivating factor. And then on the flip side, I have two young kids and like, while I do love work, I love mountain biking and I want to be around for my [00:51:00] kids as much as possible. I get to pick them up and drop them off pretty much every day, which is awesome.
Greg Hickman: And so like, I want to be able to not feel like a slave to my business. And so like. Continuing to optimize my own business model so that I can entertain all of the other things that I have interests in that are not this business also motivates me. So that's where I'm at.
Corey Quinn: That's awesome. Where can people reach out to you and ask follow up questions?
Greg Hickman: Yeah. Any follow up questions. I'm pretty, pretty active on all of the socials. So you can look for, look for me on any platform, but Greg at altagency. com is my email address. And if you are digging what I'm talking about, we release a new video on our YouTube channel, which you can get to very simply by going to gregsvideos.
Greg Hickman: com and it'll redirect you to, to the YouTube channel.
Corey Quinn: Smart, beautiful. Well, thanks so much for joining Greg. Yeah. Thanks Corey. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. That's it for today. I'm Corey Quinn, and I hope [00:52:00] you join me again next time on the deep specialization podcast. If you received value from the show, please go to apple podcasts and leave us a review.
Corey Quinn: Thanks. And we'll see you soon.
