DS_ROB MURRAY_FULL INTERVIEW_AUDIO_EDITED_V1
===
[00:00:00]
Introduction and Personal Goals
---
[00:00:00] Rob Murray: I want to make my kids not, you know, struggle and not, you know, go through what I went through. But I also want to be able to go do epic shit with really cool people. The world's big. There's a lot to go do. I want to be able to go access it. We were always asked, how do I know this is going to work? How do I know you're worth your salt?
[00:00:15] Rob Murray: The biggest thing is if you're trying to do good for people, you're good. If you're trying to pull the wool over someone's eyes, you know, that's not cool. I mean, we had that whole idea, right? If you want to make a million, serve a million, it's like, how do you serve people? How do you help? I just think that if that is a [00:00:30] fundamental thought process mindset, everything else is easy to deal with.
Founding Intrigue Media
---
[00:00:34] Corey Quinn: 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.
Meet Rob Murray
---
[00:00:48] Corey Quinn: I'm joined by the president of Intrigue Media, Rob Murray. Welcome Rob.
[00:00:53] Rob Murray: Thank you, Corey President that sounds so Authoritarian
[00:00:58] Corey Quinn: dude, I am super [00:01:00] excited to see you again.
[00:01:00] Corey Quinn: We spent a little bit of time not too long ago here in the The shores of Santa Monica. And it's great to see you for the listening audience. Would you mind just introducing yourself? Tell us a little bit about yourself and Intrigue Media.
[00:01:12] Rob Murray: Yeah, for sure. So Rob Murray, one of the co founders of Intrigue Media, which the agency we run, we specialize in helping landscape entrepreneurs, usually between three and 6 million, they want to get to 10 plus digital marketing and qualified lead gen.
[00:01:26] Rob Murray: Family got three kiddos, nine, seven, seven. [00:01:30] Wife, golden retriever, dog, live out on a lake, love water skiing in the summer, and uh, snowboarding in the winter, or surfing if I can get away. That's me in a nutshell.
Intrigue Media's Growth and Clientele
---
[00:01:38] Corey Quinn: What can you share about the size of your agency, number of employees, clients, revenue, anything you're comfortable sharing?
[00:01:45] Rob Murray: We're about 30 full time. We're doing about 5 million. We have about 110 clients ish, somewhere around there. Maybe like 108 right now. 60 percent of them are landscape or 50 half of them are probably landscape.
[00:01:55] Corey Quinn: And what is the other half about?
[00:01:57] Rob Murray: We have a couple of other pockets. Law and insurance are [00:02:00] kind of the other group.
[00:02:00] Rob Murray: And then after and home improvement construction is like the main large group. And then there's a couple of like outside the core that are there just because of where we, where we started from a local organization.
[00:02:12] Corey Quinn: Sure. We'll dig into that a little bit.
Role and Responsibilities of the President
---
[00:02:13] Corey Quinn: Before we do, what is, what is your role there?
[00:02:15] Corey Quinn: What's your day to day as the president? What are you up to these days?
[00:02:18] Rob Murray: I mean, my main thing is to make sure we have the right team. Like, that's my priority one. And that they're getting, you know, coached and mentored and trained so they can go be leaders. We can scale the thing with good people, [00:02:30] but outside of that, I'm responsible for revenue.
[00:02:31] Rob Murray: That's awesome.
The Origin Story of Intrigue Media
---
[00:02:32] Corey Quinn: And being one of the co founders, you were there on day one. Could you share with us sort of the origin story? Like what was, what was happening in your life just before you started Intrigue that made starting this agency the next best thing to do with your time?
[00:02:45] Rob Murray: Oh, I was, I mean, it was just a banana story.
[00:02:47] Rob Murray: Like, uh, so Paul co founder, um, he wanted to start this company up in Oshawa in the summer between semesters at university. Where he'd put up like a TV in between mirrors at a hair salon and then sell the ads on the mirrors while they're like sitting there, [00:03:00] captivated audience. Um, so him and a buddy tried to get that going in Oshawa, they never really got it off the ground.
[00:03:05] Rob Murray: He asked me if I wanted to do it in Guelph, because he found some random person selling a TV that could wirelessly broadcast from like a hard drive to a monitor. For some reason we 400 from my student loan. He put 400 bucks from my pocket. His money and we bought this TV and then we essentially like one of our biggest things was like, ask for feedback.
[00:03:28] Rob Murray: If you want money, ask for feedback. If you want [00:03:30] feedback, ask for money. Um, so we walked around, uh, asking all these shops with his TV in her hand being like, Hey, if you put this up at the university center, would you pay us, you know, 50 bucks a month to have your video play on it? And we did that for whatever, four or five months.
[00:03:44] Rob Murray: And the feedback was actually pretty positive. Uh, it was just going to be like a side project to help fund, you know, party, essentially pay for tuition. While we were at school. And then, uh, I went to Austria on exchange at the beginning of 2007, [00:04:00] and then Paul came and visited, uh, traveling Europe, uh, and he visited on my birthday in June and I showed him one of the issues we had is that we always, we always had to outsource somebody who'd make the video.
[00:04:11] Rob Murray: So we would take some pictures, whatever, send it to somebody, you know, a month later, they'd make a video, send it back to us. Anyway, it was just a horrible experience. We couldn't get anything quick, but I showed him a video that we had made of our skiing in the Alps. And he's like, what'd you use to make that video?
[00:04:23] Rob Murray: And it was windows movie maker. And he's like, dude, we can make our own videos. We can sell ads. And I'm like, what are you talking about? Turns out he installed this TV at the [00:04:30] university center while I was in Austria. And we said, okay, well, in August in 2007, let's get back and let's go beat some pavement and see if we can get some people to sign up for those things.
[00:04:38] Rob Murray: So for two, three years, we just walked around downtown and asked people if they wanted to participate in this program and slowly installed more TVs. And then in 2009, we. Sold a third of the business and, uh, to an investment firm, capitalize the business, brought that video advertising model to, [00:05:00] you know, five, six other communities inside of Ontario and franchised it.
Transition to Online Marketing
---
[00:05:04] Rob Murray: And then come 2012, we were getting pulled into online marketing, our client base. We had hundreds of clients and they were like, how do you get to the top of Google? Can you help us with our website? My nephew left all the stories. What's this Facebook thing all about? Um, and so that client base, Pulled us into online marketing.
[00:05:23] Rob Murray: And then the thing that really drove home everything was we were always asked, how do I know this is going to work? How [00:05:30] do I know you're worth your salt? And with that video advertising approach, it was difficult because it's out of home advertising, it's just tough to measure. And we just saw the writing on the wall around like attrition and renewal.
[00:05:43] Rob Murray: If we want to make renewal, uh, a thing that helped us drive growth, then we'd have to move into a space where we could demonstrate value and that's how my market became the thing. And so then we became more general, we were localized. And eventually we stopped the shaming and
[00:05:58] Corey Quinn: got
[00:05:59] Rob Murray: vertical.
[00:05:59] Corey Quinn: [00:06:00] But I'm curious about the time when you realizing that the, it was a difficult challenge to be able to prove the value of this out of home product that you were selling.
[00:06:09] Corey Quinn: People were asking for digital marketing. It was kind of up and coming. And so what was the size of the business at that point? And was it still localized? And when did you, when did you expand from that localized? Perspective was now you're, you're in Canada, but you're obviously in the United States as well.
[00:06:24] Corey Quinn: So how did you transition localized to, to more of a broader, um, focus?
[00:06:29] Rob Murray: So it's [00:06:30] interesting, um, Vanessa, one of the owners here as well, so we, we have a team share ownership plan or ESOP. She started with us 12 years ago. Um, she was part of the company, but today for Team Huddle, she did a history of the company.
[00:06:40] Rob Murray: So it's, it's interesting you say that. So in 2012, we were 590, 000 in revenue. And we were primarily video advertising, this out of home model. And then we, we slowly got pulled into this online marketing piece. Two things. One is I'm a pretty intuitive problem solver. So like when I meet with anybody, I don't care what business they're in.
[00:06:57] Rob Murray: I can break down the revenue model very quickly and then [00:07:00] understand where there's problems in it and then help them grow it. But I don't have the ability to be able to do that for everybody. I need to make, have a team that can do it for everybody. And so, but my problem used to be, I would bring in these random accounts.
[00:07:13] Rob Murray: And be like, I know how to help them. And then I would try to like pass it off to this group who I didn't give enough time to or context about, and then hope they did a good job and, you know, we did decent, but it was always a bit of a shit show and there was no standardization, there was [00:07:30] no repeatability.
[00:07:32] Rob Murray: But it was COVID that really made us go, uh, international and broaden our geographic scope because everybody got used to the video. And so like the, the advantage of the local marketer, you know, in the, on the streets in Idaho, uh, were no longer advantage, um, when it came to us, because, you know, we had a bit of a specialization.
[00:07:54] Rob Murray: We understood how to market for so we kind of doubled down on it. Now. We did try [00:08:00] HVAC first, it didn't work. And then we came off of it and then decided to go after
[00:08:04] Corey Quinn: landscape. So let me, let me, uh, expand on that, uh, a little bit.
Specialization in Landscape Marketing
---
[00:08:08] Corey Quinn: So you were a generalist focused on the local area, working with all of your video, you know, out of home clients initially, right.
[00:08:15] Corey Quinn: And you were selling them, okay, we're going to sell you SEO or PPC, digital marketing, whatever that looked like. And where, how did, what was that transition from that to HVAC and then landscape, like where, where, where did that, Where did that transition come from and what, what caused that? [00:08:30]
[00:08:30] Rob Murray: It was in 2018, we started in 2019.
[00:08:32] Rob Murray: We had about maybe 113, 115 clients at the time. Tiny and big, whatever. And we said, okay, where are we making the most margin? Where clients are the happiest and our team knows how to do good work. And home improvement and construction was the clear winner. And mostly because of the, the deal size that they would, we would, we could bring somebody.
[00:08:49] Rob Murray: So they were able to pay, you know, whatever, a thousand bucks or two thousand bucks to buy a customer. They make a So then once we were there, we were like, and so that's, that's like pool companies, roofing, flooring, HVAC, [00:09:00] landscape, uh, interior, exterior renovation. And so we started, you know, trying to focus in on those types of entrepreneurs and then COVID hit.
[00:09:07] Rob Murray: So we were doing pretty well. The COVID hit, HVAC was necessity and we saw it as recession proof. So we went after HVAC. The thing with HVAC that's difficult though, is that it's difficult to make someone a lot of money because a lot of their, um, their business model is based on service calls and service calls turn into replacement calls.
[00:09:25] Rob Murray: But not every service call is a replacement call. And we're, we're trying to like [00:09:30] guarantee 5 on revenue or 3 to 1 gross margin ROI. Doing that with HVAC is difficult. Very difficult. It's also super competitive. And there's a bunch of marketing companies that say they specialize in HVAC. So there's some noise there.
[00:09:43] Rob Murray: So, you know, after giving it a go, and we, we made people money, no question, but it was, it was difficult to measure and monetize and incorporate into like service type and stuff, I
[00:09:53] Corey Quinn: think.
[00:09:54] Rob Murray: Uh, we were growing a landscape roster a little bit. And their average deal is like 60 grand, 70 grand with [00:10:00] a gross margin of like 40%.
[00:10:01] Rob Murray: And we started, and we were speaking at the conferences, started to understand the customer a lot better. And then when, because it was COVID, we started to realize that we could start to initiate and close deals on Zoom without having to be belly to belly, which was an assumption we had. We had to be belly to belly to close a deal.
[00:10:16] Rob Murray: Then we went to Louisville for the big landscape show in 2021. And we just kind of haven't looked back since then.
[00:10:23] Corey Quinn: So is it fair to say that you, at least in the, the, uh, the marketing piece, you were in the, in the marketing business roughly from 2009 [00:10:30] to 2019 before you started specializing in first home services and then HVAC and then ultimately, um, landscape.
[00:10:40] Rob Murray: To be honest, we had no, we had no idea what strategy was. And now I don't like, I don't think very many people do. So we were just out involved in our community, mastering the craft of marketing. No strategic position in the marketplace whatsoever outside of We were everywhere. We'd host amazing parties with hundreds of people.
[00:10:57] Rob Murray: Mayors, fire department chiefs, [00:11:00] police department chiefs, you know, everybody. So we were well known and that helped us grow. But then we started, we got introduced to Vern Harnish and Scaling Up. And then we got introduced to vertical versus horizontal positioning. And then we started to ask ourselves, okay, well, If there's two ways to position, which way do you want to do it?
[00:11:15] Rob Murray: Do you want to go horizontal, be a solution for any industry? Or do you want to be vertical and be a solution for, or be that solution for a industry? So that's when the strategic conversations started happening, was 2018, 19.
Speaking Engagements and Industry Involvement
---
[00:11:24] Corey Quinn: So you mentioned you, you were speaking. I know that that's a big part of your go to market today.
[00:11:29] Corey Quinn: When [00:11:30] did that occur to you as a, as a viable strategy? Like what, when did you start speaking and how did you start to land those early gigs?
[00:11:36] Rob Murray: Well, we were doing talks locally and we didn't realize that that was actually helping the industry. You know, our brand in the local market for people looking at us as like an expert.
[00:11:48] Rob Murray: Uh, but then we also heard of a couple of other companies that were doing talks and that it was working for them, you know, after meeting other people that have been, um, helping similar types of companies like home improvement construction, [00:12:00] we have, we have a model. We call it growth on purpose. It's a bit too much.
[00:12:04] Rob Murray: Um, so we had to simplify it. So what we did, we went to, we went to the associations. With this idea of growth on purpose and learned a couple of talks. And then we would go to the audience and people were stoked. They were just like refreshed. It was, it hit home for a lot of people. Um, but it was still too much.
[00:12:21] Rob Murray: Cause it's a model around like how to grow a company based on core values and purpose to attract customers and team members, but [00:12:30] it's just, it's a, it's too much. So we had to simplify it down to the five marketing mistakes, which is what we went out with last year. So we did whatever 15, 20 talks last year.
[00:12:39] Rob Murray: But it was only in 2021 that we started the idea.
[00:12:42] Corey Quinn: So you, you decided to narrow down, you built out this strategy, you realized you wanted to focus on a vertical market, uh, versus a horizontal market. You began to talk at local shows, which, which led to, uh, larger shows, national shows, let's call it. What are the things you do, did you do in the early days to kind of build [00:13:00] momentum within landscaping?
[00:13:01] Rob Murray: Well, I mean, so we host the I Am Landscape podcast, and we were actively involved in the association. So Landscape Ontario is pretty like well renowned in North America. We're part of the National Association of Landscape Professionals. We joined and sponsored the California Landscape Contractor Association.
[00:13:16] Rob Murray: We're supporting the, uh, New Brunswick and Halifax, or like East Coast, uh, of Canada Landscape Association. with the Michigan Association, um, North Carolina. So [00:13:30] it's association involvement is probably the biggest thing that we've done. Um, and then it's, and then we go to the shows. I mean, we don't do what you guys did at Scorpion, but we, you know, we have a bit of fun and, you know, kind of try to stand out a little bit, but, but the, the main thing is, you know, we've interviewed a bunch of coaches and a bunch of entrepreneurs who are trying to understand their business.
[00:13:48] Rob Murray: We don't get too involved in like operations. We're all about, you know, marketing and sales process. It turns out it's not overly complicated, but a lot of people don't formalize those things in their [00:14:00] companies. It wasn't rocket science. It was just about putting ourselves where our customers were and getting involved.
[00:14:04] Rob Murray: I think that was the big thing too. It's like, you know, we weren't there to just take, take, take. We're there to try to help the associations be better. And, and actively like pursue leadership positions, uh, on committees and that type of thing. Um, and it was a bit weird though, because people looked at us like, you're the sponsor, like, what are you doing?
[00:14:22] Rob Murray: You're coming here and just like, take, take, take. But once we got to know them and they got to know us, you know, they realized that we're there and actually help. And then, and then we also look at it like [00:14:30] it's a, it's a 10 year thing. It's not a. It's not a one year thing. So what are you, have you seen 40 year old virgin, right?
[00:14:35] Rob Murray: I
[00:14:35] Corey Quinn: have.
[00:14:36] Rob Murray: Yeah, so you gotta, you gotta plant seeds. Plant that seed, man. You know, it takes a couple years to, to harvest some ground, right?
[00:14:43] Corey Quinn: Yeah, so, um, surprisingly you're speaking at it, uh, about it as if it is common sense. It's amazing, um, how uncommon this approach is. This is very much, very similar to the approach that I teach a lot of my clients, which is get involved as a giver, get involved with the associations, go and speak with [00:15:00] stages and.
[00:15:01] Corey Quinn: Become a part of the industry. Don't just come in and see these folks as a, you know, as a bunch of contacts on a spreadsheet that you're going to, you know, enter into a, you know, a random conversion rate, next amount of revenue. And that's going to relate to my new Ferrari that I'm going to get one day.
[00:15:17] Corey Quinn: And. And so I think that there's, it's subtle and you guys get it. I think intuitively comes natural to you, but I think it is something that is not as natural to others. So I think what you've done is really brilliant.
Overcoming Imposter Syndrome
---
[00:15:28] Corey Quinn: What about like imposter [00:15:30] syndrome? I get a lot of questions in the work I do around, well, Hey, I'm going to, I really am interested in, in, in focusing my agency in on whatever market it is.
[00:15:39] Corey Quinn: In your case, it's landscape. Did you ever feel like an imposter or that you didn't know enough about that industry to be able to be credible when you're selling into it? Did that ever, um, occur to you guys?
[00:15:52] Rob Murray: Well, not really, just because we're so well studied on sales and marketing and leadership. I think maybe if we weren't masters of our craft, [00:16:00] maybe we would have been.
[00:16:02] Rob Murray: But I know, I don't know things, so I know enough to hurt me. And I also understand the fundamental principles of strong sales and marketing, it's all grounded in leadership. The three of them were actually like very similar, you know, understand who it is that you're trying to serve, understand the problems that they have.
[00:16:21] Rob Murray: Help them adjust those problems and be a solution to help them have a better life. That's leadership, sales, and marketing. Like you can really line it up that way. Studying that for 10, 12 years, I don't know an industry [00:16:30] we couldn't go into and help just because we've seen it. So we've got so many reps on sales and marketing and revenue models are fucking revenue models.
[00:16:37] Rob Murray: They're all the same. You know, whether you get paid to do a design or you do a demo to start or discovery call, you know, there's some nuance, but. Long story short, a Volkswagen and a Porsche are on the same chassis. You know, it's just which one do you want to drive, right? So it's like, we never really had that.
[00:16:51] Rob Murray: But I also have like no Fs given around, uh, failing. Like a lot of people get caught up on like falling on their face where I don't care. Like I [00:17:00] think if you're trying to do good work for people and you mess up, it's okay. It's easy to say, you know, I'm sorry, I'll make it, I'll make it right. Um, or I don't know the answer.
[00:17:07] Rob Murray: I'll get back to you. Whereas I think a lot of people think they need to know it all.
[00:17:15] Corey Quinn: And what I'm getting from you is that in this situation, um, what, what a listener might, might be able to do or should do is really focus on their, their craft and their, and the mastery that they built in that domain as they enter into this new vertical. And over time they'll [00:17:30] understand the nuances through the, through the reps of working with this same group.
[00:17:33] Corey Quinn: But in the meantime, the, it's almost like the curse of knowledge. They, they already know a ton. They just are not, they're not thinking about it in those terms, but that is a, that is a massive strength. What I found when we were selling to attorneys is that, uh, that they didn't understand marketing at the level that we did.
[00:17:49] Corey Quinn: They didn't understand sales level that we did. We were experts in that, in that domain. And that's the value that they were looking for. And so we focused on that. And over time, again, we learned the business [00:18:00] of intake. And You know, and, and how, how to, uh, apply all of our best practices specifically to their business.
[00:18:06] Corey Quinn: So I think that's a good insight.
[00:18:08] Rob Murray: The biggest thing is if you're trying to do good for people, you're good. If you're trying to pull the wool over someone's eyes, you know, that's not, that's not cool. I mean, we had that whole idea, right? If you want to make a million, serve a million. Just like how do you serve people?
[00:18:24] Rob Murray: How do you help? I just think that if that is a fundamental process, thought process, [00:18:30] mindset, everything else is easy to deal with.
[00:18:32] Corey Quinn: Another riff on that is, uh, uh, something that I like is if you want to make a million dollars, create ten million dollars worth of value.
[00:18:38] Rob Murray: Yeah, 10x it, all day. Right.
[00:18:40] Corey Quinn: You, you get 10 percent of the value you create.
[00:18:42] Corey Quinn: And that, that's, you know, you just focus on 10xing, to your point, the, the value, and the rest will take care of itself.
[00:18:49] Rob Murray: And if you think you're an imposter journal it, why are you journal? Like why do you think you're an imposter? You know, I, I, I think you'd find quickly, if you have that feeling and you were to journal about it, it'll become pretty [00:19:00] apparent over a month or two of journaling.
[00:19:01] Rob Murray: I don't mean every day, just like I don't, um, you're familiar with Sandler?
[00:19:06] Corey Quinn: Yes.
[00:19:06] Rob Murray: Yeah. So we went to the Sandler conference many times, and there was this one thing that was just about self-reflection. It was like the main theme of the entire conference. And the, and the people had mentioned journals like, I don't know every keynote.
[00:19:17] Rob Murray: It was just, there was such a good conference. Finally, this one lady was just like, if you're not journaling, you're losing money. I was like, all right, I looked at my business partner, Paul, and I was like, hey, we have to journal. Let's journal. And I'm not talking about like what I did today and how I felt.
[00:19:29] Rob Murray: It's just like, [00:19:30] no, it's like I got frustrated why I got frustrated. Or I have this pit in my stomach. What is it? What's the emotion behind it? Um, I think a lot of people, there could be a lot of self awareness that comes from journaling. Um, so if imposter syndrome is there. I would recommend Chernoff.
[00:19:42] Corey Quinn: Absolutely. It's about becoming conscious of the unconscious stories that we tell ourselves.
[00:19:46] Rob Murray: Yeah, and I bet you it's because your mom or dad said you weren't good at something. Like, I bet you.
[00:19:52] Corey Quinn: Which is not true, right? It's a story. Hey, it's Cory. I hope you're enjoying this episode. And I want to let you know that I have a new [00:20:00] best selling book that has just come out that gives you my proven system to escape founder led sales.
[00:20:06] Corey Quinn: It's called anyone, not everyone. And it's been endorsed by Aaron Ross, April Dunford, Dr. Benjamin Hardy, John Rulon, and many others. If you'd like to get the audio book, absolutely for free, there's a link below in the description, or you could simply go to anyone, not everyone. com and start listening right now.
[00:20:25] Corey Quinn: At what point did you guys hire your first salesperson?
[00:20:27] Rob Murray: 2009.
[00:20:28] Corey Quinn: 2009. What [00:20:30] was happening in the business that caused you to realize, Hey, we need to bring someone in at this point?
[00:20:34] Rob Murray: Well, they were hired to, to produce videos and they said, Hey, I want to do sales. We're like, all right, cool. Let's do it. In 2012, we actually hired someone to come in who is like, we had all these mixed things that we started, like they helped build websites and then they had some sales.
[00:20:48] Rob Murray: So we had this like, weird hybrid of stuff like that. And then pure sales, yeah, 2013 or 14, something like that.
[00:20:56] Corey Quinn: And why, what was happening in the business that caused you to say, okay, we need [00:21:00] to hire a dedicated salesperson?
[00:21:03] Rob Murray: Oh, I'd have to do it otherwise.
The Challenge of Building a Sales Team
---
[00:21:05] Rob Murray: Like, it would just end up being me forever. Like, if we don't figure out how to build a sales team that can go out and get me business, then I have a job and I built myself a job.
[00:21:13] Rob Murray: I can't. That's not really a business. I don't know. So,
First Hire Fiasco
---
[00:21:16] Corey Quinn: um, how did, how did this first hire go in 2013, the full time? Was it, was it a immediate home run or was there any, um, lessons learned?
[00:21:24] Rob Murray: No, it was totally, total, total shit show. Yeah. Yeah. They suck. They were lying to people, left, right, and center. [00:21:30] Like they, we ended up firing them cause they were lying.
[00:21:32] Rob Murray: They ended up suing us for, um, uh, commissions for life. We ended up settling on a number that I was upset with, but the lawyers, uh, insured me that it would be cheaper than going to court. Um, yeah, we had people do stupid shit, and, you know, people that sucked, and people that wouldn't pick up the phone.
Lessons from John C. Maxwell
---
[00:21:52] Rob Murray: Yeah, we had all the things, but then, uh, you were a John C. Maxwell?
[00:21:57] Corey Quinn: This book's right here.
[00:21:58] Rob Murray: Yeah. [00:22:00] So 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, Law of the Mirror, things are happening inside your organization for one of two reasons, either you, uh, model it to be okay or you accept it to be okay. And that was kicking the nuts.
[00:22:12] Rob Murray: So I realized, I realized what I thought people were doing, which was stupid and idiotic was actually just me letting it happen. So that was a, that was a bit of,
[00:22:20] Corey Quinn: yeah, that, that book has a couple of kicking the nuts moments. Oh, man.
[00:22:27] Corey Quinn: I like the law of the lid. That's a [00:22:30] good one.
Advice for Hiring Salespeople
---
[00:22:30] Corey Quinn: Uh, so, so if you were going to advise an agency founder, who's going to hire their first person, their first salesperson, say they're a couple of years in founder led sales, they're ready to bring in a full time sales role, what are some of the things that you'd recommend that they look for or do in that process?
[00:22:47] Rob Murray: The first thing I would do is have them come in for at least a month without talking to clients just to see if they get you, because if you put someone out in the market that doesn't get you, it could be quite damaging. So we have a thing [00:23:00] here where you have to spend a month in like project coordination or content or account management before you get to go out in the market to essentially pass the, your real test.
[00:23:10] Rob Murray: Yeah.
[00:23:10] Corey Quinn: Reminds me of Zappos, right? Isn't that what they did where they, Would have.
[00:23:15] Rob Murray: Yeah. They paid people to quit. Yeah. Right. They
[00:23:17] Corey Quinn: people to quit, but then also make you work in like customer service and, and, and would sort of work all the roles as you were kind of onboarded so that you can really get an appreciation for what you're actually selling.
[00:23:27] Rob Murray: Yeah. I I, I think that's brilliant. [00:23:30] Um, I Was it making happiness? Yeah. Or something like that. The book that Tony she wrote or something. Anyway, um, yeah, that and, um, pay people based on the. Organizational's, organization's goals. That was something that, it took us a long time to figure out, like, Um, I, I think salary plus commission and bonus, or salary commission bonus, sorry, commission bonus, or salary commission bonus are helpful mechanisms.[00:24:00]
[00:24:00] Rob Murray: But, I think what's important is, I don't think a lot of agency owners have clear expectations on, are they, what's more important new business or renewal? Um, You know, and as, as an agency, I think that's a very important decision.
[00:24:15] Corey Quinn: I have an opinion about that, but yeah.
[00:24:18] Rob Murray: So what's your take on the whole thing?
Importance of Retention
---
[00:24:19] Corey Quinn: Uh, well, I think retention.
[00:24:22] Rob Murray: I think you cannot grow without retention as the focus. Because as you, because 10 percent of 500 is 50. [00:24:30] 10 percent of 100 is 10. You know, if you bring on 20 clients a year, you'll grow until you're 200 clients with 90 percent retention. And 90 percent is high. That's really high.
[00:24:41] Rob Murray: So retention is the name of the game. And so then your sales people need to be compensated for bringing in good deals. So if I say to a salesperson, I'm going to give you 20 percent commission. Okay, great. I go land a whole bunch of deals. I want to watch that commission. Well, not all deals treated equal.
[00:24:59] Rob Murray: I think the agency [00:25:00] owner needs to understand what's the ideal deal. And I think it's also what we say no to is almost more strategic than what we say yes to. Um, so getting a really clear idea of like the deal you want, I think is
[00:25:13] Corey Quinn: super important. Yeah, it's, it's, uh, it's around incentivizing the behaviors you want to create.
[00:25:19] Corey Quinn: Salespeople are particularly money motivated. And if you create an incentive plan, that's an alignment with creating amazing clients, then you'll get amazing clients. But if you, if you [00:25:30] incentivize them for, you know, uh, any client, right. And you pay them everything upfront on day one, when they close the deal, that's, that's going to create a different outcome.
[00:25:39] Rob Murray: Yeah. I think the analogy is like two people are camping in, uh, like. You know, snowy mountains of whatever BC one person stays in the hu while the other person goes and hunts, and then they come back running and they open the door and they're like, oh my God. Oh my God. Oh, go careful. There's a bear. The bear gets in the cabin, then they close the door and [00:26:00] leave and say, okay, you take care of it.
[00:26:03] Rob Murray: We can't have salespeople bringing bears to our cottages. No.
[00:26:06] Corey Quinn: Thank you. So what is a, what is a good, uh, any, any, anything you could share on, on initial framework for compensating salespeople, uh, agency sellers?
[00:26:15] Rob Murray: Well, I mean, I just think like, if, if renewal is the name of the game, which I believe it is for growth, then we want to incentivize for year two.
[00:26:27] Rob Murray: So year one, there's, you know, X and year [00:26:30] two, there's Y and maybe you even have a nut on year two being bigger than year one. Um, I think giving people clarity on where to sell and who to sell to is also very important. The size of the deal, the type of service that you want to be selling to that person.
[00:26:46] Rob Murray: Um, the type of goal that you can accomplish for that. I just think clarity is just so critical.
Hiring for Specialized Roles
---
[00:26:51] Corey Quinn: Beyond sales, do you hire anyone? Like, do you have to find people, because you're focused on residential landscaping, uh, in that domain, do you have to hire people with [00:27:00] that background or does that matter?
[00:27:01] Rob Murray: No, it doesn't.
[00:27:02] Rob Murray: I mean, we're probably going to. Like, we want to. We know a couple we're talking about right now. I think it helps because they're relatable. Someone who's walked in my shoes. Like I trust someone who's been in my moccasins type of thing, but I don't think it's necessary. What's your take on that one?
[00:27:17] Corey Quinn: I think for sure.
[00:27:17] Corey Quinn: I don't, I don't think so. I think for certain roles it's helpful. So for instance, if you have, um, if part of your product set is creating content, potentially, yeah, let's say in the context of [00:27:30] attorneys, like having other attorneys or other subject matter experts writing content for your attorney clients can be actually be really helpful in some respects.
[00:27:39] Corey Quinn: Um, but in most roles, I don't think so. One, one exception is, you know, we had a guy at Scorpion who was our, uh, one of our first sellers in home services. Well, he used to have a home services business before coming to Scorpion to sell. And so he would get on the phone with these guys and be like, I know exactly what it's like to be in your shoes.
[00:27:58] Corey Quinn: Cause I was you three years ago. [00:28:00] Right. And so there's like, yeah, right. And then the, the, the resistance goes right to the floor. He speaks exactly their language and he's like, you know, let me tell you, Let me tell you how, how you should be thinking about this and the questions you need to ask and all of these things, which, which was really powerful for us.
[00:28:16] Rob Murray: Yeah. That's super cool. And that's the type of person we're talking to right now is someone who's actually as a landscape contracting.
[00:28:22] Corey Quinn: Oh, interesting. Okay. I thought you were talking about a salesperson. And then, and then,
[00:28:26] Rob Murray: and then sold it and now he's looking to [00:28:30] join because we like know each other.
[00:28:31] Rob Murray: Well, that's
[00:28:31] Corey Quinn: awesome.
[00:28:32] Rob Murray: And if he, and if he hears this at some point, he'll know who it is.
[00:28:35] Corey Quinn: That's probably not, not many of those types in the world today.
Transitioning to Productized Services
---
[00:28:38] Corey Quinn: As it relates to your, your product and the services and the way you package up what you sell, is it very productized or is it very bespoke every time?
[00:28:46] Corey Quinn: Or is it somewhere in the middle? Like how, how do you approach that?
[00:28:49] Rob Murray: It's somewhere in the middle right now, only because we've rapidly worked on making it better over the last like four or five months. We didn't realize it was going to hit so hard. So we're definitely [00:29:00] closer to the custom right now and we're like rigorously Trying to get to this product level.
[00:29:08] Rob Murray: So we're hitting our downtime right now. And hopefully come, um, October at Equip, uh, we'll have something to bring to market. We've been playing it for a while, but I got, we're, we're more custom right now. And it's, it's heavy. It's clunky. It's there's friction in the process all over the place. How do
[00:29:23] Corey Quinn: you approach that?
[00:29:23] Corey Quinn: Like going from a fully customized or heavily customized to a product? I was like, what's it, what are some of the steps along the way that [00:29:30] you're going through?
[00:29:31] Rob Murray: Well, client onboarding. So like, you know, you. At some level, there's some sort of like discovery call where it's like, who are you going after?
[00:29:36] Rob Murray: And what are the problems that you will have and all that kind of stuff? Like that's no longer required because we know the problem with the customer has more than they do, like by far, because we're working with so many people. And there's one thing to be positioned vertically that helps acquire and new customers and stand out from the noise.
[00:29:50] Rob Murray: But the repeatability on the operations, I think is where the thing actually shines, um, because the team knows exactly what to do. They know exactly how to do it. And we [00:30:00] can predict within 95 percent of like the result we're going to generate for somebody. So we're getting to a spot now where we don't need much input from somebody to be able to come up with a solution based on the type of projects they want to get.
[00:30:10] Rob Murray: We need to understand their flavor a little bit so we can infuse it in their content. And there's ways to do that now with, you know, chat GPT like never before, but you know, we don't need to ask somebody what they want on a website.
[00:30:22] Corey Quinn: Yeah.
[00:30:23] Rob Murray: How many pages do you want? What pages are
[00:30:25] Corey Quinn: important to you? No, they don't want, they don't.
[00:30:28] Corey Quinn: They need you to tell [00:30:30] them, this is what you need, not, they
[00:30:31] Rob Murray: don't. And the data just doesn't lie, so. Oh yeah, you're the
[00:30:36] Corey Quinn: expert. It's like going to the doctor and saying, My knee hurts, I think I need this specific surgery and, you know, um.
[00:30:42] Rob Murray: Yeah, exactly. And then, it's, They get all squeamish too when you're like asking them questions.
[00:30:48] Rob Murray: Yeah, they don't want to be asked those questions. Don't you, don't you know? Don't you know? Like, oh, right. Yeah, we do know. Yeah,
[00:30:54] Corey Quinn: stop that nonsense.
[00:30:55] Rob Murray: But, but I think that's also part of the, part of the um, the challenge of the agency owner [00:31:00] for people listening is that you gotta bring that through to everybody.
[00:31:03] Rob Murray: Yes. So that when a customer is interacting with anybody on your team, they're getting that same sense of trust and confidence that they would to you. I think that's the biggest job of the, And I think something you, you said, you were, I listened to one of your, um, you were being interviewed and you were saying how it's really important that whatever niche or vertical is picked, the founder's excited about it.
[00:31:29] Rob Murray: I think that's really [00:31:30] important piece of advice for folks. Cause like if you're doing it just for a simple like business play, eventually you're going to peter out. Cause it's going to be tough at some point. Like it's not going to be all, you know, smooth sailing. So yeah, I think that's a really
[00:31:41] Corey Quinn: good point.
[00:31:42] Corey Quinn: Absolutely. And when you have empathy for the buyer, you, you will come across much different than if you were just treating them from a transactional, it's like the transfer, transformational versus transactional relationship. Everyone's transactional, and that it's very easy to kind of have a transient client list.
[00:31:58] Corey Quinn: But if you want to be, if you want to [00:32:00] really be. Successful and especially in the agency space to be transformational. It, you have to care like there's no, like I've had, I've had done dozens of interviews with folks just like you who have come to that same realization. They're successful. They're, they're building an amazing business.
[00:32:15] Corey Quinn: And it's partially because they actually, actually care about these folks. They like hanging out with them. They, they care about the industry. They want the, they want to see the industry grow. They're contributing their time and their efforts in, in many ways that a very [00:32:30] self, self focused agency just would never, would never do.
[00:32:33] Corey Quinn: You know, it sounds like you're about 50 percent of your business is in landscaping. What are you going to do with the other 50%? Is it just going to let it raise the prices? Ding, ding, ding, right? No, seriously.
[00:32:47] Rob Murray: Like, you know, do one thing really, really well. Um, want to get the niche figured out and then we'll focus on the next niche.
[00:32:53] Rob Murray: I mean, we have a bunch of relationships with a bunch of clients from a long time and we do good work, good work for them. Like we make a lot of money, so [00:33:00] I don't see them going away, but slowly, but surely, like, you know, the clients that aren't in our wheelhouse, they'll drop Um, and the, and the good was the good was lower.
[00:33:08] Rob Murray: Price provider who might not do exactly what we did, but they'll, you know, dollar for dollar might be more value than us. 'cause we're just not positioned to crank it out for those folks. Like, but I honestly think that, and we have been raising their prices for years with them and we're starting to see them say, you know what, I'm good.
[00:33:25] Rob Murray: I'm gonna go find, you know, somebody who used to work at your company who started their own thing. Right. [00:33:30] I'm gonna go work with them
[00:33:31] Corey Quinn: Easy.
[00:33:31] Rob Murray: They're half the price. Right. No problem. And we're good with that. Like, hey, we had a good run. No issue here.
[00:33:36] Corey Quinn: Rob.
Leadership Evolution
---
[00:33:37] Corey Quinn: Looking back on your time now at uh, at intrigue. And the person you are today, I imagine is different than the, let's say the 2009 Rob, as, as it relates to how you lead, how you run an organization.
[00:33:51] Corey Quinn: What are some of the differences in how you show up as a leader today? Then that maybe it was different than the early days.
[00:33:57] Rob Murray: Yeah. The biggest thing. So, um, I used to get frustrated with [00:34:00] people really quickly because they either didn't take initiative the way I thought they should, Or they would ask for, uh, help when no one knew the answer and they expected someone else to figure it out.
[00:34:13] Rob Murray: And my response was just like, well, figure it out. What, you know, like, what do you want, what do you want me to do? I mean, you're, what am I, your mom? Like, you know, and I would actually show up kind of like that. Um, turns out not helpful. It makes people feel not good. And I realized through journaling [00:34:30] that, you know, I, uh, I lost my dad early on.
[00:34:33] Rob Murray: So, uh, growing up and my mom was single mom with three kids. So like, she wasn't, she was just trying to make ends meet. So as I was growing up as like a teenager or whatever, I was just like trying to, I had to figure a lot of shit out by my own. And then I brought that into expecting other people to do the same.
[00:34:47] Rob Murray: And I realized that that's not reasonable to ask of others because they haven't gone through the same type of situations. And it made me realize that when someone's asking what to do, this is an opportunity to help [00:35:00] coach them to be able to discover the answer on their own through like a Socratic method or whatever.
[00:35:06] Rob Murray: But it was a coaching moment, which then made me excited to help grow these people. Cause like one of the things I like to do is add value. I'm like, that's my big, I want to add value to your life. You know, if we meet. 10 years from now, you're like, you know, that Rob guy helped me get to whatever, you know, that's kind of something that I want to put my hat on.
[00:35:22] Rob Murray: And so that changed massively in terms of my demeanor on how I would show up to help others. [00:35:30] Um, and, but that came from journaling, self reflection, self awareness, and then a conscious decision to ask myself, you know, how do I want to show up? How do I want to be remembered? You know, have you ever wrote your own epitaph?
[00:35:43] Rob Murray: That's a weird exercise or your own eulogy. Weird exercise, but very enlightening. So I think self awareness led to that. Yeah. So I think that's the biggest thing, just showing up a lot more approach. Are there any
Resources for Personal Growth
---
[00:35:58] Corey Quinn: resources that come to mind in addition to [00:36:00] the journaling and self awareness, like, um, books or groups?
[00:36:04] Rob Murray: Ask your, ask your team in a survey anonymously what they think.
[00:36:09] Corey Quinn: Yeah. That's a good, it hurts
[00:36:10] Rob Murray: and it's. It's the, it's probably the biggest catalyst of my growth. Like to the point where I would wear a straw sombrero in our office once a month, and I called it my approachability hat just to show people that I wasn't like a total asshole because they all thought it was like,
[00:36:26] Corey Quinn: when you got that feedback, what did you, what did you go do?
[00:36:29] Corey Quinn: Like [00:36:30] what resources did you tap into to start making this, this shift? Well, the
[00:36:34] Rob Murray: first thing I, I said, I, the first thing I said was they're all wrong. They obviously have no idea what they're talking about, you know, just denial, you know? Um, but once, once you get the feedback enough from enough people, you see that there's a pretty solid consistency in what's being said.
[00:36:49] Rob Murray: Um, yeah. And so, I mean, John C. Maxwell's a great one. I think Sandler is amazing. Transactional analysis, Dr. Eric Byrne, um, which is the fundamental kind of principles [00:37:00] of Sandler sales training. Like they call it sales training, but it's really life training. Um, The Sandler Conference, which is held in Florida in March every year, is a huge resource.
[00:37:08] Rob Murray: Leaders he lasts, Simon Sinek. Start with why, Simon Sinek. Um, but leaders he lasts, I think, from that. But being well read, I think, is really important. You know, we're trying to grow a business. If you're not well read, well, you're just shooting yourself in the foot, because there's just, you know, Thousands of people that have done such a great job messing things up and wrote about all the lessons they made.
[00:37:28] Rob Murray: So like, you know, why not expedite [00:37:30] some of that with being well read not to mention the fact that you bring value to others by sharing stories from really good books with really good authors to help them grow their business in other ways. So I just think being well read is really important.
[00:37:42] Corey Quinn: Beautiful.
[00:37:42] Corey Quinn: Last two questions for you. Uh, first one is What would be your party advice, particularly for agency owners, let's say the 2012 version of Rob and Paul, your co founder, uh, who are struggling, uh, to whatever degree that was true for you, but they're struggling with [00:38:00] scaling at that time. Like what advice would you have for them?
[00:38:02] Rob Murray: Have a shot of tequila. Relax. No, seriously. People put so much pressure on themselves to be like where they aren't yet. Remember your gains, study strategy, you know, positioning is super important, work with you, you know, find someone can help you, you know, start to put the pieces together to find a position, you know, and in 2012, we were 600, 000, 590, whatever, recognize that most businesses just fail.
[00:38:28] Rob Murray: So as much as you haven't got where you [00:38:30] want to go. You need to take a little bit of homage in the fact that you're still there rocking it. Yeah, master the craft.
[00:38:37] Corey Quinn: Beautiful.
[00:38:37] Rob Murray: Study, I mean, Seth, Seth Godin's obviously a really great resource. Um, Brad Sugars is really good. Instant Systems, Instant Coach, or Action Coach, Brad Sugars.
[00:38:49] Rob Murray: But yeah, master your craft and chill the fuck out. I find, I find the harder you resist stuff, the harder, like the more it eludes you. The more you let go, the more things come. I know [00:39:00] it sounds kind of foo foo, but I think there's something to it.
Final Thoughts and Motivation
---
[00:39:03] Corey Quinn: Last question is what's your motivation?
[00:39:06] Rob Murray: My ego says I want to be written about.
[00:39:10] Rob Murray: Because I believe you can make an organization that's really profitable. It also makes people the best version of themselves. So that's my ego answer. I want to help people become the best version of themselves. And for some reason, I think if we build a really successful company, people will disarm themselves when speaking to me faster.
[00:39:27] Rob Murray: So it's almost like, A key [00:39:30] that I can like turn to make it so other people will listen. You know, I also want to live a life that's like awesome. You know, I want to make my kids struggle and not, you know, go through what I went through, but I also want to be able to go do epic shit with really cool people.
[00:39:42] Rob Murray: The world's big. There's a lot to go do. I want to be able to go access it essentially.
[00:39:47] Corey Quinn: Beautiful. Well, I don't know about the listeners, but I'm certainly inspired, Rob. Thank you so much for coming on, sharing your story, your insight, your journey. The highs, the lows, lessons learned, all of that. That was great.
[00:39:59] Corey Quinn: So I appreciate you [00:40:00] coming on.
[00:40:00] Rob Murray: Yeah. Thanks Corey. I appreciate you doing this man. Like I've, I've, I've sent your podcast to, I don't even know, probably four or five people so far, uh, just since we met and met on the, you know, beach, the Santa Monica, I really appreciate what you're doing.
[00:40:12] Corey Quinn: Love it. Thanks Rob.
[00:40:13] Corey Quinn: Appreciate you. That's it for today. I'm Corey Quinn and I hope you join me again next time on the Deep Specialization Podcast. If you received value from this show, please go to Apple Podcasts and leave us a review. Thanks and we'll see you soon.
