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Hey, everybody, this is Jessie Michael Moore, agency and transformation coach and founder of Mission Control. Creator of leverage for growth and I’m Lucas James, founder of Twist Attire, which scaled from 0 to $200,000 a month with my own agency. We are the host of leverage for growth, podcast agency leverage and Episodes. We know that in order to scale your agency successfully, there are multiple shifts that need to happen within the founders mindsets, skill sets, and leadership styles.
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We are on a mission to interview marketing and PR agency owners on their journey to six, seven and eight figures and leverage the lessons from their journey to save you time, energy and money. In order for you to get your agency to the next level. If you find value in these episodes, watch the case study video to learn more about leverage growth and how we successfully scale agencies quickly at Niche in Control Decomp case study at Niche in Control Accommodation.
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You are now listening to leverage for growth. Hey everybody, this is Jesse Gilmore, founder of Niche in Control and creator of leverage for growth. Welcome to the agency Leverage Edition. Today I am here with Drew Watson and Zach Schon, co-founders of Avenger, a marketing agency based in Nashville, Tennessee, specializing in branding, video content, and web design. Thanks a lot for coming to our show, guys.
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Hey. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. Jesse. Awesome. can you tell us a little bit, about the history and background of your agency? Zach, you want to take that one? sure. We’ll keep it brief. so. Yeah, Avenger as we know it today kind of started, early 2022. February was our birthday. Our first birthday.
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but, you know, we’ve been working together for a lot longer than that. We met working with a, property developer in 2018, working on a, set of tiny home communities, and, Yeah. So if drew, you want to give a little background on that, but, yeah, that’s kind of where we met and started working together.
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Yeah, I, I like to tell everybody that we met on Craigslist, but Zach actually answered an ad, for a job listing that was out there. And I was part of a collective, land development group that, did Marina and resort properties and, ownership didn’t see eye to eye with some partners. They separated, developed different companies.
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And through that process, I ended up being Zach’s boss, which was really weird. he came in and, well, when we had first met, it was like, wow, this kid’s way smarter than me. Like, just fake it til you make it type of thing. And, no, I it was it was awesome. We connected on a lot of different levels, from just previous history, musical background, graphics, that kind of thing, and where he really shines and brought sort of the, level of expertise to Avenger was being web dev and design, and I’m more of our photo video realm, and that’s kind of where I was hiring him to do jobs for
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me. And he was hiring me to do jobs for him. And then like, after four years of doing this and just working on multiple clients together, it was like, why are we just like a thing? You know? So we got married and now we started a vendor and, and yeah, our first year, has been great. we we kind of knocked it out of the park.
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monthly reoccurring revenue, you know, just shy of 20 k a month where, yearly revenue. We broke the 200 mark right before our first birthday, so, felt great there. And, yeah, just kind of looking forward to the rest of this journey. Really excited about, you know, kind of coming out of first quarter when people don’t want to spend money on marketing efforts and, you know, getting ready for spring launches and, big retail seasons and all that kind of stuff, you know, just for, for the market that we kind of cater to, which is, a lot in real estate.
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and the feds kind of played with that a little bit, but that’s a whole other conversation to, also just, you know, working in the health care niche. that’s been really pretty cool for us. and then kind of dabbling a little bit more in product and food and beverage these days. That’s kind of where we’re targeting, a lot of what we do.
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And, and so I think video pushes a lot of our, I guess, skill set or grasp along like, that’s how people kind of digest who we are as like, oh, you guys do videos? but then it’s also like, well, I need a website. And it’s funny because that’s almost how every conversation ever happened where it was like, oh, you guys do videos.
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That’s awesome. I want videos and then like, I need a website. So we end up doing a website for them and then build out all of the collateral for their marketing around it. So awesome. Yeah, it sounds like a really good, successful first year. if you were to think of, you know, that first year and maybe somebody, that is either just starting or thinking about, you know, starting their agency, what kind of advice would you give them maybe to, to shortcut, the trial and error process.
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Yeah. I mean, I mean, a lot of this, a lot of our success for this first year has really been leveraging, existing relationships. And I mean, just relationships in general. drew is an expert at, making people feel good, making people feel, like they’re getting value out of what we’re providing. and really just that communication, just consistently talking to them, making sure they feel good and they’re happy with whatever we do.
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that I think has been by far our biggest differentiator in getting to that 200,000 mark in our first year with, like, no previous history as a company. Yeah. And and then like I don’t know. So again we’re a little seasoned. Right. So if you’re not if you’re green coming into this world but you’ve picked up a camera or you’re looking to do web design or you’re offering social media services for somebody, I mean, if you haven’t really been in, you know, exposed to the industry, I don’t know, it’s it is all about relationships, in my opinion.
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And I think that a level of, what we’ve been able to work into our business, which is a little bit of the retainer model, and we can kind of elaborate on that in a second. But that was a big thing for us is like, okay, where do we leverage long term relationship growth and how can we do that?
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And how can we become part of somebody’s brand? so that’s a big key factor. and then on top of that, it is just like meeting as many people as you can and be willing to, you know, know your worth in a way. Like I see a lot of creatives, man. Like, they they’re like, oh, well, like I don’t want to do this because it’s not paying this amount of money.
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And then I’m like, cool. So what are you working on there? Like nothing like, oh, like I get that, I understand. But you know, you may want to want to look at, just, you know, take what you can bite off and grind and do those things and, and, I think you’ll see immediate growth out of that.
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But figure out a way. And I think that’s been the biggest key takeaway this year as well as, I got to give a shout out to David Riggs, by the way, we do have a business coach, from Newmar who has helped us, Newmar as an agency, SEO and web design out of Denver. he’s helped us quite a bit over the past year, but, but I will say that, like, just building that relationship with somebody and and opening up that, you know, almost higher level of communication, like, almost annoyingly checking in in some ways to make sure that they’re happy has been huge for us.
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and so I really do pride myself on relationship management, client management. I would say that that’s like a big key factor. And you talked about packaging and monthly reoccurring. Was it a conscious choice to go towards like a monthly recurring model. yeah. And if so how did you kind of figure out packaging. I know a lot of people are like either focused on custom proposals or, an all a carte menu or how do you, how do you kind of how did you guys figure out what kind of package or monthly recurring you’re going to do?
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Yeah. I mean, for your first question, absolutely. It was a conscious effort because, you know, we’ve been doing a lot of these custom proposals for every project, especially in the web space, just because projects can vary so much in scope. but, you know, there’s not very much predictability in that. it’s very, I mean, it’s, it’s it’s a roller coaster as anybody who’s done freelance or small agency knows, like it’s feast or famine a lot.
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And, a lot of this was built in an effort to try to counteract that as much as, as much as we possibly can. but where we found our first success, we, started brainstorming ideas of how can we introduce, like, a recurring revenue model for video first, that was that was where we at first and, we came up with like a pricing matrix.
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Well, you know, consistency is very important in video. And when you’re doing content for social media, you know, you want to hit people frequently and with high quality. so we put together these packages and this whole pricing matrix and then just started pitching. at first we didn’t really have any bites. We didn’t have any social proof or anything like that.
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sat down with, client one day and got our first bite, and then it was just a snowball effect. you know, from there. Now, that package is probably 7% of our recurring revenue. Awesome, awesome. yeah. I mean, as far as, like, working out what that should be, the pricing and stuff. That’s, I mean, that’s still an ongoing process.
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you know, we’re pretty comfortable with where we’re at, but there’s a lot of opportunity. A lot of people are doing things in weird, wacky ways, and we’re trying to learn from as we grow. But, Yeah. What were you saying, drew? it’s just it’s one of those things where we make it fit with the client’s budget, knowing what our capability is.
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Right. And I think that, to Zach’s point with the brand growth for your client, consistency being key. I mean, like, let’s look at UGC, for instance, the user generated content, right? Like it’s great to have a ton of organic traffic. If you can put a high production inside of organic like the two of those in synergy with each other, that’s where we come in.
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If you’re already building that brand, you’re already putting out that message. Let us put some high, you know, production value into what you’re doing now. if you haven’t done any of it at all and you want to grab some eyes, great. And so, like, what we play is that, we have base pricing. You know, we have, like, a general outline of what we’re going to come in and what we’re going to do and how we’re going to build that out, at least on the video side.
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And, and I even on our website, like there’s sort of packages that we’ve put together that kind of make everybody feel warm and comfortable. you know, it’s a lot different if we’re going to go travel for a developer in Texas as to what somebody is going to pay, say, locally in Nashville, Murfreesboro, Franklin, something like that, you know, because you’re just going to have different variables.
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But, I mean, the package could probably remain to be the same, and the variable isn’t extremely difficult to figure out. It’s how much is travel going to be. And kind of tacking that into there. So, it’s it’s been great to sort of productize as a service because like when you’re a freelancer, you’re just here’s my hourly and then you got to figure it out from there.
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And that just doesn’t really work well with people. And then you underbid a job, and then you worked on it for way longer than you thought it would. And then you’re like, oh man, I’ll never do that again, you know? So yeah, I think we’re really happy with with where we’ve been, and there’s always room for growth and again and again, like, we’ve had clients who, you know, were two, three, four months into a year long relationship, year long project.
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And, and then they’re like, hey, can we, you know, add this or can we change this up or whatever? You know, anything, you know, that we can figure out to make it a better experience for them? Absolutely. You know, awesome, awesome. so what is kind of like success for you guys in the next like 1 to 3 years?
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Like, what are you what are you working on right now? And, what would be success for you going forward? Zach, you want to take that one? No. Go ahead. Okay. So, it’s it’s tough, right? Like, I don’t want to just put a dollar amount on everything and make it seem like it’s only revenue driven. But there is a bit of that.
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we do want to grow as much as we can with this retainer model that basically just puts our monthly reoccurring at, at a number that we’re, you know, really happy with. And, and what I’d like to see, and we’re sort of on track to do, I mean, it just kind of the variable comes in from the one off, you know, the the single sites, the non managed, material.
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So and that can ebb and flow a lot. I mean, last November we saw it significantly change, where it was just like boom. Like we didn’t think that we were going to make any more money for, for the rest of the year. And then November turned out to be like our best months. It was just it was crazy.
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so, yeah, I think there’s a number. There’s a target, a target number. And I’d like to say that, you know, within a year or two, we’d be over that 250 mark, hopefully, even north of three. and then, year three, I mean, I’m all, you know, I’m all in trying to do, that 500.
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You know, now, to get there, strategy is changing a little bit. You know, we’re very local and we market local, and we we do a lot of things of that nature. But, we’re also kind of changing up, the brands that we approach and working a little bit more to produce content in niches that we’ve otherwise not found ourselves in yet.
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but it’s just all a proving ground thing, man. If you do something cool for somebody, that just word of mouth starts to go. And so that’s kind of what it is. A little bit is just focusing on, you know, the growth in the markets that we want to be a part of. And then like, you know, hey, Red bull, if you ever hear this, we’d love to produce a piece for you too, because, you know, why not?
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But, yeah, I mean, that’s, you know, it’s, We’ll see, we’ll see. But, plans and and steps to move forward are all kind of in that big direction. And the marketing efforts are all over the map with, you know, cold email and DMing and like, just, outreach of how we’ve been doing things. we’re seeing growth, but it’s, it’s an everyday grind to for sure.
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Charlie. Zach, did you want to add anything. No, no I mean I think, I think those are obviously kind of the monetary goals. You know, we have our own personal goals individually and then kind of as a collective, you know I think a lot of it’s this kind of financial freedom. Right. you know, if we wanted to talk entrepreneurship, it’s, it’s this freedom of being able to make these decisions for ourselves and kind of, put a lot of value and purpose behind the things that we do on a day to day basis.
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Like, you know, we’ve we’ve all worked for the man or whatever. We’ve we’ve done those things and, and it’s good, but, you know, there’s nothing quite as purposeful as like, you know, working for yourself and doing doing something because it makes you happy and because you believe in it. so, like this last year has been incredibly stressful in a lot of ways.
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you know, it’s been a lot of learning, a lot of mistakes and a lot of, a lot of those things. But, you know, at least for me personally, it beats the hell out of the last like four years of going through similar stress. But like, not even for my own personal gain. so, like, there’s a lot of goals in that.
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And, you know, we want to continue growing and continue becoming more well-rounded people. And, you know, how can we leverage this growth in our personal lives and, not just in a monetary way, but like, what is that that money and what does that time and freedom allow us to do? awesome. Living the life of entrepreneurship.
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The dream of entrepreneurship. Yeah. I think if you have that itch right, you need to scratch it like kind of what Zach was saying. Like it it sure. beats working for the man. I have a problem where I just couldn’t hold a job. Really? Like, I’m so A.D.D. and want to be doing things and just be involved in, like, you know, whether people call me a control freak or not, I have a producer mindset, and that can’t rest if I’m confined.
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And if you feel that you’re like that, if you feel that you’ve got more to give or you’re stuck in a situation where it’s like, man, I’m just paying the bills, but I’m not happy, like I, you know, advise everyone and anyone who feels that there is some sort of itch to scratch, get out there and try something, even if it’s like, a moonlighting weekenders, whatever.
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Go be a weekend warrior with your with your thing. But if it starts to pick up steam, don’t fight the urge. Don’t be afraid. Because I think that that’s what you know. Again, like they say, everything good happens on the other side of fear, right? And like, that’s what a lot of it is. I feel like for freelance creatives who then aren’t getting it, you know, end up getting stuck into a, a salary job or, you know, some 9 to 5 that they’re not necessarily happy with.
00:18:05:28 – 00:18:28:25
And they go, well, like, you know, I do graphics for a bank, but at least I’m doing graphics. It’s like, yeah, but like you’re a beautiful illustrator and like you need to be doing two or posters or something, whatever. Like whatever your thing is, you know, but don’t be afraid to take that risk. I found myself there way too many times, and, and I just, I knew that, like, oh, I’m going to, you know, even when I was like 14, it was like, go sweep the floor.
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And I was like, nah, I want to make music. So I’m going to go do that, you know, like, yeah, yeah. So I just, I don’t know, follow it, follow it for sure I love it. Awesome. Guys, what’s the best way for people to get in touch with you, or do you have any offers for them that they could take advantage of?
00:18:49:17 – 00:19:14:09
We do, have an offer. best way to get in touch with us is at Avenger echo. That’s Avi Enger, dot SEO. you could book a call if you ever want to kind of talk shop and just do that, we’d be really happy. So if you are a freelancer looking to, you know, start up a thing and make it bigger and go the, agency route, you’re a producer in any sort of way, shape and form.
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We’re always looking to collaborate with people too. So again, if you’re hearing this, reach out, man, we’d love to touch base. All of our socials, I think are at, Avenger brands. So check that out again. We spell it a little funky where it’s Avenger. but yeah. And then if, you’re looking to onboard with a new agency or you want to produce some really cool content, we do a 10% off, you know, your your project total in the beginning, for, for whatever kick off is, and also for other creatives out there who, you know, maybe you work in the world of, augmented reality or something, like you’re doing,
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Instagram graphics, but you really could use a web design agency, or you want a videographer to partner with on something. We do a referral, as well. So, you know, come on over and say what’s up? And everybody can, can work on a project together. That’d be great. Cool, awesome. Yeah, yeah. Jesse, thank you for, for having us, man.
00:20:12:22 – 00:20:33:05
This is cool. Yeah. I’m excited about your growth, too. And, you know, congrats on taking the leap with the whole podcast journey. That’s that’s awesome. Yeah. Thanks a lot. All right, well, you guys can, hear from Drew Watson and Zach Schon and Avenger, Avicii and Greco. And thank you very much for being on the show, guys.
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Thanks so much, Jesse. Yep, there’s agency owners. If you want to transform your agency to sustain and grow without your direct involvement, where you can stop working in the business and switch to working on the business where you can regain control of your time, delegate effectively, get paid what you’re worth, and have your team run the day to day.
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Go to Niche in Control eCommerce case study right now to learn more about leverage for growth, you can book a free strategy session with us to look at your systems. Understand what needs to be done in order for you to scale and get a free strategic plan for the next year. To live the life of entrepreneurship that you’ve always dreamed about.
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