AL EP 13: Bobby Barber – Client Feedback Will Guide Your Way Forward

Show Notes

Connect with Bobby Barber & Manaflow at https://manaflow.dev

#howto #advice #management #manaflow #leadgeneration #web3 #nft #influencer #merch #blockchain #agency #agencyleverage #nicheincontrol

Episode Transcript

00:00:00:00 – 00:00:32:22

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.

00:00:32:24 – 00:01:02:00

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.

00:01:02:02 – 00:01:24:20

You’re 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 Bobby Barber, founder of Mana Flow, lead generation agency that specializes in blockchain technology development companies. Welcome to our show today. Awesome, man. Thanks for having me.

00:01:24:20 – 00:01:57:20

Jesse. I appreciate, being on here. Absolutely. Can you tell us a little bit about, the history and background of your agency? Yeah, absolutely. So mana flow. We’ve always existed in the blockchain and Web3 niche. we actually started off as a marketing agency, really focusing on influencer marketing. the background to this is my background has always been in and marketing and sales, and my, my co-founder actually got his start in the influencer space, the creator economy space particularly really in the merchandise space.

00:01:57:20 – 00:02:18:03

So he was working, with a company where they were doing a lot of merchandise for influencers. And we started off sort of doing, work as a completely separate entity that had nothing to do with, blockchain or Web3 and actually not really much to do with marketing at all, was basically sort of merchandise solutions for influencers generally.

00:02:18:06 – 00:02:51:00

Or what happened is we generate a lot of, relationships with influencers that had pretty big followings. and we knew sort of how big the creator economy influencer marketing world was. And so we basically started pitching our relationship and our marketing expertise, as an influencer marketing agency. before we really knew exactly what niche we wanted to go into, we just knew we had a pretty basic and pretty, pretty good understanding of marketing and, you know, pretty solid relationships with some pretty big influencers.

00:02:51:02 – 00:03:21:00

and then from there, what we found, given the time that we started doing this, was we had so much interest from companies in the blockchain and Web3 space. Right? So whether those were, you know, NFT collections or, you know, companies and brands that just had some, niche in the blockchain Web3 space, we got into doing influencer marketing, as I’m not sure how you are, your audience is familiar with the blockchain and web3 market.

00:03:21:02 – 00:03:56:02

but there was definitely a very, very big bull run in the cryptocurrency and NFT world. during that time, we were doing a lot of influencer marketing. we were able to successfully sell out multiple NFT collections, you know, provide a lot of really good results for our clients. We found, though, that as the industry itself sort of started to decline, the same methods we were using that were previously resulting in massive growth for these online communities and great sales and great return on ad spend and a great return on investment for our clients.

00:03:56:04 – 00:04:26:05

Frankly, really wasn’t continuing to bring the same results that we were seeing previously. And we really were able to sort of chalk it up to, you know, at the end of the day, people were not buying, you know, Web3 products as much as they were before. At this point, though, you know, we had already developed, you know, pretty solid name for ourselves, you know, so had some growth and really didn’t want to leave the niche of blockchain and Web3.

00:04:26:05 – 00:05:01:02

We started to understand and, you know, the value of this world, even if it was sort of going through a really, you know, bearish phase and, you know, actually at the time, we had good relationships with a few of our clients who had this Web3 project they needed marketing help with, but they were actually a development company who were developing, you know, the software solutions, these NFT products, these cryptocurrency products, these marketplaces, etc. and they asked us if we could help them try to find clients for their development solutions, sort of on the side.

00:05:01:05 – 00:05:41:02

And at the time, it was something we were open to. We had the capacity to do. And we actually found that, you know, it was something we found that we were good at and something that, you know, was able to pay pretty well. And so as the market shifted, something we noticed and realized was while the need in the consumer market was dying for blockchain products and Web3 products, the interest from startups as well as you know, already cash flow positive, established businesses, maybe even at the enterprise level to find these new blockchain and Web3 solutions, and then to create a new MVP or to, you know, introduce a new source of revenue or increase

00:05:41:02 – 00:06:04:26

operational efficiency in one way or another, internally. And there’s still this need for blockchain and Web3 development. And so, you know, with the sort of bearish phase of the market, the sort of B2C world we found was was dying. But the B2B world we found was was still really intact. And so we shifted our main focus into lead generation.

00:06:04:26 – 00:06:25:12

And something that we learned along the way was, not being spread thin and instead focusing really closely and, really honing in on one particular service, one particular niche, one particular ideal client, and one particular way to serve them the best possible way you can. That’s where it sort of magically starts to happen. And, you know, that’s what we’re doing now.

00:06:25:12 – 00:06:45:22

And, you know, we have, you know, a pretty fair amount of really happy clients who continue to work with us month over month. And here we are. I love it. There’s so many different pivots that you had to make in the midst of kind of landscape. How did you find So there are obviously there’s still more disruption happening even in the financial world.

00:06:45:22 – 00:07:05:07

And with an AI and pretty much, all across the board, how have you been able to keep, like, a strong foundation in the midst of change? So sometimes people will, go in one direction and they’ll let go of everything in order for them to try to achieve it. How did you how did you figure out how to have the grounding in the midst of kind of those changes?

00:07:05:08 – 00:07:30:25

Yeah. Great question. I mean, frankly, we have always just went where the clear opportunity was already presenting itself for us. So what I mean by that is what we really if you look back at it and me and my co-founder, have been sort of it was one company called fit for you, the merchandise solution company to manage flow and manage flow has been around for, around two years now.

00:07:30:27 – 00:08:03:05

but really focused, you know, the main focus has sort of pivoted. But how that story all played out is really just simply, you know, providing one service, doing as well, doing everything you can, trying to, you know, provide as much value as possible to your end user. and along the way, learning sort of the, the pros and cons of that and, along the way also learning weight this opportunity that’s right here actually might make a lot more sense.

00:08:03:08 – 00:08:30:15

it seems to be that the, the marketplace we’re in has this is a much bigger need. And this seems to be something we’re able to do. Right. And so, those, those pivots for us were never something that we completely left everything behind and jumped straight in blindfolded. It was something where maybe for one reason or another, what we were doing at the time, we realized, needed to be improved and a different opportunity presented itself.

00:08:30:15 – 00:09:03:08

And we figured, well, you know, why not? And if you do that enough times, if you’re sort of still trying to figure yourself out and figure out what you do best. I think that along the way, in doing that, you sort of sort of naturally start to find where there’s a big need and where there’s something where you’re able to actually your skill set is there to actually provide the value that’s needed in the marketplace, at least at the beginning extent, when you have to then continue to get better and better and better to actually compete with the competitors who have probably already been there for for years.

00:09:03:08 – 00:09:38:21

Right. So. Yeah. I all of a sudden have like 15 different questions. I want to but I think that because I know our audience, and obviously I own a company called Niche and Control. So I’m all about niches. but a lot of times it is a mindset shift that people have to make in order for them to choose, a singular client, singular solution, you know, for you guys, what would you give as advice for somebody that maybe is either spread too thin or too many different types of services, maybe things that they’re not necessarily the greatest at?

00:09:38:23 – 00:10:06:19

And a lot of times that is because they think that if they don’t have certain services, they won’t, you know, get clients or something like that. what would you say to the people that probably need to narrow down their niche? and, and either like a process to do it or a mindset shift or, whatever. Yeah, I would say that the main piece of advice that comes to my mind when you ask me that question is pay really close attention to the feedback from your clients, right?

00:10:06:21 – 00:10:31:00

especially if you’re offering multiple services or even if you have multiple different sort of side hustles or multiple different businesses, you’re trying to run, see where people have what seems to be the biggest need, where it seems like they need it the most, and see where you’re seeming to, provide the most value, where they seem to, you know, really want what you’re able to offer.

00:10:31:03 – 00:11:13:20

I think that, is really where you need to pay attention if you really want to sustain growth, you know, because that’s where you’re going to find. People who who really need something. And if you’re able to actually, you know, provide it for them, then that’s really the name of the game. You know, I think that along with that, you want to pay attention to being in a market that looks to be growing, you know, you don’t want to get into, you know, creating a new paper newspaper, maybe today in 2023, maybe, you know, I or, you know, anything sort of tech or, you know, software is obviously, a good idea.

00:11:13:22 – 00:11:31:25

I would say, you know, it’s a combination of, making sure you’re in the right market, making sure it’s something that plays to your skills, where intuitively you can you’ll probably feel, oh, this is something that I’m good at, or I can see myself getting good at this. This is something I like doing this place to my strengths right.

00:11:31:27 – 00:11:53:13

finding that in a market that seems to be large and growing, as well as, you know, paying close attention to your first few clients, really paying attention to their needs. Maybe what you’re offering right now isn’t the exact solution they need, but it’s somewhere just a little bit over here. And by engaging with them and being honest with them.

00:11:53:13 – 00:12:23:26

And if you screw up being very up front and honest, if you feel like you’ve let them down, be upfront and honest about that. Figure out how you can improve. and then from there, listen to what they need. And they’re probably not alone. And what they need, they’re probably one of many. And whatever that niches where they’re all sort of struggling to find a solution for this, and yeah, so I think that’s really what we have done to get ourselves to where, where we are today.

00:12:23:29 – 00:12:47:05

Oh, I love it. So what is success for you and your agency over the next 1 to 3 years? Like, what are you working on? What are you what are you excited about? Yeah, I mean, to be fully transparent. our main current goal right now is to. So how our pricing model works is we actually don’t sign any client up for, you know, a certain amount of time.

00:12:47:05 – 00:13:10:05

It’s a month per month, and they can stop whenever, whenever they want. Right. And so for us, we want to get to a point where we’re able to, be generating, six figures per month. Right. And so for us, how we’re looking to do that, we have sort of onboarding sales processes good enough for now. There’s something we can always continue to improve in terms of onboarding new clients.

00:13:10:08 – 00:13:31:24

We’re we’re we’re really looking to try to increase our, our monthly recurring revenue, our lifetime value of clients by, making sure that the service we’re providing is a good fit for all of our clients. Right. We’re finding some clients absolutely love our service. They’re happy to work with us month over month over month. Another clients we don’t necessarily seem to hit the mark perfectly right for them.

00:13:31:26 – 00:13:53:13

And and so doing what we’re looking at currently is how do we nurture the leads more that we are sending off to our clients before they receive them, so that the leads they receive are already feel a lot hotter? So something we’re doing with that is actually the way we offer lead generation is a bit different, than other agencies.

00:13:53:13 – 00:14:13:17

It’s something that we’ve sort of honed in over, over time. but basically we have sort of a, a landing page where they fill out a form and then we actually have on the back end, we’ve hired somebody to create basically, a system where we can match the form submissions with different companies that are our clients.

00:14:13:18 – 00:14:31:25

That could be a good potential fit for that. that potential that leads. So it’s it’s something along the lines of, I don’t if you ever use learning Tree or ever used a website where you’re trying to get a car insurance quote or something like that, and you fill out a personal information and then they give you some, you know, custom quotes and custom recommendations.

00:14:31:27 – 00:14:49:21

And that’s basically our model for blockchain and Web3 software development. and something we’re looking to do where we find some clients the way that we price ourselves if they’re able to, you know, close a few clients, they are, ecstatic. Right. And it’s such a good return on their investment and they can’t wait to sign up again.

00:14:49:24 – 00:15:11:27

And others, you know, we find that companies that have a better sales process in place, tend to really get a lot of value from it. We find that companies that, you know, maybe don’t have the most ironed out sales processes that aren’t really at the scale yet to really have a really kickass sales department, maybe sort of struggle a little bit more with the, the leads.

00:15:11:27 – 00:15:32:14

And so what we’re actually looking to do is, introduce chat bots, automated chat bots for every single one of our companies that will show up as a listing, so that a lead can gather more information, from those clients of ours to, you know, make a more informed decision and be more willing to move forward with booking a meeting and following up with emails.

00:15:32:20 – 00:15:53:16

There’s also a few things where we’re looking to work on. But, you know, ultimately, the reason why we’re looking to do that is because we want to nurture leads more, to provide more value to our clients so that they can, continue to renew. For us, the name of the game is making sure we’re really doing what we want to do, which is genuinely match, you know, good development companies with quality leads and do that to the best of our ability.

00:15:53:18 – 00:16:19:16

As long as we do that, our clients are happy and they’ll continue to renew and, we’re just always looking at different ways to improve that. and that’s pretty much the name of the game. Cool. Very exciting. You got a lot of exciting things going on. so if anybody’s listening and wants to get a hold of you or, have a conversation or, if you have any lead magnets for anybody listening, let us know.

00:16:19:18 – 00:16:46:04

Yeah, absolutely. So, I mean, if there’s anything I would want to plug, it’s just simply, you know, if you’re looking for blockchain or Web3 development solutions, you want to get an MVP develop, you have an MVP, or you have an MVP, VP developed, and you want to get some assistance with improving it. And you want to, you know, find a development company that can be a benefit to you or, you know, you’re, you know, already a cash flow positive company that wants to find something that could be beneficial in terms of what blockchain and Web3 can offer.

00:16:46:06 – 00:17:11:11

I don’t know where the mana flow dev and fill out this, form. From there, we can match you with different companies. That will be a good fit for exactly what you’re looking for, particularly, and on the flip side, if you’re a development company who’s offering blockchain and Web3 development solutions, and you’re looking to see if you can generate more high quality leads, more consistently, more reliably in a way that can, you know, produce positive profit every single month.

00:17:11:13 – 00:17:32:12

reach out to Bobby at Mana float. Dev. That’s, a and a fellow dev the emails Bobby I mean upload out dev and. Yeah, see if we can help. Yeah. Cool. we’ll put, Manafort dev, in the show notes. So anybody that’s listening, you can check out, Bobby Barber, founder of Mana Flow.

00:17:32:19 – 00:17:58:18

Thank you so much for being on the show. I really appreciate it. No, it was a it was a pleasure. I really appreciate you taking the time. Thank you for the invitation. Absolutely. 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.

00:17:58:24 – 00:18:16:26

Go to Niche in control.com/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.

00:18:16:28 – 00:18:35:02

Go to niche in control.com/case study that is niche in control.com/case study. Now.

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