00:00:00:00 – 00:00:27:07
Everybody. This is Jesse Gilmore, agency transformation coach and founder of Niche In Control, author of the Agency Owners Guide to Freedom and the creator of Leverage for Growth. I’m the host of the Leverage for Growth podcast, and I know that in order for you to scale your agency successfully, there are multiple shifts that need to happen within your mindset, skillset and leadership style.
00:00:27:09 – 00:00:53:10
I am 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 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 at nicheincontrol.com/casestudy that is nicheincontrol.com/casestudy
00:01:03:18 – 00:01:13:18
You’re now listening to leverage for growth. Hey, everybody. And this is Jesse Gilmore, founder of Niche and Control and the creator of leverage for growth. Welcome to the agency Leverage edition.
00:01:13:20 – 00:01:40:07
Today I’m here with a special guest, Brian Town, the author of The Lonely CEO and the founder of the Michigan Creative, a full service digital marketing agency and design agency on a mission to create customized brand experiences that revolutionize your industry. I’m particularly excited about this conversation because I read somewhere that you started an agency with a $350, and now you’re making about 2 million a year.
00:01:40:07 – 00:01:53:07
So I’m excited to dive into this journey over the last 13 years here. Your insights along the way. Thanks for coming to our show today, Brian. Hey Jess, that was a great intro. You know those intros like when I do. Speaking of, answer these like, I want to just take that and then play it when I get home.
00:01:53:07 – 00:02:11:12
So my ten year old daughter thinks I’m not sass. You know? No, hey, I’m actually cool. And I do cool things. And no, you just I mean, she just thinks I just have a job. You know, it’s normal for people to run companies. well, that’s that’s very cool. And by the way, you can listen to this episode numerous times in the car.
00:02:11:18 – 00:02:21:19
And. Yeah, I just keep playing it over. I should just do a collection of all my greatest hits, and she would just sit there and roll her eyes and put her headphones on, or. But yeah, that’s a great I mean, that’s a great intro. That’s
00:02:27:09 – 00:02:41:13
I’m.
00:03:17:22 – 00:03:38:06
One of the most beautiful things that’s going to happen in the next 20 or 30 minutes, Brian, is that you’re going to get that chance to actually look back on the last 13 years and pick apart both the the peaks, the pits, the learnings along the way, and share them with an audience that is probably maybe 1 or 2 steps before you, or maybe even ten steps before you.
00:03:38:08 – 00:04:08:11
So, let’s let’s get started and let’s start off at the way beginning. before we get into the agency piece, if you can bring yourself back to that $350 making the leap. What was going on in your world that got to the point where you’re like, am I right? Am I start an agency?
00:04:15:11 – 00:04:23:23
Cool.
00:04:58:08 – 00:05:06:22
this.
00:06:04:17 – 00:06:13:01
Awesome. That, 350. And a really kick ass logo there.
00:06:13:03 – 00:06:32:02
when you first started, I’m always interested to see whether or not the services in an agency either stayed the same. Was like full service in the beginning or was it a niche? And then it kind of expanded or, you know, what was the services? What was your ideal client? How did you kind of start off with the agency?
00:08:31:02 – 00:08:38:22
And.
00:08:49:00 – 00:09:15:15
One of the most interesting things that I find as a commonality between podcast guests that have made it into the seven or even eight or one of our guests was a nine figure agency. is the focus on both the development of self at the same time as the development of culture? that’s a very distinct difference between the different groups, that I interview.
00:09:15:15 – 00:09:36:07
And I think, one of the great things that you just described was that you’re focusing on who you’re becoming or who you want to become. and that sense of becoming. Can you talk a little bit about did you learn that somewhere, or was that something that you learned over experience, that whole idea of like kind of crafting who you are?
00:12:10:23 – 00:12:11:05
Yeah.
00:13:16:17 – 00:13:43:06
One of the most amazing things. I have an opportunity branch every time that I have a podcast guests not only to get to understand the journey, get to understand the trends, get to understand kind of where you came from and where you are and where you’re going. And, one of the cool things is, is that you’re talking about the the strengthening or the calling of a stronger vision.
00:13:43:08 – 00:14:07:03
that pulls people that are usually individuals and building a business for them to eventually looking outside of themselves and making a bigger impact. And that’s just beautiful. You.
00:15:14:17 – 00:15:21:14
Yeah. Yeah.
00:15:21:16 – 00:15:45:01
And it’s been quite a quite a journey. So going back to the journey itself, I mean there’s a big proponent of kind of the development of self and you know the strengthening of, of y and then that culture of a team and kind of growing. And you talked about in the beginning, one of your first employees or partners in the journey, kind of came from, either walking on the street or can you do websites?
00:15:45:02 – 00:16:18:09
Sure. And then I go and there’s probably it might be a different hiring process these days, but yeah. Yeah. let’s talk a little bit about that kind of comparison. So, if you were to 13 years is a is a decent amount of time and the growth going from solo to, up to 22 to 14 people and then the switches, there’s probably a lot of things that are a lot different than it was in the beginning.
00:16:18:15 – 00:16:51:01
And there’s probably a lot of lessons they learned along the way. teams and hiring is probably one of them. Culture is probably another one. What are some other ones that kind of come to mind, in that kind of transition?
00:16:51:03 – 00:16:53:23
Sure.
00:19:12:09 – 00:19:37:12
Awesome. Yeah. We’ve we’ve touched on quite a few different pieces of the puzzle. from the process standpoint, from the hiring standpoint, from the culture standpoint and also from the sales. If you were to look back and give very specifically kind of like nuggets of knowledge or things that you learned along the journey that you wish you would have known in the beginning, we might have touched on already.
00:19:37:12 – 00:19:53:10
Something might also kind of come up as I’m asking this question, but what would you tell somebody that might be 1 or 2 steps before you and to help them either shortcut time. Money? Yeah. investment in getting to where you are right now.
00:21:44:19 – 00:21:57:17
I think for myself. but yeah, before you, you know, really start going, I think focusing on what is and who is, you know, the problem that you’re solving.
00:21:57:17 – 00:22:08:06
Having a very specific message as opposed to how we do everything. Yeah. You just name it. What do you want. I want we,
00:22:08:06 – 00:22:10:11
we did that. We still sometimes do it today.
00:22:10:11 – 00:22:44:14
Over the last year we’ve been really specific about like look we do brand web and video and we don’t do PR and we don’t do this because for me, I’m like, I’m always like, oh yeah, absolutely. Because I because in my mind, I’ve got really smart people here and they can figure it out. And you had touched on that, that self-doubt part, which most likely has something to do with the book that you’re writing and the know, the question that you normally ask when are kind of pivoting from looking at the past and kind of starting to look at the future,
00:22:44:14 – 00:22:46:08
is usually based around what are you excited about?
00:22:46:08 – 00:23:05:09
And I know that you have a book coming out. Do you want to talk a little bit about The lonely CEO? Does it relate to the self-doubt kind of topic that you were talking about or. yeah. Tell us a little bit about that. Yeah, yeah. The I’ve always I’m a big book nerd and I always I’ve always wanted to write a book, fiction book, nonfiction book.
00:23:05:09 – 00:23:24:22
And so, I was talking to some people and got interviewed a few people and they’re like, hey, you’ve got a it’s one of those things where I was, you know, interviewing editors just to see. And I started telling her my story, and she’s like, you got a hell of a story. And for me, I’m like, yeah, you know, I was a teacher and a business owner.
00:23:24:22 – 00:23:55:13
You know, it’s like. And, but yeah, I think I wanted to write a book. The, you know, the thing that used to frustrate me or frustrate me early on was I’d start to read these business books, and it was all great stuff, but it was not reality for me. Right? I was a family man. I had kids and I have kids and and I, you know, I’m not going to be able to work two hours and then go live in a Buddhist temple, you know, I mean, it’s just not reality.
00:23:55:13 – 00:24:23:24
Like I got, I got, you know, we’ve got little kids that need their diapers changed. I got dogs that are pooping on the floor. I mean, this is not reality, right? And I think most business owners were like that. And so I always felt that I wanted to write a book about, you know, how hard it is to run a business and how sometimes you feel alone because you know, you’re that’s why it’s called The Lonely CEO, because as a business owner, you know, you’re really alone.
00:24:23:24 – 00:24:43:08
Like, you can’t really tell your staff that you’re worried about some things because they freak out. Like the littlest thing you say, I learned that lesson. You can’t tell your friends because they’re working in regular jobs. They don’t get it. They think you’re a bajillion. They’re, and, you know, you sometimes don’t want to tell your colleagues because they think you’re doing really well, too.
00:24:43:08 – 00:25:05:24
And sometimes you don’t even want to tell your family because you don’t want them to worry. And so, so I wanted to write something that talked about kind of my journey and how hard it’s been, but also that there’s things that we’ve done and things that you can do that can help. And they’re all practical things. They’re not some crazy, you know, do this crazy funnel and you’ll get, you know, millions of dollars.
00:25:05:24 – 00:25:10:01
It’s it’s practical advice for any business owner.
00:25:23:06 – 00:25:33:00
Yeah.
00:25:34:02 – 00:25:49:13
Yeah. I wanted the working title was was, How Not to Run a Business. I thought that would be. That’s what I wanted to call it. Because you see that on the shelf? I think people would be like. And so I can. We came up with something different. But, yeah.
00:25:53:02 – 00:25:57:22
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:25:57:22 – 00:26:10:02
of, you know, I’m trying to learn more about the book and, maybe get on in kind of like your your list. you know, how do people get to know a little bit more about your book and, and, kind of move forward?
00:26:10:02 – 00:26:26:23
Yep. So the lonely ceo.com. you can put your email in there for preorder. We, we think it’s, it’s at the last stage of final edits. And so we think, I’m hoping September 1st, but you can put your email in there and we’ll let you know when it’s when it’s out. We’ll have an Amazon page and all that set up.
00:26:27:00 – 00:26:44:11
so yeah, it’s good. And you know, if no one buys a single copy, you know, I think, I’ll be happy that I got it done. we’ll use it as, you know, proof that, you know, maybe I know a little bit of something. but, you know, at least I’ll have a box of books that I wrote, which is, which is cool.
00:26:44:11 – 00:27:00:00
And to me, it’s like, you know, to me, it sounds like no big deal because you and I hang out with people that have written books and we know people that have written books. So we’re like, yeah, all right, well, I might as well do it too. But in reality, most people don’t do what we do. And not just writing books.
00:27:00:00 – 00:27:21:09
I mean, what I try to tell my coaching clients is like, in reality, most people don’t run businesses. they just don’t. And the ones that do, the percentages of people that make it are very slim. So the fact that you’re still here, and a half way alive is, is something you should say. Hey, good job to yourself.
00:27:21:09 – 00:27:23:03
Every once in a while.
00:27:23:03 – 00:27:33:13
Absolutely. You got to focus on the progress and, the growth that you take on when you kind of lean in to not being like everybody else, you know.
00:27:33:13 – 00:27:38:08
And just so you know, there’s at least one person can buy your book.
00:27:38:11 – 00:27:51:24
Good. Well, the cost went up. It’s it’s, it’s a $7,200 a book, so. Thanks. That’ll be great. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. yeah. That’s right, because no one else is going to buy it right?
00:27:54:00 – 00:28:07:16
it’s a man for, for anybody that is listening. And they want to know a little bit more about you or get Ahold of you. Learn more about, your agency. You know. how would they get Ahold of you or, You. Yeah. Like, a website that you want to send him to
00:28:07:19 – 00:28:30:14
Yeah. You go to our, Michigan creative site. It’s just Michigan creative.com, or my site that has all of our links to my coaching, to the book, All that is Brian Town, dot io. and love talking to other business owners. we’ve got a great team here if you need, branding, messaging, video, websites. but yeah, just trying to create that community of other like minded folks for sure.
00:28:42:18 – 00:28:51:12
Yeah. Just this is great. It’s. It made my day. Definitely. Definitely. made my day. Made me. Maybe I’m going to you. All right, so the.
00:28:51:12 – 00:29:08:04
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 start working on the business, where you can free up your time, delegate work more effectively, price and position your services to finally get paid for what you’re worth and have the team run the day to day.
00:29:08:04 – 00:29:26:11
Go to niche and control dot com slash case study. Now to learn more about leverage for growth and also to book a free strategy session with us, we’ll look at your systems determine exactly what you need to do in order for you to scale this year and to create a strategic plan so that you can live the life of entrepreneurship you’ve always dreamed about.
00:29:26:13 – 00:29:29:18
Go to niche and control dot com slash case study now.
