AL EP 33: Austin Santos – Build the Backend First

Show Notes

You can connect with Austin Santos & Xuberan Digital Marketing here:
Web – https://xuberandigital.com/

Episode Transcript

00;00;04;05 – 00;00;32;16

Everybody is adjusting to your agency and transformation coach and founder of Mission Control, creator of Leverage for Growth. And I’m Lucas James, founder of Twist that I am, which scaled from 0 to $200000 a month with my own agency. We are the hosts 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;25 – 00;00;59;22

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 outcomes Case study at Niche in Control eCommerce.

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Keep in mind 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’m here with Austin Santos, founder of Exuberant Digital Marketing, a digital marketing agency that helps businesses acquire qualified leads through authority building content and SEO strategies.

00;01;22;18 – 00;01;53;14

Thanks for being on the show today. Thanks for having me, Jesse. Absolutely. Can you tell us a little bit about the history and background of your agency? Yeah. Yeah. So I actually started my journey into digital marketing through Dropshipping and e-commerce. It was an interesting time in my life. I was pretty young when I started, you know, kind of got my background building websites, establishing a brand, selecting products, and had a lot of fun doing that.

00;01;53;15 – 00;02;25;00

Got to get some really get experience kind of in the field working for myself there. Then the pandemic came along. I was working as a server part time, taking my tip money and putting that towards paid ads to try to grow these these dropshipping and e-commerce stores. And when the pandemic hit, all that tip money went away. And so I was actually forced to pivot and try to figure out new ways to to grow traffic and bring visitors to the site.

00;02;25;10 – 00;02;55;11

And that’s actually what led me into digital marketing. You know, I realized all of the nuance that goes into running successful paid ad campaigns and running successful social media campaigns. And, of course, running successful SEO campaigns. And so it was at that moment, I kind of had that aha moment, that light bulb went off where I realized that digital marketing is a much more valuable service than just taking Chinese wholesale goods and trying to sell them across the Internet.

00;02;55;20 – 00;03;21;08

And so I took that as a sign to sell digital marketing as a service and add that value to other business owners so that I could amplify and serve them rather than just trying to sell goods. Mm hmm. And so that’s what led me into digital marketing and since then, I’ve just really been diving into my my specialized vertical.

00;03;21;20 – 00;03;47;08

I’m now focused solely on SEO, trying to build the best services possible in that field. Mm hmm. Awesome. It’s kind of crazy how the pandemic has kind of suited everybody like they were going in one direction and then kind of going in another one, I guess, for those pivots. How did you know that it was like digital marketing was the thing that you were going to go after?

00;03;48;02 – 00;04;13;01

You know, I know the tip money ran out and you’re kind of like, All right, what’s the next thing? What kind of led towards digital marketing being the thing that you were going to go all in? And I’d say first and foremost it was it was intuitive. Obviously, getting my start without any hard business experience. I knew that I wanted to use the skills I had developed.

00;04;13;03 – 00;04;33;29

Right? And so that’s kind of what shifted my scope was, Oh, I’ve got these marketable skills. Now I’m starting to learn the ropes a bit more. I’m starting to learn that there is an industry around this. That was that was the first thing was, was the fact that there was a valid market, there was a valid demand for a digital marketing.

00;04;34;12 – 00;04;58;13

And then on a philosophical level, I’ve always been the type of person who wants to serve others. Right? And, you know, it was reflective in all of my jobs, whether it was, you know, working in a call center and and helping them helping people find clothes or goods or serving in a restaurant and, you know, providing them with a good service experience.

00;04;59;00 – 00;05;27;00

I wanted to be able to have that interaction where I knew that I was benefiting and adding value to the individuals that I was working with. And so it just kind of worked out as the next logical step for me. Mm hmm. Cool. And with entrepreneurship in general, a lot of times when I talk with business owners, there are some type of like some people call it like an aha, some people call it a calling.

00;05;27;01 – 00;05;49;10

Some people say like, it’s been in me forever. What is kind of like, given your relationship with entrepreneurship and how did you know that you are going to be a business owner? Yeah, I’ve I’ve always been very entrepreneurial. You know, I am in high school. I was a big time artist. I would sell canvases and prints to my friends.

00;05;49;10 – 00;06;16;02

And, you know, I knew that that that was in me, right? You know, I’d work a lot of various jobs and, you know, I get these skill sets and I get these promotions, but it never really clicked for me to want to go the corporate route. I’ve always kind of had this unconventional nature. I’ve always been a big idea eater, you know, my Myers-Briggs type.

00;06;16;02 – 00;06;40;03

I’m a classic textbook visionary, you know. And so that is really at the core of my character. I think when I was young, I also dealt with a lot of insecurities, which kind of it kept me out of out of the core, out of the central corporate structure market. And I’ve always kind of straight away from the mainstream.

00;06;40;12 – 00;07;08;10

And so I think my my path has always kind of been set up for this alternative or unconventional lifestyle. And so as I’ve grown and as I’ve started making those strides, you know, I’ve realized how my background was really set up for this. But what’s really enabled me to to take hold of the success that’s coming my way, it it is my mindset, right?

00;07;08;10 – 00;07;37;10

And so I’m working to not achieve a certain outcome. Like, yes, of course it would be great to make $5 million annually, but you know, in order for me to get there, I have to adopt the mindset that I am that operator that can achieve those types of goals. And so that’s really where I started making strides in my business, was aligning my my character with the visions that I had so I could walk into those places.

00;07;37;22 – 00;08;15;03

Mm hmm. I love the topic of mindset just like that. And leverage. Figure three Talk about the be do have model and instead of the have to be, which is what everybody focuses on starting from the inside, which is awesome. It’s maybe we could talk for like hours and you know, it really does. It all starts with an, you know, and when you are able to look within yourself and and recognize that that we do have that power internally and we do have the ability to take action in any direction we want to.

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It’s just a matter of of adopting that mindset and believing that you can and then living from that place. Mm hmm. That’s awesome. So let me let me ask you, so you’ve you’ve gone through digital marketing from the pandemic until now, and there’s most likely been some lessons learned. You tried one thing, it didn’t work. You pivoted to try another thing, and you kept on learning throughout it.

00;08;40;04 – 00;09;00;08

If you were to go back to, like, your previous self, right when you decided to go into digital marketing and you were just getting started, what would be some of like maybe one or two things that you would tell your former version of yourself to maybe like make it a little bit easier, maybe not, not so peak impact and how does that make sense?

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Yeah, yeah. I’d say build the back end first. And what I mean by that is instead of focusing on, you know, a really good marketing front end, build the systems that are required to fulfill projects. Well, from the beginning. And so what it was, it was last summer I went through this, this foundational stage in my business where it’s really attributed to to where I am now.

00;09;31;09 – 00;10;00;25

And what I did was I mechanized my entire business. So I took everything that happens in SEO and I boiled it down into their, their purest forms. Those, those steps, the step by step tests that are required to, you know, improve your indexation of your website or improve your your on page SEO. All of these tasks have their subtasks that they’re broken down into.

00;10;01;05 – 00;10;33;20

From there I can, I can better scale, but I can also itemize. And so now I have the individual items that make up my services. From there I can productize and I have these building blocks that are more effective for negotiations. I can, I can clearly communicate the value of of each step. I can communicate, you know, the the resources required to execute these things and the impact that each one of those steps will have at a very granular level.

00;10;33;27 – 00;10;59;08

And I find that being able to communicate that I’m able to hired new employees and team members that can run those steps and understand how important their role is in the system. And I can also bring in new clients where they’re understanding, okay, there’s a lot more going on behind the scenes than just good copywriting or, you know, having the keywords in the right places.

00;10;59;08 – 00;11;28;16

But, you know, all of those steps leading up to the product itself. Mm hmm. You’re speaking to my core, you know, building, building, scalability before you scale. Yeah. Yeah. I find it’s just it’s so easy to break stuff as you bring in new clients. And, you know, at the end of the day, we’re out here to serve, and we’re out here to add add value to our community or community of business owners and our network and those that we’re selling to.

00;11;28;17 – 00;11;51;24

Those are those are relationships that, you know, need to be respected and honored and and managed with integrity. And so building the systems to uphold that at all stages is just it’s so critical. Mm hmm. Well, I’m for success with you and your agency. What is, um. What is success for you in the next 1 to 3 years?

00;11;52;00 – 00;12;20;11

What do you what visionary bring in to reality? Yeah. So as of right now, we are. We’re a six figure agency, so we’re small, but we’re very ambitious, you know, And success for me, it, it, I don’t think there is like a hard number associated with it. Of course, I’ve got financial goals, I’ve got business goals. But for me, I want to be able to lift my team up with me.

00;12;20;11 – 00;12;48;25

So I’ve definitely got that all shapes rise type of mentality and I want to be able to remove myself from the business so I can focus on the more creative side of things, you know, focus on building good advertising. And I want to enable my team to operate without me. Right? And so having having players who feel the freedom of of ownership within our organization.

00;12;48;25 – 00;13;11;23

Right. And they can really take the reins on what they’re doing, they can have pride in their work and they can go out and sell autonomously and manage those relationships. That’s that’s really what I want to see for my agency. Mm hmm. Awesome. And that is the transition that you’re making. Six figures to seven figures is literally empowering people and setting up the systems and the mindset and so forth.

00;13;11;23 – 00;13;35;14

So that’s awesome, man. Well, yeah, yeah. What is the best way for people to get in touch with you, or do you have any offers for them that they can take advantage of? Yeah. So the best way to reach out to me is via my LinkedIn. It’s just LinkedIn icon slash and slash Austin Santos. Very easy to remember and reach out.

00;13;35;15 – 00;13;57;27

I’m happy to have a discussion with you. I’m happy to provide any kind of advice or value in the field of SEO that I can. Whether you’re a service based business, B2B, B2C, or you’re an agency who is looking to add SEO to your core offerings. There was an opportunity for me to to help you and add value.

00;13;57;27 – 00;14;35;20

And so I’d love to hear from from you guys here, from those those situations, and see how I can fit into what you’ve got going on. Mm hmm. Cool. Awesome. Thank you very much, Austin. And we’ll we’ll see you on LinkedIn and so much appreciate your time to that 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 dot com slash 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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Go to niche in control dot com slash case study that is niche in control dot com slash case of now.

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