Joe: 00:00:00 Hey everybody, it's Joe Troyer. And welcome to another episode of the, Show me the Nuggets. So today guys, I'm super excited to bring you guys kind of behind the scenes on a conversation that quite frankly should have been a long time ago with each and every one of you guys today. I have on my good friend and a now business partner, Rob Warner from invisible PPC. So welcome Rob to the show.
Rob: 00:00:27 Hi Joe. Thanks for having me. Great to be here.
Joe: 00:00:29 Yeah, yeah. So for those of you guys that don't knowRob. Rob owns and founded and started invisible PPC, which is definitely one of the biggest when you know 100% white label PPC providers out there. And uh, and I'm super excited that I got to join the team this year and be part of this, uh, this crew. And so together, right now we're managing about two and a half million dollars in ad spend, um, for partners quite literally all across the globe. I mean the, those, every time I look and we're onboarding a deal, I'm like, where's this person from? Like it's just crazy to see all the, all the deals from, from like the referral partners, but then the, the, the client facing businesses as well.
Rob: 00:01:14 Yeah. I can't leave a country where we don't have clients. If they speak English and sometimes even if they don't, we probably got a client there.
Joe: 00:01:22 So it's super awesome again to, to have you on the show and I'm excited to kind of bring everybody up to speed if they don't know invisible PPC. Right now's the time that they're going to get introduced and they're going to get to know you firsthand in the company. So, um, I know that invisible PPC was kind of born by incident, uh, so to speak and out of necessity, I guess you could say as well in 2013, I believe. Can you share that with everybody?
Rob: 00:01:49 Yeah. So we got started actually ever so slightly earlier than that sort of 2012 really. But going into 2013 was where it all started to happen. And I never meant to set up a PPC agency. I never meant to set up an agency at all. I was running a SAAS company at the time and uh, in the UK at the time, the UK colony was in a pretty bad state, um, with austerity and post financial crash and the bottom, uh, my business was dying at that time. Thankfully it's survived, but at the time it was dying. Um, and I needed to pay some bills and I have less than zero money. I had just about maxed out every card I owned and things were really, really serious and we'd run some PPC for the business that we owed at the time to try and just do any kind of bit, no real clue what we were doing.
Rob: 00:02:44 There were, there was moderate levels of skills involved from having read the book, any book to be quite honest to learn, but much to our surprise, it worked. And we got a few customers and it was like, oh, great. And then I got talking to people, um, and people say, Oh, you could you do that for me? I've seen you've done that for yourself, could you do it for us? Right. But if you're paying, I would, I'll do anything you'll pay me to do pretty much at that stage. And it was better than dancing on a table. So, um, we took on our first couple of clients with PPC and it was literally sheer desperation but then started to take off and that was then things got interested in 2013.
Joe: 00:03:28 That's awesome. That's awesome. For people that are maybe new to the agency world, maybe new to the, to the freelancer world. Um, can you talk a little bit about what white label means? It seems like people don't fundamentally understand that sometimes and even people that I believe would understand it, just fundamentally sometimes saying something different. So what does white label PPC mean to you?
Rob: 00:03:51 So to me, um, and you're right. When we started this, I didn't even know why it started. I'll just preface that. My fourth or third client happened to be a guy who worked in an agency. There was a sales guy for an agency and he approached me and said, look Rob, we've got a ton of clients for SEO and website bells. Um, the, a bunch of them are spending money on PPC but are not spending it with us as an agency. Um, you've clearly got some skills here. Why don't we get together, I'll do the selling and you do the fulfillment. And so I would drive down to their office in London, I'll get a trained down, go sit with him alongside them at a client and we'd pitch jointly. He'd do anything sales closing. I was very anti sales. I came from a finance background.
Rob: 00:04:40 So sales scared the Jesus out of me. I couldn't, you know, couldn't handle selling. So having a wing on there selling for me, it was just like perfect for me. And we've started doing that and so essentially we accidentally started a white label agency. Now if you take a step back from that and say, okay, what's the difference between a white label agency and being a freelancer working for an agency? I think it comes down to this white label agency typically has infrastructure. It has scalability, it has resilience to it. It's really easy as an agency owner to think, oh, you know, I'm going to go out and hire a freelancer to fulfill this client from it. And for one client that worked great. For two clients, it can work great, but as you grow that, your only way to grow is to add more freelancers.
Rob: 00:05:30 And when you add more freelancers, you'll find that they work in different ways. They have their own processes, they are different, they have different communication styles, different availabilities. And so you as an agency or in a subtle layer managing a bunch of people who all do things differently, all have their own systems and it gets really complicated really quickly. And then of course one goes AWOL always happens in the freelance world at some point, somebody goes off grid unexpectedly on your left going, oh crap. Now what do I do to get out of this? So as an agency, which white label, it's the difference for me is resilience and scalability. And that's what we bring over and above. The technical skills are a given, but it means that we are able to invest in tools, processes, and resilience that freelancer could never bring. So that's where the difference is. Um, does that make sense?
Joe: 00:06:28 Yeah. So tools, resilience, kind of backups. Yeah. Standard operating procedures.
Rob: 00:06:36 Yep. An agency knows that the way client number one gets treated will be exactly the same as client number 10 will be exactly the same as client number 15 and 20 and so on. They don't need to think about that process. They just need to follow a process. Um, and it's, it's that kind of simple so it makes it a much, much easier process to manage, you as an agency owner. You don't have to rethink it every time. You don't think, which skillset's best for that. We figure out if there's different things required where it's best to get it done, don't worry about it.
Joe: 00:07:15 So I'm curious, um, what type of agencies you think are good fit for white label PPC versus agencies that maybe aren't such a good fit?
Rob: 00:07:25 Oh, awesome question. Um, uh, after lots of bitter experience and some lots of awesome experience. I can give you really good definition of that. There are a couple of things that make a difference. Most of our agencies are small. They are one to 10 people operations, not exclusively, but on the whole that's where most of them are. The key thing is if you are an agency owner who likes to micro manage, if you may have controlling tendencies, you you'll get very frustrated working with the white label agency because we're not sat across the desk, we're not available at a moment's notice just to answer every question that crosses your mind. And, we're going to do it the way we see best, which might not be the way that you think best. Um, so agencies who tend to, agency owners rather, the personality type who likes, you know, micro control over everything, can struggle sometimes. We have worked with, I think of people in our portfolio of agencies right now who fit that criteria and we've managed over time to build a healthy long term relationship. But at the start it was quite bumpy. The ones where I feel it doesn't work so well is if you are used to having an in house specialist dedicated to you, sat across the table who correct a moment's notice to anything, then working with a white label service provider can get frustrating very quickly because you're used to only having one person setting their priorities and that's you. Yup. And you set the workload. You can say, you know, you can say you've got to stay late tonight and finishes. You've can make the rules up. We are as accommodating and flexible as we possibly can be, but that doesn't mean we can accommodate every moment of that. So we tend to find if the people are x putting stuff out for the first time that was previously done internally, that can get difficult for them. Um, which we tell people up front. Say you're going to have a different experience. Some people understand that trade off that the, I guess the scale and expertise that we bring is different to the flexibility of having the person sat across the table. And if you're adaptable, it works, if you're not adaptable, it doesn't.
Joe: 00:09:44 Yeah. And that makes, that makes a lot of sense. Um, I'm curious then, do you think that there are agency sizes that work best with invisible PBC? Right? You kind of lead into that a little bit, but I think you didn't get that real deep. Like is it only starter agencies that are really working with invisible or, or big agencies too? Or what kind of agencies do you think work best, Rob, with Invisible PPC.
Rob: 00:10:09 I would say work best is small to medium. So as I say that one to 10 person agency because there comes a point, um, and I'm saying something now that essentially is negative to our business and that there comes a point where the fee is they're paying us, starts to look like one or more salaries. Now some business owners, once I reached that point, get into a perception that, hang on a minute, I'm paying you to do this clients, I could have somebody do all my clients for that cost. And they go through that thought process. What they don't think about in that process is, but then I've got to cover holidays, sickness, absence. I've got to provide all the tools, all the training. I've got a higher, a higher board. I've got to hope the one that I hire is good and that they stay or don't have to rehire.
Rob: 00:11:03 So they can sometimes get wrapped up in that thought process around what does it look like for, for a good person, a good person now in the US depending on which city you're recruiting and it can cost you anywhere up to a hundred thousand easily and more. Um, so you're not making a small investment here. And so we tend to find most fall into that. Once we find see bigger agencies, they tend to want to have process control. That's where it comes down to. It comes down to the process control and it's cause they want to scale with their own processes, their own systems and then fitting into ours becomes more difficult for them. So we tend to find a natural disconnect at that point.
Joe: 00:11:44 Yeah. So, interestingly enough, just last weekend, I was having a chat with somebody about this very scenario and the gentleman, for anonymity sake, we won't say his name, but he's got like roughly 200 clients. Right? And so having dinner with him and he's like, man, I really, really wish that I would've known about you guys and invisible PPC years ago. Right? Like, because I would've just used you guys and it would save me a lot of heartache. And then, you know, I'm like, yeah, that would have been great. Right? Like we would've been able to build the relationship over the last couple of years. And then all of a sudden he turns and he looks at me and he says, well, why does that have to change? Like, can't you just do all my PPC now? And I'm like, wait a second. Like you're talking about a couple hundred clients. And so I had to try to unpack that conversation with him like we just did a, and, and it's interesting because it was, it was basically the same exact conversation, right? So That's control. And then you know, the, the cost of labor, uh, yes, you'd probably win. Um, in terms of costs, versus working with us at least in the short term. But then when you have bigger tools and you figure, like you said, vacations and holidays and you figure, you know, training the person and managing the person, um, versus having a whole team. So, so yeah, that's very interesting.
Rob: 00:12:58 There that as well I would add to that Joe, which is that there are certain clients in our book of business where we have dedicated people specifically for them. So we have dedicated teams and what that typically means is a person who is full time working with that client supported by a team, some of whom may be full time, some of whom aren't necessarily. But it means it's then like having an employee. So at that point it's kind of like a, it's kind of like, you know, an iron man style super employee because it's a person that is your person within the business full time with no other distractions than your business accountable to you. They can then be the person who you can call 10 times a day. You can treat them like an employee. And their job essentially is to manage the resource here to make sure that that's provided properly.
Rob: 00:13:47 So some of it they'll be doing themselves or other things, other things, they'll be calling another team members. So you get the benefit of the scale and the experience. But packaged in the convenience of a single, you know, noted point of contact like an employee would be. And we found that for larger agencies, that's the best way to handle that.
Joe: 00:14:08 I'm glad you brought that up. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And it's kind of like the best of both worlds.
Rob: 00:14:12 Yeah. It's kind of like a hybrid a and we like it a lot because we, we've got agencies who reach that size and reach the point and say, Hey rob, what do we do now? We at this, we're at the stage and we've got 25, 30 clients with you. Um, what do we should do next? And we've kind of transitioned into those models with them and it's been super successful where otherwise we would most likely, um, have gone separate ways. We find with bigger agencies, slowly works best. Your friend with 200, if he said, can we do this tomorrow? We would say, do five, let's do five this week, let's get comfortable with process and relationship and then we'll do another five. Um, we have had people throw large volumes of clients as at once a while we've coped with it, they've struggled to cope with the transition. Um, and so that's been an interesting dynamic.
Joe: 00:15:05 Yeah. 100%. So, so Rob, I'm gonna ask you a very pointed question. Um, why have you decided to work behind the curtains, right? And be white label versus working directly with clients? I understand that it was kind of on accident to start, right? But at some point, fundamentally you made a decision.
Rob: 00:15:25 Completely, so yeah, it's really easy to say. It was purely accidental. We ended up here because I don't like making sales. You know, I've been anti sales for a long time just from my background and that wasn't my comfort zone. So in the early days it was very convenient and nothing more than that. And it allowed me to hide behind some of my own personal shortcomings and skillset weaknesses. As we then grew that business. We reached a point where we said, actually, um, we, we're a decent size business now. We're serving lots of clients all over the world and if you take a step back, could I as an agency realistically set up operations and service clients in multiple geographies, many different time zones and actually make the impact we want to make? And the answer is yes, but it'd be really difficult and time consuming and slow with the white label model and focusing on that being our sole goal, our sole outcome and saying how do we best service agencies so that we can win together and grow together.
Rob: 00:16:34 That's allowed us to build our services, such as putting where we believe we can have a much bigger impact by being behind the scenes, empowering small agencies with level of skill and resource they could never buy for themselves in house. Uh, we're giving them that fire power in their, uh, in their organization and they can win from that. And that for us now says, my belief is we can have a much bigger impact this way than we ever could have been. I've tried to set up small agencies in multiple different places.
Joe: 00:17:06 Love that. Yeah, that's great. So, uh, rob, can you share with us what it means to be a Google channel partner agency? Because I don't believe anyone, like anybody knows what that really means.
Rob: 00:17:22 Yeah. So let's just break it down a little bit because you're right, nobody knows what the heck it is. Google helpfully have badges that they award to Google partner agencies. They have a blue badge for relatively new small agencies, which you call it just basic partner badge. They have a red badge for a premier partner agencies. And there's an algorithm that determines who gets that. In numbers, roughly 40,000 partners worldwide of which, uh, about 5%, about 2000 are premier partners. Last latest numbers I've got from Google about 12 months ago. Um, within that there are about 400 agencies worldwide where they're a class of channel sales partners of which we're one and there's no badge for it. So there's nothing to get "Ta-da", it's that. We don't get it, we don't even get a sign or an award. Um, the way it works is at some point when you're in the premier partner community, um, something on a dashboard somewhere in mountain view, triggers an alert to say to some or to one of their team, hey, we've got a fast growing agency business here. We need to see if we can support them and nurture them.
Rob: 00:18:33 And Google kind of hedge their bets. If you're a brand new agency with no budget, you get no support. Go to blue badge, you kind of get marginally more support than none, but it's barely noticeable the difference. Uh, when you reach channel sales, we have weekly, we have weekly calls with our reps. We have access to funding, sometimes you have access to marketing resources. We have access to Beta programs before anybody knows they're even there. So we get to see a lot behind the curtains. We get to go to effectively closed door events. I got invited to one about a year ago called the Google. It was the the channel partner council, which was even a subset of those channel sales partners of about 50 agencies worldwide where we actually get involved with at the highest level of the organization.
Rob: 00:19:22 What's the partner group and community going to look like going forward, so we can get some really interesting things. Um, we got there. It took us by surprise about two years ago when we got the invite to join this group. So much so that we were asked to speak to the worldwide head of Google partners at that time necessarily Google ads. The guy called Allan Thygesen and asked us to speak to him on the phone. Um, which was a big deal when these guys don't make time. If you look at on the Google old charter as it was, he's underneath the two founders. Um, and it was in my mind for two reasons. One was about 10 days before the call, we got a call from our partner Rep. Rob, we got a bit of a problem for the meeting and I was like which do you mean is the problem. He went, he likes to check out who is talking to and he can't check you out, could you please build a website?
Rob: 00:20:17 We just go, uh, for four years into this journey without a website. Um, so if anybody is worried about things stopping that are holding them back, we built an agency selling agency services without a website and we did quite alright to that point. Um, we then finally got on the call and sometimes is, you know, be willing to have Joe to know that I tend to be disarmingly honest at times. And we started this call with Allen. It was as you might get a big Google conference room with people at every level of management, you're kind of getting the, the further away they got, the less senior the got from Alan around this table. And Alan said to his opening question was, so, Rob, why did you set up invisible PPC? And I said, we set invisible PPC up on three core foundations, cowardice desperation and a lack of better alternatives.
Rob: 00:21:17 Thankfully he laughed cause the rest of the room looked like they were about to have a heart attack. But it kind of reflected where we'd come through at that point. And if you were to say, what was the pivot point that call the day when you realize you're talking to the most senior person in the Google ads organization there is. It was a point where you're cutting of ha, time to grow up, time to be extremely intentional about what we do because we've got something here that's valuable and people see right at the highest levels. You know, we've got an organization to invest in. So that was the pivot for us.
Joe: 00:21:52 That's such an awesome story. I Love, I love the three keys, the three foundations, every time we saw, every time you tell that story, I laugh so hard, it never gets old.
Rob: 00:22:05 I must stop telling it. And if I've told it more than once.
Joe: 00:22:08 So next, I want to kind of move indeed to some stuff for all the listeners in terms of like the, the foundation really I want to set for PPC agency. I want to talk about some of the core foundation type of things and then we can move into kind of prospecting for clients, converting clients. But let's talk about the foundation for a second. So I want you to go back to when you first started invisible PPC and help all of the listeners understand really what it takes to start a new PPC agency, right? Or how marketing agencies could add PPC into their existing portfolio, right?
Rob: 00:22:47 Yeah. So I think the first thing you need is the technical skills to do the job clearly. Um, and the technical skills are important. You need to do the study, but fundamentally you need to get your hands dirty doing it. Um, there are a lot of things that you can't kind of learn from a book, um, when we're dealing with ever, ever increasingly complex algorithms and you kinda need to know how they behave, what you can influence and what you can't influence. So the first thing is whether it's in house or external, have the right skills and the right tools in place. Um, I think the second thing, once you've got that, um, think about client first. Um, it's really, really important that you take in the right kind of clients on for the right reasons and that right reason the has to be because paid traffic for that client is an opportunity.
Rob: 00:23:46 You use the best of your ability going into that agreement, believe you can make it profitable for them. Um, and so for me it's all about what are they doing today, will listen to them. Is it that they're just doing it badly, a great place to start. And that where we start is we wasn't starting brand new campaigns for people who had never advertised before. It was taking a look at what people were already either doing themselves or that they've got somebody else doing for them. We audit the account and figure out how much money they were wasting. And that's a really easy safe play because you can check how big your opportunity to make an impact is before you ever say yes and take the client on. So my suggestion would be start their existing advertisers, um, for brand new agency. Never run just the PPC campaign.
Rob: 00:24:40 It's a good place to start. There are other things we'll talk about in a while and other approaches that are very applicable today. But if you're pure PPC play, that's the place to start
Joe: 00:24:50 100%. So in your mind as an agency owner, let's say, why should somebody consider selling PPC?
Rob: 00:25:00 So I think PPC for me, um, I love selling.
Joe: 00:25:05 Um, let's be, let's be, just to be clear. Why, why, why paper click advertising with Google or with search specifically just so that we're on the same page with everybody.
Rob: 00:25:17 So search specifically, um, has one characteristic that you don't find elsewhere and others in other online mediums, which is that it is intent-driven, it's pure. It's entirely intent driven. People are going into Google and they're typing words into a box because they have a problem they need to solve. That problem might be, Hey, I've just seen an actor on TV, is he dead? Um, I mean it could be those kinds of things that we all do from time to time. Or it could be there's water leaking in my bathroom. How do I stop it? Or I need to get, I know I need to get a new kitchen up there. Very, very intentional. You don't do that. I mean, nobody ever says, I typed into the search box by accident. You do that thing very deliberately. Um, and you do it very intentionally. So that's not to say you're the end of your journey of making a decision. You might be right at the start, but it starts somewhere and it starts with a Google search and it might go off through various other avenues than, but if you're asking somebody, what's the highest intent form of online marketing?
Rob: 00:26:22 That's it. Search is where intent lives. Facebook is where interruption lives as a like Instagram and other places a Google display for that matter. That's, that's interruption and it's fine. But there are different prospects at a different stage in their motivation, their journey. So that's why I like search because if someone talks about the prospect quality, so you know, I've got leads in a, it's really a conversation you always have. I've got leads for other good quality leads. Well, anybody who's going into Google type to thing for the thing that you sell, then visited your website and chose to either fill out a form, book a consult, call you or answer a chat Bot. That's pretty intentional but doesn't mean they're qualified. They might not have the money, they might not be ready yet, but it's very intentional and you can take somebody with that degree of intent down a buyer's path. Um, so it gets the right people into the business at the right time. And that's why I like it above all other things cause it's control. And I'm a, I'm a numbers guy. It's measurable, it's controllable. Um, that's why we never did SEO cause it scared the heck out of me. I had no measurement or control in there. Um, and I don't like that.
Joe: 00:27:35 Yep. 100% yeah, makes a whole lot of sense. I want to say it's like the faucet, right? You've turn it off, you turn it on, right. Um, and there's nothing that's going to get you, I believe you'll faster a faster return or faster clients in the door than search and, and paperclick so
Rob: 00:27:52 Well, I had a conversation this morning with a client, um, uh, literally two hours ago. Um, and when we first started working with them, they were doing less than a hundred online leads a month. Last month we did 2150 for them. Um, you can imagine the business impacts of that. The conversation we had today was, hey, it's summer, this is peak season. We are not at capacity in terms of search, um, search budget, how many work could you cope with before it breaks in the business? What a great conversation, how wide would you like to turn the faucet? Yeah, that was the conversation we had this morning and we picked, we've agreed a number. So there are not many places you can do that with that degree of Control
Joe: 00:28:35 100%. That's brilliant. All right, cool. So moving on. Um, what are the first things that you think a, an agency, a brand new agency selling PPC needs to know? Um, if they're going to offer PPC so that they can kind of build a strong foundation? Right. Um, no, I, I would assume personally like setting expectations would be in there, right? Like future pacing. Right. Um, but I'm curious like what your thoughts are.
Rob: 00:29:09 uh, both of those and I'll come back to them in a second in more detail. I think fundamentally, uh, there is something that has to happen for every single campaign we run, um, before we let it go live. And it's something that can be challenging, can be frustrating. The clients often resist. Um, hurdles were put in your way and that's tracking. Um, we, we as a responsible agency owner, before you start delivering a service, you need to know what the measurement of what good looks like. And the only way you can measure good in digital marketing and PPC terms specifically is we're setting tracking up properly. And I've seen clients won and lost on the basis of bad numbers. Uh, I've seen clients you can guarantee if you have no tracking, you will be fired because the client doesn't know whether you're doing a good job or not.
Rob: 00:30:07 Um, sometimes you get fired if you have got tracking because you haven't done a good job. Um, but you've got a much better chance if that's in place. So future pacing, that's where my future pacing expectation setting would, would start is before we do anything to move you forward with your campaign, we're going to build a solid foundation of tracking because otherwise everything else is guesswork and I'm assuming you're not paying me to guess. Um, so that's why we always start there. And from that, you're absolutely right. Um, agencies can be very desperate to make a sale sometimes and promise rainbows and Unicorns and it's the fastest way to go crazy for you on the client. Um, good quality expectation setting is where your agency growth lives as far as I'm concerned. Retention starts before the sales even made. Um, if you get that piece right presale and you've set good expectations, which is why, coming back to what you said before about for brand new agency or the thing, an existing campaign is the perfect place to start because it's so easy to set an expectation if you know what's already in play, you know what real numbers are. Um, that's why I would start that. Definitely.
Joe: 00:31:24 So when you think about setting expectations, like what kind of an expectation would you say at the highest level? I know that's difficult because we're not auditing in client's account, right? Like, and I'm just throwing you like, oh, we're going like this. Right? But in the broader scheme, what would you say?
Rob: 00:31:43 Okay. So, so the first thing is what do we mean by expectation? And the first expectation I always want to set is how are we gonna work together? How are we going to communicate? a great way to lose a client when you're delivering outstanding results is because your communication plans are off. If you don't, if you don't tell the client how you are going to communicate with them, they will make up their own version of how you're going to, if I were they think they're going to do it.
Rob: 00:32:13 And if your reality doesn't match theirs, you're fired regardless of outcome in most cases. So, and most, most agency owners I've ever met don't consciously think about how they're going to and plan communications with their client. So the first part of expectation setting is how does this relationship actually work? What am I responsible for and what are you responsible for? Um, so I think the second part of that is this is how we're going to communicate. Let's clarify roles and responsibilities. Um, you know, one of your roles, for example, Mr Client is to answer the phone when it rings, when we've sent you a lead. It's to be interested in the prospect who's calling you and offer to try and sell them something. Um, you know, things like that, which sound really basic, but we've all seen PPC campaigns where the business owner will complain that it's not turned into money for them.
Rob: 00:33:06 And it's because they don't answer the phone. And I think thereafter, I always like to sign post if I can, six months out in terms of a broad plan, but three months out, I'm looking at what's going to happen and month one in months two and month three at a technical level. And what is the purpose of those steps? So the first purpose is we're going to get some data of real things when of validate everything's tracking correctly. We're going to get what the real numbers look like, and then we're going to start and make some decisions. We know what our goal is. And in terms of those expectations, having a goal is crucially important. Um, and by that I mean, what does your client, what do they believe they're buying when they buy from you? You know, do they think they're going to get a hundred leads a month?
Rob: 00:33:58 The things we , what, what is their expectation? And it's, you be shocked how many agency owners don't know the answer to that question. Um, we get onboards into our business and we'll see and we have a specific field that says, what does, what is the client's goal? Um, on the most dreaded three words that we see are more phone calls, one more, a thousand more. What, what does, what does good look like? So, and we can laugh and joke about it, but, but that's what, that's what loses clients. That's what loses relationships. So, um, getting that goal, understood. Setting the pacing for it and that we always work on the first 90 days being we will hit the goal in 90 days. So whatever goal we've agreed, 90 days, our time horizon in Google and Facebook, it will be much faster because Facebook work differently to Google.
Rob: 00:34:53 But we always work 90 days in Google because their algorithms or optimizations work kind of much slower basis. Um, if freaks Facebook guys out sometimes because they go on, you know, as campaigns running six hours and it is not that it's not working. So I'm shooting it down in a, in Google if it's six hours and it's got a slick, you're lucky. Um, so we have to manage those expectations differently. Does that answer the question fully?
Joe: 00:35:19 That really helps a, on our previous podcast episode, I was talking with a guy that sells kind of the traditional social media marketing agency you would say SMMA type of services. So it's Facebook, uh, it's Facebook and then just running a Facebook campaign, like some type of attention-getting offer. Right. That's helpful. Hopefully and get somebody excited. So with, with him, he was talking about that his expectation that he sets is like, um, the, the goal for the first three months is to break or I'm sorry for the first six months, uh, is to break even, but it's the break even on an annual contract or the average customer value, right. Not the front end customer value. So what are your thoughts? I'm curious, I'm kind of that type of perspective. Like, what would you tell people? How would you advise people? Like I thought that was brilliant. I thought it was really good. And he's like, by month two or month three, like we're always hitting that number. It never takes that long. Um, but he's like, then I know right away like front and center if I have the right prospect or not or whether I should go find somebody else.
Rob: 00:36:32 Yeah. And that's where we get into a more difficult position. So if you were to say, um, you know, advantages and disadvantages of being a white label service provider, I don't know even ask that question, but kind of the answers relevant to the conversation is that we don't have a direct line of sight with the client more often than not. Sometimes we do. In most cases we've not been part to the sale transaction the agency has and they've set expectations. So for us, we kind of have to piggyback. So the way we approach it is to educate the agency on our expectations. That is that they do their due diligence in bringing that client on responsibly. And that comes down what most of my clients are lead generation. Now is the target cost per lead for the client or do they have a, even if even if they can't articulate it in a cost per lead, when, uh, what, how often are they like expecting the phone to ring a month in terms of for it, for it to work for them and however they defined for it to work for them.
Rob: 00:37:37 Because it could be for us, it could be a dentist, it could be a Roofer, it could be a chiropractor and a lawyer. They've all got some have lifetime big, big upfront customer value. Some have small. So truth is about what does it need to look like for you for it to be profitable in your business and whichever you're looking at in terms of number of leads, a number of qualified phone calls, um, and we can work backwards to cost metrics from there. Then we know if we hit that number in 90 days and 90 days is always our goal. Uh, like you just mentioned, we had one, I spoke to one of my colleagues yesterday, we to in three weeks, um, which is great, but 90 days is expectation. We say if we get the, if we get there faster, that's great, but if you set the expectation of 90 days, it's a great client qualifier.
Rob: 00:38:29 Now, anybody who wants a, again, not phrase that with sometimes here, we're going to trial it with a small budget for a month and see how it works out. I can tell you now how it works out when you try it with the small budget for a month, it doesn't work out. Um, so it's a huge red flag. If we know someone's in for a three month ride to hit their goal, we're good.
Joe: 00:38:52 100%. I love that. It never works. Never, never, never. Let's try it for a month, a week into it. They're pulling out.
Rob: 00:39:04 Yeah. And that's as an agency owner, if that's one of your first clients, it's a really easy rookie mistake to fall into because you won the first sale and then okay great, I've got a trial. Okay, you've probably got, you're going to get paid for a month if you're lucky. And that's, and it can, it can really set you back because you lose momentum, you lose motivation. And actually it wasn't that. It's a bad offer to sell. It's you sold the wrong person with the wrong expectations
Joe: 00:39:34 100%. So fundamentally, if we looked at like, let's say somebody has an agency right now and they want to upsell some existing clients that are doing paperclick, right? They're running Google ads and they want to have invisible do fulfillment, what would that look like? Like what would they have to do in terms of setup or what would they need to have in place and then how will they on board somebody?
Rob: 00:39:58 yeah, so for us, if someone's already running ads, it's really simple. Uh, um, agencies, a, a basic level detail. Some of the call the manager account with Google, which every agent's been running PPC will have, um, if you haven't got one already, just Google it and Google manager account. It's essentially a container where client accounts live. Um, and it's how you as an agency only will access them. We have the same and we link our major accounts, your manager account, and we have visibility over of your clients and without certain security alerts, every time we try and log into some things, it's a simple clean process. Once we have that in place, we have to stand the pricing. One things we believe strongly is that the agencies need visibility and transparency on that pricing. Otherwise, how would you know what the quotes embody, everything can't be custom. So we, you know, flatlined all our pricing, made it even, um, and we adjust it worldwide. And so an agency simply needs to fill it out, fill out an onboard form and get the process moving. And for us, the first thing we'll do as you've heard me say before is we'll check out all the tracking and possibly put it into pieces and put it back together again. And then once that's in place, then we can get to work.
Joe: 00:41:15 All right. Fantastic. Good stuff. So then, um, fundamentally you talked about it a little bit, but maybe you could expand a little bit. What do you think is the difference between a white label and a client facing business? When it comes to like the foundation, right? Like how the company is built, the structure, right? The nuts and bolts, not the prospecting and the converting clients and everything else, but like the truly the fundamentals.
Rob: 00:41:39 So for us, we are the White Label Agency, uh, behave slightly differently to uh, an end user agency. So first thing is we don't worry about client relationships directly. We worry about agency relationships. Um, for us the critical thing for us is making sure that our agencies are happy and to do that we have to make their clients happy and our agencies have to know every point that we are doing everything we can in their best interests. And sometimes that means having difficult conversations. Sometimes that means saying you shouldn't make this sale and we won't support it because it's a really bad thing for everybody. So that sometimes can be difficult. Um, but in terms of it's different. All our systems are built for repeatability and for scalability. They are not built for one off custom client needs.
Rob: 00:42:37 And that's where a lot of agencies go. A lot of agencies, if you're client facing, you'll put together custom packages for your client of which PPC might be part of it. You may put it in strategies together that combine SEO or Facebook and other things and a front end agency will often be far more briefed, driven, if that makes sense. So now we're looking at lots of aspects of a digital marketing strategy for a client. We don't, we don't do custom mostly. Um, we do, there are that and I say mostly because for example, we have some clients, we have a dental group of dental practices. Yup. Um, over a hundred practices. You know, it's fair to say they get a pretty custom solution for a hundred dental practices, but that's not the norm. The norm is ones or twos to the things that we see from agencies everyday.
Rob: 00:43:31 So we keep those things routine to approach this, that works. Um, if somebody says, okay, can I have three calls a week on it, you know, Tuesday, Thursday and a Sunday afternoon, please. The answer is no. A for end agency where you're dealing with a small portfolio of clients, you may have that flexibility, you may make those choices. Um, we focus all our time, effort, money and resource on delivery and communication on the delivery and nothing else because that's all we have to think about. So it means we take time out every week for training for most front ends they just don't have time to do that. It means we spend lots of time sharing learning across the teams so that we find out what's working in place A and we apply it to place B and we share that knowledge. And we can do that because as you said, you know, there might be a hundred dentists now, they all have a broadly similar need and outcome.
Rob: 00:44:31 If you're a smaller agency and you've got, but then just a roof for a chiropractor, a lawyer, an e-com store, and your friend's gym and all these kinds of places, you can't possibly have that insight and that sharing. And so you'll be working far more custom ones and twos off. Does that make sense?
Joe: 00:44:48 Yeah. 100%. Yeah. Makes, makes perfect sense.
Rob: 00:44:52 Yeah. I would say that our allocation of resource is probably 70, 30 between fulfillment and service, service delivery and service improvement and 30% client communication. Most agents clearly communicate to an agency. Yep. If you look at most agencies who are client facing, it's probably 50, 50 at best. And in fact many I know are 60 or 70, 30 in favor of communication versus actually doing the work. Yeah. The relationship to maintain.
Joe: 00:45:24 Around the number 70 30.
Rob: 00:45:26 pretty much pretty much.
Joe: 00:45:28 Yeah. Most of them are just talking, not doing a whole lot of work on the back end.
Rob: 00:45:32 Yeah. Yeah. And that's the reality of it because you have clients and they fill you up at midnight and they want answers on things and they want to change. They want to, you know, they see, we often care about your, the web guy, which means I'm going to call you every time anything online crosses my mind and expect you to know the answer. We see that.
Joe: 00:45:51 Um, so let's, uh, let's shift from foundation. Now let's talk about really the next phase. Let's talk about the prospecting. Um, and I know this is, this is going to be a little different, but I really want you to take the perspective of an agency owner when it comes to prospecting. And let's look at what's working for the agencies that are working with Invisible PPC, right? Like not so much what you're doing at invisible PPC or we're doing to attract agencies, but rather what's working right now for agencies. When you look at who's onboarding clients, right? Like what, what do you see as the common things that are working in terms of prospecting?
Rob: 00:46:32 So the first thought there as possibly the most crucial of every of all of them is that as an agency owner, are you prospecting? Many, many, many agency owners I know, uh, are very reactive to prospecting and it's very much in a business comes to me either through referral or through something else. They do very little structure prospecting. So the first thing I would say is however you choose to do it, make sure you have a consistent prospecting process in place and processes is key word. Don't make it up on the fly every day. Have a process that you can measure, you can test and you can improve and make sure you're consistent and committed to it. Without that, you have no idea whether you're gonna have a good month or a bad month. With that, you know, whether the metrics are right. So the first thing is make sure your prospecting, and I know people who have been successful, but running linkedin prospecting campaigns, running email prospecting campaigns, uh, running Facebook ads or whatever ads, choose your weapon, choose the one that you prefer.
Rob: 00:47:42 At the end of the day, it only comes down to the audience your prospecting to, the message and the numbers. There are all things you control. They're all things you can measure test to improve. So whichever you market, whichever tool you go through or combination of doesn't matter as long as the numbers work out right for you. In terms of messaging. Messaging Is where it gets really interesting right now. Um, we're in an stage where most many clients have already had agencies that have relationships, good and bad, um, in most cases bad. Um, and they may be in the market but you're dealing with agencies who, sorry, with prospects who've had those experiences. They're not green buyers necessarily all the time now. Sooner um, and so you need messagings cuts through that noise. It's no good just to pay a general agency going Hey We do web stuff, hires for PPC, SEO or whatever.
Rob: 00:48:44 You can be really focused. Um, and we can do that in one of two ways. One way that was in great success with this is what we call Omni targeting. Um, and Omni targeting is a prospecting method works really well cause it's new. It uses language and messaging and techniques the very few businesses have heard of before. So allows you to cut through the noise. You're not just another one of those. You're not just another PPC guy on the web guy. It's, I haven't seen this wall as it. I'm interested, I need to find out more.
Rob: 00:49:20 The second thing that could work is to say my regular PPC approaches. Find your best case, study your best client, your best outcome and go find people who look like that because then you're immediately relatable. Hey, I just got this result for client a, they look a lot like you. If that result will be valuable for you, get in touch. Um, whatever your medium is, it doesn't matter. Those two messages are the things that I'm seeing. The biggest success was by far the moment.
Joe: 00:49:52 Okay. So just to be clear that that second one then was all about like essentially picking that niche or vertical or,
Rob: 00:50:01 yeah, really hard to be general. Yes. Yeah. You can be generalist if you have the right kind of The networking place. one of our good agency partners, for example, uh, has extremely deep relationships in three network groups. And those groups are sufficiently large in size where they have the reputation and those groups has been the goto person. So they get a variety of clients, but they actually get it through some very small closed circles. And that worked really well for them because in that group community, they are the person. If you are not that person, you don't have those deep embedded relationships. Uh, in a community you need to be very much more specific in your messaging and it's a fast thing to do anyway because the downside to the first person I've just spoke about is that they've got to reinvent the wheel every time they make a proposal, they've got to learn the market, they've got to learn the language, everything is brand new to them. Pretty much every time you take on a client, you know, by the time you take it on your 10th of something, you know, pretty much everything there is to know about that market. And I, when someone says to us, Hey, I've got a dental client, do you think it will work? Selling implants, we have all our other 149 are doing pretty much fine. I'm sure 150 will be okay. Uh, you can't get that level of depth of knowledge if you're constantly swimming in different lines as you said.
Joe: 00:51:32 Yeah. I think one thing I'll highlight that you said is like really the only one correct, and correct me if I'm wrong, but really the only people who shouldn't be niching down are people that almost have like a supply chain already of deals coming to that and a supply chain of those deals is so broad, right that they have to turn around or turn away most of that work that is the exact situation in which you wouldn't recommend to niche down.
Rob: 00:52:02 Uh, completely. I'd still, I'd still recommend the niche sale as well for them. I've had that conversation with this particular PR agency owner many times and they know it themselves because they know that much of those networking groups are their strengths. It's also the, by far their biggest weakness. All it takes is one negative review from one vocal individual in one of those groups and it will spread like wildfire. And so they live kind of a little bit in fear that the foundation or strengths they've built upon is also the biggest threat to their business.
Joe: 00:52:34 And oftentimes like the problem is is like it's not apples to apples. It's not the same thing. Like you take one campaign that works in this niche, right. And then you go apply it to another niche and it's not gonna work fundamentally. Like they're just different. And so even agency that was on top of it, doing everything right by the book, right. Could quite literally be in a situation where they ruin the reputation overnight.
Rob: 00:53:00 Yeah. I mean, all it takes is a client who, for example, insists on using their own website rather than landing page and doesn't convert. You can be really the best campaign in the world to a terrible website experience and it will fail every time. And if that's what you've taken on as an agency owner, you're in trouble because you get the blame, you've, you've run the traffic, it's your traffic. It's your fault.
Joe: 00:53:25 100%. Yeah. The, the local or the end business owner doesn't want to pay for a landing page. Traffic isn't converting. So you know, the, the campaign lost.
Rob: 00:53:35 Yeah, that's exactly the conversation you get into. Um, and yeah, again, by the same token, we sometimes find these strange conversations got, they'll going to invest in the landing page with the campaign's working. Alright. Just please replay that. Remind me of how that works again then traffic to something that doesn't convert to a proven it works. Okay, good luck with that.
Joe: 00:54:01 So let's say somebody has chosen a niche, right? They look at their current clients, they figure out that they really like working with this particular niche. They're able to get that niche results. But let's just say, cause you said they decide to go after dental, but specifically after like implants. Yeah. So that's their, that their ideal customer, they're going to look for, you know, businesses that are doing specifically over a million dollars, let's say over $2 million a year. And those are kind of the main criteria for that. So they have their niche, um, there then their offer, obviously they're going to be running PPC since that's what we're talking about. Um, but what, what, what would you tell somebody or what advice would you give somebody about how they can craft their offer and how they package their offer. Right? Is it just google search? Do they throw in some retargeting? Like what, what advice would you give in terms of packaging?
Rob: 00:54:56 and if you'd have asked me a year ago, I would have said start simple with search because it works and it's really easy to track. Um, and we get great results on it. Fast forward to now, I would say where possible, don't just sell search. The reason being the buyer's journey has evolved dramatically and continues to evolve far more rapidly than probably any point in history. Uh, the way mobile has taken over the way algorithms are increasingly affecting all our lives. The way we use our mobiles, where we were in the restaurant, the restroom, um, you know, it passenger seat of a car means that you cannot just run a search campaign today, or at least you can. And some people do, but it's significantly better if you don't. Couple it with retargeting, which just to explain the language for anybody who hasn't heard it, retargeting is showing ads, the people who visited your website after they have left onto the platform.
Rob: 00:56:04 So you're showing ads on other websites or perhaps on youtube, on g-mail or on Facebook or Instagram after they've been to your website. We've all had that happen to us. Just go on Amazon today. If you have an and look at something unusual, it'll follow you around the Internet for the next few weeks. That's retargeting in action. Um, you can't rely on the one and done approach anymore. You know, you might have got that person who clicked your ad while they were waiting for a bus waiting to a train, in a moment filling time, while somebody was on their mind. And by the time they then hit their desktop or their iPad or whatever to actually follow through properly, you're distant memory, you have to be now retargeting them to be there in those moments where they're actually given proper consideration to a thought process they started earlier on. And so we now find that wherever possible our go to is a combination of both. Um, and you can sell them on the way around. Actually you can lead with the retargeting, you can lead with PPC, you can do it either way, but put them together and you've got a hugely powerful combination.
Joe: 00:57:15 And then in your point of view, rob, um, what kind of mark up should an agency be looking for? Kind of minimum and maximum. Just kind of any raw blocks. And I know that like don't sugar coat this. I know you for you and I, our opinions differ a little bit on the subject. So you know, just from your gut reaction, like what do you believe in that regard?
Rob: 00:57:35 So let's say somebody who is coming towards us. Our starting price at 295 a month. Yeah, that's where we start out. Well forget currencies. Let's just keep it simple. It's 295 a month roughly. If you're a brand new agency, I know people selling that at 500 a month, so they're making 40%. I wouldn't recommend that. It's too tight. That gives you very little money to service that client. Think of that 40% has to do two jobs. It has to pay you a in terms of profit and it has to pay the service cost of you maintaining that relationship. Um, you know, $200 ain't gonna do it in my opinion. So you need to be pushing 600, 700 and upwards and once you've into those kinds of numbers, um, I always relate it to the kind of supply client that you're working with though. Um, you and I have had this conversation. We do agree you can charge a lawyer more than the florist. Um, fundamentally, service may be similar in terms of delivery, but the value to the end user is different and ultimately the end user is going to make a decision as to whether they keep or kill your services. So has to be related to their value. So that $300 we charge may well turn to $1,000 invoice for a lawyer. It may well turn into a $600 invoice for a florist. I know, I think the most extreme one I have is I know one of our agency partners who marks us up by 80% so we're affecting the charts. We are 20% of his price point and has no problem because of the markets he sells into and the service he provides.
Joe: 00:59:14 And obviously it's different too if you have like a supply chain of leads coming to you, so to speak, right? Like you're gonna have fundamentally a different type of business set up. Even if like let's say selling one to many in the florists niche, that might be you and you're taking a, you're taking less of a cut but you're dealing with volume and you set expectations with the client in terms of how often you're going to talk and everything. Um, but you might have your, you might not, right? Like if you don't have those relationships and you're selling one-on-one, you got to take into consideration, like you said, the work, but then also you know, where your commission for selling the deal or somebody in your teams and then actually maintaining that relationship as well. You know that mark up has to be there. And so if you, if you have to choose to go out to the florist, or to the lawyer, I surely hope that you would choose to go out there, the lawyer just fundamentally, uh, because you have the opportunity to make a whole lot more revenue, right. Without any other factors. Like let's pick a niche where we can do the best in, right? Let's pick a niche where we can make 750 a month mark up on each client or more versus, you know, 250.
Rob: 01:00:27 Yeah. And I think that, and I completely agree with every word of that. Uh, it makes perfect sense. There's one more criteria. I actually always look up when I'm picking a niche and it's a really basic one. Do I like these people, um, fundamentally, depending on your communication style and your personality, you might find having conversations with lawyers all day long, the best, most rewarding way to spend your day or your worst nightmare. So, you know, you can't, there are exceptions to every rule, but generally a lawyer is going to be on a, you know, a relatively combatitive aggressive type of individual. Um, you know, a therapist probably not so much. Um, but there's always an exception. If you know that, choose to spend time talking to people. You actually like talking to whose businesses you understand and you want to help because it's much better feeling great that you've got somebody extra business and you've added value to their life if you actually like them. Um, so I look for that a lot. Um, I don't want to go my taste or to people I don't like.
Rob: 01:01:31 I, yeah, I think that's, that's super important too. Um, and it's, it's funny because, you know, uh, five years ago, a decade ago, I would've said like, I don't care what niche I'm going after. Like it's just business. It's just the job at the end of the day. It's just a, it's a means to an end would have been kind of my answer to, you know, well, when I think about it now, like that's kind of a shitty bit to have about the situation. I'm like, I don't like every day you're gonna be interacting with these people and you if you, if you don't like them, what's that say about every day of your existence? Like, yeah, absolutely. You're spending your days helping people that you don't like and like banging their head against the wall. Like it doesn't quite make sense to me anymore.
Rob: 01:02:15 Yeah. And I, I completely agree with that. And that's not to say this, the only factor. It isn't, you know, we serve our clients in a huge range of different industries and they're, there are, I could give you good examples and bad examples in each of them without a problem. Um, what matters though is if you, if you get to make a choice and you, an agency owner, you do get to make a choice, make what makes you feel good, it has to, that can never override the financials. This is a business. This is not a charity, so it has to meet your financial goal first and foremost. But if you can do that while enjoying your day a little bit more, why wouldn't you?
Joe: 01:02:54 Yeah, 100% all right, so let's move on, I'm cognizant of time. We're almost at the top of the hour already. This interview has just like flowing by. So I'm like skipping through the questions and I'm like, where are we going next? So I've, I've been like head down to about like not paying attention. It's cause I'm like, Oh crap, we're running out of time. So I'm going to reflection of my head. I want to dazzle. Uh, what, what do you think from a conversion standpoint, Rob, from like a prospecting standpoint, what are the main like sets or resources that an agency needs to have in their business to sell PPC? Like, you know, obviously some type of go to, uh, some type of go to, I'm assuming proposal and agreement, a contract. Like what, what are the kind of the main things that you would say, like what are, what are the resources, what are the assets? And then do we have any of those that maybe we can share with people?
Rob: 01:03:50 Yeah. So, um, there's a couple of things you you need in place to sell PPC cause uh, fundamentally people are going to come to you either who are new to advertising and have not advertised before. Um, we have a tool that we can share quite happily, which allows you to calculate estimated outcomes based on Google data. Yup. Full disclosure, it isn't perfect by any stretch of the imagination. Google publicly shared data isn't a but it's a heck of a lot closer than having nothing. And when we come back to setting expectations, first part of expectation is as at least have a look what good might look like and let's measure our performance against something to start with. So if that, if that estimate doesn't even look right to the client, then nothing you do ever after this is ever going to look good. Do you have a tool for that? Um, you need to be auditing accounts. So you'll need a document. Uh, again, we can share a template for that of how we audit accounts and the kinds of things we're looking for.
Rob: 01:04:55 Um, headlines on that. Things that people hate wasting money and losing business to competitors. If you can highlight those, sort of those things in a proposal and you want a good, good starting pot. And the third thing is they need a means of getting paid. Um, the way we do it is we, we combine our proposal documents into signable documents on the final page. Therefore, when you're talking somebody through it, they can read it and understand it and I can sign it at the same time. Yep. That removes one further point of friction in the process. So those three things we find are hugely valuable. Okay. I've just that though some people don't buy that way. If you present a bunch of numbers to somebody who is an emotional, ego- driven buyer, you'll turn them off. Now all so know your prospect. Be aware that in some places, um, your sole mission in making that sale is to demonstrate to that business owner how it can outrank and how it can be the guy down the road who doesn't think is very good. And that's the sale process. So take the tools, use them in the right environments at the right time
Joe: 01:06:06 So we can definitely a link to that in the show notes. Uh, what, could you, could you take a second, maybe again just in the spirit of wrapping things up, trying to figure out anything that we missed. Can you maybe explain the Smart Niche Program? What that is kind of our mission and our values there, why we offer that and how we, how that kind of sets us apart and every one of our prospects and customers do.
Rob: 01:06:38 Yeah. So smart Niche for us, um, arose out of two things. One is, um, we want to be able to offer the best services we can. We have a ton of experience that, I mean this with no disrespect to anybody, 99% of agencies will never see the breadth and volume of clients that we have coming through the door of Invisible PPC. So our industry and sector knowledge is pretty much up there, in terms of what we're used to seeing compared to most agencies will ever experience. That gives us context. We know what good looks like. And so what we wanted to do with smart niche was document and package good. So that as an agency owner you can sell with confidence because we've got niches and there's on our current list as best part of a hundred of them. Um, when we, you've got proven landing pages, proven offers, proven, built out campaigns that you can claim as your own, customize the client and sell. Now that takes, you know, it's like starting the a hundred meter race on the 60 meter line. You've got a pretty damn good chance of being everybody else in that because all, all the work to get to that stage, all the testing or the proven that other agencies have to go through.
Rob: 01:07:58 It's done. We know what the answer is and it's not just been proven once it's been proven in multiple markets with multiple clients, uh, different shapes, sizes or locations. So we know the answer is the right answer. Um, that for us means that it's as an agency owner, you could have a high degree of confidence because I packed up my case. That is they're backed up by documentation. Yeah. It means fast to implement because our implementation process is stupid clean for them. And we've done, we've done implementation to go lives in like 72 hours. That's not the, no, I'm not realizing everything been in plan delivered diligently, but you can. Um, and so that's why we do smart niche. I guess you, the thing is as well, what we wanted to recognize is that sometimes we lose clients that we shouldn't lose cause the campaign is doing great and we have this kind of burning desire in the business not to lose the value of all that knowledge and saying, look, just because the client didn't turn out when they sentence doesn't make this any less valuable. Let's share this. So that other agencies can get the value and the benefit from it. So you effectively could leave to be a scaled, a scalable niche agency without having to learn the niche at the back end.
Joe: 01:09:14 Yeah, absolutely. Beautiful. One of the biggest data plays I think that you could possibly provide for yourself at invisible, a huge win obviously. But then for a everybody working with you, that one that brings down this is absolutely incredible.
Rob: 01:09:28 So we're always looking for more to add to it. By the way, we're always looking for more to put. So we've got a list where we're 90% certain that it's going to be good and that's the smart niche list. We also have a data list behind that of Yup, we're 70% confident. We just need a couple more accounts to test this and just absolutely prove it. So we're always looking for those extras, uh, where we can really broaden that.
Joe: 01:09:51 Awesome.And then there's a little bit of a training program, so to speak, in terms of like best practices and kind of getting your foot off the ground with the smart niche program. Can you talk about that real quick and then we'll wrap this up.
Rob: 01:10:00 I canceled the smart niche program, actually we produced for free. Um, it's gives you everything you need to know about selling PPC to these niche customers. It will tell you, uh, what your FAQ is for. Go live before go live onboarding it. We'll show you how to set expectations. It will show you a six month roadmap. It will show you hands how to angle common client questions. It will show you expected cost per lead, a minimum budgets, recommendations, and every single market is a smart niche for so, you know, in that niche, I in a million budget of $1,000 believes are going to come in at $30 each. Um, I should set my, tell my client a, B, and c, I'm good to go. Um, so it really is, I've lost some things I'm most proud of. We've produced here and I can't take the credit for it cause the team did 90% of the work for it did an amazing job. It's not salesy. It's that educate and you can get, if you watched our video end to end is about 55 minutes worth of training. It's not a major commitment, but it's huge value. Um, and it will set you on a really good path as to being a very high quality, responsible, skilled agency. Okay.
Joe: 01:11:16 100% and and guys and gals listening, I hope that you see the value in this. When, when rob first told me about this program with my, my jaw just dropped, right? Like most of the hard work is out of the equation. You know, what is the cost per lead? What's the cost per click? What should we see in terms of conversions? What type of volume is there, what offers are working best, what landing pages are working best? Like all those KPIs that you need as an agency to really be able to profit for a local business, right? Or, or any of the niches or verticals and the smart niche program like, Eh, it's that, um, and, and just know that me. Um, I'm constantly pushing on rob like we've got to monetize this better because this data is ridiculous and nobody has this stuff. And so understand that rob is correct. Um, he did tell you guys that the program is free right now at some level. I'm telling you guys that's going to change. So if you're watching this, it's months after this was we recorded or even a month after this and recorded no, that, that's probably not going to stick around because Rob's being a little too kind and a little too forthcoming with some of this data.
Rob: 01:12:27 I saw your reaction when I said that and I, do you know what? I agree. I think it's hugely valuable. There is the six years worth of learning and a team with 25 people that have produced that, that didn't happen by accident. That's a lot of knowledge and a lot of clients and a lot of it, as Joe said, stop. We spent two and a half million dollars a month for our clients. That's a lot of test data that most agencies will never see. And so absolutely right. We will, we will find ways to add even more value and, and that situation may change
Joe: 01:13:01 100%. So last questions. To wrap this thing up, rob, um, every podcast out there, I feel like asked like, what are you recommended? Three books, right? So on our podcast I want to do something a little bit different. Uh, I want to ask you, what's the one book that's made the biggest impact on invisible PPC? When you look at like the structural, like the actual changes and impact that were made, not like you read through the book and you're like, yeah, this was good. Right? And then it was like, yeah, someday, you know, I'll make some implementations from this. Like, what book made the biggest impact?
Rob: 01:13:36 I'm going to give you a book that is probably not on your list. Um, and it's probably on your audio list because it's not a business book. Um, but to me the lessons are super transferable. Um, for those who know me, I'm a bit of a space nerd. I like most things. Space-Related. Um, there's a book by a former space shuttle commander by the name of Chris Hadfield, it's called An astronauts guide to life on earth and it's his story of how a Canadian, um, became an astronaut, bearing in mind that Canada has no space program and the western North previously, uh, that was, uh, that was a pretty hard ask when at five years old we decided to become an astronauts. There's no, there is no clear path for you to follow. And yet not always. He fly space shuttle twice. He also flew the sawyers yeah. Um, and having credible experiences along the way. And what are the key lessons in it, which I will just share very briefly because I know we're short of time, Joe. It's simply this, a whole generation of astronauts. What do you think? You get to be an astronaut? What you think? That's it. And we are in space. Most astronauts don't go space. Um, a whole generation of astronauts who grew up with a shuttle program couldn't go to space when the shore retired and the soil is the Russian craft took over for one reason. It was smaller and all Astronauts could no longer fly. So how do you Imagine you've trained for 20 years and suddenly all three inches too small for the new craft, three tall for the new craft. Can you imagine how that feels? The message he brings to that is you have to learn to love the process. Outcomes you've set. Your goals that you've set are really important. But if you can get your kick from the process you put yourself through every day to move forward in your business or in your personal life, that process is far more valuable than that momentary success. So that fades fast, that goes away and The process doesn't. And so it's a brilliant book and that's just one little snippet out there that I find personally very valuable.
Rob: 01:15:51 I love that. Yeah. I'll definitely be picking up that book and reading it. All too often in life Like we just speed through day to day, right? Uh, and, and we're not living in the moment and enjoying the path and enjoying, you know, the, the, the route so to speak there. So, uh, definitely after a lesson that, uh, that we can all be reminded with and definitely I'd need to be reminded with, uh, always got those goals and aspirations and pushing them for them. But, but we've got to remember to live in the moment, so. Awesome man. Absolutely. Alright, fantastic. So guys, um, I really enjoyed having rob on and kind of letting you guys peek behind the scenes of invisible PPC, letting you guys get to know rob better. Rob, man, thanks so much for joining us for today. I got a lot of questions still that we didn't even get to dive into. We didn't get to talk about Omni, we didn't get to talk about a whole lot of stuff. Uh, I was going to talk about the client onboarding and retention and converting clients amongst more, uh, so lot, see how this goes. If this podcast blows it up, I go, we'll just have you come back on and we'll do another deep dive.
Rob: 01:16:56 I'm always in for that.
Joe: 01:16:59 All right guys, thanks so much for tuning in. Be sure to rate review and give us some love here on iTunes and subscribe to the Youtube Channel and we'll see you guys on the next episode. Joe Troyer signing out
Rob: 01:17:10 bye.
