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You're listening to Carrie Letz's Financial Survival
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Financial Survival Network now more than ever.

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Welcome you are listening to watching the
Financial Survival Network. I'm your host,

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Carrie lets Well, if you've got
an agency and you're looking to scale it,

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then you're going to want to hear
from this person you've got on the

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show before, Dave Valentine. Dave, great to have you back. So

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give us an idea of what you
do, your philosophy of business, and

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how you make business work for others. Yeah. So I'm a serial entrepreneur

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and business owner. I own seven
different companies. We're in the process of

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selling a few of them right now, which is which is fun and stressful

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all the same time. And Yeah, the basic way that we look at

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any sort of business is pretty simple. We believe in creating outrageous offers,

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something that sounds too good to be
true, but it is actually very profitable

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for the company that we companies that
we own, and really figuring out your

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marketing and sales in ahead of time
and then fulfilling on the back end,

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because most companies get really concerned with
I gotta get the product right. I

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gotta get the product right, and
it's like, well, it's never going

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to be done. It's an infinite
game. So you might as well start

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marketing and selling right now and getting
better and better at your product or service

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as time goes on. Because money
affords you a lot of runway, right,

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So you accept imperfection and it's better
to execute than it is to you

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know, have paralysis by analysis.
Right. Yeah, most agency owers,

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most business owners that I know,
they're doing less than a million dollars in

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revenue. They're afraid they're free to
take a risk on doing some sort of

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outreach, or they don't want to
come across a stammy, or they don't

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want to waste a whole bunch of
advertising. And so what they do instead

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is they refer their way network,
their way to sometimes a million dollars company.

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That's what I did with my first
agency, and it will kill you.

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I mean it nearly killed me at
the age of twenty nine. And

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so what would really start to do
as we put together this program called the

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Dream Agency quests for marketing, advertising
and web DEVID design agencies. The real

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idea is simple, Hey, listen, I'm going to show you the things

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that we've done to scale four of
the agencies that I've owned over the past

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ten years, the seven figures plus, and you can go execute on them

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yourself. And so that's kind of
the fun part is being able to teach

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and train people on how to do
what we do because we need more successful

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entrepreneurs and we need more people that
are providing high value to the business community

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at large. Okay, so how
did you wind up getting into this?

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You mentioned you had your own business
that was about to kill you. What

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happened? Yeah, So in the
first business, I knew that I was

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good at my practice. I was
young, I was twenty five, but

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I knew that I wanted to build
a company, and so I had no

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idea how to do that. You
know, didn't know how to get a

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client, didn't know how to do
the legal side. How do you actually

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have w two staff versus ten ninety
nine? What's the difference? And just

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like most entrepreneurs, I had to
figure all that stuff out, and I

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worked really hard to go get a
million dollar agency built up, you know,

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and we had we were doing social
media and social media advertising and web

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devon design, and I was kind
of everything to everyone. If you had

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a checkbook and it would spend,
we were interested in working with you.

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And so that's kind of where we
found ourselves. When I turned twenty nine,

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my doc just said, hey,
listen, you know we ranso tests,

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said, hey, you're the most
stressed out person we've ever tested.

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If you keep going like this,
you're not going to see forty. And

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so I really had to change how
I thought about business, and so that

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that led to me going, okay, how did companies get sustainable? You

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know, meetings books? Because I
was having all these conversations and they were

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small potatoes. I mean, it's
funny. I was looking back through some

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old contracts recently and one of the
things that I saw gary was this agreement

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for five hundred dollars a month.
And I remember at the time thinking that's

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small potatoes. But we needed and
I haven't sold anything for five hundred bucks

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in a long time, and so, you know, it's really it's really

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fascinating when you move out of a
deprivation or starvation mentality towards your lean generation.

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All of a sudden, if you
have a hundred calls this month,

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you're not worried about closing this call
that you're about to have, you have

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ninety nine more. And so that
really changes the dynamics of what's possible for

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an organization, for a company,
And that's what we're really teaching people is

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not only how to set up their
lead generation, but hey, how do

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you scale? How do you operate? It's really easy when you're the one

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that's doing all this stuff that's providing
the results. Man, it's really really

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easy for you to generate those results. But how do you go from working

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in the business to working on the
business and actually being a business owner instead

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of just entrepreneur. And that's kind
of where the sweet spot is for a

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lot of these agencies is they're trying
to figure out how to make that transition

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from doing everything to having other people
do things for them instead. Right,

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all right, So scaling up obviously
it's got a lot to do with delegation.

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But as a solopreneur, it's really
hard to let go of the reins

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and trust somebody something times, isn't
it. Yeah, And there's there's lots

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of pitfalls, right like, So
one of my favorite things to tell people

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is, I'm like, all right, your administrative tasks should be the first

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thing that you get off your plate, you know, because your admin tasks,

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even as a solopreneur, they're still
going to take you five to ten

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hours a week, you know.
And it's a little dinky things sometimes,

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but there are things that are significant. So hire an admin assistant as your

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first kind of hire, and then
after that you're gonna want to try and

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find someone to fit what you don't
have. Right. So, I've talked

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to some founders, They're like,
I'm just not great at selling. I'm

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like, okay, well, you're
gonna have to get good. That's always

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my recommendation. You're gonna have to
be good enough that you can train a

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salesperson. So what have you brought
someone in to take some of the creative

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work off your plate? Right?
What have you brought someone in that could

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be a designer like you, or
that maybe they could run some of the

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social media platforms, or maybe they
could handle some of the conversations with clients

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and that would free you up to
do more sales so that you get more

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of that experience under your belt.
And then once you do that, maybe

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does make sense to hire a salesperson
after you've kind of figured out that sales

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process, because no salesperson, no
matter how good they are, are they

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going to be able to figure out
how to sell like new sell. They

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just won't be able to do it. So it's really kind of homing to

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the point in your journey where you
realize, Okay, the first step I

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have to do is get the admin
stuff off. Then the next step is

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I need to get some of the
work that I do in the business off

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my plate so that I can figure
out how to sell, and then really

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bringing in that salesperson potentially as the
next hire. All right, So that

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but you said people don't like selling, and you say, well, you

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better get good at it. How
do you get good at doing something you

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don't really want to do. Yeah, I had a conversation with somebody recently

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and dear friend of mine. She
was talking about she owned some coffee shops,

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you recently sold them. She was
talking about how one day she got

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a text message from someone. This
was in the throes of the pandemic right,

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and they had been exposed to COVID. And she opened up her phone

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and looked at the schedule and saw
that there was no one to cover the

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shift, like, absolutely no one. And she'd owned this coffee shop for

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over a decade at this point,
very successful, and she had to go

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in and go work a shift.
And she was not happy about it,

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right, like, that is just
not what she wants to be doing on

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a Tuesday. And she wasn't who
getting that text message at six am.

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But she realized she had a choice, right. The choice was I could

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either be miserable about this and be
upset order I can realize I hadn't done

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this sort of work in five years. I'm probably not going to have to

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do it again anytime soon, so
I might as well just enjoy it.

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I might as well enjoy talking with
customers, making coffee and being in the

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shop, because when else she didn't
get to do it. And that's my

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real encouragement to people are like I
don't like to sell. I'm like,

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I get it. There are things
that I don't like in my business all

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the time that I have to do. How could you flip it? Hey,

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I only have to do this for
so long, because we're going to

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be so successful that I'm gonna have
someone else doing this, So I might

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as well just enjoy getting to know
customers and clients right now and understanding who

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they are and what they have going
on. All right, Well, lets's

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first love of business is you will
when you start your own business, you

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will spend the majority of your time
doing the things that you least enjoy.

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That's right, that's right true,
oh, one hundred percent. You know,

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like when my wife started her business, she didn't have anything, just

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like I didn't have anything, but
she did it. Just recently. She

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started a business a couple of years
ago, and she had these experiences that

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I had forgotten, Kerry, Like
you know the experience of how do I

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put together a website? Where's the
domain? How do I set up my

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email in Gmail? Like all these
things that as you grow your company,

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and my companies are quite large now, you just don't think about those things.

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Are taking care of the myriad of
staff that we have, I don't

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need to think about this. We're
fine. And so it really kind of

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changes the conversation when you have to
go back to, oh, yeah,

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I have to teach myself how to
do everything. Yeah, agreed, agreed.

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So three top pieces of advice you
give anyone who has started an agency,

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thinking about starting it, or wants
to scale it up. Yeah.

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First thing is focus on one service
or one industry, right, So people

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always talk about nicheing down and what
they're usually talking about is an industry.

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The other way that you can niche
is into a specific service, and that's

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my preferred method, honestly. Carry
The reason why I say it's my preferred

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method is if you're going to niche
down into an industry, you're going to

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need to provide a lot of services. And what that ends up looking like

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is for every service that you provide, you need to have a staff member

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that's full on, that's running that
and providing that for your clients. So

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I always tell people be very cautious
about niching down into an industry until you

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get larger. The second thing that
I would say is prioritize your lead generation.

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My favorite method for lead generation is
old school. It's email and cold

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direct mail follow up and it works
wonders and if you have consistent meetings being

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booked on your calendar every single month, you will close business just by accident

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the general averages yea kick in absolutely. I mean it's it's really funny.

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We figured out that even a terrible
salesperson will close five percent of the deals

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that come through the door just because
they want to work with us, right,

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So eighty percent of life is just
showing up right, Yeah, yeah,

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like they just did the job and
they're here for it. And then

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our top closers will close like thirty
five percent because they're very skilled. But

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even if you just mets it up. You know, you have twenty calls

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in a month, which isn't that
many. You're going to close one of

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them by accident, is what I
love to say. And then the other

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ones you will close because you've gotten
better at your craft, right, But

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prioritise your lead generation. Getting those
meetings booked on your calendar is svidal in

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order to get where you want to
go. And then the last thing is

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enjoy the process, right, Like
I love to tell my teams whenever we're

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first getting started, I'm like,
it's not always going to be this way.

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We're not always going to be this
small. We're not always going to

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have this little staff. It's gonna
get bigger. It's going to change.

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We're have different people here, so
just enjoy where we're at right now,

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and that changes the conversation for people
around what it looks like to engage with

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work on a regular basis. Hey, that's such a great point. We

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will leave it at that. Really
appreciate your coming on the show again,

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Dave. People want to find out
more about you, connect with you on

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the web. Where is the best
place to find you? Yeah, they

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can go to Dave Valentine dot coo
and check me out there, and if

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they want to reach out Dave at
Dave Valentine dot ceo, they can hit

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00:13:13,559 --> 00:13:16,519
me up with an email. Thanks
for having me on, Carrie, It's

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fun, pleasure and link to the
show note in the show notes on Financial

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Survival Network will bring you right to
Dave's site, and while you're there to

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00:13:26,360 --> 00:13:28,840
sign up for your free newsletter,
Dave Leisure, Thanks for stopping by,

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Thanks carry, thanks for listening to
Carrie Let's Financial Survival Network, your solution

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00:13:35,720 --> 00:13:41,039
to today's trying times. For the
latest, go to Financial Survival Network dot

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00:13:41,080 --> 00:13:45,240
com. Financial Survival Network now more
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