How to Sell Your Marketing Agency with Avi Kumar and Rob Warner

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In this episode, Avi Kumar, the new owner of Invisible PPC, joins Rob Warner, Joe’s business partner, to discuss Invisible PPC’s colorful history & exciting future. Tune in to this special episode for all the details and see the beginning of a new chapter for these brilliant entrepreneurs.

The Sale of Invisible PPC

Rob founded Invisible PPC in 2012 and has since grown it to become the world’s leading white label PPC service provider. After nearly a decade of ownership, he found the ideal person to acquire the company in Avi Kumar. Rob and Joe will not be leaving the PPC and agency space but will instead focus solely on a SaaS pipeline catering to marketing services, while Avi is determined to take Invisible PPC to new heights.

Selling Your Digital Marketing Agency

If you want to sell your agency, here’s a proven framework from the Invisible PPC sale and interaction of astute business owners Rob and Avi. 

Business Assessment

  • Conduct a comprehensive assessment of your digital marketing agency’s financials, operations, and client base.
  • Evaluate your agency’s unique selling propositions (USPs), strengths, and areas of improvement.
  • Identify potential challenges or risks that might affect the selling process.

 Valuation and Pricing

  • Determine the fair market value of your digital marketing agency based on revenue, profit margins, client retention, ebitda, and growth potential.
  • Engage with a business valuator or consultant to get an objective and accurate valuation.
  • Set a realistic and competitive asking price for the agency.

Confidentiality and Preparation

  • Maintain strict confidentiality during the selling process to avoid disruption in the agency’s operations and client relationships.
  • Prepare a comprehensive information package for prospective buyers, highlighting the agency’s achievements, client success stories, and growth opportunities.

Marketing and Finding Buyers

  • Develop a marketing strategy to attract potential buyers, which may include advertising on industry-specific platforms, networking events, or engaging business brokers.
  • Screen potential buyers to ensure they are financially qualified and genuinely interested in the acquisition.

Negotiation and Due Diligence

  • Engage in negotiations with interested buyers regarding the terms of the sale, including purchase price, payment structure, and any additional agreements.
  • Facilitate the due diligence process, providing access to necessary financial, legal, and operational information.
  • Be transparent and responsive during the due diligence phase to build trust with the buyer.

 Legal and Financial Review

  • Engage legal counsel to draft and review the sale agreement, ensuring it includes all necessary terms and protections.
  • Address any potential legal or financial concerns raised during the due diligence process.
  • Comply with regulatory requirements and obtain necessary approvals for the sale.

Transition Planning

  • Collaborate with the buyer on a detailed transition plan to ensure a smooth handover of operations, client relationships, and assets.
  • Communicate the sale to your team members, ensuring clarity about their roles and any potential changes.
  • Provide support and training to the buyer during the transition period.

Closure and Post-Sale Management

  • Finalize the sale agreement and complete the transfer of ownership and control to the buyer.
  • Plan for the post-sale period to ensure a successful transition and maintain client satisfaction.
  • Fulfill any post-sale obligations, such as providing transitional support or non-compete agreements.

Reflect and Move Forward

  • Take time to reflect on the sale process, learn from the experience, and celebrate the successful sale of your digital marketing agency.
  • Consider your future business endeavors, whether it involves starting a new venture or pursuing other opportunities.

Selling your digital marketing agency requires careful planning, confidentiality, and collaboration with legal and financial advisors. Ensure that you comply with all legal regulations and engage with experienced professionals to navigate the complexities of the selling process successfully.

Topics Discussed

  • How Rob got into Digital Marketing
  • Becoming an Accidental Agency Owner
  • Invisible PPC’s Pivotal Moment and Growth
  • The decision to Focus 100% on SAAS
  • How Rob and Avi Connected
  • Avi’s Mindset in Acquiring Invisible PPC
  • What the future holds for Invisible PPC and Rob’s SAAS Venture

People and Resources Mentioned

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Avi Kumar 0:29
Rob, thanks for coming by in Austin. My pleasure. Yeah, I really do appreciate that. And since we're here, we might as well record this session, right? Yes. So the part I want to start, which I know you don't care that much about we just talked at lunch, but I don't know your kind of shared, you have accounting background? Yeah. So I want to start from there. Tell me your story before we have a big candidate we can make to our side.

Rob Warner 0:57
So let's let let me give you the the story. So I knew early on, I wanted to move business. I had a long belief arrogant, potentially as a small child that I was relatively smart do well at school, I felt like I knew stuff. And I refuse to work for all my life for somebody else while I get fat and rich. And I stay as an employee don't want to do that. I want my own business. And my dad was working as a sales exec for a multinational company, got promoted to managing director to CEO and struggled with the numbers. And he said, Rob, if you want to own your own business, make sure you know your numbers, the best thing you can do is get an accounting experience. It will set you up for everything else you do afterwards, and be in the good obedient sir. I went and I got a job with a big four accounting firm, pass my accounting qualifications learned how to be an accountant.

Avi Kumar 1:54
Which one was it?

Rob Warner 1:55
KPMG. Okay, so Okay, yeah, I stayed there just about long enough to get the dry and the certificate. And then went out into industry and worked as a CFO for a bunch of companies might might the place I liked best was always working in small to mid sized companies, I didn't want to be that kind of faceless person in booth number 43. And big in a big company that was just not for me. So I wanted to come into working with doing that five to 20 million a year, that kind of range. So I did that for a few years. And the problem is it traps you into a lifestyle that they pay really well to give you a nice cars and nice bonuses, and it gets very comfortable.

Yeah. And you have a family and they're like this lifestyle. So we have this conversation that actually the thing I wanted to do, I'm going to go and do it. I don't want to go into software, I've got these business ideas, I want to build a software company. And so my wife to her incredible credit, said, You know what, if that's really what you want to do, I trust you just don't lose the house. That was the instruction don't lose the house. But you know, go under. So we set up so I set up software company. And we're just starting to do okay, we're doing really not bad. It was around 2010. So when you're enough just up the banking crash, the world got a bit funky.

Yeah. And so we built software for business, immediately had to pivot it to government, because government suddenly were the only people spending money. Because all the businesses were saying to us like now we've got nothing we have to Brown for next period. So software to businesses to government, and we were doing good by my standards, which sold about a quarter million in orders from a startup basically. Excellent. And then this thing that would the word in the UK at the time was austerity. It was post banking crash, when governments realized that spent all this money bailing out the banks and they had to tighten the budget. And I went on vacation one day, shortly after our general election in the UK and EU Prime Minister just been elected, they wanted to see email from one of my customers, your orders cancelled. They too, got another one. By the end of the holiday, I had lost every single order in my backlog. And the government departments also sorry, not only we cancel the order, we are legally not allowed to buy anything for you from it for the foreseeable future. But oh, crap. Now I have a serious problem. So we figured what can we do?

How do we save ourselves to spend all our money? So we made a commercial version of the software, we started commercial going to government, we flipped it and made a commercial version. In fact, I threw a hissy fit. I went to see one of my last prospects standees a lot we have built but it's too complicated. And short, the simple thing. I call my developer on the carloway backside gym for hours meeting, and I don't care where it takes by the end of this week. I need a simple version that just does this. And we built it in a week. We ran some Google ads because I absolutely hated and it worked. And we got some Google we got some Google ads and we got some revenue in One J is just about enough to keep us afloat.

And so, over the next period, the company was hanging on by its fingernails. This point, we picked with two or three Google Ads clients. Now by accident, just by word of mouth, I had to say to my wife one day in that thing he said not to do about the house, I'm about six weeks away from doing it. Enjoy what he can cuz it ain't gonna last very much longer. And the strange thing happened that just that conversation that led that level of honesty and opening up about just how bad things had got, allow me to go over lean fully into Google ads. I started picking up clients, I picked the water pizza, too. And the lucky thing that happened.

So two things happen. Number one, I learned advice from my that was terrible. Absolutely useless advice. I knew at any one point in time, precisely how much I didn't have in terms of money. I wish I could accurately tell him how much I would. But I had no revenue. And I had no sales skills. So I had no means of getting new revenue it and the fight should have been go and sell some stuff. And then you can count your money afterwards. But I didn't have to do it. So I was for sale shy, introverted accountant, client. Number three, who found me because I was too frightened to do much anything you call out, Rachel coldcock got a bit cold calling. I would have dropped the ball was prepared to lose the house and do a cold call. So I went for digital marketing agency. We do lots of SEO website build, but we don't do Google ads. We've got lots of clients who won't Google ads, why don't you come down to our office, you can go through their accounts and review what they're doing good and bad. I'll do the selling, you do a service delivery, we'll split the money 5050.

Rob Warner 6:49
That's the business model for me. Somebody else is a selling, I do the technical bit that I like doing, I'm gonna make some money. And one agency led to two agents has led to three. And before I knew it, I got this business to a white label Google ads, I didn't even I didn't even know there was such a thing as white label. And you always just splitting the money with this guy. And then somebody familiar doing white label. Excellent. I'll do more of that. And that's where that's where we got started. I often describe myself as an accidental agency owner. And that's what it was. So that was a kind of origin story of what became invisible PPC was kind of a happy accident.

Avi Kumar 7:28
That year was it when you kind of had three or four clients already. And you're officially this

Rob Warner 7:33
your agency that was kind of about 2011 Going into 2012 by now. Okay. And so here's what happened next, it was a kind of two or three events that turn things. event number one was I knew I couldn't sell, I knew I didn't like selling. So I try to figure out ways to get people to come to me. And so I would buy your place like the Warrior Forum, another online things, buying training programs on how to be better at selling or better at marketing. And, as was the trend at the time, it was quite new a time you buy a product and go come and join our Facebook group community group. And you can ask questions now. So athletes was fantastic.

So I joined a few days, and they're all marketing groups. What I did was whenever anybody asked a question about Google ads, ads in the marketing group was they often were doing, I give them the most helpful answer I could give just, I'd never pitched I never did anything, I would just say, here's what you need to know, here's what to do. And sure enough, I don't get a bunch of messages go. Hey, Rob, that's really cool. Thanks for that. Could you do Google ads for us? Would you do you work for the agencies, and of course, I would love to help you. And this kind of snowballed. And each time I'd answer a bunch of questions, go to bed and wake up the following morning to a bunch of messages.

Because the interesting thing that I didn't realize was, these groups were generally for the Americans. So I'd wake up and I get a bunch of new customers in America. So it was like, that was a happy accident. That was good. So I accidentally built a business that was growing at 20 3040 clients, mainly overseas that was handling all the work for myself and the fulfillment. And it was just it grew. So I started hiring a project manager and somebody helped me run the Google ads, and there's winter 2013. i Now thankfully, and avoid losing my house. That was a good thing. wife was happy. We actually have some of you might call an income, we will we're living okay and paying down debt. And there was an event being held in Denver, Colorado, and I knew a bunch of my customers were gonna be there. It was all about local marketing for businesses.

And it turns out that one of these Facebook groups I was in the owner of the group was actually where the event organizers said okay, this guy called by coach who is still a friend to this day. So I told him I was gonna come over and said you might have put on a little customer event while I'm there. Just after hours in a side room, I'm not trying to pitch anything, I'm just going to talk to my customers. And I sort of scraped together airfare. And I went over to Denver, Colorado for the first time. You know, sometimes there's a moment that things just change. Day one of the event, about 400 marketing agencies in the room, and me, and Mike gets on stage with business partners and delivers the opening keynote.

And I'll never forget this day. So it's 2013, October 2013. Were the Days of the generalist of God. We're in the era of the specialist. And the best example I can give you is Rob Morris done with Google Glass. And he's white label Google that service. I think you're in the room, Rob, stand up and give me a website. Okay. I crawl back under my rock, being my shy, introverted accountant. I spent the next three days mobbed by people wanting Google ads, and the business just just exploded in that three day period. And there are still customers on the books today that came from that event in 2013. So that was kind of like the hook moment.

And suddenly this virus, I've got a proper about American business that I didn't mention, but I have. So that was kind of those sort of two strange events didn't particularly plan it either had a massive impact by looking back I fell in reflect on it as being it's about putting yourself in the places where things can happen. If you've got to be there for that to happen. I could have easily stayed at home and not gone to that event. I couldn't really afford it. But as the working with a guy halfway around the world when they could work locally.

Avi Kumar 11:32
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. That's so cool. So the in these two things, which I've noticed is one is like, Okay, you're doing something for yourself. You're doing well, and others come to you. Yeah, I'm sure a lot of agency, a lot of businesses relate to that. So perfect. The second one, actually, there is in between stuff, which Gary Vaynerchuk keeps talking about all the time. Just give, give, give, and you're sharing your knowledge, right. And you're generally explaining, hey, here's the problem this is solving. Probably long before Gary Vaynerchuk started saying it, it seems like years back, but it was a natural thing for you to share this couch with so yeah. Yeah. So that's, that's great. Basically, it's a you take content, I'm engineer, the way I would say is that say, knowledge workers were to sell. That was like

 

Avi Kumar 12:18
Because you kind of know something, and you don't know how to sell. All you know, is explain the knowledge you have. That's what you're doing. And they just come to you because of that, because they realize, oh, this person knows. Right. So I think you definitely leverage that. But this fact the question I have is this finally this event which happened? That's a event which, to me is like seems like oh, it's an aha, that if I go to such a conference, and if I in this case, you didn't pay? What was the name? You mentioned? The event organizer, but my coach? Yeah, so it was not you didn't pay Mike or anything. But didn't you start thinking, you know, more. There are many events like this, if I can just show up there and have somebody stand up and call my name out, even if it is sponsored, or somehow that will be the way to grow.

Rob Warner 13:06
But you know, I owe, so there's a part two to the what happened to that event. So I'll tell you that now. It kind of ties in what you just said. So it turns out I knew Mike, I didn't know the guys who were on the stage. It turns out there were three or four of them were in this event jointly. And one of them I knew a guy called Kevin was promoting a effectively a competitor service on stage. At least it felt like to me, people were talking to me and I said I was really busy people just kind of constantly approaching me this customer event, kind of word spread. And so what I'd expect it to be about 15 people will be showing the latest of in a room and a couple of PowerPoint slides. Suddenly I got a roomful about 50. People all want all coming to this event. So I did it. I showed like 50 people and it was great. They were buying it was good. And at the end, just finished off just wrapping up to a couple people. I saw Kevin walk in I thought, Oh, interesting has been promoted on stage. And it comes in and so what you're doing as a, just a little customer thing, we're just showing some stuff is going on. So it looks very much to me like you're running an unlicensed vendor event. You are me $2,000. Alright, okay. I haven't got $2,000. I'm now in trouble with the event organizers. Okay, sorry. It's not the way it looks to me. And after a few minutes, this would be a tear on my face. And I want to joke, it's fine, couldn't me I want to introduce some people. And what he did next was we agreed to create a trading product together.

And Kevin introduced me to the world of webinars and selling information and training and software and services via webinar. And so we went from this world of inward people coming to us based on value to doing a joint venture webinar with 250 people on the other end of Have a go to webinar line, doing a structure sales presentation and pitch. I mean, it was far alien to me as it could have possibly got, I thought we'd have a heart attack the first time I did this thing, but it was highly profitable, highly lucrative. And it really cemented our name in that universe, because by the time we've done 10, or 15, joint venture with other promoters people. Yeah, so it was a really strange release. And that's how we got we didn't go to a booth. Or we did their next event in 2014. We took a boot. Okay, there you go. Your points, right. We took a bit.

Avi Kumar 15:32
Yeah, yeah. After after that. So. And from there on this, I know from talking to you, earlier, you started solving some of your problems by just kind of building your own software along the way in house because you kind of felt either either did not exist what you wanted. Or sometimes it was far too expensive to use third party software, especially when we have so many clients. Yeah. So for those two reasons, you started building that software. When was that seed in your mind that okay, we need to build this. How did that start,

Rob Warner 16:05
which I started the software before I became an accidental agency owner. So I always got this thing of I love building stuff. I, I was one of the kids who have school, I be writing spreadsheets and rap spreadsheet macros and automating stuff. That was what I grew up doing. Yeah. And so to me, a software solution was just a natural thing to do, partly, and it's just lazy. I don't like repetitive boring stuff, so that I can find the software solve for and look for it all day. So we built our first software about 2015, a software called boost by PPC, which would basically you could type in keywords, it would find the ads that were running, and it would write the ads and create like a video review of the ads. And that was what we actually saw those webinars, and it sold great. We ran that for about two years until Google changed the way it was running at search results. And effectively, it broke the software and we couldn't fix it. So we shut it down. I stayed away from it for a couple of years, until we hired an agency to build a dashboard for us and think about 2018 spent a fortune on it and never going to mark it failed.

Just spectacular fell, we hired a really good reputable firm. And with hindsight, we were well sold, we were sold on a workshop for a couple of days. Scope it's back in and in reality, what actually happened was the budget kept growing, the project scope kept shrinking as there was less good being delivered in each sprint, the sort of build cycle. And I think we lost a couple 100,000 on that build that never saw the light of day, which is kind of heartbreaking. Yeah. And so it took me about another 12 months to go back to it after that. So 2020 we really started building again.

Avi Kumar 17:45
And this time, now, it's your own now it's no agency or anything that okay, manage the team

Rob Warner 17:52
manage up say we have, we have a couple of outsourced team because they're overseas, but they're effectively our team that full time for us. All these we found is actually working with agencies who have team who were split between multiple projects just doesn't just didn't work for us. We're dedicated people who we can send people on deadline. Yeah, deadlines, responsibilities, internal meetings, effectively, we treat them as employees, even though they're not employees. But for us, that's the kind of close relationship we have. And we find that was much, much better.

Avi Kumar 18:21
So is this a this is a selfish interest? For me. We had some clients in past I won't understand if it is the same model. We have had with our team in India, we had some clients in past who will take our dedicated developers will still account manager on top in case there is a communication or deadline issue. But they will just basically pay us a monthly fees for those dedicated developer is that that kind of answer waiter? Yeah, yeah, we don't ourselves, we don't be have enough work for ourselves. So we don't do that anymore. But the even, of course, it was profitable for us. But I thought, that's a great model for clients too. Because they get to know the person. They know the same person who's always giving them the work, and they can reach out and directly talk to them,

Rob Warner 19:06
we found as well having more than one developer. I'm not a big fan of the sample size of one. Uh huh. Because you you kind of don't know what you get it yet. Because we've have several developers working for some time now. You know, we get to see different performance levels, different skill levels, and we can't, and now we're in a position where and go, That guy's not good enough. We need to replace that one. And bring in more, we now know what good looks like. Yeah. And I think as much of it is what does good look like? What does a really smart developer do? And how is that different to a mediocre or poor developer. And we found that understanding that over time, has been really, really powerful for us. So we now know that if we've got a big problem we give it to that guy will get the same day so more often than not, and it gives you massive confidence as you're building things that you've got the right kind of people in the building.

Avi Kumar 19:57
Okay, so now I'm going to take you to the next Step. That's the reason we got to know each other ventually that when did you start? So you started in 20? Like, 2019, some stuff? And then 2020? When did you start realizing that okay, you know, I'm back into my sweet spot, doing a software, agency business is something, it's great. But I really want to do this more. So when did that start hitting you?

Rob Warner 20:23
So for me, it came down to a couple of things. I'm very conscious of what I say what next, because what it sounds like, I'm about to be negative towards my agency business. And that's not the case, I am proud of and enjoyed the business that we built over a long period of time. That said, agency is a messy business. It's got lots of people, lots of move people moving parts. And fundamentally, I'm, I guess, I would describe myself as a creative kind of introvert. That doesn't play well, in a people business. You know, you don't get into white labeling a nerdy kind of technical thing, because you want lots of people relationships. And it's not I don't like people really just think I find them tiring, I find them hard work.

So for me, there's always this element of a business that grows through people, I find quite emotionally tiring to run, I feel like I take a personal responsibility for every single good or bad thing that happens. That takes a toll over time, because tiny, little human errors. And you might just find this is well, when you're the leading an organization, rarely do people bring into good views. Yeah, they're bringing the brown sticky stuff that bring you the problems that bring you the bad things that have happened. And so you can sometimes end up with a sort of a negative worldview.

Because the only thing the only client interactions you've had this week are our five people about a problem. You don't hear the 95 who didn't have a problem? Yes, the five who did yeah. And my psyche works very much on progression and forward motion. So dealing with backwards negative stuff I find quite draining. Whereas I know that person X had a bad day, that day, they made a mistake, the cloud is upset, okay, resolved. Whereas if I build a software, the software doesn't have a bad day.

Avi Kumar 22:10
Yep. If it is something wrong, it'd be wrong every day,

Rob Warner 22:14
exactly. Fix up and start fixing again, that software is not going to help that day tomorrow, because it's random. So for me, that was one part of it was that sense of the people relationships can get quite physically mentally and emotionally demanding for me and tiring. If I'm, was to be more commercial about it, agency businesses have a value when you exit an agency business. And you know, there's a range of profit multiples are an agency business that are relatively small, because there's actually busy messy people businesses, until you get to kind of like that 3 million per year EBIT, which we weren't at when the melt the revenue, the multiples jump at that point.

So there are people you see doing roll ups and agencies where you take five John together, get 3 million gone, it's sort of been a, you know, maybe two to four times EBIT, you're up seven to eight times, get that software business has a valuation, typically based on revenue. And that can be five to 10 times revenue, or 15 times it's okay, so even more, so I looked at them, just the pure math of where I'm spending my effort unconscious, I'm getting 50 soon. And I need to focus my effort on high ROI activities. If I spend another 18 months, or two years or three years, a full effort building an agency, the best I can expect, let's say four times or five times my profit.

I spent 18 months building a software, I can expect 10 times my revenue. Okay, purely from that perspective, it makes more sense for me, given that my background is software anyway, to focus on building software for a market that I already know, understand, which is the OTC market. I know these people I know that problems, I will build things at scale, that I can solve those problems. So that was the thing for me. And it became to a point where it's just like, it's difficult to ride two horses. I was trying to ride two horses, one was going faster than the other one. If you want to get one's going fast, the other your legs get very, very quick. It's not fun. So I had to make a decision. And that decision was you know, ultimately to exit the agency.

Avi Kumar 24:25
Yep. So there's a there's two parts here. One I heard money and interest in software. Other one you said keep using the word introvert and people but from whatever I've known a few. You get along easily with people. Yeah, right. So and I understand the selling part. I relate to that. But even there I think like you're talking to people I don't think you have any issue with right it's this selling sometimes. So I think it's more of the latter. Your logical brain telling you hey,

I've got more multiples here. More happening. I could do a lot more with this and you have the option. Unity because you understand the market, right? So that's, that's great. It's good to know. And I know what you mean by saying, I've heard your talk in which you talked about, you know, didn't want to deal with so many agencies, I want to do this. I hear you and being the person who's taking it over here, I understand you have to be conscious of that. But yeah, to me, video aware of that aspect of it, and I face it day to day, right that as we grow, and we grow, that's a that's a challenge.

Unknown Speaker 25:32
That the question is again, did I avoid the question?

Avi Kumar 25:36
No, no, no, no, no, no, you I think you got that. But not not in this talk. earlier. I said, I'm gonna ask you this, which is basically, we were talking about this concept, irreverent, right? That's what we have gone with is, and I mean, in early days of my life, I've gone with irreverence for just sake of reference. And as I mature to realize that stupid, right, you just intentionally want to be counter to what is happening. That's silly, on its on its own right. And sometimes I do it now. Also, just for the sake of being a you know, contrarian, if you will. But but the reality is that many times there are opportunities when you buy irreverence gets you to the next level. So you have examples of the things that you have done in your building business and career. I'll give you

Rob Warner 26:26
two, the, again, related to visible PPC, and are very, very pertinent. So the first one was, I looked, but I kind of owned it as your reference at the time, it was practical, but I own I took responsibility. So when we first started out, as I mentioned, I had literally, I had less than no money, but the website just to have something to send people to because I'm just first thing people ask. So I couldn't afford to pay someone to build Well, I didn't have the technical skills, particularly to build on myself. We were back and we went back 2013 or 2012, there was just a upload a WordPress install the way you go, there's more to it. Yeah.

So I created a single page website, that was a black thing, I need to go on the Wayback Machine, you can still see it this day. A lot of there was nothing to see here, and a phone number. And that was all we had, as our website for invisible PPC. And somebody people sent me a check to try to check you out online. But I really can't find very much the white level behind the scenes, you're not supposed to be able to find much about us. It was a completely fragile thing that I couldn't afford. But once once I've done it, and people I've got great reaction from Bethel, I'm not changing that I'm sticking with this. Yeah. So even when we couldn't afford it, I still didn't. I left it was it was it was a great talking point. And so fast forward a few years, we got invited into a pro. Google has like secret programs of partnership, and the highest one at the time, some called Channel Sales.

And because they could see our Google account growing and grow and grow, and we got invited into this channel sales group, which is kind of like top 1% of agencies. And as part of that, we got to know our Google team, we got access to Google resources, and it was great. They were really, at that time, you were really heavily invested in agencies. So we got fabulous support from them. And they sent me to run our Google our Google rep tomorrow call and I'm very excited to look twice a year, the head of Google Ads worldwide picks few agencies that we recommend to have a meeting with.

He wants to meet him and you will you can meet a guy called Allante. Gerson you can check him on LinkedIn. He was the head of Google Ads worldwide at the time. Sure, cool, why not? So the days towards this meeting came up. I could tell by the level of anxiety with our Google reps, and their bosses and their bosses who started appearing our calls. This was a big thing. Because if you're fresh out and you can get stuff and kids about a week out from the meeting with our and our Google rep, come on and panic anyway, I need your help something at now.

And started doing this research for a meeting next week. Could you please have a website because it looks really embarrassing. Website in a week, purely because Google asked us to do it. So Alan could check is I wouldn't say here we were. And so good that got on the call. And this comes back to the sort of second part of this thing, which is one of the things I find has served me best in marketing, which is unusual people don't do it is being almost overly truthful. So we got this meeting with him.

And you can imagine this me and two of my colleagues were all sat on a laptop like this, but all around To laugh, he has like six inches from the screen because the webcams weren't quite as good. But they were in a conference room with a full conference setup and about 10 levels of management around the table. And so, meeting comes in, Alan comes in last isn't at the table his very first question. So Rob, what made you set up invisible PPC? I said, Well, we'll found it on three core principles, cowardice, desperation, and a lack of better alternatives.

Rob Warner 30:31
The whole room looked absolutely aghast. The wife said, apart from mouth, practically fell off his chair laughing because people don't speak to him like that. And so when I came out with this comment, which was absolutely true. Do you immediately set the tone? If you say something so embarrassing, honest to somebody? Yeah. No matter what else you say, after that, you've got a level of trust and relationship. Yeah. That for me was just a fun.

Avi Kumar 31:00
Yeah, because he knew right then that everything you tell him can be trusted, because you don't care about.

Unknown Speaker 31:06
I mean, I can't get any more embarrassed. Let's just go a minute ago.

Avi Kumar 31:10
That is awesome. To share with you that early days when we started, I was doing, I was only one and I was outsourcing to India. And first time of Indian origin. I'm already here. Of course, they could check my credentials. And I kind of went to school here and all but still. And so the line I started using is that, hey, most companies have this problem about too many chiefs and very few Indians, you don't have the problem that only cheap and a lot of Indians in this company. So we are very effective in doing so. So we just kind of,

Rob Warner 31:51
as you said, what somebody else perceives to be a negative with by owning it and bring it in that way you turn it into an absolute advantage.

Avi Kumar 32:01
Yeah, yeah. And then of course, as we grew, we had a lot of people in us, but that's what I did. And it went wow. I mean, it is it is it's humor, at least Right, exactly. You know, it gets people going. So this is this is great.

Rob Warner 32:14
I'd like to turn the tables a little bit and talk about, we know why I did this book. I'd like to know why you want invisible. Sure. Okay. conversation about that piece of it and your vision for the future?

Avi Kumar 32:25
Sure. So the reason? So we have done Google ads on our own, at different levels at different times. We did manage at times budgets, close to four single company over 400k a month. So it was so we've done that level. Right. And it was great business because we were charging that time, it was like 15% of the ad spend. That included everything. So just having that one client was already in the business. Yeah. Which is a bad thing. But we lost the class. Right? Okay. Yeah. So we had done that. And we were doing that. One problem I always had was, we did our job best we could. And I kind of just could never figure out that. Are we any good reason being, we didn't have that many claims to figure it out. Right? It was only a few clients. So you have the client succeeds. I've always had this mindset that sometimes client succeeds, in spite of the marketing is just a good product people want to buy.

And so it's so I'm being an engineering mindset. I want to know, is it what we did or did not sell anyway, we just put ads in there. And they just helped a little bit. Maybe we made a little bit worse, but they were still selling, right? So I was always very intrigued with when I was part of this market partner program. And all I kept on asking partners, I hired some to do ads for me to do audits. Because the saying is that, hey, these people who have done hopefully more, no more, right?

And I want to see what they do. But I was every time I was disappointed, because they were all some small level players. So when I saw this kind of agency, and then I knew there was the other agency in Austin, I think their pure play, PPC said, you know, the people who must know this is who are pure plays, because they just do ads. Yeah. So that was my first interest. When I heard about this opportunity that you wanted to move on from this one. I said, Man, so it was purely a technical interest in my mind. So initially, you might not have realized that I was not the numbers I was looking at. I was looking at what kind of ads do they do? Are they any good? And do they have enough customers? Do they do enough kinds of ads?

And then they must know quite a lot. Right? So that was my personal interest more than anything else? That's engineering. Yeah, I want to know that and then hey, that'd be great. Because we can grow and I can build this right then we will have the best because always want the best optimization. For client, so for PTC will have the optimal solution. So that was my interest right in initially. And I was with Chennai who's controlling this meaning for us. The things she kept on asking me and I kept on asking is, who does that? Do they really know it? Who's their team?

Do they really know this stuff? Or not? Or it's test? Because there are enough marketing agencies they to GrowBig? They don't know enough, right? I agree. Yeah, come across a lot of guests. So then I, the way I researched it is, I went and saw you talk. You were talking about your tools and other things. Then I kind of said, you know, if Rob is the founder, he's talking about the tools and the stuff. He's talking about the passion, he knows this stuff. This is not something he's just, oh, I just got it. So he knows that. So I don't have to worry. If he if he's the founder, then that means the team knows how to do this. Right. So that was my first thing.

Great. Good. I mean, like, I've got it. So it was the same, same, same reason, the very reason you were able to sell, which is that's the part I feel we have we have to run parallel that I tried to see. A you know, there's a phrase which I'm going to plug in, in my here again, she used the phrase that end of the day competence is all that matters. Oh, that's cool, right? Because it's a it's a, it's a little bit of a iron Rand kind of a philosophy approach that we keep talking about, we need to be human, we need to be nice, we need to be sharing. Yeah, you can do all that. But if you're not competent, nothing else matters, right.

Right. So So, that is what I was looking for. Right. And when I saw that, okay, I said, they they are competent company, they are doing well. We know quite a few things, which I have learned about selling and marketing agency. So we can leverage that. And we can grow this. So that was a, that was reason I felt it was a great match for us to take on this opportunity. Because I see this as something I want to double, triple or more, right, and build it bigger, because confidence is there. It already works. And there is opportunities and there are other markets to go to.

The other aspect was the people who have got on board is there's a reason I started felt invisible PPC will be great is club got gotten on board for helping me grow our business, they have lot of experience with agencies. So I said, Okay, not the end customers, they know a lot about agency business. So which means we can work with a lot more agencies to do white labeling. So that's, that's, that's, that's the reason I felt like okay, we are placed right? To take this and grow this business. Right. So that so that was my reason. I mean, so initially technical, then I saw a business opportunity.

Rob Warner 37:40
I love it. From my perspective. Thank you. That's, that's super. It's nice to know, that strange thing. When we I was first building, and I was in the tools every day and doing stuff. And replying to people and working out in conversation, my wife and I said, I don't really understand this. I'm doing my job for people. I'm answering their questions. And it seems that actually giving a damn is a competitive advantage. I'm sure that's the minimum that's expected of anybody just care about what you do. And do it to the best of your abilities. Seems that's not a popular opinion. took it for granted.

Yeah, you're right. If you actually just put your time and your skills, you do the right thing. It's amazing how often that sets you apart. And yeah, I thought that would just be the entry requirement isn't. But I think you're right. I think with your background, your agencies, and you know, the range of service experience that Kumar has got, I think invisible can do things. Under your leadership, it couldn't do undermine, I'm super excited for that. One of my big concerns when you're going up, it's been my baby for 10 years, I said to you over lunch, it's part of my identity for the last 10 years, is, you know, you want your baby to go to a good home you want well looked after and grown and nurtured.

And something you can still be proud of in 10 years, even if I don't own it, I would still I think I can be taught we can be talking about it. Yeah, I'm proud of what it's become. Yeah, I wouldn't be in the crowd, but his biggest cheerleader. Yeah. So for me finding the person with the same mindset and you miss the engineering approach. And desire to build is what it's all about.

Avi Kumar 39:28
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So it definitely, that's something huge, it's gonna be a good journey. And I will tell you upfront that I'm jealous of you about the SAS business, because we've been talking about SAS not in your space for a long time in house, and we just never got around to it for some reasons. You keep getting in our case, or we keep getting other business. It's time to do the SAS. Yeah, so we have this lab works. So don't be surprised. Two three years from now, be completely different. Again, and we are talking more about SAS.

Rob Warner 39:59
That's it. I can nerd out on that stuff all day. Like if you want to nerd out, be at SASB at Google ads, we can do that anytime. Yeah, even better if there's a red wine involved.

Avi Kumar 40:07
Yeah. Yes, yes. Awesome. Thank you very much. That's Thank you. I really appreciate the time. And we got to record this so it's even better because we leverage this and maybe we'll make that part true. What do you say that you don't want a meeting all the database did you want to make money out of it? Maybe there's something come out of this. Alright, thank you so much.

 

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