DS_Brandon Wheeler_Full Interview_Edited_v1
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[00:00:00] You'll never do anything scarier, but you'll also be more fulfilled than you could ever imagine. And there's some magic in that. You know, I was in my later thirties and I realized that if I didn't go do what I was going to do right then. I wasn't totally certain that I would come back around to that same decision, but it was important for me to just say, you know what? Jump.
[00:00:24] I like to help the best attorneys get the cases that need the best attorneys.
[00:00:43] Corey Quinn: today. I'm joined by my old time friend and the founder of marketing six, Brandon Wheeler.
[00:00:49] Corey Quinn: What's up B dog.
[00:00:51] Brandon Wheeler: Hey Corey, how you doing, man?
[00:00:53] Corey Quinn: Good. I'm super excited to have you on the show. You and I are friends. We go back. I think 10 years now when I joined Scorpion, uh, you know, your story from a high level is, you know, we met in 2015, but you were there at Scorpion, on day one, if I remember right.
[00:01:11] Corey Quinn: And so I'm super excited for folks to hear your story about, what it was like to be there at the early days. helping Scorpion go from zero to one and to a hundred million and beyond. you also left Scorpion at a certain point, took a little bit of a risk, bet on yourself and started your own firm and now have achieved amazing success.
[00:01:34] Corey Quinn: So, I can't wait to unpack this story and share some old memories with an old friend. And, yeah. Why don't you start by just, introducing yourself and, share with the audience a little bit about, your background.
[00:01:45] Brandon Wheeler: yeah. Well, I really appreciate you having me here. it's an honor and you know, it's great to see you again.
[00:01:50] Brandon Wheeler: we do go way back, which is awesome. And you know, my journey here was definitely interesting. So yeah. Thank you for having me. You know, I've gotten my start back in 2001, so about 20, 24 years ago now, I can't believe I'm that old, but, yeah, 2001 and, me and a couple of my buddies, we had this idea that we were going to start a business and we didn't actually know what business we were going to start back then and we were talking about all kinds of things This idea of the Internet and Internet marketing because it was still in its infancy back then.
[00:02:27] Brandon Wheeler: That was, way back when you'd be receiving those AOL disks in the mail and, 100 free hours. we had one of the guys who could code. And then there were two of us who figured we could probably sell it and we were going to build websites. And that's how we were going to, either make our way through college or start a business and, stake our claim.
[00:02:49] Brandon Wheeler: And so, uh, in, in one of the spare bedrooms of one of the guy's houses, we started Scorpion. And that was a. Interesting time. you know, we had to first decide kind of like who our clientele were going to be and who we're going to try and sell these websites to. Right. And, you know, when you're 19 years old and you don't really know much about life, you kind of have this idea that doctors and lawyers maybe have a lot of money.
[00:03:17] Corey Quinn: Yeah, that's what they told us growing up. Right.
[00:03:20] Brandon Wheeler: That's right. That's right. They drove the nice cars and had the big houses. So. We, um, we would order, Yellow Pages. I don't know if your, listening audience remembers what those are, but,
[00:03:31] Corey Quinn: Yeah. Those things you'd use to boost up a chair,
[00:03:35] Brandon Wheeler: right?
[00:03:35] Brandon Wheeler: Well, exactly. And, like, you know, put your monitors on in today's world. But, um, they used to show up at your doorstep, but you would only get your local Yellow Pages. Like, whatever that, you know, your zip code, you know, fell in. So, we used to have to order them from all over Southern California. And we just have stacks.
[00:03:52] Brandon Wheeler: Stacks of them sitting there and what was interesting was, you know, in, you know, in, in Rustin's house and in his dad's house in the spare bedroom or actually it was in his bedroom for a long time. We used to have to share one phone line, so we only had we only had like a certain amount of time.
[00:04:12] Brandon Wheeler: We could be on the phone because his dad worked from home. So we were, we were sharing, you're
[00:04:18] Corey Quinn: sharing the life. So 2 of you were sellers. 1 coder by way, Rustin. For the, for the audience is one of the co founders of Scorpion was that one of the guys and is today's the CEO, right? So he's, he's still, still at Scorpion, big part of that growth, but, so is you Rustin and who is the third person I'm curious,
[00:04:37] Brandon Wheeler: Peter.
[00:04:38] Corey Quinn: Peter. Oh, Peter Webb. Okay. So that you guys had, you're sharing the phone line with, with Rustin's dad.
[00:04:47] Corey Quinn: Papa Kretz,
[00:04:48] Brandon Wheeler: well, exactly. Papa Kres, that was him.
[00:04:50] Brandon Wheeler: It was Papa Crez. And so he works from home doing some kind of sales as well. So we would just share the phone line and it was also the fax line. And back then to get contracts, people didn't have emails. There was always faxes. So we would sit there and just cold call the yellow pages. And
[00:05:08] Corey Quinn: so you'd call up, you'd call up an attorney.
[00:05:11] Corey Quinn: What would you say?
[00:05:12] Brandon Wheeler: So it was interesting. I was actually thinking about this because I had a feeling you might ask me and I remember the very first sale Ever made and it was an attorney in San Diego. her name was Nancy Rick Jones and She picked up the phone, which wasn't always normal. Sometimes you get the receptionist Paralegal or whatever and you have to try and battle your way through that and Being a young kid, not having very much sales experience, it was tough to sometimes get them, but I got her on the phone and she was the sweetest person ever.
[00:05:45] Brandon Wheeler: And I said, Nancy, I want to tell you about the future. there's this thing called the internet. And she had almost no idea what the internet was. I said, you know the yellow pages where, you put an ad in and people will find you.
[00:05:59] Brandon Wheeler: Well, that's what the internet's going to be. It's going to be where everyone finds, everyone's going to become a marketplace, and it's going to take over the world. And I was pitching the dream. The internet 25 years ago, and she was a very trusting lady. She trusted this kid and she sent me a check for 1, 500, which was a million back then.
[00:06:25] Corey Quinn: That's awesome.
[00:06:26] Brandon Wheeler: it was a running joke that we had because I had my first apartment and I didn't have a refrigerator because I was so. We're all so poor, living at home, scraping by, and with that commission, I got my first refrigerator.
[00:06:41] Corey Quinn: Oh, yes. So wait, it was $1,500.
[00:06:44] Corey Quinn: And what did she buy specifically from you?
[00:06:46] Brandon Wheeler: So you would get a custom, custom made website ground up? Yeah. and back then that was the only way you could get a website. So it was a custom coded website, and it was hideous. They were so bad, you know, they'd have like the American flags waving in the corner sometimes.
[00:07:02] Brandon Wheeler: Oh yeah.
[00:07:02] Corey Quinn: The little, the gifs Like the animated, like the, the animated gif. Oh yeah.
[00:07:07] Brandon Wheeler: That was the only way to do it. and it made pop, you know, that was what everyone wanted to see. Uh, so she would get a, she had a website and we would, I'm pretty sure we included hosting either for a year or maybe even indefinitely, but it was definitely for at least a year.
[00:07:25] Brandon Wheeler: And then I think it was somewhere around 50 a month for like your subscription. but back then. because the marketplace just didn't exist. this is in the days of, you know, Yahoo Alta Vista and Ask Jeeves these search engines that were emerging and Google was actually the baby back then didn't really have a foothold on the search game.
[00:07:47] Brandon Wheeler: So, as Google was emerging and people were kind of clamoring and jumping in on that. On that search engine, they created the best search engine. And, you know, the way that the citations and the links and the references, created the index. And who ranked top, page one.
[00:08:03] Brandon Wheeler: It was just smarter than everyone because the other guys, things like, Yahoo search and, Alta Vista, they would have curators, people who actually curated the search results, which. Sounds a little fishy, right? ? Anyway, we used to be able to guarantee that we could get you page one rankings within a week.
[00:08:22] Brandon Wheeler: top of page one, give us one week. We'll get you up there. No problem. Awesome.
[00:08:26] Corey Quinn: So, back then where you guys were selling, effectively, SEO. I mean, you may not call the SEO back then, but was that part of the package? You get a website and we get you calls or is it just websites?
[00:08:36] Corey Quinn:
[00:08:36] Brandon Wheeler: was, it was mainly website and hosting and the SEO was just a by product of it because it was easy to get people ranking. And as time went on. The product evolved and the search space became a much larger marketplace and it just, it just grew exponentially like just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, and just, you know, like, so massive so quickly that then the game became how do you get and show up at the top of page one?
[00:09:05] Brandon Wheeler: For whatever your major search terms are, and what's that going to do for you? And this is back way before the days of paid advertising. This is just organic because that's all that existed back then.
[00:09:15] Corey Quinn: So you got your first sale, 1500 bucks, Nancy from San Diego. how long until your second sale?
[00:09:21] Brandon Wheeler: Oh, I would love to sit here and brag and say it was the next week next month. I don't even remember. I just remember the first, you always remember your first, but then the list just get, it all becomes a blur after that. Yeah,
[00:09:35] Corey Quinn: I guess. So, so how did, how did you guys build, I mean, selling one website is one thing, but building a business and, and in growing it is another thing.
[00:09:43] Corey Quinn: Like how did, how did you guys end up getting momentum, like building momentum in the early days?
[00:09:48] Brandon Wheeler: Yeah, I mean, it was a combination of, our drive and hunger to kind of like do something and, I'm going to give all the credit where credit's due and that's to Rustin.
[00:09:59] Brandon Wheeler: he is an absolute beast when it comes to having that hunger and that drive the guy's got a work ethic like I've never seen,
[00:10:09] Corey Quinn: whether
[00:10:12] Brandon Wheeler: he even needs to or not. It doesn't matter. That's just, who he is in his DNA and it's, it's one of his. It's, you know, it's, it's one of his differentiators is the truth.
[00:10:20] Brandon Wheeler: I've never seen anyone work harder and he's been a dear friend of mine for most of my life and I respect the heck out of them.
[00:10:27] Corey Quinn: walk us through. So you, you're building this business Scorpion at the time. I think it was called Scorpion design. Is that right?
[00:10:34] Brandon Wheeler: Scorpion design. That's right.
[00:10:35] Corey Quinn: Yeah, I knew that. and, you were calling these, um, these law firms and, uh, these, um, these doctors, how did you guys end up sort of focusing on attorneys? Like why not just work with any small business? Like what, where did the focus on attorneys come from?
[00:10:50] Corey Quinn: Do you think?
[00:10:51] Brandon Wheeler: You know, I would say it's because we had this amazing vision of deep specialization, but um, We again, it kind of went back to what we originally said about. We kind of knew that doctors and lawyers, you know, had money or so we thought and that was a good market and we started making. Some headway into it.
[00:11:15] Brandon Wheeler: And back then, Martindale Hubble was the 800 pound gorilla in the space. They were the biggest. They had, the directory and, they were just the big monster. And then later came, Thomson Reuters, which is fine law. and Scorpion was always the thorn in everyone's side, and we kind of liked that.
[00:11:33] Brandon Wheeler: we were the. anti them, you know, and those behemoths tried to come in and buy us. I'm sure multiple times and it just we were always the younger, faster, hungrier, you know, our designs were better. We had a fun culture and then we were all just a bunch of friends.
[00:11:54] Brandon Wheeler: so we kind of just stuck to what we knew. And We eventually kind of branched into different verticals, of course, but early on and something maybe a lot of people don't know was, the hospital systems that we had gotten into that was actually how we built the platform, the scorpion CMS that everyone still uses in today's world.
[00:12:16] Brandon Wheeler: That's that's a scorpion client. And, you know, some very, very smart people and Rustin had the vision. He's like, we're going to build the CMS. And back then you kind of had to build your own CMS. That was just the way it was because yeah, WordPress didn't exist. There was nothing. And so you had to build your own.
[00:12:32] Brandon Wheeler: And so we built our own and we had our own proprietary platform to do all the fun stuff that we wanted to do. But that was kind of the transition that we also, so now we had. A hospital network, you know, and it was, I think it was, I want to say it was St. Joe's. Maybe that wasn't the first, but either way it was a, it was a big one and we had no business selling that medicine,
[00:12:55] Brandon Wheeler: but we did and, you know, we got it, and then, and then it became, you know, Scorpion healthcare became a thing and it was, it was a big part of the, the company's growth.
[00:13:05] Corey Quinn: At what point did sending cookies become a part of the sales strategy?
[00:13:10] Brandon Wheeler: Well, okay. It's really funny because, you know, so Corey, when you came in and you were this hotshot marketing guy, you know, like I remember seeing you for the first time walking in there and I was like, who's this guy?
[00:13:23] Brandon Wheeler: you had a certain swagger about you that I thought was very interesting, but, anyone who's met, you know, that you're just about the most kind, relatable, nicest, easiest person to talk to. So it was easy to kind of, become a friend very quickly, but, I think I had told you that, I saw you come in and you got your office and you were the.
[00:13:43] Brandon Wheeler: That we had a CMO for the first time, this C level marketing position, which we were all like, what is this? Doing our own marketing for us? Like, what is that? We had no idea. We market for other people. the concept was foreign. We were, again, this. baby company that became an adolescent that was now maturing and becoming something that is so utterly impressive in the space today that when you came in, I feel like that was the mark when we kind of moved into that.
[00:14:17] Brandon Wheeler: Maturity stage and the idea of, only waiting for inbound leads and trying to, go outbound for this, the concept was, not foreign to us because some of the original guys who were there, like me, Peter and Brian Blades and some of the guys were there. Early, early on. that was normal for us.
[00:14:37] Brandon Wheeler: Cold calling. Just found the phones. So, I feel like that was When we realized that we needed to be able to get people's attention, right? We needed to differentiate ourselves a little bit. We were kind of known in the space by this point. We would go to all the trade shows and, speak at the conferences and I would do a lot of speaking at different, you know, different events and stuff too, but we wanted to be able to get directly to the decision maker.
[00:15:06] Brandon Wheeler: And make it a very warm welcome and that's what cookies or gifts or whatever you want to do those uniquely striking impressions that's really what they do
[00:15:16] Corey Quinn: I remember just a side note one memory I have of you early on is We would have these, we would send out these video brochures, right.
[00:15:24] Corey Quinn: And I remember recording in one of the offices, you and the other PI sales guys, a personalized video. I'm not sure if you remember this, but yeah. Right. And so we did is. We had these video brochures, which basically like a brochure, but it's a video player that that you would open it, you'd send to an attorney, you'd open it up and there was a, it was B dog Brandon right there with a video message directly to the recipient.
[00:15:51] Corey Quinn: Right? So we had to go and record all these. And I remember, you were doing this and you're one of the few guys I remember I felt like an outsider at Scorpion. The guys at Scorpion, everyone grew up together, they all went to high school. One of the guys kind of made an extra effort to be really nice to me, which I appreciate.
[00:16:09] Corey Quinn: But I remember in that room, we were laughing about these videos that we were creating, because it was almost ridiculous that we were doing this. But in any event, that's a fond memory of mine. so when I got to Scorpion, what I learned was that Rustin, the founder would be the CMO, but like once a quarter, maybe once every six months, he would go and hire some PR agency to create some brochure and send it out to like a list of like 10, 000 businesses.
[00:16:38] Corey Quinn: And that was the effect of the marketing. That's right. And in fact, he had sent out cookies before using a vendor. when I saw that, and I talked to some of you guys and you said, yeah, that really makes a difference. That's when we go, ah, okay, this is interesting. And we went from every once in a while sending a gift to every quarter.
[00:16:56] Brandon Wheeler: Yeah, it became part of our marketing budget and effort. It was, it was a game changer is the truth. And I'll tell you before cookies we did, we found, I remember there was a firm we were trying to reach and I think it was in Houston, Texas. And we found this lady who would make these macaroons, these like handmade macaroons, right?
[00:17:16] Brandon Wheeler: I don't remember her name, but she had this awesome little shop. And she could make them obviously whatever flavor or color, but then she could airbrush. messages on the top or graphics and so we're like, Hey, would you spray a scorpion on top of that and send it over to this attorney and that was the beginning of that process and it landed us.
[00:17:39] Brandon Wheeler: Oh man, the ROI on that was insane. it was such a cool idea. And then, a lot of people followed suit once they kind of saw what we were doing, but it was so fun It was a fun time back then
[00:17:49] Corey Quinn: at some point you decided to leave Scorpion like you'd been there day one the yellow pages you built up You were a senior vice president of sales focusing on personal injury attorneys Yeah, a lot of success there and at a certain point you left, what was the timing behind leaving?
[00:18:05] Corey Quinn: many people ask me, why did I leave Scorpion? What was the timing? I'm curious for you, like what was, what was the timing about?
[00:18:11] Brandon Wheeler: Yeah. And I definitely want to hear your story too. I don't know that I know it per se. I've listened to a lot of your podcasts and stuff. I don't know if you've talked about it, but maybe I missed it.
[00:18:20] Brandon Wheeler: But my timing was, Scorpion had gone through, an obscene amount of growth and it was getting huge, very, very huge. I. In my heart, really, really enjoyed working directly with my clients. I liked relationships. I liked knowing my clients. I liked having their cell phone numbers. I liked being able to talk to them.
[00:18:47] Brandon Wheeler: I liked being able to hear about what was going on in their firm. I liked knowing if what we were doing was making an impact in their family or helping. people beyond just the surface level, I'm a senior vice president of sales. I run a team, I have a quota, I gotta, sell a bunch of things every month.
[00:19:10] Brandon Wheeler: Like, that was, that was fine. And then, we worked our butts off for a very long time. A little bit, to the detriment of my kids, they took a hit on that for quite some time as we were really trying to establish this as a force in the marketing space, which we did.
[00:19:27] Brandon Wheeler: And I realized that it was starting to get to a place that I wanted to, you know, you can kind of jokingly call it like a Jerry Maguire moment, you know, where it's like less clients, better relationships. more connecting, I just felt like I needed to go back to my roots, is really what it was, and, you know, in my life at the time, this is kind of just pre COVID, I made a very, risky decision, which, I'm sure a lot of people have talked about, people that are in the same place that I was in, where it's like, you know, you've been doing this for a long time, and you're very good at it, and that's great, but, You also don't know, like, I didn't have to manage a lot of the other pieces of the organization.
[00:20:14] Brandon Wheeler: I just didn't have to touch them. Right. And, you know, you learn very quickly when you go out on your own that certain skillsets, you know, aren't organic and naturally, you know, my strong suit. So I had to find some really good people to work with very, very quickly. And I've been blessed.
[00:20:32] Brandon Wheeler: Uh, to have a, an amazing team. I have a business partner as well, uh, Daniel, uh, Lopez, who has, uh, honestly, he's been a lifesaver for me because he is really, really good at everything that I'm really, really bad at. Ah,
[00:20:45] Corey Quinn: beautiful.
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[00:21:59] Now back to the show.
[00:22:00] Corey Quinn: you mentioned you left at, um, right around early COVID or before COVID?
[00:22:04] Brandon Wheeler: That's right.
[00:22:05] Corey Quinn: Looking back now with the sort of the benefit of perspective. Would you say you waited too long to leave or did you did you did you leave too early? Like what are your thoughts?
[00:22:15] Brandon Wheeler: Good question. I think I got really lucky and left at the right time. I've been blessed to work with such great people at Scorpion and to have a friend like Rustin who, set us up for success we made him very successful, but he also shared that with us, which was great,
[00:22:30] Brandon Wheeler: I was ready. I was as prepared as I was ever going to be. I was in my later 30s and I realized that if I didn't go do what I was going to do right then. I wasn't totally certain that I would come back around to that same decision. And so it was important for me to just say, you know what? Jump.
[00:22:51] Brandon Wheeler: It was time. And that was a very, very emotional, very tough conversation. And, you know, shed some tears and, a lot of hugs. And, you know, I'm still very, very close with all the guys over there. I love them to death. Um, I'm not a bad word to say about them. they try really, really hard to be best and best in class is the truth.
[00:23:11] Brandon Wheeler:
[00:23:11] Corey Quinn: have you found as a result of going out on your own that you've been able to find more time to invest in your family and to really have more of a lack of a better term, more of a balanced perspective as it relates to work and then other aspects of life.
[00:23:26] Brandon Wheeler: Yeah, I really have.
[00:23:28] Brandon Wheeler: I mean, I'm actually sitting in my home right now. Um, I get to work from home and, you know, in about an hour I get to go pick my kids up from school and then we've got baseball practice tonight and we're gonna go out to dinner. I just, I have a little bit more me time to invest in them. And, you know, I've still got some young ones and, we enjoy our time together.
[00:23:48] Brandon Wheeler: And so the work life balance for me is, is, is very, very important, but you also need to have that drive, that hunger, that you really want to, your clients and help them succeed. So it's funny cause I kind of have a little bit of a switch. Where I can shut off when it's family time.
[00:24:11] Brandon Wheeler: I know how to compartmentalize very, very well. I've been doing it for a long time, but when it's go time, it's go time. Like if we need to come up with a strategy to go help a firm. we're head down. we're moving. And yes, I will work into the night once the kids go down sometimes, but at this stage, I definitely have a whole lot more, you know, kind of work life balance than I did before.
[00:24:31] Corey Quinn: Let's talk about that. Those first couple of, maybe a year or two during going into COVID. The whole world's very uncertain, right? a lot of craziness happening. All of a sudden you're Now, uh, solo, I, I imagine you were just bootstrapping just yourself at that point. Had you, had you brought on Daniel or was it just you at that point?
[00:24:49] Brandon Wheeler: Yeah. So, we bootstrapped the whole thing and again, terrifying, you're burning through your savings. I had a massive advantage because I knew one, how to sell, but two, I had thousands of clients. The trouble was. They were scorpion clients and I wasn't trying to go poke the bear, you know, and I'm like, those are my buddies too.
[00:25:10] Brandon Wheeler: So I was very blessed where there were some clients that were just going to go with me no matter where I ended up going. You know, they're like, Brandon, wherever you're going, I'm going with you, you know, let's go. So I had. A very, very tight knit client base that did come with me, and then, I had the advantage of being able to go and create revenue.
[00:25:33] Brandon Wheeler: That was something that I was very, very good at. So Daniel and I had a very, random run in. he and I went to the same gym, funny enough, and it was, it was one morning at about 1030 in the morning when both of us should have been at work. And neither of us knew that we had left Scorpion and I was like, Hey, what are you doing here?
[00:25:54] Brandon Wheeler: And he's like, Hey, what are you doing here? And then we went out and had coffee and, very quickly realized that, his skill set and mine, matched up pretty well because he's a brilliant, advertising mind. he's a master for paid advertising campaigns and helping attorneys get what they need.
[00:26:10] Brandon Wheeler: He's second to none in my books. I got very lucky to have him quickly because I had campaigns that needed fulfillment.
[00:26:18] Corey Quinn: I was wondering about that, right? You're a sales guy, right?
[00:26:21] Brandon Wheeler: I've been so far removed from fulfillment for so many years that my clients would, I mean, they would have ran for the hills and I would have told them to do the same if it was just me.
[00:26:33] Brandon Wheeler: So luckily I was able to get connected up with Daniel and then very quickly we were able to get, uh, You know, get introduced to some really, really wonderful people who are kind of our core or our business here at marketing six.
[00:26:45] Corey Quinn: you decided to bring them on as a partner.
[00:26:47] Corey Quinn: What was, what was the reason why you brought them as a partner versus let's say just a. well compensated employee. And would you, you know, would that be something you'd advise other folks to do?
[00:27:01] Brandon Wheeler: I would have to think about it a little bit, but I can tell you it's an easy answer in one respect, he was the right partner for me because I wanted him 100 percent bought in, 100%.
[00:27:15] Brandon Wheeler: And yeah, I mean, sure, I could have just gone and done it myself and then started hiring and keeping it that way just to keep it all myself. This wasn't, a game of how do I stack the chips and keep them all to myself. I've, had some success in my career, I'd gotten to this point and one of the things that I do in my agency, which is.
[00:27:34] Brandon Wheeler: Not very common is we have a revenue share. So every single dollar that we make profit on gets shared with the team. And that's something that I realize a lot of agencies go, wait, what? I've had plenty of conversations where they go, you are ridiculous for doing that. I'm like, yeah, but. why should I be the only one to benefit from all of the years of hard work it takes to build an agency?
[00:28:02] Brandon Wheeler: Yeah. And I think there's something to be said about, you know, if you're going to bring on a partner, you want someone who is committed, right? if you're leaving a cushy, not cushy, but you know.
[00:28:12] Corey Quinn: A well paying position, you've been there for a long time, you're in a rhythm, to go do something on your own, very risky. Having someone else who is also taking on some risk can be a good, uh, a way to go.
[00:28:24] Brandon Wheeler: It is. And it's, you know, having that, you know, emotional support as well, and having a partner like we would.
[00:28:33] Brandon Wheeler: You know, we were working out of a again. It was like we were working back out of a bedroom again. It was covid time. So that makes sense. But like, it was very humbling to be back in that situation and then have to kind of rebuild it all back up. But again, being in the position that I was in and having the relationships and the connections and great people around me, it's been such a blessing.
[00:28:54] Corey Quinn: So you have a unique perspective as an agency owner now because you have a background in sales specifically and you sold to the same people I imagine you're selling to today back at Scorpions. You had all that history coming in and you have Daniel coming in to help with the execution of the campaigns.
[00:29:13] Corey Quinn: At what point did you decide to actually hire a sales team to come support you? what are some, maybe some tips that agency owners should keep in mind when hiring salespeople?
[00:29:25] Brandon Wheeler: Yeah, I'll tell you how I got there and then what we did. So we had a leg up because we didn't need a sales or revenue generating machine because I could do it. And, you know, in the, in the earlier days and as the agency was, you know, adding some clientele and the revenue was increasing, it was.
[00:29:45] Brandon Wheeler: It was pretty easy because we also didn't need a lot. We needed slow but steady growth. That was all we needed. There was a point where certain things were, you know, we didn't, like, we couldn't take on five clients at once. We just couldn't do it. We were just, we were just a small group. And as we started adding pieces, I really started enjoying, getting back to working with my client side.
[00:30:12] Brandon Wheeler: I really started enjoying that piece again, which was very fulfilling for me. And it checked that box and it kind of reinforced that idea of like doing this and going out on my own Was the right decision to make for me and as I was doing that, I was realizing that I don't have enough time to do everything and, you know, to your, you know, to your, uh, your point and in your book a lot, you know, you talk about, you know, like founder led sales and, you know, at a certain point you have to kind of, you have to transition.
[00:30:45] Brandon Wheeler: Well, I had worked and trained umpteen. I have no idea how many sales guys over the years and had a big sales team. And that was something I was also, very, very experienced. And so I decided I was like, yeah, let's just go bring someone in. finding the right person who is a good fit personality wise, obviously people talk about culture, we are all remote, so it's a little bit more removed, but if you have to interact with them all day, every day, even if it is virtually, you still want to enjoy that interaction.
[00:31:21] Brandon Wheeler: So finding someone that you really enjoy working with is key. Because you're going to be talking to him a lot, especially on the sales side. So I started, when I added my first, salesperson and, you know, he had experience in the space and had come from, the legal marketing space as well.
[00:31:41] Brandon Wheeler: And then I added a couple more. And so we have a, we have a very lean sales team, but they're very effective and they've been in the space for a long time. And I like, I mean, they're hand trained, from me, so I liked the way they do it. Cause that's the way I do it. But, it's very, very fulfilling to watch them, kind of play the game the right way,
[00:32:05] Hey, it's Cory. I wanted to take a quick break from the show to say that if you're an agency owner looking for a strategic and reliable white label partner, you should check out E2M they offer website design, WordPress development, e commerce solutions. SEO, PPC, and content writing. And they are trusted by over 300 agencies.
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[00:32:49] Corey Quinn: what other attributes or qualities would you say are important in hiring a salesperson? Then maybe for someone who doesn't have your background in, in sales, right? Someone who is trying to just hire a really good salesperson, like what should they, what do they hire for?
[00:33:05] Brandon Wheeler: Well, I'll share some of my thoughts and insights and like you, Corey, I've read every sales book imaginable. I've been coached by some unbelievable talents. I've listened to every sales podcast under the sun. And it's funny because at this stage of my career, having done sales for most of my life.
[00:33:25] Brandon Wheeler: I look for some interesting things. the one thing that's almost impossible to train for, and train, is drive and hunger, right? You want someone who is hungry, and it's so important to find someone who is hungry. But at the same time,smart and at the same time, they need to be humble.
[00:33:50] Brandon Wheeler: And, you know, a lot of people lean on this idea that salespeople need to be cocky and arrogant and larger than life. And, you know, you know, you know, whatever this, this idea, I disagree. I wholly disagree because if you care enough and you're smart, that Venn diagram of humble, hungry and smart, if you can get a good blend of that, maybe leaning a little bit more towards hungry, that's your, that's your guy.
[00:34:18] Brandon Wheeler: That's your guy.
[00:34:19] Corey Quinn: Yeah. what do you say about those salespeople who come into an agency and then sell a bunch of bad deals?
[00:34:26] Brandon Wheeler: I love that you said that because that happens all the time. It does. It even happened with some of my guys, because the first thing that most sales people do when they get into an agency is they just go grab all of the low hanging fruit.
[00:34:39] Brandon Wheeler: It's like, oh, I can get this deal, and this deal, and this deal, and this deal, because, you know, and that makes them feel really good and look really good because they're generating all this revenue potentially. And what they don't see is what they're throwing over the wall. And to actually fulfill on that and create a good relationship that's going to help.
[00:34:57] Brandon Wheeler: this business out or this law firm out is so hard to do when it's not the right fit. So you need, you know, that's where that's where the smarts in that in that diagram have to come into it. You need someone who can think with would this be a good fit not only for us, but for this client, you know, are we the right fit for them?
[00:35:18] Brandon Wheeler: And I've heard almost every agency owner on this podcast specifically talk about this. You gotta just cut, you gotta cut them loose like you have to. It's their best interest and yours. To sever that relationship. So yeah, you gotta be careful.
[00:35:33] Corey Quinn: You, you have the benefit of coming from a sales background, but many agency founders who are trying to get out of this founder led, role, you know, they want to hire for the right salesperson.
[00:35:45] Corey Quinn: What, what should, in addition to what you shared around the right person, how they have to have drive and hunger and smart and humble from a systems or a process perspective, like. What would be ideal for the agency owner to build before the salesperson steps in? Like what has to be, what has to be there?
[00:36:03] Brandon Wheeler: I would say, uh, who your ideal client avatar really is.like, who it should be you know, which are the ones that churn and why do they churn? What one stick around for years and years and years and are happy and would love to send referrals to you and why? And so as an agency owner, if you can identify who those people are. You know, what types of people they are, is it this type of attorney?
[00:36:27] Brandon Wheeler: Is it this type of, size of a law firm? is it this type of a market? Is it, a top tier market? Like, do you want to be going after the Houston's, the New York's, the Los Angeles markets, or do you want to be going after, Bakersfield or Plano, Texas, or, sub markets, whatever you want to call them.
[00:36:41] Brandon Wheeler: Identifying that is very, very important. And then if you want to help your sales person or whoever's going to be stepping in that role, getting them a list of those people to start targeting would be very, very advantageous for you to do.
[00:36:56] Corey Quinn: Yeah. Maybe even send them some gifts,
[00:36:58] Brandon Wheeler: cookies, who knows?
[00:36:59] Brandon Wheeler: Delicious
[00:37:00] Corey Quinn: cookies. Delicious. Yes.
[00:37:03] Corey Quinn: that's super, that's super helpful. So. Now you have the, the agency is how big, how many employees do you have?
[00:37:09] Brandon Wheeler: So we're about, uh, we're about 20, 27, 28 employees.
[00:37:14] Corey Quinn: Amazing. Amazing. And you have, you've built up this agency. Your primary focus is attorneys and law firms.
[00:37:22] Corey Quinn: I'm assuming that, uh, that's the primary focus. Is that right? Yeah,
[00:37:26] Corey Quinn: that, that is correct. And then, what's the future for marketing six? Like what's ahead?
[00:37:32] Brandon Wheeler: Yeah. good question. we have always been kind of slow and steady on the growth side, but that was done intentionally.
[00:37:40] Brandon Wheeler: It's really interesting when you look at the numbers and the growth and year over year, we just, we keep growing faster than even I want us to, but like, it's a great problem. And I'm not even trying to brag. It's just you bring on a couple of really good accounts and then you have to.
[00:37:54] Brandon Wheeler: backfill, and add more, on your fulfillment team and really smart people on the advertising side and the social media side and the SEO side to make sure that everyone is getting the type of relationship that they need and seeing the results from it. So I would say growth wise for us, we'll probably grow by another 40 percent this year, if I had to guess.
[00:38:20] Brandon Wheeler: Which is again, a little nerve wracking, but I think we're ready for it.
[00:38:25] Corey Quinn: what's the limiter on that, uh, on your growth? Is it your fulfillment or on the sales side, would you say, like are the sales opportunities there? It just being able to slow roll the,
[00:38:35] Brandon Wheeler: it's unlimited, it's unlimited on the sales opportunity side.
[00:38:38] Brandon Wheeler: there's so many firms out there. the space has definitely gotten more saturated, right? It's kind of a, kind of a red ocean if you want to think about it that way. but there are also differentiators and things that a lot of these clients aren't getting from other agencies.
[00:38:51] Brandon Wheeler: And so a lot of agencies come in with the kind of the same playbook that all the other agencies have. Yeah, it makes sense. They're like, Hey, these guys are making a lot of money and these guys are making a lot of money. I want to make a lot of money. So there you go. But it's funny because, you know, when you have a different view of what you're doing and you kind of roll that back to your why, like why you're doing it is so important
[00:39:19] Brandon Wheeler: How do I scale this to, 500 employees and then, make 100 million dollars and then cash out like, if that's the game you want to play. It's right there in front of you. You can go do it. It's just not the game I want to do is I want to have kind of a boutique, catered, curated agency that works with firms and I kind of, the way I like to say it is, I like to help the best attorneys get the cases that need the best attorneys.
[00:39:48] Brandon Wheeler: that's all I like to do.
[00:39:52] Corey Quinn: So in the world of digital marketing, the space that we live in, one of the big challenges that many agencies face is that they're excellent media buyers that do really great job at delivering high quality. The potential cases, right? Or leads or whatever I call it.
[00:40:08] Corey Quinn: But then the client frankly, sucks at intake. and of course then the agency gets fired because they don't see the value. Does that happen in your world? Does that have, okay, so how do you, how do you deal with that in your world? Like how, you know, your version of it may be different than a dental attorney or a dental agency, but your world, how do you handle that?
[00:40:28] Brandon Wheeler: So intake is everything. You can be a great agency, but if your intake is,not very good, and you haven't tightened that up as a law firm, you are wasting so much money, and you're hurting your credibility too, because, if you have someone on the front lines, who isn't caring, does not have good bedside manner, um, you know, is, is a, you know, maybe, you know, so busy they don't know what to do and they're rushed and they try and get people off the phone.
[00:40:58] Brandon Wheeler: these people needed your help potentially. And that is just a horrible experience. So we immerse ourselves in it. We throw ourselves at it. My team goes, okay, as soon as we bring a client on, we want to know exactly who's answering the phone. We want to hear them. We want to coach them if they're terrible or potentially get them moved off to another position and get someone else in there who can do it right or refer them to someone who can help them with that intake because it is.
[00:41:26] Brandon Wheeler: vital for the success of your campaign.
[00:41:29] Corey Quinn: What about these, uh, these firms who will do sort of the, the soup to nuts, do the marketing, do the intake, do the handoff of a fully qualified case? Is that something you've ever considered doing and why, why would you, or why wouldn't you do that?
[00:41:42] Brandon Wheeler: Yeah. I mean, we, we, we've looked at, we've looked at it for sure and you know, it's.
[00:41:47] Brandon Wheeler: It's interesting because I don't think that it's something I want to do is the truth because I know what I like doing. I know what I'm good at and I would rather have a little bit of separation on that front, the people that do that, and I've struggled to find someone who does it soup to nuts really, really well and package them up and hand them off, like, from the marketing advertising side and, top of the funnel, right?
[00:42:12] Brandon Wheeler: And driving those leads down, driving those cases down and say, cool, here's a great case. If there were a lot of agencies out there who were really good at that, all the rest of us would be out of business. Like, we would all be out of business.
[00:42:25] Corey Quinn: They're taking all the risk. They're just basically saying to a law firm, just pay me a fixed fee per qualified case,
[00:42:32] Brandon Wheeler: Yeah, that's right. And, you know, it kind of goes back to, you know, if we're looking at this, from a, like, like roll it all the way back. Someone at some point in their life, something bad happened and they needed help and they needed, whether they knew what to do or who to go find, a lot of these people out there are actually, most of the people have no clue who a good.
[00:42:58] Brandon Wheeler: attorneys are who to turn to. And there are some unbelievably talented, caring, amazing law firms out there that will help you get the absolute best result for whatever happened. And you know, if you're a You know, a breadwinner father construction worker and your leg got crushed and you can't work. What do you do?
[00:43:21] Brandon Wheeler: And then you have this ocean of millions of potential, you know, results and Google, you know, search results and more craft and more cash for your crash guide. Like you have all of that type of. You know, stuff that's out there, all that noise that's out there, and it's my job to take an attorney who can help that person and make sure that they get connected.
[00:43:42] Corey Quinn: That's what I do. That's what I love. That's my why. As to why I do this, it's if I can take a firm that is really good at helping people, I'm all in. If you're not, you're probably not going to be my client, is the truth. So are your salespeople as convincing as you just were, uh, to perspective clients,
[00:44:03] Brandon Wheeler: they better be.
[00:44:08] Brandon Wheeler: Otherwise we have people
[00:44:10] Corey Quinn: want to buy that, right? That's what they're buying is, is that level of, your why, like they found someone in you. Who has a very deep calling to provide them with amazing cases. Like, how do you transfer that to your sales team?
[00:44:25] Brandon Wheeler: Well, I think, the more we're around it, the more you feel it, you know, and you included in this, by the way, Corey, because the things that you've done in your career, like we've made lots of people, lots of money.
[00:44:42] Brandon Wheeler: Yeah. I, I, I, and I, once I'm jokingly. I had a conversation. I was like, how many millionaires have you made? And I was like, it's a very good question. And I couldn't even count. there's so many. And I know that sounds crazy, but that is what we do. And we will help a lot of these people who are trying to, get their name out there and we'll make them a ton of money and they become.
[00:45:03] Brandon Wheeler: Uber rich, which is awesome, but why like we can, yeah, we can go help a ton more attorneys go get very, very rich and that sounds kind of just not great. Like it's like, yeah, you could do it, but at the end of the day, if you don't have your reason for doing it and if it's only money and scale and EBITDA and oh, I'm going to take an exit.
[00:45:27] Brandon Wheeler: I mean, that's awesome. I love that for you and go do it. And by the way, a lot of the agency guys who've been on this podcast. are friends of mine. I know them personally and they are killers. They are so good at what they do. I am wonderfully impressed with the amount of, you know, just how good they are at doing what they do.
[00:45:44] Corey Quinn: But I would rather go a layer or two deeper. And clearly as the leader, as the founder, your sales team are gonna, are gonna draft off of you. I worked for Rustin over at Scorpion and he works very, very hard.
[00:45:59] Corey Quinn: I worked harder at Scorpion than I'd ever worked in my entire life because that was the tone work hard, play hard, a hundred percent, you know, uh, you know, you always got to go above and beyond all that stuff that he kind of led the charge.
[00:46:13] Corey Quinn: And I think as the, as sort of the cultural center of. That business, he set that tone, and I think the tone that I'm getting from you is That there is a deeper meaning besides just making money here, right? And I think clearly your sales people, your account managers, everyone on board is going to follow suit.
[00:46:31] Corey Quinn: So that's a sign of a good leader.
[00:46:33] Brandon Wheeler: Well, I appreciate you saying that it's, it's, it's how I, it's how I feel about it. And if you're in the space for as long as you and I have been in, it's easy to get very jaded. So easy, you know, and we see a lot of, a lot of interesting things, but. It all kind of rolls back to, if you have a strong enough purpose that is meaningful.
[00:46:57] Corey Quinn: That you can feel good about yourself, you know, helping people who really need help and get to the best people to get that help. I mean, there's something there, what would be your parting advice thinking about the audience who listens to this podcast, who maybe are in that corporate job.
[00:47:12] Corey Quinn: Maybe they've been in there for 15 years. Or whatever it was or probably like 20 years almost for you at that point and making good money But still there's that thing inside of you Or inside of them in this case where they've they're just not quite Living the life that they want to live like what would be your advice to them?
[00:47:29] Corey Quinn: As they're thinking through this option of going out on their own.
[00:47:33] Brandon Wheeler: Yeah, I would say you'll never do anything scarier. But, you'll also be more fulfilled than you could ever imagine. And there's some magic in that. And, you know, all the cliches about failure and, you know, you never fail until you just stop getting back up.
[00:47:53] Brandon Wheeler: A lot of that's true. And in the beginning, it's going to look times. Unless you are just the luckiest person in the world and nothing ever goes wrong. And that's definitely not me. But, you know, I, I'm a bit of a bull in a china shop sometimes. And I, you know, I break things and I have to go fix things and apologize profusely.
[00:48:10] Brandon Wheeler: But I am always willing to go say I'm sorry and then go fix it. So, you know, that idea of like, could I go do this? Absolutely. You can. there's nothing stopping you from doing it. And if you are in that position where you're looking, you know, maybe you've been in a space for a long time, you know, a lot of really good contacts, a lot of really good people who care about you, you know, start creating what that vision would look like and you would do different and why you would do it differently is the key.
[00:48:41] Brandon Wheeler: And if you kind of connect those dots, And start taking those steps. I don't know how you fail. there's just, so much good to be had out there. and listen, do not mince my words. It is hard to do what a lot of us do, but it's very, very fulfilling.
[00:49:00] Corey Quinn: That's beautiful. Last question for you.
[00:49:04] Corey Quinn: What's your motivation?
[00:49:06] Brandon Wheeler: Yeah. So The easy answer is definitely my kids and my family and all that kind of stuff and I definitely feel that way about it, you know, at the end of the day, I want more time with them because, you know, I'm getting older and they're getting older and then they got to go live their lives and I want as much time, as I possibly can get my hands on, but I want to put a little spin on it for you because it's not because it's because I could have that same situation doing something else though.
[00:49:35] Brandon Wheeler: I could do a lot of other things and have lots of time with my kids. And so why do I do this is really I think what I wanted to, get to the root of and it's because I want to be able to help people get to the right attorney, get to the right person who can change their life. And if that's all that I did, and if it's less clients, less marketing dollars, whatever it is, but I can actually do that.
[00:50:04] Brandon Wheeler: I'm going to be a happy camper.
[00:50:06] Corey Quinn: that is a very genuine and that's obviously a big factor why you've been successful. So I think that's beautiful. Um, where can people find you? If they want to reach out and talk, talk to you, learn more about you and your firm, your journey, where's a good place for people to find you.
[00:50:22] Brandon Wheeler: Yeah, so we're all over the place. I mean, marketing six dot com. Obviously, we're really, really heavy players in the social media space. You know, we do a lot of work on tick tock
[00:50:33] Brandon Wheeler: I'm like, listen, Where are people where's the attention? That's all we're after. We're looking for people's attention. Where are they spending that time? And it's primarily on social media. So we've got some very, very unique kind of different offerings that a lot of other agencies just don't touch because social media is cut to scale.
[00:50:49] Brandon Wheeler: That's why they stay out of it. But yes, if you do it right, and you're very good at what you do, you can have some unbelievable success. early adopters on the tick tock advertising side of things. And it's proven to be really, really, really awesome. But, yeah, you can find us on tick tock, Instagram online, you know, or you can just email me directly if you want to, it's just Brandon marketing six.
[00:51:13] Brandon Wheeler: com.
[00:51:14] Corey Quinn: Man, it's S I X, right?
[00:51:16] Brandon Wheeler: Yeah. It's spelled out. That's right. Marketing S I X. Exactly.
[00:51:19] Corey Quinn: Well, thanks again for coming on. You have such a cool history. I love, love, love that you got to share it with us. so much inspiration and I'm so excited for what you've built and what you're building. So thanks again for coming on, dude.
[00:51:33] Brandon Wheeler: I appreciate it. Thanks for having me, Corey.
