Competitor Interview: Did They Build a Better Agency Model? (ft. Ezra w/ Green Frog Web Design) | Episode 212

Jake: I think it'd be really cool if we had our competitors on the podcast. Everyone's just scared of competition.

Co-host: This is the hardest problem that I have personally with these people is that I don't like.

Ezra: I don't vibe with them. Um, I think you have a limited mindset.

Co-host: I got some people that I don't really like.

Jake: I guess I can name somebody.

Co-host: We do have a pretty strong ad strength.

Ezra: We do Google Ads. I don't think you should be running ads all the time.

Jake: I'll say this. We do recommend running ads the entire year.

Ezra: It doesn't make sense.

Co-host: Why'd you do the business in the first place?

Ezra: To be honest, I don't enjoy web design.

Jake: It's kind of what you're. It's kind of what you think.

Co-host: It's your bread and butter.

Jake: You build your entire business model off of web design. You're like, I hate that.

Co-host: Maybe you get a little burnt out after doing it for so long, and you got to figure out a new take on it. That way you can find where you like it again.

Ezra: I love business. I love marketing, but it's not like I even necessarily enjoy the work, per se.

Jake: What a humble guy in business. I want to win. I want to be better than everybody.

Ezra: It's one thing for you, Jake, to say, oh, we're the best show rather than tell. Makes a big difference.

Jake: We're number one. I think we know a thing or

Ezra: two about SEO for now.

Jake: I'm sorry, I can't hear you from page two, Ezra. All right, how we're going? Cool. Ezra, thanks for joining us.

Ezra: Glad to be here.

Jake: We, uh. So to. To give some context to the audience, I. I posed this question to. Well, it was. It was a question to our Discord, but it was also just kind of like something I wanted to do anyways, regardless of what anybody in the Discord said. But I was like, I think it'd be really cool if we had our, I guess, quote, unquote competitors on the podcast. Um, because there are a lot of people who listen to this who, uh. Well, we bring on agencies all over the spectrum, like restaurant agencies, legal agencies. Everybody who's essentially not a competitor just has a different business model from us. Um, and then in the Discord and on the subreddit, we see a lot of people who. They want to start dipping their toes into other or into a certain niche or something, but they get scared because they feel like it's saturated. There's tons of competitors, and, I don't know, everyone's just Scared of competition. And I thought it was kind of silly because we talk to our competitors all the time, like, you being one of them. And, uh, I remember early on. Like, early on when you were setting up Green Frog, you talking to me about pricing structures and things like that, and I don't remember us having a problem with it at all.

Ezra: Oh, you did?

Jake: Yeah. So, um, I think it might be good if everybody just kind of like, uh. It'd be really cool because I think our audience knows how our business is structured, like, very well, because we talk about it all the time, which will open the floor up to you, too. So feel free to mirror any questions that we ask. You just ask them right back to us. Um, and then, uh, it'd be really cool to, like, understand how you go to market. What's your sales strategy? Like, what do you. What do you offer? Like, what's your value? Your usp, as some people say. Um, and then just. You can ask us, too. But before we get into that, uh, why don't just take us back to the beginning? Why are you. Why do you have a marketing agency? What got you into all of this?

Ezra: Sure. So just one quick note here. Um, on my line here. Sorry, Jake, it's just flat. I'm just making sure it's still actually being recorded.

Jake: Yeah, yeah, it's flat for me, too. But as long as it's. As long as we can hear you, you're all good.

Ezra: Okay, sorry. Because I see your lines, kind of squiggly lines going. And then I couldn't see any on mine, so I'm like, okay, actually, because

Co-host: where I see you, you're. You're totally fine on from my view, so.

Jake: Oh, yeah, yeah. Actually, yeah, you are coming out of mine too, so. All good.

Ezra: Oh, okay. Sorry. Derail it. Okay, rewind. Okay, so going back to. Depends how far back you want to go. When I graduated from college, um, I'm a pastor. I was a pastor then, so I took a church during college. I had roofed for, like, five years. Been the foreman of a roofing company. And I realized I do not want to do this when I am 40. And so I was like, okay, I've got to find something else to do. Long story short, I started a painting company. The old. How do you get leads? I did the old lead service things. So I was doing, like, HomeAdvisor, Thumbtack, those brutal things. It was awful. Spending crazy money. Had no idea what I was doing. And so that's when I really started to delve into websites and Google business profiles. Uh, over the course of time we ended up moving 1,498 miles. And yes, I've checked right around there. And obviously you can't just restart a painting business where I we're outside of Dallas there the market was just different for painting. So I ended up getting into lawn care. And I'll keep this really abbreviated, but as I began to get into it, I used the same lessons that I'd learned. And what I realized was 99% of lawn care businesses were not doing some of this simple online marketing. So I first started trying to help people with their Google business profiles and charge them like monthly for that. But wow. And even still today I feel like I talk about all the time, people still aren't doing it. Uh, so it was just a really hard sell. Um, so we ended up going into websites then and over the course of time in 23, I've been trying to do that for a little while, helping people with their marketing. We ended up moving to the middle of nowhere in British Columbia, um, to pastor a church here. And I tell people there's more bears than people and it's half true. So this is not the place, uh, to do a service based business just because there's no one around. So that's when I did the whole hundred calls a day thing. Great way to hate your life, by the way. I wouldn't recommend it. That didn't even work. Um, and that's kind of where I was already doing it for a little bit. But that's when I really started diving into it. And as more of a full time deal in 2023, you did the a

Jake: hundred calls a day thing to get clients for your agency.

Ezra: Oh yeah. Don't do it unless you want to date your life.

Jake: Yeah. What led you down like that path of like the acquisition route? Did you like when you were like, hey, I'm learning this marketing stuff for myself when I was doing the painting and the lawn care side of things. But like you go into the agency side of things, like why, why the call route?

Ezra: Yeah. So when on the service based business, obviously it's all local. So like local SEO is a lot easier to break into the market just because no one's doing it. But when you're in the middle of nowhere, it's not like you're gonna get. And up here most businesses don't even have websites. It's kind of like 20, 30 years behind everywhere else. Like we're in the middle of nowhere. Um, and so like you're not getting a local client. So there was a business coach that I really liked, and I still like his stuff, and he advised that. And so. And actually my first day doing it, I got a customer. So I kind of got faked into it thinking, oh, this is a great way to do it.

Jake: It's like the slot machines. You go and you win big and you just can't stop.

Ezra: It got me. And then I think out of the thousands of calls I made, one of them was a decent customer. He was with me for probably 14 months, maybe a little longer, which wasn't. I was happy with for just getting started. And then the other guy was a terrible client. Low priced. Um, and then I'm like, you know what? I'd rather just go do something else rather than make these calls all day.

Jake: We had, um, one of our guys, uh, we had on our podcast, aj. Uh, you've probably heard a couple of his episodes. I think he's been on twice now. But he, uh, he said something in his most recent one, which was how to get. How to get clients with cold calling. Because that's what basically he does, except it's more like a warm call. Um, um, he basically stalks his prey before he calls. And uh, he was like, he's like, I mean, if you do the a hundred calls a day route, like, great, but if you can win a client that way, you can lose them just as easily that way.

Ezra: Yeah, it's a good point. And I just hated doing it. And what I found is that even goes back to my previous experience when I, when people started chasing me as a business, the sales process changed. Like, uh, I'm sure most of us, or maybe not, are familiar with something like HomeAdvisor. Basically, they sell leads to home service businesses. They'll sell it to like five or six different businesses. And I would literally call them within minutes. You have to. And most homeowners are price shopping. They don't know who you are yet because they haven't heard of you. They just want someone. They don't care. What I found with cold calling is it's really the same way. Like, they don't care about you. And I don't mean that, mean they just don't care. They don't know you. You're interrupting their day. So, like, the whole sales process is different. Rather, if someone searches, like in our case, for both of us, lawn care marketing agency or lawn care web design, or it's a referral or a podcast and they're coming to us, like the whole sales process is so different. You're not? No, I do follow ups. So like I'm following up with people but I'm not having to chase them to get their business.

Co-host: So are you just. So I understand it, right? Are you saying that you switched then from outbound to inbound in, in some form of inbound? There's different ways that you can do inbound. Right, but is that, did you switch that strategy and then if so, what kind of inbound do you do now?

Ezra: Yeah, so I only did the cold calls for maybe a month or so and I did get two clients, but I just hated my life and it's not worth it. Um, I'd rather go do something else. So what I ended up switching to was, um, a lot of podcast marketing. I love podcasts. I listen to way too much or probably not too much. I've learned so much with it. And so in our industry, as you guys know, there's so many podcasts, everyone in their grandma wants to start one and half of them do so. But there's some really good ones. So partnering with podcast has been a huge piece of our strategy and then referral partners. Um, and one thing that really helped me and I was actually, oddly enough some random young ah, lady saw my website ended up or one of the websites we made came to our website and I was just telling her yesterday, like, if you, when you're just getting started, you're going to have to have. I really like Alex Ramosi talks about like the no brainer offer. So when I started I literally had just like a no brainer offer where it was literally $1 for the first month and then we guaranteed to get it done in two weeks or less or it's free for a year. Um, and this was before the whole AI deal where you can spin up something super quick.

Jake: So like you're talking about website builds, right? Yes, correct. Okay, gotcha.

Ezra: Website builds. So literally all the risk was on us. And you know what if they chose to cancel? They chose to cancel. But the nice thing about websites is they're really sticky. And to be honest, when we first started our products was not, it was good, it was better than what most people huh, have. But it wasn't great just because you don't have the reps yet. But because it was such a no brainer offer, like what if they said yes and they lost a dollar? And I actually would have done it for free. I just wanted their card on file. So because the problem is if you do it for free, then you have to ask One month later, because we do kind of a monthly process. Then you have to ask for their billing. So you're basically having to ask for the sale twice. But if you have their card information, obviously they know you're not trying to be sneaky. Of course. Um, then you have to only m. Have to ask for the sale once.

Jake: That's super smart. Because my advice.

Co-host: Write that down.

Jake: Write that down.

Co-host: That's good.

Jake: My advice to new agency owners is always like, do it for free until like, you're confident in your ability and you can actually sell it. And it's something like real intangible versus like just going out there and being like, hey, I'm going to start building websites. I'm going to charge $2,000, even though I've never built one in practice. But like you charging $1, just have that payment on profile just to remove the friction for when they say yes to the next thing. That I think is genius.

Ezra: Yeah. And that's where I've tried, because friction people at Rise and, well, probably, probably a lot of the people listing in either are somewhat related to web design. Every single click, every single step you add, it's going to reduce the amount of people that sign up. It sounds so kind of ridiculous, but it's true. Uh, you look at Amazon with their one click checkout, there's a reason why they do it. And so like, we want to make our buying process, like, stupidly easy. Not that people are dumb, we're just sadly all inherently lazy. Uh, and recognizing that fact can really help us go a long way to getting new customers. Especially when you get started. Because that's the hard part. I'd rather quote, unquote, work for three at first, then call 100, 200 people, uh, and just not enjoy it.

Co-host: So did you niche down or did the niche just like decide itself as you talk to more people or developed? Because people do it both ways. Right. And I'm wondering, especially for you, saying that you're in an area where you can't just go knock on doors or maybe your, you know, local chamber of commerce is something that you're still going to have to drive to everybody, right? Like what, what worked for you, did it? Is that how you started? As you went and said, I'm going to go do lawn care, or did you let it develop itself? And what does it look like now? Do you have the bulk of them there or do you have other niches too?

Ezra: Yeah, so 99% of our work is all lawn and landscape businesses. And really from the Start. We were pretty focused on that. Uh, when I was doing the 100 calls, which it didn't work, but I was just going to Google Maps, going to the city and then putting in lawn care. And I would literally just go down and call and I would get bookings. But it's just the same thing we talked about. So now we do work in other niches. Like, we have some pool cleaning, uh, some different things, but we're not trying to advertise it. There was times where I pivoted my website, but what I found is if I could be super specific, super clear. So as soon as someone hits, they're not like, I wonder if this guy serves a lot of landscapers. Like, as soon as you get there, you know, okay, hey, this is for me. And that's a really good selling proposition because, like, one I just like you guys. You know, you've been around long enough. You guys know, like, when someone talks about hardscaping or retaining wall, you're not like, what's that? Um, if you're in our space, you know what that is. And so some of these things I could say, like, hey, that other business, they've never heard of what you're dealing with. Or even, uh, when you get into things like in our green industry, like fertilization, weed control, there's some odd nuances that if you don't know the industry, like, you're just not going to know. So that's a really good selling point that basically, for most of our agency journey, we've been very focused on that.

Co-host: Did you. Okay, give me a sense of time here. Did you build the sites yourself when you started? What size? Are. Do you have people on the team now or are you still doing the delivery too?

Ezra: Yeah, so no, I. Let's see, for about first two years, I was doing everything. At this point, we have, uh, four team members and then myself, and then I'm completely out of delivery. So we do the. I do the intake calls, um, do sales calls. I'm working. And then my goal is to get. I'm not completely out. There are some things I do on the back end, um, on the delivery. But, uh, to be honest, I don't enjoy web design. I love business, I love marketing. But it's not like I even necessarily enjoy the work per se, of developing.

Jake: Sure.

Co-host: That's. I'm like, picturing this jump in my head of going from pastor to web designer, and I really like, oh, I'm still a pastor. You are?

Ezra: Yeah, I have been the whole time. Do you think he chooses to live

Jake: in the middle of nowhere in British Columbia because it's fun?

Ezra: Hey, I do. I do live on a lake. That's. How big is that? I just canoed across with my kids two weeks ago. It's over a mile across. And last year, I shot a bear probably 50ft from my front door. So there's pretty cool things. But I would not think of it otherwise, probably.

Jake: That is pretty. I mean. I mean, yeah, that is pretty cool. I think. I. We're, like, obviously, like, we're moving here soon, and, uh, everywhere we decide to move, it's like we got to be near, like, 30 minutes from an airport. That's just our lifestyle. So I don't know if I. I don't know if I could do it, but I would love to vacation where you're at.

Ezra: It's pretty wild. Except the winners are crazy.

Co-host: I want that deeply. I just dream of the day that I could.

Ezra: Houses are cheap. Come on, Cody.

Co-host: I just want to peace out. I want to peace out so bad.

Jake: But, uh, everything's got to be Canadian.

Ezra: Yeah, just say a real often.

Co-host: Can we. You're Canadian? Do you have your.

Ezra: I'm a dual.

Co-host: Okay. Okay, okay, okay, gotcha. That makes sense.

Jake: Ezra, can you give me a timeline here? Because, like, uh, we used. When did you start diving, uh, into, like, I wanted the marketing agency, and then. How old were you?

Ezra: Yeah, so it was December, I think. 21. And I first started out as Lawn and Landscape Consulting, but the problem is that sounds really highfalutin, and I was not there.

Jake: Wait, what's this word? Highfalutin. I've never heard this before.

Ezra: You never heard of highfalutin?

Jake: Right? Is that what it means? Cody, did you know this? Basically, I've never heard of this. It's a new word. Falutin. Is that saying that right?

Ezra: High falutin. Yeah.

Jake: All right, Swanky bougie.

Ezra: Break out the etymology.

Jake: Okay, okay, gotcha, gotcha. It sounded. It sounded too upstream.

Ezra: Well, if you've got blonde hair, I'm not surprised you don't know what highfalutin means.

Jake: That's right. That's why. It's. To throw people off. People say, that guy's dumb. Don't talk to him. And then nobody talks to me.

Ezra: I won't say if it's working or not, but I started it, uh, 2021, but it really didn't take off at all because I was still. I had the lawn care business then, and I was pastoring, so, like, I had one Customer for a little bit, but I really wasn't putting a whole lot of effort into it. And then in 2023, my wife and I still argue about this. I think I came up with the name Green Frog. She begs to differ, but I'm probably right. Just for the record, I don't know.

Jake: I'm gonna clip this and send it to her.

Ezra: That's okay. I, um, don't remember. Uh, we. And that's. That's when we pivoted the name change, went kind of all in, and then we moved. Um, I basically, my business. You can't run. Or I purposely kept the lawn care business small because I was trying to pastor. Well, I was pastoring. Um, so I moved. It wasn't like I was selling it for millions of dollars and, uh, living on the. Living on the lake, wasn't that. So I need to do something. So that's when I went really all in. So that was in 2023. We did have a customer before then, but, you know, it wasn't. I was not living on it. So I started full.

Jake: How old are you now?

Ezra: I'm 31.

Jake: Okay.

Ezra: So I would have been 27, 28.

Jake: Yeah. You opened up Green, uh, Frog. I mean, you kind of started like, two, uh, years after we did. So, like, 2017 is when, like, I started Evergrow, like, the brand itself, but really didn't get any clients until Cody came along. And that's. That's also a weird thing to say too, because, like, Cody is not the reason we got clients. Like, it was. I was building this, this. This brand and kind of, like, engaging in groups and all this stuff. Um, and then, like. Like the fall of 2018 was when. Because I would talk to Cody because Cody was doing his own freelance stuff, uh, while working at an agency. And I was kind of doing this on the side of my day job. And I would ping him all the time with, like, Google Ads related questions, because Cody was my Google Ads guy at the agency we worked at together. So I going to him about these questions was very natural for me. So when I was in Kansas City, I would just message him on Facebook and be like, hey, Google Ads question. And then, so, like, Cody kind of knew I was doing this thing. And then he mentioned he's like, hey, we should explore partnering sometime. And it was like, I'm serious. So I think we met up in, like, the fall of. The fall of 2018, and he put together, like, a business plan because Cody's really good at operations, and I'm just. I Guess good at sales and m just talking to people. So, uh, when, uh, during this time, like, we know we knew that we were going to officially partner up in 2019. Like the January of 2019 was going to be like, when that was going to happen. And like the winter of 2018, I started to kind of freak out because I'm like, oh, no. Like, it's not just like, me anymore. Like, like I'm the sales guy. Like this, like, I have to get the clients for us now. And so that kind of put a lot of pressure on me. So that's when I wrote my first article for Turf magazine. Uh, and then I also got onto, uh, my very first podcast, which is Green Again, or it was Lawn Care Leaders podcast. And that guy was like, he was like, in Kansas City Market. So I just like, went to his office and we just recorded the podcast. And after that we just blew up. Like, it just, it just kept snowballing and cascading. And then, like, once the Turf Magazine article got published, I used that as leverage to get into Green Industry Pros magazine and then Lawn Landscape magazine. I just kept using it as leverage. And then, um, yeah, and then, uh, 2019 was kind of like the official, like, start where we started from, like, no clients at all. And then. So you were 20, 21, you said you started, but you weren't like, it wasn't like a huge thing for you. Um, yeah. And then, so we're pretty close there. And then also our ages are pretty close because I'm 33. So you're. Yeah, you're right. Right along there. I always think the timelines thing is good for people to recognize because I see like 18 to 20 year olds trying to like, jump on this train and like kill themselves over, over, like starting an agency when it's like, just go get a job. Like, we didn't start until we were like 25, 26.

Ezra: Well, you can do it. I just think even still, it still takes time. Like, I didn't even get close to semi livable income once I started full time. A year, year and a half was when you could have like, barely, barely lived on. It wasn't amazing, but it was like, okay, you can survive. Um, and I just tell people to read and read and read and read. That would be my, uh, my thought there.

Co-host: Yeah, a lot of these. I had a nice day the other day. Uh, this is earlier this week. And then out of nowhere, I heard from like three different guys, all younger dudes that were just asking me some questions about stuff they're working on, and it really gassed me up. But, uh, they're all guys that I've definitely told before. Like, dude, you just need time to cook. Like you're gonna do it, you're on the path to doing it. You just gotta incubate a little bit more too. And people grow at different rates and in different ways. And what they might need to grow in, it's not, you know, it's different for everybody. So sometimes it's technical skills, sometimes it's just self confidence. Everybody has a different thing that's gonna help them get to the next level of biz.

Jake: Yeah, I, um, want to pivot. Okay. Ezra, I want. Okay, so we talked about kind of like how you started a bit, uh, where you're at now. I guess you have four team members now. Are all the. Are they all full time? Are they employed? Are they contracted? Well, tell us a little bit more.

Ezra: Yeah, so they're all contractors. Um, all of our team members are in the Philippines. And you're actually not legally allowed to hire them as an employee. So we give them health insurance, time off, um, full time. But they're not technically employees, they're technically contractors.

Jake: How do you give them health insurance when they're in the Philippines? Genuinely curious.

Ezra: Yeah, so it's a great benefit for them. It's like, for an American, it's like stupidly cheap. Um, and so it's a great way to give them value. So they buy it and then they just send me the receipt and I reimburse them. So it's really simple, but a great value to them.

Jake: Oh, you wanna, you wanna mute there?

Ezra: Oh, yeah, no, I was just saying it's a great value to them.

Jake: Oh, gotcha. Gotcha. Yeah. Um, and then, uh, okay, so my next question was gonna be like, Cody, you came off mute. So I don't know if you wanna piggyback off that or if you want me to pivot.

Co-host: No, I'm ready to pivot. I wanna know some deets about his biz. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Jake: Okay, so what do you do?

Ezra: Yeah, so our two primarily core things are websites and then search engine optimization. We do Google Ads, but that's not really something I try to push really hard. Um, we do it. It's not really something I enjoy. Uh, and right now that's me doing the deliverables, and I'm trying to get out of that deliverable, um, basically all deliverables. So

Co-host: cool. The SEO, self taught, I assume, was that stuff where you were just reading

Ezra: non stop and, uh, Way too much time researching. Like, when I. My lawn care business, I would be looking online every day. Uh, basically just seeing what works. And that's what even got me into it. Because I'm like, man, I've been here three to six months and we're like, on the first page. Google business profile were number one. I'd be like, obsessed about it. M. And so a blessing and a curse that I can focus on something and, um, never want to look away. So I've just, like, got obsessed about it. Um, and local SEO is obviously a lot different than national, but for local SEO, in all reality, people don't like to hear it, but it's pretty simple. Um, so, yeah, which it takes time to learn that, but it is pretty simple.

Jake: It's so. It's so easy compared to everything else.

Ezra: Yeah.

Co-host: So is, um, when you have client calls, when you have prospecting calls and they're interested in what, uh, you know, I. I know how ours go, but when you talk to people and they say whatever it is that they're interested in, how does that sort of stuff go? And how do you lean into your strengths when those calls happen?

Ezra: Yeah, I think it's really important. I always lead with talking about them. So ask them, where are you in business? Where are you trying to take your business? Because I think if you lead with price now, the difference is most of our customers are either coming from, like, podcast referrals. So they've either heard me before they listen to our podcast. We've got one geared toward salon and landscape podcast. It's not like we're doing cold traffic. I've tried that some. I have not been able to crack that. I spend a couple hundred bucks. I know it's not a whole lot, maybe a thousand bucks. I'm like, okay, I just feel like I'm throwing money away. I'd like to learn how to do that. Well, right now, I'm not very good at that for national, just because once you start getting into that, you're fighting against a lot of these things, like Jobber, uh, which for those not familiar with our industry is like a massive CRM that has more money than I can blink at. Um, and so, like, doing, like, Google Ads against them is just a losing battle. So most of our traffic is semi warm. It's not like I'm targeting cold. So a lot of the way we pitch ourselves is, hey, at this point, we've done over 100, 130 some other, uh, businesses just like yours. We've seen what works We've seen what wasn't work and um, really try to lean into that. And then, uh, right now it's very people founder led, I guess. Although that sounds kind of bougie. Um, but my like face is on the website. Uh, I try to be personal. Um, I'm trying to move away from everyone having my personal number because until a couple months ago, that's what it's been. So I'm trying to not distance myself from my consumer. But, um, you know, the old text on a Sunday night, I don't work on Sunday and it drives me crazy trying to get time away. And then I think that's just part of agency life.

Co-host: So when you have these warm call leads, I assume that they have some background, then they've done some research to know kind of what you're about to. Are they SEO oriented people or are they just, hey, I've heard your name, I'm in the industry. Um, I want to work with you because I know that you do good stuff. I'm just trying to differentiate here because like, we, we do have a pretty strong ad strength, right? Like we're, we're good at media buying and that's a thing that we definitely do and I think lean into when we have talks with clients. So I'm just wondering what that looks like when you're talking to them.

Ezra: So most people, when they come, um, they don't know much about SEO. And to be honest, the people that think they know are the most annoying to work with because then they're checking in every two weeks and like, why aren't I on the first page? We started a month ago and I'm like, that's not how it works. So most people, what I found is the best clients are people that have tried it and it realize it's not as easy as it looks. Maybe they've tried to make their own website, it's terrible. Or they've tried SEO and, or they're just busy. Um, personally what I found is people that are just getting started, they don't have the money and they churn really easily. So I try to kind of suss out where they are and then try to orient accordingly.

Jake: Do you have like a size of landscape that you typically work with? Like when we, when we call or when we get calls from landscapers, we typically say like, if you're not doing over 200,000, then it's not worth it. Hiring an agency, do you have like a target that you try to reach for? Uh, when you talk to someone on the phone.

Ezra: Yeah. I like to work with people that are over 250. But we do have some smaller packages just because we have capacity for someone who's just getting started, which I recognize. Like, I was just looking at our customer sheet. The average customer has been with us for. Including we've signed up 44 this year. Including all of those, our average tenure is like 13 months. Um, which considering we signed up in this calendar year, there's. We got a bunch that are like under six months.

Jake: Yeah. Question about calculating average. I. I've asked so many people about this and I feel like I've never gotten a straight answer because I don't

Ezra: know how to either. Hey, how do you calculate Google sheet? It's called a Google sheet. I had my assistant do it. No, no, let me finish.

Jake: All right.

Ezra: I go into stripe, I get their start date because everything I have is on monthly. So like 99% of our stuff is monthly. We put their start date in and then when they churn, we moved them to a new sheet. So what I just referred are the active ones. I'm not saying like over the course of our business, our active 110 or something clients right now, they've been with us on average tenure of like 13 months. Um, obviously there's some that are like 30 some plus months. There's a lot that are 60 or 6 and under.

Jake: Okay. So. Because I'd assume like a lot of your clients use it 100 and some clients, like, I assume that's like website hosting and maintenance. Right?

Ezra: Right, yeah. Because obviously, as you know, I, and I, I tell people when I talk to them about ads in our industry, I don't recommend unless they're a larger business with like something in season all the time. I don't think you should be running ads all the time because it doesn't make sense unless you're in certain markets at a certain size, which most of my businesses aren't.

Jake: Well, I'll say this is. We do recommend running ads the entire year. However, we say that they should be severely throttled during seasons. So like high seasons in obviously, February, March, April, May. Uh, you should definitely have your high ad spend budget there. And then as soon as you go down from there, you drop the ad spend. Then this is my recommendation for running Google Ads in winter, even if they don't offer, ah, snow removal, for example, is, um, around November. December is when a lot of people are getting their annual renewal letters from their existing clients or from their existing contractors. Uh, and if they're not happy with them, they might go to the Google and search for the next person to renew with. And so like I say this with a warning to clients though and I'll say our average target cost per lead on Google Ads or our Target is under $100 in the winter. It will not be under a hundred dollars, It'll be like 250.

Ezra: Right.

Jake: You know, and I think it depends

Ezra: the size of your business you're working with because if it's a smaller business, that ad budget is just going to be a lot to swallow. And so that's where it's like, okay, depending on where you are in business, if you're larger, like I would agree with you, you can handle that, that couple hundred dollars per month, like okay, it's not going to kill you or not. Not that it smaller way either but that just like if you're doing like 250 in, in gross revenue, you know, your management fee and ad spend, like that's a big part of your budget. And so that's where I think who you're working with. That would matter a lot.

Co-host: Yeah, it's um, it's interesting. I think people get shook when they realize how we've grown and how m. More actually how we haven't grown because at our size, with the number of people that we have and like our current gross profit and stuff, I think people assume that we do have the, the 2K plus retainers and that's the basis of growth. And if you are in that category, then a lot of the time those people are doing some serious heavy media buying and they're not basing things off of high retention. I'm sort of making assumptions, but I also have had enough conversations to know that those people aren't, they're not doing those things. So with we've kind of split media buying and only most recently we've been developing this enough to the point that we can go really strong next year. Um, or if it's demand based, we just change the budget accordingly. Right. When the demand is low, spend is low. Uh, when demand is high, spend is high. Uh, but when it's disruptive and that's what clients always think about is disruptive advertising. How could I get in front of people and get their attention and get a bazillion new customers right when the season is peaking and we want to match that energy within reason. Right. Because we also have the group that panics when they're like wow, I'm getting so many leads, I can't handle this. So um, but we have been finally locking in on a few, um, lead gen sources that we can feel confident about during the disruptive times. So when it is just those few peak months that they're expecting higher volumes, we can double down on that and then just tell them after that point that, hey, from here on out, this isn't going to be cost effective for you. So we're going to stop or we're going to tell you that you should stop and go from there.

Jake: Ezra, do you.

Ezra: What are your.

Jake: What are your. What your pricing look like?

Ezra: Yeah. Ah, so when we started, like I mentioned, we had that offer. Now we're trying to, trying to go up market. Um, and some of it, to be honest, depends on seasonality. So in the spring, our prices are higher and then as things slow down, uh, it adjusts some. So, uh, we're working on moving it up. But to be honest, we do monthly. And so I'm actually okay if someone's just paying like 200amonth because like I said, if they're with us for three years, their churn is going to be lower. And if I can keep someone around for three years, I'm okay with that. Um, and so our income, we do have fluctuations, but it's very stable. And then, you know, I was just actually looking at our churn. So our average churn this year is under 2%. Um, let me see, year today is under 2%. And then, let's see here, 1.69%. And then our all time churn is 1.69%. So we are very much a rabbit model. We're not even deer or definitely not elephants.

Jake: And I look familiar. This sounds like you're listening to our podcast.

Ezra: Yeah. And I looked at like, well, frustrating experience. Yeah. So our, our average customer, our average, what do they call that? Average customer spend per month is like 260, 270. So it's very low. Um, but here's why. So I really like, um, is it Josh Nelson? He's got seven figure agency, really like his stuff, read his books. If you're listening, I'd recommend you go check it out. Um, that being said, I really got into it. I'm like, okay, I'm gonna do his model. $1,400 per month is what he recommends. Here's the problem. When someone cancels at 1400 dollars per month for a smaller agency, that hurts. Like, that hurts. Um, and if someone cancels right now, I try to keep people around. We have very good retention, but it's like, okay, we're just fine And I had that happen. Or actually I tried to refer him to you, Jake. Uh, a year and a half ago, I. I signed up this client for almost fourteen hundred dollars per month. That was like, yes. Then we got into it, and she's sending me these emails, like, I want this type of font. I want this, that. I want this. And I'm just like, whoa. Okay, now, to be honest, I think I could have handled it, but I'm

Jake: just like, she sent me this like, prospectus.

Ezra: It was like a stock prospectus.

Jake: It was like six pages of like, of stuff she wanted addressed on the side or something. And I can't remember. And I think at the exact same time, I was also doing an RFP for a, uh, for a franchise or not a franchise is for, um, uh, what do we call them? Private equity lawn care company. And I was like, I'm spending the same amount of time going through both of these. Like, why am I even giving her the time of day?

Ezra: Yeah. And that's where I'm like, okay, you know what? I ended up refunding her the first month payment. And I'm like, it's not worth my headache. And that's where I'm like, you know what? Now, when I first did it, I did have it too low. Like, I. Even before I was really getting clients, I was like, oh, can I do some $29 per month thing? And I'm so glad I didn't try to stick with that. That would have been abysmal. Um, and so it's, uh. And when I first started, it was lower. And then I've been raising my prices. But our product, I look at stuff we did a year ago and I'm like, wow, we've, we've grown so much just because, you know, you put in 100 reps in one industry, you should be getting a lot better. And that's just the case.

Jake: What's, what's your 200 per month thing cost or fee include?

Ezra: Well, that's not our current price. That was a price when we kind of just were getting started. Uh, so now it's more around. Uh, for the most part, we're trying to move it up to more like 399 per month for the same thing. So that's basically website hosting security, unlimited edits, support by phone or email. Um, but we have the social proof to back it up. If someone's just getting started, I wouldn't recommend going at that. But as we're like, hey, capacity is the problem. Not getting people at this point. Then as we're getting a better product, as we're having. We're not a big brand, but as we're trying to build a brand, pricing isn't as much of a factor.

Jake: Yeah. So question then. Like, are. So there's no like onboarding fee. Right. Like to build their website that, that you're.

Ezra: When do they pay the thing is reducing friction.

Jake: Right. Do they at a certain. If they want to leave you, for example, do they uh, after 12 months they can.

Ezra: But we have a lot of people that just stay on it indefinitely for sure. And that's where the profit's made.

Jake: Yep. Do you. Does that 399 or the proposal to go 399, does that include SEO or do you upsell the SEO services?

Ezra: Yeah, yeah, the SEO is an upsell and what I actually did this year is our SEO was only a hundred dollars more. And so it's a no brainer. But that's basically all profit. Cause we have the capacity. Um, and so it's kind of one of those where it's like uh, a one cup thing, a pop is like 79 cents and then three times is like 10 cents more and you're like, man, I'd be dumb not to get the bigger cup. So that was kind of where that came in. Although I don't like pop. But

Co-host: I want to ask and I don't want to ask too much because it's not the purpose of the podcast. But I feel like it's worth bringing up because you're also a pastor and I'm sure that's using some of your time. Uh, how much of a time commitment is that as a. Because people could see that or choose to see that as a detraction from the agency. And I'm asking because you know you're.

Ezra: Oh, it is a client.

Co-host: Yeah.

Ezra: Yeah. You never had enough time. Yeah, you never have enough time faster and could be 100 full time. But I tell people does cover my car insurance and a little bit more and they do provide some A uh, place to live. But that's. That about covers it.

Jake: Yeah. Are there like, is like other. You do have like public servant benefits in Canada?

Ezra: Um, no, not really. Oh.

Jake: Because I don't think you had. My brother is a pastor or he was a pastor, now he's a chaplain in the army.

Ezra: Um, but uh, there's not much for the US either. It's about non existent.

Jake: Well, I mean he had. Well yeah, because he was also on food stamps and he had like all the government stuff. Um, but like like his. Yeah, his housing was paid for, his electric and all that stuff. I think his car insurance was paid for too because he's public servant. So a lot of this, some of the stuff is just.

Ezra: No, that'd be the church. The church would be paying for that. Not the government.

Jake: But the government's paying for something. I don't know, I don't know.

Ezra: Probably the health insurance and stuff. Yeah. If you're most pastors, it's. I mean, I say this with love, just about starvation wages. So you qualify for just about everything if you don't have another job.

Jake: Yeah. Uh, I gotta say too. And like in our industry, I mean, it's gotta be a selling, like a. Selling like a value from. From, uh, you being a pastor. And also you said you previously owned a lawn care company too. Right? So like, uh, like your sales calls are. You gotta connect with these guys like so easily.

Ezra: Yeah. And like, I'm not gonna lie to them. I mean, that should be a given, hopefully. Unfortunately, it may not. But like, I'm gonna be honest with them. And I really did have a lawn care business. I can. And a lot of time too. Uh, one thing that I, I really did when I started and I'm working on, I need to bring it back around again, is instead of just saying, hey, I can get you there. I recommend if someone's listening in, they're like, hey, I'm just getting started. Take them to Google, say, hey, are you by your computer or whatever you're doing? And say, hey, search this. And I don't tell people to search, um, my business. I give them. I could walk them through for probably an hour and just say, search lawn care in this town or fertilization, we control in this town. And they can see the results. Because it's one thing for, for you, Jake, to say, oh, we're the best, but it's another thing for you to say search this term. And they're like, oh, wait, who's this first? And then you can say, oh, we built that. Or you know, things like that. Show rather than tell. Makes a big difference.

Jake: Yeah, well, I'm able to do that with just our agency too. I say, little humble brag care marketing company. We're number one. I think we know a thing or two by SEO.

Ezra: For now. For now.

Jake: I'm sorry, I can't hear you from page two, Ezra.

Ezra: No, I'm not on page two. Sorry. I'm working on it.

Jake: Cody, you're off mute. So I figured you had something.

Co-host: Yeah, I was still just Thinking about this with, you know, uh, people don't talk about this out loud, they don't really say it. But there's an important differentiation when you run an agency. I think the baseline is the, the assumption. The assumption is that you're gonna, this is your life, this is all you want to do, this is all you care to do. You're gonna make as much money as you possibly can doing this and you're gonna sacrifice every waking hour until you achieve a point where you've earned it. And then you get to be in this club where you're like, oh, I was working so hard and now I, I got my systems in place and everything is back to a good place. That's the default assumption, I think, despite the fact that agencies actually work well as a lifestyle business to pursue. Whatever the other thing is, it doesn't matter. It's different for everybody, right? But if you have something else that's important to you, you can structure the business in such a way that you can make it less demanding, like you were saying, with your pricing, as opposed to having it higher and having those demanding clients that are going to force you to work with that assumption, right? When you simplify it and then you make that time for yourself to go and pursue those other things. That it doesn't make sexy shorts for YouTube and TikTok and all that. But I wish it did, right? Like, I wish that people would just use that more or talk about it more because there's more to life than just doing that, right? And I, oh yeah, great that you are.

Ezra: And when you first moved, I tried for like two weeks because the cold calling thing wasn't going anywhere. I tried to work for someone for two weeks and I was just like, oh, I can't do this. Because I, at that point I'd work for myself whether in the painting business or the lawn care for Sky. I graduated and 2018, so basically almost I, we didn't move, uh, right. Quite away. But basically from then to now, I've worked for myself. Except for those two weeks. I just like, he was nice, the pay was okay. I just like, I can't do this. Um, and actually I did have a roofing company for, well, a couple months until the uh, agency really took off because it just. You don't make much money at first. Um, but one thing on your point about freedom though, because like even taking off, I had to go to the bank and I'm like, I gotta ask, can I go to the bank? Because I had to go get something Done. And this morning I was taking sales calls, hiking up a mountain or a big hill, 800-900-ft, whatever, that's a hill here. Hiking up a hill, doing sales calls this morning. Um, and I'm just like, you can't do this in other places. Like, this is the whole point. Or like, I love running and I think most people don't put enough personality into it. And I think there's almost a pejorative like, oh, a lifestyle business. But, uh, I don't know if you guys have ever heard of Andrew Wilkinson. He is a founder of Tiny, which is. You heard of him? He wrote an amazing book called From Barista to Billionaire. Every single person listening needs to read it.

Jake: I for sure heard the name. I. He's probably a LinkedIn thought leader at this point that I've. That I've seen.

Ezra: Uh, maybe he. Well, he was a billionaire. I think his stock is down little bit. But he did okay. He had an agency called Metalabs, um, which did a lot of work for like, uh, Slack, Facebook, these large companies that everyone listening would know about. Um, he ended up. He's in all kinds of stuff now anyway. Interesting fellow, but he talks about like, hey, the whole point of a business is to fund a lifestyle, whether you're selling that eventually or not. Um, and I think that's good to remember. Like, that's the whole point of building it.

Co-host: What do you want to. What do you want to build for in the future as the business keeps getting bigger? Like, what do you want to grow into or work more in the direction of. If you're. Do you want to keep dominating SEO and keep going down that path, or are there other parts that you'd like to, I don't know, go deeper into?

Ezra: To be honest, I'm almost at that spot. I mean, we've grown. Last year we double, which when you're smaller, it's easier to double, but. And then this year we're up 40 some percent. So. That being said, honestly, I'm almost at the place where I'm pretty content. I probably still want to grow some, but, like, I'm pretty happy. I don't know that I need to grow a whole lot. I mean, obviously inflation, um, want to buy a house, some of these things, but I'm pretty happy with Right. Right where we are.

Jake: What do you need to buy a house for?

Ezra: A house is provided. Ah, you know, this is something I might get a little esoteric here. I think I'm a Christian, so whatever the listener thinks. But I, uh, think God's put into the heart of men specifically to want to have someplace called home. And there's something about, like, I want to have something that's mine, not in a selfish way, but like home. So anyway, a little aside there.

Jake: Oh, I think, I think even for the, Even for the, uh, like the secular listeners, like, I think even. Even them. I think it's just nature. It's. It's. It's nature for, for people to have, uh, their own dwelling. I mean, even. Even in the animal kingdom, you see it. So. Yeah, that makes sense.

Co-host: That's some wild at heart stuff. That is.

Ezra: Hey, I've got stories. Uh, I was walking down a hill, uh, the same hill I hiked this morning, but I was coming down and there's a bear walking across right in front of me, maybe 20, 30ft ahead of me. So obviously I stopped and it saw me, went up a tree, just. But right by the trail. There's only one way down. So I'm like, okay, like, I gotta go buy it. So I ended up calling my wife just so someone's on the phone when I get mauled and didn't get mauled. Um, but yeah, hey. She's like, what am I gonna do? I said, at least be. At least. You know what happened? So anyway, the bear's up in a tree. I'm there, like, oh, man, what do I do? So I'm like, okay, I waited. It came down the tree, it went into the woods. So I'm like, okay, I gotta get down to the. So I start singing. So I start walking down the hill. Well, wouldn't you know it? I come around the bend. For some reason, I don't think I'm gonna win American Idol. That bear must have got scared by my singing and ran straight up the next tree down the hill. So anyway, I was able to walk by. So I got some stories I'll tell you.

Jake: That's awesome, dude. I think it's cool like, that you kind of feel content. Because I think a lot of agency owners, even us, like, there is no ceiling for us. We just want to keep pushing forward. But the problem is we do keep hitting these, like, these barriers. Like one barrier that we're having right now is kind of crossing the, um. It's not even like a. It's not even like a line. Like, I could say, like, we're hitting close to. We'll probably hit half a million this year in profit. But I'm not even sure because every time I say we're going to hit this, we Always fall short of it, and it sucks. But, um, I would say it's like a chasm. There's like a chasm, I think, between 500,000 and 800,000 that we're trying to push past. And we know going into it, it's going to be tough because just with AI and everything, clients are coming to us with their actual problems, which we used to think that the problem was. Oh, Google Ads and SEO, um, is great, and we kill it at it, um, based on what everybody else is charging. Uh, they're like, absolutely. They're charging crazy amounts for SEO that doesn't take that much work. I mean, you know, SEO in your pricing is only $100 more than your management, and you're making it work. So our prices are pretty close. We pay, we charge 650amonth for Google Ads and SEO management, which is, you know, almost no different than what you're charging. Um, but, like, uh, the hard part for us has always been what's the next service to then, like, upsell and make it just as sticky as what we had before? And through the last, like, four years of trial and error, we haven't found anything. Like, nothing. Nothing is sticking because everything is just seasonal, right? So, like, no matter what we add, whether it's Meta ads or next door or Yelp or whatever, like, it's always going to have that seasonal fluctuation. And as long as people can start and stop services, they'll always come back down to just the SEO portion of it. So, uh, we've kind of recognized that, like, one of the biggest problems that we've had is when we started, like, getting people on local service ads is they. They now have visibility into every single call. So when 100% of the calls aren't qualified leads, they complain because now they can listen to them. So now that's like, oh, we got like three, like three out of seven calls were, uh, people outside of our service area. I don't think local service ads is working. I'm like, you're getting those leads for like, 30 bucks, dude. There's a customer acquisition cost that needs to come into formulation here. So, um, instead of marketing as our next source, we're kind of moving more into the operations side of things and becoming kind of the agency where it's like, you plug us in and then you don't have to worry about, uh, lead qualification or, um, which, uh, platform you want to go to next. Because right now for us, it's very modular. What are we going to add on next I think we're going to move into a model where it's going to be like, we have the foundation and then we have the lead gen portion. And the lead gen portion includes the op side of things. But, man, building the infrastructure for it is what we've been focused on for the last six months and probably the next six months.

Ezra: Sounds like a headache.

Jake: It is, yeah. I'm happy you're happy with where you're at. I think Cody and I are going to work ourselves to death.

Ezra: Well, this is a question I think is good for all of us. Well, when I started, I remember thinking, okay, if I can get to 2,500 bucks in profit, which I was really naive. Living up here is, like, stupidly expensive. Um, so that was very naive to start with, but long since blown past that. And it does change. But it is a really good question to ponder, like, what is enough? Because as the expression goes, the hedonic treadmill, you know, you can easily adapt to whatever you're at, and then there is never enough. And so I think really pondering, like, okay, what is enough? And then trying to stick to your guns for the most part.

Co-host: Yeah, I'm not allowed to talk about that. Uh, I'm saying that in a weird way. But what I mean is I vibe with you 100% on that, and that is not something that this industry wants to face. I am Fight Club in my heart. And we're 30 years past and everybody has forgotten, and current agency running is extreme consumerism and chasing the next thing, you know. Um, but, like, personally, yeah, I, I,

Jake: oh, Cody has a number.

Co-host: Yeah, I mean, I, I could. That's one way to say it, right?

Jake: Is like, I bet everybody I. Every listener right now, every hardcore listener is like, they're saying the number right now.

Co-host: I, there's like, so many ways that, um, I can describe this, and it's hard not to. It's hard not to sound cocky. Um, but what I mean by that is a lot of people start businesses and they're like, well, you know, you get started and you don't know what your problems are going to be and blah, blah, blah. And like, no, I knew exactly what our problems were going to be, and we're hitting them seven years later. Um, and Jake and I were going through it and figuring out, like, we. The biggest thing that we've learned up until this point was that it's not going to continue linearly just by upselling marketing services alone. Um, we have to, it could.

Ezra: I think you have a limited mindset I think it.

Jake: I think it could if we wanted to adjust the business model to be a consultative business model. And we don't want to do that. We, like, we're. Yeah, we're. We're very productized. We're very assembly line. And this is one thing that people don't want to work with us with is like, we don't do regular meetings. We don't do scheduled calls. We don't do any of that. We're not consultative. We. I want to be like the target of marketing.

Ezra: Like, here's the thing, though. Most people don't do it. Or at least I found even most people that you have those meetings. Most people don't take them. They just never book them.

Jake: Well, I mean, you're just.

Co-host: In general, this is the next level. So this is another. Okay, beef that I have with this industry in general. One, the gross, the hustle grind. Put in the hours, make a bazillion dollars. You're going to be super cool.

Jake: And you talk about the marketing industry, not the landscaping industry.

Co-host: Correct? Correct. Marketing, yeah. You're going to feel fulfilled, which you won't be. And that's your own problem and your own thing. Um, second is, um, pride in market sophistication. Right. This idea that, oh, I'm brilliant with, I'm cutting edge with AI and I'm doing all these things that are super advanced and I'm super cool because of that. And I'm more valuable or bigger as a person because my services are more sophisticated. I don't care.

Ezra: Right.

Co-host: And I don't think anybody should. It's just a strange thing to find pride in.

Jake: Right.

Co-host: Um, I do recognize that in general, regardless, the next tier of the service that we need to offer is more sophisticated in whatever way it could be, which we don't want to do, which is just pure media buying or something like that. But we also recognize that the way that suits us better is operational sophistication, automation in their business instead of just marketing automation or things like that. Um, and I don't doubt, I'm confident and I'll. I'll be very surprised if I'm wrong that we will go from 500 to 2mil or 2.5mil once we lock that in, figure it out and then sell it. But the seasonal component is a. Is a problem and it's a problem that I want to fix. Um, but only in a. Like, this is a weird, personal thing because Jake and I, we both have, like, we have a way agreeing on the business and then we have, like, personal goals in which we want to move our, our lives in certain directions that could cooperate with the business or, or not. Right. Like, Jake does these things with paintball. I have studied Japanese and I want to do something with Japan. Um, so, like, I would like the growth to be in a direction that cooperates with fixing that seasonal component. Because I hate it. Like, I'm so tired of it every year. It gets better every year, but it also sucks every year. So if we could get something that evens that out, like growing into, um, I don't know, there's a few categories that I would like to do, um, that I would feel comfortable and better about, but that would also be the thing that would get us to that point. But once we hit 2.5 mil, um, anything past that point, I've seen what people do and honestly I don't. I'm just going to check in with Jake and be like, what do you want to do, man? Because I don't have strong opinions or feelings after that point. That is the thing where I go, yeah, we did, we did the thing right.

Jake: I think, uh, Cody has also changed completely in a lot of ways throughout the year. So, like, I'm fully prepared to hit the 2.5 mil. And Cody just be like, all right, I'm out. And then here are the keys. I'd be like, great, I'm twice as rich. Uh, but, um, I'm also fully prepared to hit 2.5 mil. And Cody's still enjoying his time and wanting to grow to the next thing. So I think I have bigger aspirations because I don't have a number. It's just I want to be happy and comfortable where I'm at and not like, kill myself in labor, uh, which I was doing when I was working full time and working here until I quit my full time job. But, uh, no, I'm happy. Every now and then we talk about how the business isn't where we want it to be at, but our lives are what we dreamed of like five years ago. So that perspective is nice. Well, Ezra, this has been fun. We asked you a lot of questions. Do you have any questions for us? We're open book too.

Ezra: Not that I can think of.

Co-host: Curated has with the philosophical pastor ones of, uh, what is enough.

Jake: Yeah. So now we have. Now we have our existential crisis to attend to.

Ezra: Yeah. So I think it's worth thinking about and that book is worth reading, um, because it's really fascinating. He basically got to then and he gets more money than he can Think of basically great book, barista to billionaire. Read it.

Jake: All right, I'll check it out. Does it have an audiobook? Because I don't. Yeah, I don't.

Ezra: Okay.

Jake: I don't read the audiobook.

Ezra: Sure does. He's got a really good email list, too. Cool.

Jake: Well, uh, thanks for, uh, jumping on. I think just once we end this recording. I mean, you do Riverside on your own podcast, too. Um, but where, uh, where can people find you if they have more questions about, you know, you and your business?

Ezra: Sure. You feel free to check out greenfrogwebdesign.com or if you're bad with spelling like I am, you can just type in ilovemyfrog.com and that'll take you there, too.

Co-host: That's awesome.

Jake: That's awesome. Uh, we. I guess it's public now. We, uh, we. We bought the evergrow.com domain, so. Oh, so now it's not even, you know, type in evergrowmarketing.com, just go to evergrow.com and you'll get us there.

Ezra: Is it public how much you foisted over for that one?

Jake: Is it Cody?

Ezra: That's a lot.

Jake: It's more than a car.

Co-host: We did say that it was more than my car.

Ezra: So why, uh, why would you. To me, why would you spend that on it? Do you think it really is going to be that much more valuable?

Jake: Yes.

Ezra: Explain. As long as you don't need to go. I'm curious.

Jake: So it already kind of has been, in a way, because, um, the company that had us, had it before was a tech startup, and they have very, very high authority links. Um, and our domain Authority jumped like 20 points overnight.

Ezra: Is this by Ahrefs, which is like a joke, or is this Semrush?

Jake: It's Ahrefs and Moz. So, I mean, they're all directionally.

Ezra: Right.

Jake: There's not such thing as accurate SEO metrics, but they're all directionally accurate. So if they're all saying your domain authority is, you know, 15 and mine is 40, and then another one says yours is seven and mine is, uh, you know, 25. Like, I know I'm probably two and a half times more authoritative than yours, right? That's the whole. It's. Everything's directional.

Co-host: So I think, I mean, it was a once in a lifetime thing, too. If there was one domain that was ever going to matter to us, it was this after this point, really. I mean, we've done a lot of domain acquisitions before, but this was always the one that we had talked about and said this is. We would make an exception for this, to force this to happen. And it's, uh. Domaining is a very unique thing. But even that aside, so you have that value by itself, but when you have a established agency with a powerful, dormant domain. Geez, words are hard. Portfolio, um, it adds that much power to the valuation, which I don't even know why I say, because, like, I don't really think that way. You. You always do. You always think of, like, well, if somebody came in and bought this, blah, blah, blah. So there's that, but not seriously. It's just knowing that this is a. This is an asset to the biz, like, a serious one, and it makes us that much more legitimate in an immeasurable way. But that's both good and bad.

Jake: There are measurable things like domain authority and links to it and like those measurable types of things, there's also simplicity. Uh, things where it's like you could just type Evergrow. Evergrow is the brand. Everybody knows Evergrow. But, like, you don't have to type in marketing. After that, it's just evergrow.com. that's it. And then the other side of it, too, is, like, it is a, uh. I think it, like, personally, too, when I see a short domain like that, where it's like, just the brand name, like, um. And that's it. Like, I'm looking at, um, an invoice I have on my, uh, desk from Firestone Complete Automotive. Oh, wait, Their. Their website is actually firestone complete autocare.com. if I type in firestone.com. if it doesn't.

Co-host: That's powerful.

Jake: Oh, it does go to them. It does go to them. So they own firestone.com. like that. That, to me, okay, this is a legacy brand. This brand has authority, and they've been around, and so, like, that's not measurable. So, like, it's not a good argument. I don't really like that argument, but it makes sense to me and it. And it. And it works in my brain.

Co-host: It's the power of brain.

Ezra: Interesting. Yeah.

Jake: Um, we also have a stupid amount of money that we don't spend in the business, so.

Ezra: Being able to hold mutual funds.

Jake: Yeah, yeah, no, we. We. We want to be able to, like, if everything imploded and no, we had no clients tomorrow, we'd want to be able to pay salaries for six months. So that's kind of.

Ezra: It's a good goal.

Jake: Yeah.

Ezra: But.

Jake: Well, Ezra, thanks for jumping on

Ezra: what a.

Jake: What a Humble guy.

Co-host: Yeah.

Jake: I like, he. He has, like, his business model is very similar to ours. Um, but, uh, he's got. Yeah, he kind of leans into the Josh hall type of thing where it's like you. It's more of the web design aspect. It's funny because he was like, I hate web design. I don't want to go back into it. But it's like, it's kind of what you're. It's kind of what you're.

Co-host: Bread and butter.

Jake: Uh, you build your entire business model off of web design. You're like, I hate that.

Co-host: I don't know. I feel that lately. I. I can get that vibe lately. It's just pulling teeth to get through some of this stuff because I don't know why. I don't know. Things are changing and it's, you know, like I'm supposed to do this. If you look at the. The tests where they tell you what you're supposed to do with your life, and, uh, this is my personality and exactly what I'm supposed to do. Um, but something about it lately has just been harder. Like, so much harder. And I think it's. So maybe. Maybe that's part of it for him too. Maybe you get a little burnt out after doing it for so long and you got to twist it around and figure out a new take on it. That way you can find where you like it again.

Jake: But, yeah, I mean, I'm with him. I'm with him on the. He doesn't really care about web design is more like. He just likes business. I agree. I. 100%. I'm all into business. We've talked about on this, on this podcast about if we were to do it all over again, our lives, would we do marketing? Probably not. But like, I would be in business one way or another because it's the business aspect that I like.

Co-host: Yeah.

Jake: Little. A little jealous that he's got. He's got a number that he's come. He's comfy where he's at, but also not because I just want to. I don't know. I just. I don't think I could be content with anything. Which is maybe sad. Some people will see that as sad.

Co-host: Yeah, maybe. Um. I don't know. People have different motivations. Like, I think the proudest thing that I have in business right now at this point is that I can say I've helped two girls from third world countries leave and get a better life that they wanted.

Jake: That's all.

Co-host: Like, that's the coolest thing that I'VE got. I don't really care about anything else.

Ezra: Like that.

Jake: Yeah.

Co-host: Is the most fulfilling thing that I can say. Like the, the proudest thing I have in biz.

Ezra: Um,

Co-host: I don't know. People have different motivations. Sure, I want to make money. We all want to make money. I want to make a lot of money. But I also don't want to kill myself doing it. I don't have a goal of a particular, I don't know, monthly goal. Those things just kind of happen as a consequence of the system. And I, I have an ideal net worth that I like to hit just because of what it allows me to do otherwise. But I don't know. In some ways I'm kind of jealous of the, uh, the people that love this so much that they want to spend every waking moment just doing this one thing.

Ezra: Thing.

Co-host: But I can't. That's not me. That's not. It's not even what I meant to do. There's more to life than that.

Jake: I think I'm just like. For me, I feel like I'm just meant to like, try and achieve and full stop, just achieve. And it could just, it could be literally anything. That's why, like, I do this stuff with paintball. Like, I want to play pro. I want to win a pro tournament. I want to like, almost there. Like, I'm semi pro and like this has been 11 years in the making and I went from Division 3 to Semi Pro in one one year. I'm like, it's. I'm like, it's right there. It's like on the cusp. Um, and uh, you know, like, that's why I want to play all the, you know, just random tournaments aren't even like league affiliated. I just want to win. But like also in business, I want to win. I want to be better than everybody. I want to like. But like, not in like the way that we're bigger or we're, you know, more just kind of like not to

Co-host: beat them down or anything. Just.

Jake: Yeah, more of just be like, um, I want to be better than everybody in the way that I view the world. So like I, I don't care. Like Jordan Brannon, for instance, he's on a podcast. They, he owns like a eight figure agency. I don't, I don't want to be his agency. His agency is objectively better than ours because it's bigger and they make more money and they make more profit. Whoop dee doo. Great. That. But that would not work well in my life. The, like, the lifestyle that comes with that agency. Uh, not for me. Now the real challenge and the achievement is building our agency the way that it is right now to that level. That would be winning to me. That'd be better than. Like, that to me is better than anything. But it all comes down to, like, your own perspective of the lifestyle that you want to build with the agency you want to build.

Co-host: This is the hardest problem that I have personally. I think when vibing with these people is that I don't, like, I don't vibe with them. Um, there are people who, um. This is weird. If you listen to this objectively, you would think, like, man, what do Cody and Jake have in common? And like, what I would say is not a lot. No, I, um, can talk to you about these things and you can vibe with it, right? There are people who won't even entertain it. They won't even entertain the. The thought of, like, oh, you want to do other stuff. Like, what do you mean? This. You. You aren't killing yourself in California for all this money. Like, um. But I don't know, things have changed recently where a lot of the stuff that I used to think that would have been cool to add in or go and do, like, um. Honestly, a lot of the garbage crap that people churn out now of, like, I run an agency, it's. It's like the old, um, old Tai Lopez. I'm in the park at 4pm on a Tuesday or whatever, right? Like, that actually is cool. It's just. It feels really inauthentic at this point. And it would have been cool if it had not been tainted and ruined, right? That. That vibe, the authentic portion of that would have been probably one of the cooler things I would have leaned into and sharing that sort of stuff with the team that we like that also enjoys the work that they're doing. But we're not killing ourselves for like, the whole lifestyle component around it. But the way that it's happening now just feels gross. Something about it feels gross. And I think it is that enough component. Like Ezra was even saying, like, there is no enough. And so the way that people pimp it out and flash it is there's no. There's no soul in it. I don't know.

Jake: It's kind of like. It's kind of like they reach the point, or at least they, they. They say they reach the point to where they're like in the park on a Tuesday on. Or whatever, and like, they're happy doing the work that they're doing and they're you know, four hour work week type stuff. And they're like, now buy my course because this is not enough for me.

Co-host: Yeah, you know. No, exactly. Yeah. Nobody's just running an ad where I'm like, hey, I'm happy. There's. That's it. That's all I can. That's the ad. But yeah, and the motivation just isn't. I don't know.

Jake: I mean, like, you can argue that a lot of people who retire retire with enough. Right. Like, okay, I'm good.

Co-host: Right.

Jake: I just want to relax. Like. But there are people who retire and then they immediately die because they just have, like, no purpose. And I don't think, I don't think for me personally, just knowing who I am, I need the purpose of achievement. And like, I, I can't get to two and a half mil in this agency and then just be satisfied. Like, I either, I have two options. I either take this agency further or I sell it and I start another business. Like, or, or charity or whatever. I don't know. I'm doing something with some goal in mind that is bigger than me.

Co-host: I think the achievement is just continuing to grow it in the way you want. That's the biggest thing, like, that's the biggest win is doing everything in the way that you want. Because the second that you stop and you start doing it in the way that gets you the thing that you think you want, but the way through which you're doing it sucks. That sucks.

Jake: Yeah.

Co-host: That's not the time.

Jake: I would love to hit, you know, two and a half million and then, like, talk to another person who's doing like 6 million and then, then be jealous of us because of, of how our business operates.

Co-host: Yeah, this is, yeah, this is the weird thing too, about people who buy into the guru, like, mentor. I'm not saying it's bad. There's good things in there. But when you start looking to them for things that you shouldn't be looking to them for, like, they can help you with the biz, but you're, you're the one steering the ship. Where do you want it to go and why? And if you're not aligned with them on that and they're just telling you and deciding for you, why did you do the business in the first place?

Jake: Yeah, well, uh, this is a good, like, first competitor, uh, interview. I didn't really hit on the idea of we're interviewing a competitor a whole lot because it still didn't really feel like that. And it doesn't feel like that to Us. That's the whole point I'm trying to get across is you had this story about talking, uh, to Dave a while back about, uh, a domain you bought, and you didn't want to tell him about it because you're doing affiliate marketing. And he realized that people just aren't like that in real life. No one's out here trying to steal your clients or. Or anything like that. There's, like, this barrier that we put between ourselves and perceived competition or everybody else out there, and the barrier is only there because you put it there. That's it. We sit Ezra down in front of us and talk to him for an hour, and it's totally fine. I'm sure we send each other leads all the time. Um, we're going to have another competitor, uh, on here soon, too, and I just want to keep doing this and kind of break down those barriers and just be like, it's, you know, everybody's got a slightly different business model. Just because he. Just because Ezra offers SEO doesn't mean it's the same plan as us, you know, like, some people don't like the idea that they're tied to him for 12 months before they can own their. Their website. Maybe he's got a buyout clause. I don't know. But, like, there's just certain things about that that some people are not big fans of. Also, Ezra doesn't really do a lot of paid media right now. It's not his. It's not his strength. And, uh, he recognizes that. Just like our strength isn't going to be in meta ads, and we're going to bring on a couple competitors where that's what their strengths are, our meta ads.

Co-host: So, yeah, I don't know if you think this is weird, go watch Vinland Saga. That's all I got to say. Dude, I don't have an anime. Yeah. I don't have enemies. I got some people that I don't really like, I guess, a little bit.

Jake: Um, I can name somebody.

Co-host: Yeah. I say that there's, like, there's like, a couple guys. There's a couple people that. But that's, like, it, right? Like, just this idea of the competition is the other. So therefore it is bad. And we can't vibe like you're making that yourself. And, I don't know, change how you think. Don't do that.

Jake: Yeah.

Co-host: People up.

Jake: Yeah.

Ezra: Cool.

Jake: All right, everybody, thanks for listening. We'll see you next time. See ya.