AL EP 21: Richard Blount II – Stay Organized for Long-Term Growth

Show Notes

Richard Blount II has been doing graphic design since the 80s and web design and development since the mid 90s. He has worked for a few agencies in Orlando Florida before going out on his own in 2016, launching Four Winds Agency. They have grown in scope and services to provide full-service online marketing for small to medium businesses.

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Connect with Richard Blount II & Four Winds Agency here –
Web: https://fourwindsagency.us/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/four-winds-agency
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/fourwindsagencyllc/

Episode Transcript

00:00:00:00 – 00:00:32:22

Hey, everybody, this is Jessie Michael Gilmore, agency and transformation coach and founder of Mission Control. Creator of leverage for growth and I’m Lucas James, founder of that I am, 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 – 00:01:01:25

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 for growth and how we successfully scale agencies quickly at Niche in Control Decomp case study at Niche in Control Accommodation.

00:01:01:27 – 00:01:26:25

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 Richard Blount, the owner of Four Wins Agency, a full service digital marketing agency on a mission to strengthen and increase our client’s online success through innovative designs and robust marketing strategies.

00:01:26:28 – 00:01:52:10

Thanks for coming to our show today, Richard. Hi, Jesse. Great to be here. Awesome. Can you tell us a little bit about the history and background of your agency? yeah, sure. I actually, I was a graphic designer since, the 80s, early 90s started getting into web development in the mid 90s and worked for a few different agencies along the way.

00:01:52:12 – 00:02:09:28

And, I think 2007 started hitting it hard as far as doing freelance work on the side. You know, I I’m a pretty open person. So I would a lot of people I, you know, everybody I work with, knew what I was up to and asked if I was going to start my own agency at some point.

00:02:09:28 – 00:02:38:20

And I’m like, no. I had no desire to. I just have a passion for what I’m doing and I cannot stop. And, and I wasn’t until I was on a, mission trip to India in 2015 when, I got some news to say that, you know, there might be a shift in what’s going on. where I was working, and I felt God put call on my heart to, to actually start an agency and everything.

00:02:38:20 – 00:03:04:08

Kind of, Yeah. Kind of came together during that trip in about a three day period, from the idea to the name to the vision and, culmination of it all. And, and after I came back, I just hit the ground running and, I haven’t looked back. That’s awesome. it’s crazy how when things have maybe been pieces before they all come together.

00:03:04:09 – 00:03:28:21

Oh, and it’s kind of like it’s the time. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like I said, I did not expect it. But when I look back over my life and the different things that I had done, that it was all building up to this, and I had no idea. I, you know, it’s just if you follow it, you, you know, what your desires are to, you know, to one degree or another.

00:03:28:21 – 00:03:49:20

And then, because I remember when I was working like, crazy full time job and doing stuff for clients on the side, I’m like, I wasn’t married at the time. And I’m like, why am I working so hard? And but I just felt like this was something serious. And I just needed to keep pushing forward. And there’s been quite a few different transitions.

00:03:49:20 – 00:04:16:12

So you talked about the full time job and then having it on the side. And then making the switch towards going from freelancing to agency work and those transitions a lot of times either, are either challenging or something that people avoid. so what are some of the things that you learned in that transition, phase, going from the freelancer to more of an agency or growing a team as opposed to, you know, innovative contract or whatever resonates you.

00:04:16:17 – 00:04:43:02

Yeah. Because, I mean, up until that point, I was in fact, time getting the work done. And now all of a sudden I had to be, you know, the, you know, the CEO or the CFO. I mean, I do, budgeting, you know, just all the different hats and, there was a book that I read called The E-Myth Revisited, which was fantastic.

00:04:43:02 – 00:05:02:08

And it just really helped me understand that there are, times where you have to change the hat that you’re wearing. Sometimes you have to be the entrepreneur and say, yeah, let’s do this and go for it. And then other times you’re the technician that goes way, how do you get this done? But yeah. And and how to manage when you’re wearing which hat.

00:05:02:11 – 00:05:27:00

And then the manager as far as you know making sure bills are being paid. Money is coming in. you know, writing up, well, SOPs for yourself because you’ll end up doing something for one client and you’re like, oh, I’m going to want to remember this later on so that I don’t have to relearn it again. Six months or two years later.

00:05:27:02 – 00:05:52:11

Which is actually one of the biggest things a lot of people get stuck in kind of reinventing the wheel with every client. where in actuality you’re like, I’ve done this before. You know, well, I guess for anybody that’s kind of listening, if you were to kind of go back to maybe a previous version of yourself, maybe somebody that’s maybe 1 or 2 steps behind where you are and you’ve already kind of laid some kind of groundwork with there.

00:05:52:13 – 00:06:21:02

what would be some of the things that you would give advice that might save either time, energy, or money? if you would have known it back then? Yeah, I would say, just to be I wish I was better organized. I would have, set up, you know, offline areas to store things and, and, just a filing system for all these little things.

00:06:21:04 – 00:06:44:07

as a, as a more creative person, that really admires productivity and tries to go for that. That part of being organized and just setting up your folders as far as. All right, let’s keep them all consistent. let’s not have one naming convention for, at one point and then, oh, let’s change it to this one for this client.

00:06:44:07 – 00:07:18:22

And, because I’m constantly coming up trying to come up with better ways of doing something that I just would have just created, something stuck to it. And, and then waited until there was, more of a reason to try to go, okay, now I see us add these files or change it to first naming convention. Go ahead and spend the extra, you know, $50 a year for this particular thing that will save you, you know, 5 or 10 hours a month, you know, kind of stuff.

00:07:18:22 – 00:07:48:27

So there is a lot of things where if I, I was trying to save a few dollars and I wish I was just gonna have to spend it and just to be better organized, because the more organized I am, the more productive I end up being. And have you found, as a creative, that maybe the, the people that you hire kind of are maybe the more organized ones or that way you’re able to find a balance as your team has grown.

00:07:48:29 – 00:08:10:16

I mean, have you found that as well? I do find that from time to time, if I find somebody who is doing something, I’ll kind of adapt that. And, but I think what I find more than anything is people that I’m trying to bring on board are looking for me to already have that setup in place.

00:08:10:19 – 00:08:34:06

so bringing somebody on board, goes a lot faster if I’m able to hand off. All right, look, this is how this is done. This is where we store these, you know, and just having an SLP, I know standard operating procedure already kind of in place. That is that is huge. And, so, you know, that’s part of what I’m talking about.

00:08:34:06 – 00:08:54:09

If I could go back, those are the things I would set up so that it is a lot easier and it helps build consistency within the people that you bring on for, different projects and, different realities. I love it. So what is, what is kind of like success for you? What are you excited about?

00:08:54:10 – 00:09:23:24

What are you working on? And, maybe what success over the next one, two, three years. yeah. Success. That’s that’s a tricky one because it, you know, I used to define it as being so busy I couldn’t, you know, see beyond next month. And, but now that, you know, things are moving fluidly and, you know, I don’t have that anxiety anymore.

00:09:23:26 – 00:09:51:14

I think that is the success that I’m. I’m really starting to enjoy and trying to hone in on has just to relax in the process and don’t feel like I’ve got to get everything done. Yesterday. Although just about every client I talk to and most any client that most people will talk to feels, you’ll ask them when they need something, they will say yesterday or tomorrow.

00:09:51:17 – 00:10:18:00

so that helps build the anxiety. And so for me, success is going. I hear I hear where you’re coming from. typically it takes, you know, six weeks to get this, two months to see the result. And, and just relax in your process and under and, realizing that success is knowing that I can hit my goals for my clients.

00:10:18:03 – 00:10:47:00

And so I take a lot of confidence and, and reassurance and that regardless of how panicked and how much anxiety they have, because they don’t understand, a lot of times the feel that they’re in and they’re things that they’re asking. So to me, success is just realizing and relax into them. Yeah, that’s the confidence in the track record that I’ve been able to provide for my clients.

00:10:47:02 – 00:11:12:02

Does that make sense I bet. Yeah, yeah. some of the, other guests have talked about like, life by Design and a business by design, making it to where the business works for you as opposed to you working for the business. And so I think that part of what you’re talking about is either setting expectations for the clients, but then also being okay with, you know, the business is going to operate at this, this pace, this level, and we know how to get results.

00:11:12:02 – 00:11:35:04

We’re not going to try to quicken up the process. Am I hearing it correctly? Yeah. Yeah, I guess I mean, at one point I thought it meant, you know, hitting this kind of, this amount of money at the end of this year or having, this many projects or whatever, and that I measured success by those as opposed to, the process.

00:11:35:04 – 00:12:02:11

And I feel like, success is having a process that runs smoothly. And that’s that’s what I’m looking forward to. Awesome. So, for anybody that’s listening, what’s the best way for people to either get in touch with you or do you have any offers for them that they could take advantage of? yeah, I would just our website is our main area where a lot of people get in touch with us, and that’s for Windows Agency for us.

00:12:02:13 – 00:12:24:03

As for you are the ads agency that us? And then, actually we do offer a free, like SEO audit. So if you go to our website, bottom right hand corner, there’s a little tool there that where you can, do an audit on your website to kind of see how it’s doing, what improvements that may or may not need.

00:12:24:10 – 00:12:41:25

And, so, yeah. Go, go. Excellent. And for anybody that’s listening, I’ll put for wins. Agency is a website in the show notes. And I just want to thank you very much for being on the show. Thanks. See you enjoyed it. Great talking to.

00:12:41:27 – 00:13:05:12

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. Go to niche and control.com/case study right now to learn more about leverage for growth.

00:13:05:14 – 00:13:41:24

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. Go to Niche in control.com/ksat. That is niche in control.com/ksat. Now you.

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