The "Flying V Group" Cash Machine

where we'll actually put our money where our mouth is and get some skin in the game. Hello and welcome to this episode of Cash Machines. I'm your host, Tom Hunt, and today we have a big episode. We have Rob of Flying V Group, founder, CEO, marketing agency around $4.7 million in revenue, 17% margin at the moment. And we essentially dig in and pull out a number of things which it seems like are the reason why Flying V Group have been able to grow and sustain that level of profit. One I found super interesting is the structure of the leadership team. 3 people, CFO, CRO, and CEO. So fully incentivized, like key roles in the business have like good key players in. They're fully incentivized because they're owners of the company, but they also all feed back the stuff they learn into the marketing services. So the CRO learns something about marketing, for Flying V Group, they feed that into the services. The other thing that's super interesting is how they take profits and then invest that into clients, potentially with reduced service retainers, etc. So we'll dig into those shortly. Before we jump in, shout out to Fame for producing this show. If you'd like a show like this, go to Fame.io, tell them that Tom sent you. And of course, thanks to Rob for coming on. Now let's jump into this episode now. Most businesses treat podcasting like a creative hobby. But if you're a growth team with 5 to 250 employees, you need to treat it like a scalable B2B channel. The biggest bottleneck isn't talking, it's the production. The disconnected tools, the slow editing, and the struggle to turn one interview into 10 pieces of social content. That's why we use Riverside. It's the central nervous system of our workflow. It gives us studio-quality 4K remote recording with separate tracks for every guest, so the quality is locked in locally regardless of the internet connection. But the real win is post-production. Riverside uses AI text-based editing and instant clip creation, allowing a small team to record, edit, and publish all from one place without needing a massive production crew. If you're building a company podcast, this is the easiest way to write end-to-end. You can try Riverside Pro free for one month by using my code TOMHUNT at the link in the show notes. Rob, welcome to the show. Thanks so much, Tom, for having me. I'm really excited to be here. So the goal of today is understand how we've able to grow and then become profitable with the Flying V Group. Because what we're really trying to get to grips with on this show is how companies that don't raise like shitloads of money are able to build something that's able to add enough value into the world that the world gives them profit back. And so I think we have a great case study here. So Rob, let's jump into it first. I think in like 2 sentences, can you explain what Flying V Group does? Flying V Group is a digital marketing and advertising agency, and we partner with our clients to create for them as well what we call profit-generating machines or systems. Nice. And I think that may be a clue as to how we're able to sustain profits. But let's go to the second question, which is another simple and easy one. How do you make money? We make money by providing services. So website design, development, search engine optimization strategy, generative engine optimization with ChatGPT is becoming more and more critical, Claude perplexity. And then we do a lot of paid media buying optimization. So performance-based marketing and advertising is really the service category and support that we provide to our book of clients and partners. Nice. And do you just charge like a flat amount per month or percentage of, I don't know, revenue? We're entrepreneurs at heart for sure. Business guys through and through, myself, Brennan, and my brother Tyler, my other two partners. So we actually, you know, we have varying models, right? We'll work for sure just on a flat retainer basis for certain engagements, but we'll also engage in pay-for-performance models to where we're incentivized by driving specific performance or hitting certain KPIs. And then over the last couple of years as well, we've even kind of built out our own model in which we invest in certain opportunities potentially as well. So if it's a startup or looking to raise seed, Series A, angel money, there's been cases where we'll actually put our money where our mouth is and get some skin in the game for opportunities that we really like and then sit as a strategic partner for those businesses, which has been a lot of fun. Got it. So instead of them paying you money, you give them money and services for free. Is that how it works? In exchange for equity, obviously. Yeah, a little bit, right? It's kind of a nice model hedged on both sides. So a lot of times, yeah, it'll be an investment. And then, you know, maybe there's some adjusted even retainer sometimes to where we are recouping some of that investment back initially. But at the end of the day, it's about having that skin in the game, true partnership. And then from there, you know, we're really looking to double down on resources into those specific engagements too, uh, just because they do become so much more profitable. Sky's the limit in terms of potential earnings. So yeah, we like that model, but again, just one of those, we really try and work with, hey, what does the business need? Where do we fit? And how can we make something work if we both align with strategy, just core beliefs, core belief in terms of how you do business and how you generate profitable businesses as well. Yeah, nice. So it's almost like a client could go on that journey with you. They would come along and maybe they're like a bit smaller on the smaller side. So you would just do the monthly retainer, then they start growing and then you'd be like, okay, well, let's switch to the retainer and And performance upside. And then after like 2 years, they're crushing it. You're like, hey, well, we'll give you some money, give you a discount, and take some equity. Yeah, that's exactly right. And the progression. So, because a lot of times when we're coming into an engagement, right, you're not going to, you know, you don't open it up and they don't buy everything in the entire store the first time, right? But hey, they might buy one little thing and then that gets them to come back and buy another when they've liked the experience. So. Yeah, for us, it's a lot about creating strategic phases because we do plan on hopefully, and that's what does create that profitability is those long-term engagements, right? Um, that 12-month mark for us is really like that key pillar number to where we're shooting for at least minimum that 12 months and then beyond. And yeah, we've got a good book, 25%, 30% of our business that's been with us for 6, 7 years plus since early days. So just really putting an emphasis on retention within our business as well. Here we are talking my language, Rob. We have a belief internally at Fame. Retention is the foundation of growth. So we are totally aligned. So can you give us a rough, like a range if you're happy of the revenue so we know the size of the company? Yeah, of course. Of course. Last year we did $4.5 million in terms of top line revenue. So that was a growth from about $3.3 the year before in '25. And then in '24, we were at about 1.45. So yeah, we've seen quite a bit of growth over the last couple of years. AI has obviously been an accelerant, right, um, in terms of just where we sit in the market and people asking questions about what it's doing, how it's working. So it's been a, a fun ride over the last couple years, and, you know, we feel like we're primed and in better position than ever for '26 and moving forward, uh, as well. So it's really exciting times for us over here at Flying V Group. I mean, so some juicy growth, and I assume some value that you guys have probably accrued that isn't showing in that revenue growth and may also be showing a lower number in the revenue growth in reality is if you made investments into companies and they're getting a discount on their services so that you're getting less revenue, but somewhere else or on the balance sheet of that, your, of whatever corporation you have this asset. So it makes total sense. Are you happy to give like a rough profit margin so we know where you guys are? Like, are you burning it really fine with like a 3% margin or like taking more than that? Yeah, we definitely early days did invest a lot of money back into the business, right? In terms of people, infrastructure, operations. But yeah, this last year we ran at about a 17% profit margin. And then, yeah, we're really looking at even sharpening that pencil more, especially with our existing ARR that we have on the books. And again, not to just be the AI guy, but just operational efficiencies, being able to get more work done faster. More capacity now within the organization, right? Without having to add on gobs of headcount and additional human capital. So yeah, really focused on getting the right people in that know how to work and leverage these tools to then maximize capacity, right? Maximize performance. So, uh, yeah, definitely looking to move that number 25-30% range this upcoming year and also positioning our business now that we're mature, not that we want to sell and by no means are we, but, you know, a more attractable asset down the road, 4 or 5 years, right? When maybe something like that might make sense or looking at entertaining, you know, what people think the business is worth and working off obviously that EBITDA number. Yeah. The enabling your best humans to help more clients with the power of AI is a real, I think is an excellent way to grow. You just have to make sure that the service levels have to remain excellent even with AI. And so that's the, here's the challenge, I think. Yeah, I think you've even had to double down more on that, right? So it's like, okay, we're producing more information, we're sending more reports, right? We're sending more potential options for the client. But then I think it, again, like you said, puts even more to light making sure you can communicate what the value proposition is, whether the strategy has changed, making sure the client's on the same page and understanding, or, you know, just making sure they can handle the pace that things are moving at. As well. So you still got to stay in lockstep with them. And then, yeah, I mean, we've preached this and I've talked about it. I mean, AI is a tool and it still needs those guardrails, which those guardrails are more or less provided by humans who are the ones signing their name off on whatever the AI is producing. So I'd say relationships are even more critical now in the AI world because it's like, what's real, what's not? So the true genuine relationships, people to people, like customer service. No one likes calling into a customer service line and just getting an automated robot, even if it might eventually, you know, improve. Everyone still probably likes talking to a human that can just get their problem solved a lot faster or hear them in an empathetic way. Yeah, exactly. I'm doing for like new mini service of fame. I'm doing a lot of sales at the moment. And what I'm starting to see, I think, I don't know for sure if like replies from prospects that are clearly AI generated mouse, and they're like beautifully written and they're very, very nice. But I'm just like, I don't care if it has typos or if it isn't as nice as that. I just want a human, you know? So it works the other way as well. Yeah, I was following a gentleman on Instagram for a year or so, right? And he was— the content was good. I really— the message was good. And I know I shouldn't get too lost, but one day I'm zooming in on his video and I realized the whole thing was a AI, you know, headless or faceless, whatever they call it, right? The— and it was him, but, you know, just an AI bot that they were able to produce high volumes. And so it just, for me, even though yes, the message was still the core, it just did lack that authenticity at that point, and I felt tricked, right? So, and then I never think that's a good way to feel as a— as an audience, right, uh, that's consuming information, or obviously trying to buy or whatever the goal might be with the person producing the content. Yeah, I totally agree. Before we dig into like try to work out why you guys have grown, I want to understand the, if possible, the roles of you and your partners. Like how do you split the roles and responsibilities? This is our 10th year in business. So been at it for quite some time now. Early days, we all just assumed partner roles, right? To where it was, hey, wore a lot of different hats depending on what was going on, client fires, who had the relationships, who didn't. But over the last 2 years now, we've assumed executive executive roles. So I serve as the CEO. Brennan's our Chief Revenue Officer, which also applies not just our revenue, but it's our clients' revenue too. So it works really well in terms of, hey, the same things we're doing for ourselves to generate that result, we want to apply to our clients. And then my brother's our Chief Financial Officer. So in terms of looking at how are we moving financially as a business, but then we also lean into financials from a marketing standpoint with our clients too. We're not just Providing creative and color and art. And obviously, yes, that's a part of it, but we're definitely tying everything out on the analytics side, trying to identify those line items on a P&L or which accounts they're affecting, right? Based on what we might be agitating or the catalyst that we're trying to pull on. So creates a really good synergy between the three of us there. And then you obviously have the marketing as the overarching theme that all of us have backgrounds in and expertise. And then yeah, my day-to-day role. Someone told me CEO is the one dealing with the problems that no one else wants to deal with. So yeah, a lot of that stuff, you know, managing people, our team, we've got 34 employees now. So their needs, making sure they have what they need and are able to do their jobs effectively, client management, relationship stuff, right? And then obviously keeping us on the cutting edge for what's new and how we can improve and get better as a business overall. Makes total sense. All right, let's dig into the meat now, because probably a fraction of agencies get to your size, and then probably even less get to your size and maintain that level of profitability. You said around 17%. What do you think it is that you guys do that have enabled you to get there? I think two things. One is our consistency, and a simple example for us is just how we treat meetings and meeting cadences. So we have like weekly standup calls, whether they're internal, client-related, doesn't even matter, but they're really those accountability checks to where we're making sure that we're constantly moving things forward and we're never stagnant. So our clients like that to where they feel like we're constantly evolving on top of things and it forces that communication that I'm talking about, whether good or bad, right? If things are bad, communication's even more critical. So So having those regular check-ins, meetings, making sure attendance is tracked and people are showing up. If someone can't show up, that's the leader. We always have a backup for that call to where, okay, they might not be able to take it 100% forward, but even if it's 40 to 50% to pick up for that person. So I'd say that's a big one. And then really just the little things. We preach that. I have a background in coaching American football. And you know, we always would preach the littlest things to the point where like, hey, if you line up, you know, even just an inch offside before the play starts and we score a touchdown, it's coming all the way back, even though everybody else might've executed perfectly. So yeah, we really just hone in on the details. We don't let stuff slide. We hold each other again, accountability, another buzzword that said twice there, but we do, we hold each other accountable in terms of our performance, the quality of the work, and we're not afraid to talk about it transparently too. It's okay to make a recommendation or suggestion to a team member. To make it a bit more tangible, is there an example of something that you have like very strong guidelines around in terms of detail? For example, I know there's an agency called ClientBoost in the US that their CEO was like super specific on the format of the email signature of all their team members. And something like that. Is there something that you have similar to that? Yeah, we don't, you know, you definitely have those brand pieces, right? Get your LinkedIn dialed in this way and our signature. But I think for us, it's in our operational processes. So SOPs, standard operating procedures for us. So understanding that, hey, we've done this for a long time and we've seen these repeatable patterns over the years. And we do believe, and that's, I think, what our clients are hiring us for, is that there's a right way. And a wrong way of doing things. So we're very meticulous about documentation, showing kind of what the steps are in the process to drive to the specific results. And then, you know, hey, we also have, if things are not going the right way, what is the action or plan of action or remediation steps that you might need to take to correct course, right? Or how do you present those challenges and issues to the client? And then what that's able to do is obviously maintain a consistent theme throughout the entire organization. We are all speaking the same language. So a really unified message, regardless of if you're talking to our SEO team or our paid media team or our social media marketing team, you're getting that same experience and understanding that this is how Flying V Group works because they are very regimented in terms of how they do things. Okay, I assume a key to the growth and profitability as well is probably getting good clients for low cost, if possible. I've got Ahrefs in front of me. Getting clients and the right, yeah, the right, you're exactly right, the right clients too. So I think over the last few years, we've really put an emphasis on identifying who that is, our ICP, ideal customer persona. And then when we are talking to somebody, you know, it's okay for us to walk away from the table too, if we feel like, hey, You know, we're maybe not getting the full picture, or when we're talking about goals and attribution, well, we're not going to give you our revenue or lead numbers or whatever the KPIs are. Well, then it's hard for us. How are we going to know if we're performing? Sometimes there's misalignment there. I'm sales discovery too. So for me, it really is just feeling out the individual. Do we want to work with them? Allow them the opportunities to kind of even flip the scripts to access our team and resources and secret sauce. Sure. I mean, we're not too secretive. We tell everybody what we're doing because our main lead source is just our website, right? Inbound search, people finding us online, which over the years is, yeah, definitely driven down cost per acquisition because we've never, ever, ever relied on any sort of paid media or PR push or anything that's artificially inflated. It's all been through earned trust type media that we work through primarily. Yeah, I see the number of referring domains counting up here over the decade and we're at around 2,000 here on Ahrefs. So like a significant amount. Is that just like consistently putting good stuff on your domain and people linking to it? That's right. Yeah. Same thing. Like we don't buy links. You know, yeah, we've done the press release here, there for new hires or announcements, et cetera. But yeah, it has been just through heavy content production on the website. Yeah, if you're looking at Ahrefs, you're probably seeing too, we're work— we did a content pruning exercise and we had the new algo that dropped. So we're working through some things right now where we definitely push the needle in terms of scaled content on our own site. But that's what we're willing to do too, is a lot of the services or not a lot, all of the services that we're providing, we're either using for ourselves or have used at one time, or we've really tested and kind of honed. What works and doesn't work as a flying V group, as a sandbox. And then, all right, when we can produce and replicate consistently, we start to roll that out through the client base. Now that's been wrapped up pretty nicely with the bow in our different service and department categories that you see. How specific are you with the customer persona? Presumably US-based business. I think you, if B2B or B2C, right? And then if they're like a, a range of revenue. Good question. So yeah, when you say ICP, right, you think about, oh, well, this type of person, sure, in terms of role in this particular category. The one thing nuance for us is category, vertical, we don't really care. It's like, hey, everyone needs to get their product or service in front of the right people and get them interested. So it really has to do with size, I'd say, right? So $5-10 million on the low end in terms of top line revenue. And then working upwards from there. And then a lot of it too, just mindset. You know, it might be a smaller business, maybe that's only doing a million bucks in revenue, but hey, guess what? That founder has the same mindset we had when we were at a million bucks and he's ready to grow and accelerate and put in the time and the effort and see it through with some sort of longer-term engagement, right? Because as you know, there's no flip the switch, turn it on and everything starts working. So. Yeah, again, it's definitely alignment, but $5 to $10 million on the low end. And I mean, we've worked with enterprise-level clients too. So a lot of times it's just finding a fit. Sometimes we're doing everything as almost like a pseudo marketing department, or sometimes, especially in our SEO/Geo service, which really is our bread and butter in terms of what we love and what we really excel at too, we might come into an enterprise project and just focus on that specifically. Yeah, it makes sense. You mentioned the scale content. Was this essentially because we now have AI that can create loads of content, publishing that and then it working well initially, and then as Google changes all the time, it like deranks stuff. Is that what happened? Yeah. So with the AI, right, you will see like, okay, if you do have someone abusing and they're just pushing the AI slop, right? In no way would we ever do that with our site because we maintain a strong domain authority, domain ranking. I think even in the 60s that Ahrefs reports. So we'll utilize AI at least to get the initial framework template and then, okay, there's actual writers, experts coming in. I go into our blogs and make edits, add the insights before they get published. We actually made a mistake with our site. We deleted a bunch of pages that were driving traffic by accident. And so we've been working, we've— I got those back up, we reindexed everything. But either which way, you know, it's kind of just an exercise in general with SEO and GEO that there's a lot of that maintenance, right? You're needing to clean up existing content. Your '25 content needs to be updated for '26. Yes, there was a huge algorithm drop early April, which I think more than 50, 60% of sites have seen some sort of precipitous decline, or Google was just overinflating numbers, which we've heard a lot of that as well through their Search Console. So, but yeah, scaled content is definitely, if you do it right, it can, it will work, right? You just need, again, that editorial process. And there's a limit to, you sometimes can hit that ceiling and need to know, all right, we can dial it back a little bit for these next couple months. Makes sense. I guess you guys make those potential mistakes so that you don't have to deal with the clients, you know, so it's like you're honing your own processes. That's right. Makes sense. Let's move on to what we're doing with the cash. And I think you gave us a clue earlier, presumably the money that you're investing into these other companies comes from Flying V Group, right? It's excess retained profits. That's correct. Yep. So that's one example for sure. And then, yeah, if you want me to give others, I can too. On that, feel free to not answer this if you, if you don't think you should, but is it Flying V Group that takes equity in those companies, or is it like a separate entity, or you guys personally? We've done both there too, right? Yeah. So obviously, as with 3 partners, myself, Brennan, and Tyler, we all have to be on the same page, right? If it's, hey, we're going to invest in this business as Flying V Group, and yeah, we definitely have those types of engagements, SaaS, Um, it's kind of our big one, that example. So, uh, '21, we invested $3 million cap in their angel seed round, and they just raised Series A at $62 million through capital on the East Coast in New York. Give us the two cents, ten cents overview of what they do. We'll also link to them below as well. Sorry. Yeah, of course. They're a pasta sauce company, right? So when we say we don't really care, yeah. And then our most recent, Endera, was an investment, electric bus conversions, so transit shuttle buses, and they're taking— wow— previous diesel, right, natural gas. So a lot of environmental regulations and just the ability to put charging infrastructure in airports and those closed-loop facilities. So that's another one we're excited. And then yeah, with Saws, we supported their entire go-to-market rollout, early days, paid media buying, and that was us sitting side by side and just helping out what are good friends of mine as well. And then within Darrow, we're working their performance marketing directly with their sales team. They're more mature. We invested in their Series A round, but really helping them to take that next step in terms of growth from a $40 million company to hopefully in excess of $100 million is, is our next target. Pretty good, right? Because not only do you have access to probably all their numbers, maybe not their full P&L, but definitely their marketing numbers. And you've also seen how their founders and their team work over an extended period of time before you invest. So you actually have a better view than any investor. That's exactly right. Yeah, a lot of it is, you know, everyone wants to talk about partnerships and transparency and, and those things, but a lot of times that can be hard to find. But this is a way that, yeah, really does build that, just the accountability. We've even done some private placement with public companies as well to where we're actually, you know, working with a publicly traded company at that point, which has been a lot of, lot of fun. And that's even more transparency there. But yes, you're exactly right. It helps us do a better job though, too. And so the founders, when they see that and understand that, and it could be a private business too, right? There's no reason. There's a lot of our retainer-based clients too that do. They give us those numbers and it, we perform better for them because we know what's going on. We can see where we're going and we can make adjustments a lot faster because we know how it's actually affecting the business, what we're doing. And then also after you've made the investment, they're probably less likely to churn because any new provider, it's not going to have the same level of energy and upside. That's right. Yeah. We're on the flip side. I'm more incentivized to where, hey, I definitely know those businesses that we sit on the cap table and have a piece to where I can very easily say, hey, let's spend a few more hours here or there, right? To make sure we're pushing this thing over the line or, Yeah, it's a lot of my, myself too, pulling up by the bootstraps and getting in there when necessary to just figure out how we can make this work together with what we're good at. So yeah, it's been very fun and we, we anticipate more and more of those opportunities and deals and even becoming more of a primary way of doing business just because we see so many benefits on multitude of sides. It makes a lot of sense, Rob. Wow. I think. That is like one of the key things for me. That and the fact that you guys, like all three of you founders, are in leadership roles, like fully committed to the business. And also the roles are not on delivery, but the stuff you do in your essentially internal roles, you're feeding back into delivery, right? So CFO Sierra and you, CEO, I think that's a very powerful mechanism to ensure that you, you do stay on the cutting edge. In the finance, in the revenue, and in other marketing things. So those to me are like the two key levers for growth. And these are two unique levers that we haven't seen so far on the show. So Rob, I appreciate you coming on. We'll obviously link to the business, your LinkedIn, the path to Source Company, and the bus company you mentioned. Anything else we should mention or link to below? Yeah, I mean, I think just regular social medias, right? @FlyingVGroup. General handle for our company. And then myself personally, just my name as well. And then yeah, I'm somebody, I mean, I mean it, open door policy. If you're local, I go grab coffee with people, you know, and just love building relationship. And then I think we're at the point in our business too, where it is just as much about who versus what we're doing. We've kind of got the what dialed, you know, we still need to improve and get better and be resilient and vigilant as things change, but It's also, hey, who do we want to let in the doors? Who wants to let us into their doors, right? And building that long-term relationship and people. So would love to start a relationship conversation with anybody. So yeah, definitely open inbox, LinkedIn, my email. I can give you my email, Tom, maybe send that through privately if anyone's interested. But yeah, I would be excited to chat with anybody about anything, business, entrepreneur, marketing, you name it. Sounds good, Rob. Thank you for coming on. Yeah, thank you so much, Tom. Awesome job as well as a host. Thank you. Okay, team, what do we think about this cash machine flying V Group? Send me an email if you have any feedback on the show. If you'd like me to tweak the format, I'm trying to follow the same format. So we start off just understanding what the business does, understanding how they make money, current revenue and current profit. And then we dig in to understand how they're able to do that, ideally getting 2 or 3 things. And then we talk about what they're doing with the cash. So that's the format. If you like it, let me know. If you don't, let me know. tom@tomhunt.io is the email, or feel free to ping me on LinkedIn. So thanks to Fame for producing the show. Thanks to Rob for coming on, and thanks to you for listening.