The Power Plays Podcast
Keaton Walker's weekly podcast where he invites marketing, GoHighLevel, and SMMA experts to share practical, real world insights. Join us for deep conversations to take your digital marketing know-how to the next level.
The Power Plays Podcast
Inc 5000 SMMA Owner Reveals: Why Most Agencies Fail, and How To Scale To $200k/m w/ Matt Coffy
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In this video, Keaton Walker interviews Matt Coffy, a successful agency owner who recently sold his business. Prior to the sale, Matt's agency was generating around $200,000 per month in revenue. The interview covers Matt's journey from starting his agency to eventually making the Inc 5000 list in 2023, which was a major milestone that led to his decision to sell the business. Matt brings a unique perspective as both a business owner and musician, balancing his agency work with his passion for performing in a band.
Timestamps:
00:00-Teaser
01:18-Getting into the agency space
06:18-GHL!
08:07-How the partnership worked
12:20-Partnership done right
14:39-Having fun with your business
18:10-Agency Journey Stories
28:29-Matt's income stream
35:29-Coolest Case Study
38:57-Charging for the services
41:15-Rule of thumb in marketing
45:19-Answering repeating questions
53:18-Matt's Sales Numbers
1:00:10-Bonus
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#SMMA #GoHighLevel #AgencyLife
I'm doing like 400, 000 a month now. You started with us, you weren't even over 100. So, we knew we quadrupled this business. That's the horror story. Is me crossing the border of being too nice and too forgiving. When I first started the agency, I hired prisoners, and they would call every single small business. And basically pawn them into a meeting with me. I don't know what they do. Maybe they threaten them over the phone. Who knows my story is unique and I'd probably, you'll hear it and go, Oh, that will never happen to me. Well, you don't know. You
Keaton:never know. How's it going? Everybody. Welcome back to another episode. Absolutely. Just excited to be here with Matt coffee today, who recently sold his agency. 200 K a month before they sold that stick around for the juicy details on the. You know, sale number and all the nitty gritty of how that worked out. Um, as you can see, if you're watching on YouTube, uh, Matt is also in a band and, um, very musical as well, if you will. Uh, and I'm sure we'll talk about how that blends in with business today as well. Matt, thanks for being on
Matt:my pleasure. Thanks for having me. Yeah. And I'm excited to talk about whatever you want to know about. I'm an open book and sometimes a little too loud of an open book. Okay, recording is still live. Um,
Keaton:so take us back to, uh, how'd you get into the agency space where you're working a job before? How did this whole thing start?
Matt:Yeah. Like most entrepreneurs, uh, accidental, right? So, uh, I can remember the day I was, I worked at Sprint, uh, as a regional manager for a long time, uh, and was one of their, you know, knock around guys that was doing, you know, was the best of the best of the best. So I always went on the trips and all that crap. And I enjoyed that sort of architecture of having, hey, Uh, you know, it's, it's meritocrat is to a degree because once you hit the corporate ceiling of dumbness, which is basically the people in front of you can, can block you because of political juggernauting, you get to a certain point where I was just basically pounding the table of my boss's boss and saying, this is the dumbest story I've ever heard. Why are we doing it this way? It's just dumb. And, uh, you know, that. Kind of got me to the point where I'm like, I'm just done. I'm like, I took my last, uh, instead of taking the trip, I took the money and I left and I was, and I said, you know, I've read the four hour work week and all the rest of that happy, uh, horseshit. And he just said, okay, I'm done. I'm out of here. Now, what happens now? Well, I just went on a tear of doing consulting work and it wasn't related to anything with marketing. It was just being like me. I would go out and talk to customers and find out what their problems were. In this particular case, it was all. Telecom and wireless related, and I would renegotiate their contracts, take money based off of what my work was involved with that. And I did that and I actually, um, picked up some work and, and started to do some, some, you know, not, not a lot of money, but enough to pay for some bills. And I was like, okay, well maybe it's not so bad being consulted. Um, that was interesting for a while. And so I, you know, I also built a website for the business and I sat one day in my dentist chair and my dentist is like, you know, I need to get a website and this, I said, well, I'll build it for you. And so that was the first marketing thing that I ever did. And so that was in 2012. And after that I started to just do more and I had a knock for it and hired some people because I'd worked for, you know, these large companies I knew, uh, geo arbitrage. So I understood, you know, getting some resources in the Philippines and India and all the rest of these places. So. I had gotten resources together and built a little team by 2013, 2014. I was up and running, um, and I never, you know, sales and stuff like that really wasn't my, uh, problem, uh, getting clients cause I, I wasn't afraid to pick up the phone, just call people and just get on the phone and deal with them. I was, that's not, you know, I'm a very forward, um, front man. That's the best way to do it. Um, but so I got to a certain point where like, I need someone to manage this thing. And of course, that's when I put out the calling all cars, calling all cars, meet a good operations manager. And that's when obviously it's 2014 when, or ish, when Chase Buckner stepped into my world. And I hung up on him first. I'm like, what? You're in Mexico? No, bye. And, uh, he kind of, you know, called me back like, no, you guys, that's not, that's not what you think. I'm actually, I'm a Philly guy and you know, whatever. So, um, eventually, you know, we came to a conclusion and, and, and we built a pretty, pretty sizable agency. And, uh, you know, that lasted for quite a while, uh, until I think around, you know, 2000 and well, right before COVID and then, you know, things kind of flattened out and then it grew again after COVID and, uh, you know, I ended up making the Inc 5000, uh, in 2023, which was interesting because that was my goal. And, uh, I said, if I didn't
Keaton:catch that
Matt:making 5, 000 to get to the Inc 5, 000. Oh, great. Yeah. Yeah. So that was my goal. My goal was like, Hey, if I, if I can get this to the Inc 5, 000, I'll sell it. And that's exactly what I did. So that's sort of the five minute tour of the agency.
Keaton:Great. There's a lot of
Matt:in between parts, which I'm sure we'll talk about.
Keaton:Yeah. So I'm sure a lot of people will be interested in this Chase Buckner story. So you just put out a job ad. He ended up finding it because he's from Philly, but his wife's from Mexico. So he was living in Mexico. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, he was a teacher down there. Okay. And did you, you were like, great, you have tons of experience. You're coming on board. You get equity day one. How did you work out that partnership long term?
Matt:Well, I never really did partnership deals with anybody. I didn't actually feel that that was necessary. It was more like
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Matt:It was more like he was looking for a place to, cause he had, uh, swung the bat on a couple of agencies himself and it, you know, it's difficult. You can't really do this from Mexico. From a sales perspective, it's tough because Mexico's not buying down there. I mean, they're buying, but it's not like up here where it's like there's a bazillion businesses that need help down there. It's more like, you know, who, you know, and what do you, whatever. And he, and he attempted that. And I think what he ended up saying to himself was, If I could hitch my wagon, someone who can do sales and do, you know, really start the construction of like, Hey, go out and make it happen and bring customers in, I'll do the heavy lifting on the backend. And so he became sort of the web guy slash operations manager over time. And, um, you know, as I said, like it grew pretty quickly once he was, Uh, part of the picture, because that left me to have lots of time to do sales. Right. And I think at the end of the day, you know, you kind of look at, um, you know, what, what transpired from there. I mean, we even had in 2016, we had a, an event, like we brought everybody down to Mexico, all of our partners and some of our customers and had a huge event. And then, you know, the, this, this stuff was pretty. To me, it was just part of the growing of an agency from, you know, again, the 000, 60, 000, you know, get to a million, then, you know, go on from there. It was just like each year was a little bit more, and it, both Chase and I had the same exact goal. Idea, which is we really wanted a lifestyle agency. You can see behind me, I do that business. I'm fans and do the, you know, jump around on stage and, and have fun. Um, but I think the goal for me was always to not build some behemoth of hundreds of, you know, people in, in a big responsibility. I was like, look, if I can play gigs every weekend and we can get this thing to run and I can pay my bills and I can take care of, you know, building some equity into some properties and some get the money in the stock market. And like, you know, have a real life and not have to be like consumed by this business, then it's, then it would work. So chase was sort of in that same ballgame. And you know, when he left in 2019 to go for, uh, the position at high level, I was like, dude, awesome. I'm so excited for you. Like make it happen because we need you to do it because we, we, we started that whole train in 2018 or 2017, trying to. Be the poster boy for, um, doing that same model with active campaign. I mean, we were like the number one active campaign reseller and we're on all their videos on their homepage. And we were like, Hey man, you got to get the SMS going and you got to make it all in one communications plane and all this stuff. And then we went to ever genius. Eventually we transitioned to them and that company blew up. Cause they couldn't handle the, uh, the, um, the technical piece of it. They didn't have enough bandwidth or whatever, but everybody moved to high level. Like we all went, we were customer number one 11. That's how far back it goes. Like we were right there in the beginning. I think you were too. Um, so, you know, we, we all knew each other, like, you know, this is Sean's little review management thing that we, you know, migrated to this monster behemoth that we're talking to today. So, you know, it was just, we, it was a kind of family thing at that, at that point. And so Chase was like one of the first guys to come aboard and really, you know, help, I think, evangelize, you know, this whole business too, in that space. And then again, I, this podcast is. Not about, I think the evangelization of, of high level, but it's, it's more like the echelon of this agency business becoming more relevant because that was the first kind of time when, Hey, it all came together. We had the thing, we had the reviews, we had the, you know, all that stuff. Everything was now finally in one spot so we could grow efficiently. And, and we had really tried to do that. In fact, the company named today, profit engines. Was based on trying to build profit engines, which was this platform is high level because that's what we were trying to do was to get all this stuff together. And now it comes obviously from my company now it's different because we're, it's multifaceted and it's, it's a lot different now than it was obviously, you know, 2015, 10 years ago, you know, different. So I hope that answered your question. I went a little bit further than I.
Keaton:Great. Uh, my, the, the point I was trying to get to, I, I think a lot of people were kind of on that upwards trajectory, know they're good at sales, but need someone for the backend. Are nervous to bring on a partner and operations man or someone like that. And I was just curious how you got the incentives, right? Because that, I mean, you found Chase Buckner, who is one of the, the nicest guys in the world and just a pleasure to work with, but what advice do you have someone who's maybe in that similar position that you were when you were looking for him?
Matt:Okay, so I wasn't really looking for him particular. I was looking for anybody who wanted to, you know, in that my little tribe, right? So we had fun. I mean, we were fast and loose. It was fun. You know, it was, it was meant to be, um, a comedy show. I mean, it was, we had a lot of fun and we would sit around and tell jokes and however off color you could get was the better guy who would do the better joke. And we would have, you know, we'd have again, we, we made our own events. And, but I think what, what I would say is just find someone you can, you, you really want to work with and be, be, you know, like Chase and I are best friends. I mean, it's like, you know, these are cool people. I just find cool people. Incentives shouldn't be about money. Ventures should be about like, Hey, what can we build together? That's really cool. And that we like to work with each other. I mean, sure you could throw out a lot of money and you could probably stab somebody with that, but that's not my gig. And I never went after the money. I never sit here and go, okay, well, what Mercedes can I buy? It was about what could we do? How could we? How could I get you to surf more with me, Chase? How could I, how could we, you know, get down to Mexico so that we can hang out and do stuff together? So it was all about just building a relationship. And if you could do that with someone, the money comes after you. You know, money will come with it because if you work together really well, you don't even need equity in that stuff. It's just like, let's just do this together and we'll split up the cookies as they come in. And, you know, sometimes it doesn't need to be an equity deal. It could just be like, I'll just keep paying you more. If we get paid more, let's do a profit split. It's not hard. Just do that. And that's simple for people to understand. We grow it's meritocrat us. We'll all win. Just keep putting the tab in slot B and I'll keep getting new customers.
Keaton:Yeah, that's a great nugget. I, uh, I was listening to a podcast with the founder of base camp. If you know them, uh, software company has been around forever and he was saying some people will reach out to him and they'll be like, Hey, we want you to advise on this Uh, it's going to be 5 percent of the company in order to advise. And he's like, you know, uh, the accounting headache isn't actually worth it for me. So why don't I just like tell you what to do? And then like, if you sell someday, you just take care of me. And he's obviously coming from a place of extreme financial security where that type of deal makes sense. But I, it's interesting because we, it's like that nitwit meme. Have you seen it? Where the one end, the guy's crying, the other end, the guy's crying, uh, and the guy in the middle is like, Just so like Zen, because he's doing, he's not trying to go to one extreme or the other. And the one extreme here is like, I have to figure out all the equity. I have to get everything perfect. We have to decide it on day one. Um, and the other end is like, we're not going to do anything, which, you know, turns into a lot of beginners end up getting screwed over. I've heard a lot of stories like that. Um, if you're super advanced and you want to do that, it doesn't matter to you. If the, the money comes. Sure. More power to you, but you're in the middle here where you're like, let's just have some fun. You know, we'll split the money as it comes through. And uh, if you want to leave someday, that makes sense. And I'm happy for you. It's great. Well, it's just being
Matt:like a nice human being. Like it's just like, look, if you're nice and you're a good person and you want to just be helpful and you want to be cool, like it will come back. It's a mirror. Like do the things that make sense, that make people happy. Who cares about the money? Because that's just an, an out shoot of like experience of life. Like as you get older, like I'm a hundred years old now, I know you can kind of tell, but you know, the certainty of death is there and you better have a good time. So get people that are fun to be around that you're not stressed over and. If you're doing good work, you'll just get paid for your resource and your intelligence and your wisdom. Um, and trying to dick around with trying to put percentages and say, I mean, sure, maybe it's just not my bag, but I would rather have someone say, I want you just to hang out with me. Like my customers are like, dude, when can I get you back on a call? Cause they want me back on a call. I don't sit there and go, Oh, that's going 400 for that hour, no. I mean, it's just like, I'll send a message, say, dude, like, yeah, like I need to charge you another thousand bucks a month for like, cause you're killing me. He's like, yeah, yeah, whatever. Like it's not, it's not about like trying to, to, to skewer somebody. It's about being really honest and truth worthy with your customers and telling them what the deal is and say, you know, it's my time. So if, again, I'm in a different position too, than I was when I was doing agency stuff. I understand that. If you have no money and you're trying to, you know, get to a certain orbit level of paying your bills or paying your bills plus paying your mortgages, plus keeping your wife happy, whatever, um, you know, I get it. You're going to have obviously, you know, we did a lot of work with getting people on board and we had price plans and all that stuff and all the agency stuff. Sure. Uh, but at a certain point, you kind of get to a level where it's like, you really have to think like, as you get further down this pathway, like. You better like what you're doing and you better make sure that you're doing it with the people that you like to do it with.
Keaton:Yeah. Very important. So I'd love to hear some, some tales. You've been in the agency space longer than probably 99 percent of people that are in the agency space. So, um, I'm sure you have some horror stories and some really cool case studies. Um, let's start with the horror story. What's like the worst Thing that ever happened to you as an agency owner or like the client from hell, you know,
Matt:clients from hell never really bothered me. It was when they called me is when they bothered me. Right. So it's always seems to be the, the, the least happiest, the most happiest time for me for them to call, but their least happiest moment. Um, I was one time, this is fascinating. I'll tell you multiple stories, but I'll give you one that, that stands out. Cause I thought it was rather. unique. So I have all my kids with me. We're down at Universal Orlando. I just got off the Simpsons ride. I was feeling great. This is like the best thing I've ever been on. And I get a call on my phone. I'm like, what, what is this guy calling me for? And all I hear is just screaming and yelling and screaming and yelling. And I'm like, great timing. Um, so apparently what had happened was that we left his Facebook, sorry, his Google ad account on for multiple, let's just call it multiple days and years and in weeks, uh, without it connected to anything and it was running wide open. So I had 15, 000 of charges on his credit card that were not, um, appropriated very nicely. So I had to, you know, I had to basically swallow a big pill while it was, um, in the, one of the happiest places on earth. And I'm, my wife was like, like, what was that person talking about? Nothing, nevermind. Let's go on that ride. So that happens and it, you know, things happen like that. So I would say that one stuck out to me because it was unique. Uh, there are other funnier things that happened. Like, you know, I've, I've got on the phone with people. Who I'm working with and they've sent me, uh, pictures of them in the bathtub naked, which I thought was pretty cool. I'm like, that's an interesting, I've closed people without my shirt on. That's another thing. And these are all, cause we dealt with med spas. These are all female clients. So not like guys, pictures, naked, nothing wrong with that. Listen, whatever floats your boat. But, um, you know, I think the goal is to, to, to enjoy. So I don't, you know, there are lots of horror stories of maybe things that aren't to me. I'm just, they're just part of business, but the horror stories for me were probably, um, for me having to fire. People or fire clients. Those are the heart. Like I have a really, really hard problem when clients come to me honestly, and they say, Oh, if you just give me another chance, I'll pay you. I promise. I promise. I promise I will give you, and I always give people the opportunity. And much to my detriment and my team hated me for it because I crossed the borders of like insanity trying to help clients out because I'm too much of a nice guy. I'm too much of a giver. I'm too great. I have too much gratefulness in my heart and always give them the chance to, if they're serious and they're being honest with me and I can usually tell, and sometimes it doesn't work out. And sometimes I crossed my team too many times that that border probably was, that's the horror story is. Is me crossing the border of being too nice and too gentle and too forgiving of people in general, uh, and allowing things to happen where we lost money because I'm just too, too much of a nice guy. And that, that's truly the horror story because that hurt my employees that hurt our morale. And I, and I, and I honestly couldn't do anything about it because it's just my nature. And I always tell everybody, I'm not a robot. I'm not an autocrat. I'm not a, you know, guy who's just going to sit there and, you know, send people to collections. I'll try and work it out. I'll always try and get something where people leave me and they say, you know what? I mean, if they want to screw me, they want to screw me. That's just going to happen anyways. But I think people who know me, they'll even come back and say, you know what? You did the fair thing.
Keaton:Yeah. So what are these crazy clients that you should have fired earlier?
Matt:Well, I mean, Sometimes, well, see, this is the funny thing. I actually enjoy clients that are really annoying because I will literally mind bend them and they know I will. In fact, some of our hardest clients would stop calling me because I would start to do Yoda tricks on them and use NLP and change their mind. And they would go, I don't know what you're doing, but whatever Yoda trick you just did, I click because I would change their mind about, because now they would call me and they would know they'd be sold into something. So they stopped calling me and they would call my team. All of the clients that were mean, obnoxious, we were up here in New Jersey and people are rude, mean, and by the way, I don't fit into the category of that, but I, I kind of know the talk. I'm tolerant of lots of things and I don't mind people yelling and screaming. swearing and saying obnoxious things. And, but, but at a certain point, it doesn't really impact me. And, and, you know, people can try to emotionally sway me. People have told me all sorts of things. I mean, I don't need to get into the demographics of people who have done this to me, but there are those people who might be on steroids, lift a lot of weights and call up when they've had a bad day and start railing me really hard. And I basically can say, okay, are you done? And I let them run and let them run like a dog. You just let them bark and bark and bark and bark and bark. And then they eventually run out of gas and they go away. And then you come back and you start to upsell them. That was my trick. Cause I'd be like, I got that done. So let's talk about the next thing that we're going to do. In fact, some of my customers would get on the phone and the first thing they'll say is, please don't try and sell me first. Because they know that's coming because they know that if they're going to talk to me, if they want something from help for, for, to help that I'm going to be like, that's great, but we're going to talk about what we're going to do next too. And that's prevented, that's not a lot of prevent events. And so now they, again, they would get tucked to the account managers, but to answer your question, I think most agencies go through the pain points of dealing with challenging customers. And it's typically over money 90 percent of the time, where there is something that happened that they want to be paid. Back for what they want to credit or they want whatever they want. They want some sort of thing and that's where, you know, I, I turned a judge and jury and you hopefully don't go to legal with it. But those are, those are the real challenges, right? With any, you know, we had the right letters and all that stuff. Those are the things that nobody wants to do. And frankly, I try and avoid those things as much as I can, because I think the goal is just like, it's not worth the money. So I just basically, you know, either write it off, try to make a deal. And get them out of my hair. Cause those are the, those are the real stories. Um, again, if you want to go through funny stories about naked girls and all the rest of the stuff, I can tell you all those stuff. I don't, to me, those are just, you know, part of agency life and being, you know, in, in where we are in space. But I think the concept would be for anybody who's out there is listening to this, uh, is to protect yourself by understanding the customer and. If you want to take on a hard customer, cause you probably have to, because you're maybe you're, let's just call it. You have to, because you're just, you need the money. Um, can just consider what you're doing for your life. If the customer wouldn't be like someone you'd hang out with. Be wary.
Keaton:It's really interesting. Cause there was this one orthodontist that, uh, was just a nightmare client for us. And I sold my agency and then like was coaching somebody very. Quickly after that. And this orthodontist was from a specific country. That's rare to be from. And they were also in new England somewhere. And I was like, the guy came to me. He's like, Oh yeah, it's really cool. Cause I'm from this country too. And like, she's pretty close by me. I knew he was in new England. I knew where she was from and I was like, don't do it. I promise you don't do it. And it's in those small niches like that. Um, yeah. It's funny how many, like the clients get around. Like if they've worked with five or 10 agencies, it's a little bit of a red flag. Um, and, but it's just, it's funny to be able to swap stories and tell people like, no, definitely don't talk to them because, uh, not going to work out for you.
Matt:Sure. I mean, there's categories of, uh, cultures that are difficult and I've worked with them all and had them all and lost them all and sold them all and got them back again. I mean. It's really just sort of dependent on the, it's not even the culture. It's just the person. If the person is, is just bent, they're just bent. And you know, I, the people have good days and bad days and, or bad months and good months and weeks, especially in cash and carry businesses that we dealt with. I mean, one bad week and it's all over and they just fold up like a cheap suit. So
Keaton:that's really right. Function. Like I tell my clients here, what you can charge as a function of their take home income. And your fee, like they're taking home a hundred thousand dollars a year and you're going to charge them three grand a month total. That's like almost half of their monthly income that they're risking. And that's going to, that's going to be the, the level of the screeching on the phone is going to match how much, uh, of that monthly income is, is being risked on your services. And if it goes great, great. If it doesn't go great, then. You know why they're screeching so loud. Um, anyway, going back to stories, I'd love to hear, well, first of all, I don't actually know who you were selling to and what the majority of your revenue was in terms of services and, and niches. So let's do that. And then I'd love to dive into some case studies that were, uh, cool. And, and what you learned from them.
Matt:Yeah, sure. Uh, when I first started the agency. I did not do an itch. I hired prisoners in Minnesota at a work release facility to call local companies, 25 bucks an hour. Best thing I ever did. It was still with me. Uh, and they would call every single small business and basically pawn them into a meeting with me. Uh, I don't know what they do. Maybe they threaten them over the phone. Who knows? But I got lots of meetings and I went out and saw every single business you could think of. I mean,
Keaton:you didn't train these guys at all. You literally hired prisoners and didn't train them and said, just give me meetings.
Matt:Didn't I said, but just tell them that you, that they need marketing and that I'm coming over three o'clock on Wednesday, make it up. I didn't know any better. I could care less. Cause I knew as soon as I got in the door, I would sell them something. But that was pretty cool because what I did was I went and saw every single niche there was. I mean, I saw like a tensile strength company, like they, they measured this, the strength of the hair, you know, and a paint manufacturing company, oil companies. Doctors, dentists, um, everything. Um, garage door companies, uh, manufacturing companies and everything. So I got an open door to lots of niches, which is really cool because I actually love that. That reminded me of like when I was a boy. And the twenties of my age, and that's exactly what I did. I just, you know, I was on the phone calling random companies, going in and trying to sell them telcom and wireless stuff back in the day when it was the nineties, early nineties or mid nineties. And I saw everybody, you know, and this is the same thing. So I was able to see everybody. And I actually just kind of like stuff. I like going to see people and talk about what they're up to. And I kind of like business and like anything. So anyways, that did that for a while. And then, uh, at a certain point that was my, my company customer boom, which was. The basics of all, we did everything. We just did general business and this whole niche business. I mean, I'm not going to talk about like picking niches and stuff like that. Cause I have, I have my, I'll talk about it later maybe, but, um, I think you should just do stuff until you, until you like something, right. And so, yeah, I mean, so. So we did, I did that for when the chase had joined me and then we'd started to grow a little bit more and I started to do more. Um, I'd say, you know, varied niches that I found that were interesting. So, you know, we started to do more, um, medical stuff and, uh, I ended up doing like some conferences, right? So we, we, we said, well, you know what, let's build a secondary brand. We'll call it practice bloom and we'll start this medical niche. So I started to go to spine convention. We had a lot of spine surgeons. Uh, because they all talked with each other and I was getting pulled into their, uh, to their business.
Keaton:Um, and then we're mainly like websites and SEO at this point or
Matt:whatever, websites, SEO. We were doing card stock. We were doing, you know, like I even put the sign on a building, like whatever they wanted in marketing. Really? It didn't really matter to me. If they needed it, we'd figure it out and do it and deliver it. Not the most efficient thing, but again, back in those days, it didn't really matter because we were just trying to, you know, get to a million bucks at that point. So once we started practice bloom, that was the first indication that we had, um, a, um, a sort of an idea of doing medical. Now, just in the middle of this, uh, as I said before, we, we actually became a white label company for a while or just because we had resources. So a lot of agencies know me and they'd say, can you guys do what you're doing for that guy for me? So we did a lot of white label stuff for a while. It lasted for, we had a company called agency bloom and that's actually why we went to the, uh, Mexico and started a little event cause everybody was doing events. And so we got, you know, our agencies down there and we had a party and that was fun. Let me tell you, there's, there's some NS not safe for work photos from that one. Uh, but anyways, Um, Oh no, we had a, we had a pool, a couple of pools on our, in our house, in our, uh, on our front deck. And, um, I actually played a gig down there, which was actually really cool. Cause I brought my guitar player down with me and we, we, I actually played at the wrong bar, which is really funny. I went up. And I thought the band was there that was gonna be our backup band for that, for the gig the next night. And I just started playing with these guys and, and, you know, everybody's like, No, you're not playing here tomorrow night. You're playing at that other club. I'm like, Oh, sorry, guys. But you're good. Keep on stage. Keep doing it. You're getting everybody going. And Chase is like in this, he was there and he's like looking at the audience like, I didn't know you're actually good. I'm like, yeah, it was, it was actually the whole crowd started because their band was, there was kind of lame and I was like, got everybody going anyway. So I'm, I was trying to say that, you know, so we moved, eventually we stopped doing the reselling of, of I think the white label because it wasn't really our bag. We liked it, but it was, it was way, way, way, way too much work. Cause now you're three steps removed from the client, from the client and became a big cluster. Anyways. So now we started practicing, started doing, um, all these medical things. Yeah. And by about the time when Chase was leaving 2019, we had really edged into cash and carry businesses, which were med spas, uh, and chiropractors and weight loss centers and all this stuff. And so we started to do this. And by the time Chase had left, we kind of were leaning into just that niche medical in general and going into med spas. and sort of, uh, as the years went by 2020 to 2021 22, it became all med spas and weight loss and cash and carry IV centers. All this stuff that, you know, today I look back and I go, you know, it was interesting. I mean, I didn't, I would have never thought when I started that I would even care about this stuff. Uh, meaning that, you know, how far does a needle go in for Botox? And I knew every single thing you could possibly imagine in the med spa world that, and every. Um, and we still, again, I still do a lot of consulting now in that area, just because I've just so, I don't know, I've had, I don't even want to know how many customers we've had is a lot. And so to answer your question, I think as the, as the days went through, you know, picking that going towards that medical direction was interesting. Although we still kept a lot of the same clients in the base. So the base is about 30 percent mixture of clients and then 70 percent medical.
Keaton:I see. And tell us, like, what's one of your coolest case studies that you guys helped someone go from, like, struggling to very successful or kind of successful to very successful? Oh, there's
Matt:so many. I mean, literally, because we've been around for so long. Um, I think the one that, I mean, we're doing some really cool stuff now, which we can talk about if you want, but I think what was, what was interesting was, Looking at somebody's stuff, like going to an original location and the guy was sort of a difficult guy to go with. He was a horrible drunk. And, um, we really helped, um, take his business from a one location unit. And built it into, uh, six locations. He sold equity into the business. He built an e commerce store and he's filthy rich now. That's all I can tell you. Like after about one, uh, yes, MedSpot plus an e comm. Uh, he, he basically built an e comm store as well. Cause he was able to get, uh, best pricing from the manufacturers. Of all the products that supported the industry and resold it to all these other people. And he, he also built a train. We also built a training center for him. I mean, it was just amazing. Like we, we really, we really started like this generation of events that happened for, um, him to become, uh, valuable, uh, to his, his world.
Keaton:And, uh, what made the difference, like what was the difference between him being very successful and some of your other clients Just kind of maybe having. More mediocre results
Matt:when things came together and all this hit at once So you had your SEO working you had your ads working in Facebook. You had your ads working in Google We were doing a ton of organic posting for him We're doing Instagram strategies like it all just hit all of a sudden and I watched him and in one day I was having lunch with him the guy who ran this med spot. He's like I'm doing like 400, 000 a month now. I'm like, wow, like you started with us. You weren't even over a hundred. So we knew we quadrupled this business, but we also helped with so many things. Um, you know, call center employees, like hiring, helping him hire. There was just so much involved. And again, it wasn't just me. It was the team, um, that, you know, was helping him and multiple people were helping him. But the reality was, is that this is just like, you know, during the time, again, when there really wasn't high level, we had to Jerry rig all this stuff together. Right. So we had active campaign, we had tech strategies and we had all this, you know, it was, it was difficult. So I mean, he was paying us a relatively decent amount per month, but inevitably, you know, again, he sold and, you know, I don't know who owns it now. Again, I don't run that business anymore, but, um, it was a good example of, you know, Uh, really quickly getting multiple channels working, firing on all cylinders and really starting to skyrocket. And it was funny because you talk to his competitors and they thought this guy was a monster. They thought it was like, Oh, that's like a national brand. Like, I'm like, Nope, it's just him and his wife and you're just killing it. You just, you just don't know what we're doing in the background to make him kill it. So. So again, these are all these history lessons that, you know, how do you build a brand and, and now, you know, sort of comes right back to what I'm doing now with, you know, with helping other companies and stuff like that. But anyways, save that for later.
Keaton:Yeah. How do you charge for something like that? Like you're like, we'll do absolutely everything. And it's this retainer or, yeah, like again, these retainers are getting up
Matt:near 6, 000 a month for working on all these things. Or more depending on what we needed to do. Again, you know, this is, this is sort of how it happens. Like if you're, you're, you're being a good person, they don't want you to leave. Uh, they want you to just keep doing what you're doing cause they're making hay. So as long as you're doing the right things and creating a windfall for somebody, they typically don't complain. They may complain. On things that you'd say, like, what, what are you talking about? Are you looking at this? And then they just don't understand what's happening sometimes too. So,
Keaton:so it's really interesting because I feel like the beginner understanding of marketing is you just end up back where you started. Like the beginner understanding of marketing for me is like, they're everywhere, I see their brand. Like they must be doing so good. And then you start learning about marketing, you know, this like cost per click and add relevancy scores and all this other stuff that doesn't matter at all. And at the end of the day, you've just proven that pretty much all that mattered was being seen on every platform constantly. And all of a sudden you create this. Like, wow, there, you know, this instant brand recognition, this, like, they're definitely the best in the business kind of thing. And I don't know, I just think there's too much in the, the SMMA space, if you will, there's too much of this like scientific, Hey, you're going to give me. 2k retainer, and we're going to spend a thousand on ads. And I'm going to bring you this much every single month. And that's how it works. Let's do it. And in reality, it's like, if I'm a business owner and a marketing agency pitches me that today, I own a local business, I'd be like. I don't really think it's going to be every month. I need someone who's creative. I need someone who's going to go the extra mile to do something that will help us stand out. Not just use some templates. What would you say to that? Like the beginner agency owner doesn't really understand that concept. How, where else did you see that? And what's your take on, you know, the businesses that you're working with now? What do you tell them to help them understand the long tail of marketing, if you will?
Matt:So this is a tale of two cities. One city is a customer who cares and one is a tale of a customer who doesn't care. Depends on which one you get. The customer who cares, absolutely what you just said was spot on. Creative, something different, unique, everything like that. The customer who doesn't care and is not even paying attention to what you're talking about, just likes what does it cost and how much do I need to pay you? Same thing with the band. We can play a gig and we can have a club owner who loves us to death, is super excited. We're coming and, you know, is so. Excited that we played and you guys are awesome. We can't wait to see you guys again And we can have a festival owner who just hands us a check and says whatever like i'll see you next week I'll see you next year Again, it's the same thing. It depends. So you, you, you mark and you work with these customers differently, right? So depending on what you want to do, I mean, you, sometimes you just have to tell them like, yeah, it's a thousand bucks a month and you're going to pay me. And that's it and move on. And, and that depends. So you're, if your customer is engaged with you, sure. You want to go into that stuff because that's what they're going to want. But if the customer just wants to get past the point of just getting something done, and by the way, none of these, there's nothing good or bad about either one, it's just different ways to take. So if the customer just wants to get it done and they just want to pay you, just let them pay you and get it done. And just don't make a big deal out of it and don't try to oversell and over customize and over creative. Maybe that's just what they want. You know, sometimes give the customer what they want. It's the right answer.
Keaton:Makes sense. It's just, uh, it's the agency business is fraught in many ways in terms of scalability and you know, like the simpler you keep it, you, you build it. Once you sell it a million times, like that's what every agency owner wants to do and it can do very well for businesses. But. I just, I think the life that you breathed into that business is inspiring and, you know, giving people permission to be like, Hey, you want to color outside the lines a little bit on this client? And like, Charge them more and really get deep on it. Maybe that's a business you want to run five, 6, 000 a month clients that are all very invested in you having creative ideas and excited about what you're doing. Maybe that's more fun for you than a hundred businesses that, right. It
Matt:could be an end. Well, that's what I'm saying. Like it can be. And Like I have customers today that they don't care. They never talk to me. They don't want to talk to me They just want me to do what i'm doing. Just keep whatever you're doing Just do that and don't talk to me. I don't want to know you. I don't want to see you I'll pay your bill every month and I have some of the customers who are with me every day saying What can we do tomorrow? Right? And so that's cool, too Like I I like both I I have no problem with putting people into places where they fit Now, you know, could we have a general argument about scaling on this? A hundred percent. I didn't scale that practice bloom company on that model. I scaled that practice bloom money, um, model on one product, one service, one, one network, one channel. Look, Ralph Burns, Michigan model, which is Ralph's friend of mine, childhood friend, as a matter of fact, we traded bikes when we were kids. That's how, you know, we're go back, but, but he, it's the Michigan method. One thing, one, one, one, one, one. Just do that one product, one service, one thing, and just sell that and leave that. Give it to the sales guy. Give it to the SCSR. This is how it's sold. Buy it or don't buy it. Goodbye. And we would put on 40 customers a month doing that stuff. Sure. You can do that, but is that what you want to build? And what I found out was, Oh boy. Does that come with its own set of circumstances that you might not want, or
Keaton:you may want, I don't know. Yeah. Uh, so another question I have for you, there's people that I'm friends with, you know, periodically I'll check in, uh, where we see each other at a conference or something. And it's kind of like where they were last year is where they are now. And there's no, they're kind of, they're still asking, they're asking the same questions. I had happened to me a couple of weeks ago. Someone asked me a question, two months go by. They shoot me the same question. And I literally just scrolled up in our conversation. I was like, this is the answer. Just like reply to that. Right. Oh, sure. Absolutely. And clients like that. Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. I just, I feel like you kind of have this, this like duh energy. If that makes sense. So I ask you, I asked Matt coffee, like, how do you get clients? Well, duh, you just like hire the prisoners, Pam, 24 an hour and like walk into the business. And I am, I've just had so many conversations with agency owners. They're like, I just, I can't get meetings. I can't do it. I don't know what I'm doing wrong. I'm stuck at 5k a month. I'm stuck at 2k a month, whatever. And I, it's, it's kind of like. I think I've grown more cynical over time where I'm just like the people who crush it tend to crush it pretty fast. And this may not be the right opportunity for you. If you're going slower, I'm super happy for it. Like I have a friend who, who, uh, I mentioned him in another podcast recently, but he went, he just hit 10 K a month. He's been at the agency for like four years. He was doing some other freelance work at the time. He's like, we can do a podcast and we'll call it zero to 10 K in four years. Perfect. I love that. And there's, there's that there's totally room for that. I wish more people felt like that was okay.
Matt:Yep.
Keaton:Um, but from when he started taking it seriously, this friend, he was booking meetings, he was getting huge PR opportunities. It's in the UK. He's become a household name in his niche, even without a super massive agency. And it's, it's all just this intuition of like, Oh yeah, if I need to get clients, I need to appear. Like I know what I'm doing. And so he got featured in a magazine and he's, you know, produced some good content and kind of like push that out. Um, what advice do you have for that person who maybe doesn't, it's not coming easily to them. It's not, they, they hear go hire the prisoners at 25 an hour. And they're just like, Matt's crazy. Like I would never do anything like that. I don't have the money. I don't know what to do. I'm just frozen at my keyboard. Well,
Matt:there's two answers to this. You want the PC answer or you want the non PC answer? Non PC, always. Stop being a pussy, okay? That's the answer. And whoever is listening to this now, shut up. Like, you little complaining baby, grow some balls and do something with your life. And go away. I mean, come on. It's too short. We are too short of a sentence of life here. If you are just gonna sit there and complain that you can't get what you want, go and do that, but don't, Bye. Like make a big deal out of it. Like, just agree that you are, you are just uniquely unqualified to do anything. Like, if that's what your life is, then you really should look towards maybe perhaps looking at a job, right? Cause that's good. Like we need people to work for us. So that's what you, but if you want to be an entrepreneur, so here's the non PC answer, you're going to have to skill yourself up. You're going to have to take the time to learn things. That would actually take time. You're going to have to not watch YouTube for hours and upon hours, you're actually going to have to execute. So the biggest challenges is that people just, and again, I get probably called out a lot about this is that people don't have any idea how much time it takes to actually do this. It's real work. And it's difficult and it's hard and you have to stay up and do stuff and neglect things that you'd like to do and those those times like the 12 hour days that I spent getting up at the morning and six o'clock in the morning working on this and Working all through the night till eight o'clock at night and then skipping all of my friends and not being able to Do the things that I wanted to do and kept me in this molehole here Forever are the reason why I was able to put seven figures in the bank because that's that's life. So if you want to be complaining and you can't do the things you can then go complain or non pc Keep that conversation to everybody's head or do the real thing which is to put the work in and you know where to do it. It's this thing called the internet. You can figure it out. You're not stupid. You, you, you, most people went to college in high school You know, you didn't crawl from under a rock. There are ways to do this. There are people like Keaton and other people that will train you. But my point, and I'll say this the last, get someone who's accountable for you. If you need someone to kick your ass, come see me. I will personally kick your ass and make you do the work. I will make you feel like an idiot if you can't get your work done. And that's what I've done to some of the coaching clients that I've had. I've actually got them to a certain point where I cornered them and said, are you serious? Are you being the person that you don't want to be? Are you being a person that is Inequivocably just an an idiot. Why do you want to do this then and sometimes people need that realization? Whether they're children who need to be spanked whether they're adult teenagers Who need to be told they can't do what they just did because it's dangerous for them Or whether they're an entrepreneur agency want to be that wants to get to a million dollars But somehow can't get off the couch and turn the tv off And sometimes you just need to have that realization. So that's sort of like having someone to help you with fulfillment of being personally responsible, maybe what you actually need, whether it's me or somebody else who can hold you accountable for your actions and have you show up and maybe embarrass you a little bit about how poorly you've been able to basically get your time management done. And these are very, very basic things. I am nowhere near some sort of rocket scientist. I barely made it out of college. However, I have chutzpah and that makes me a little bit different than most of the players out there. Meaning I have no problem going and doing stuff because I like to actually get involved and do stuff and get and be in front of things and try and help people. I mean, my mantra has always been to live louder and I've written songs about it. I'm going to have another brand about this. If you're willing to, to live louder or my case of living louder, your life will change like dramatically, like really dramatically, like I've put myself into a position where I can pay for my kids, colleges, houses, whatever. I don't have to worry about, I mean, I'm not grandstanding, but I don't have to worry about the things that I used to have to worry about because I changed my perception.
Keaton:Um, that's a new tagline for you. Mac coffee, I'll give you a swift kick in the ass.
Matt:Oh, it's been
Keaton:said
Matt:before. So believe me,
Keaton:podcast anymore. That's great. And if I could just, just for anyone listening, the, I heard the summarize this week and I really like it. The world only cares about what it can get from you and boohooing about not being able to do exactly what you want right away. Is not going to get you very far. There comes a time when business becomes a little more fun. You can pick and choose, but at the beginning, it's just all about what people can get from you. And if you're not getting sales, you're not getting meetings. You're probably talking about things in terms of. instead of what you can provide for someone else. Um, all right, man, let's close out with the sale. Um, how did it come about and what are the numbers that you're willing to share? And what did you learn?
Matt:You know, I've been approached, so let's go back like 2022, right? I, I started to think about selling in 2022. Um, because we were starting to get out of COVID, things are starting to move forward. I could see the niche would be interesting for somebody who might be in the medical niche. And I said, well, we've got a bunch of these customers and we're able to, you know, sales guys running numbers now. And, um, I talked to a bunch of brokers and just like anybody else, I did lots of homework. In fact, I had a customer who was a broker, which was great. So I got the inside baseball and I understood how it all worked. And. You know, I did all the necessary things and I won't go through the Iterations of getting the numbers together and all the things that you should be doing if you're thinking about selling But yeah I mean books have to be cleaned and you know your numbers have to be in line you have to have all your figures and facts and you know ability to present on a dime with every number that you know that should be in your Head that you should know off the top of your head to be able to present to anybody who just come So that was all kind of done in 2022 2022 And in 2023, I started to get offers, right? So I started to get, uh, Lois and they ranged between, I don't know, seven 50 to 1.2 million, right? And, and they were all different. They were really cool offers. Some were five years, some were three years, some were you, you have 20% down, some were 70% down. And I had conversations with lots of other larger agencies who were interested in purchasing us or merging with us. And, uh, we, we got a couple of agencies really close. So I had lots of like, I dated a lot, you know, I date, I dated a lot of, of people and, um, as we got closer to the turn of 2023 to 2024, uh, we were getting pretty close, I was getting pretty close. With a potential merger, which I thought was a really good idea because we're very it was a lot of synchronicity and it would be an easy transference and I won't mention names because I don't think it's fair to say, uh, and my story is unique and I probably you'll hear it and go, Oh, that will never happen to me. Well, you don't know, you never know. Um, and to me, I was like, it just happened that way. So I was, again, I had LOIs in the table. I had a broker working for me, bringing me deals. We were going through it one by one. Uh, and, um, during that late summer of 2023, um, my second command, uh, had purchased a property in, uh, New Mexico. And, uh, she, she, 100 acres, you know, big, huge property. And. The Forest Service went out, uh, to prevent forest fires and burned all the property, uh, fire lines between the properties. Um, but it didn't work out so well. In fact, it burned the whole town down. So, so her property was burned to the crisp, including animals and houses and whatever, everything. Right. So she got a settlement from the government and she came to me and said, look, let me, let me work this out. Let me buy the company. And so we worked it out and I wanted seven figures on the dot. I said, I, I, I'm cool with it. Let's just. Call it seven figures and call it done. And we kind of worked it out where, you know, it, it kind of equal to the same thing where I took a portion of the customers and, and got a, got a sizable high six or close, you know, sizable six figure check, and then the rest were customers that would make up the difference. And, and we both went away unhappy, but happy. In fact, I wasn't going to do the deal because. I felt it was too thin, but we, we moved some of them, some more customers to my way. And, you know, I ended up with a base of customers around 30 grand a month. And so that was, I'm like, okay, cool. Like that's another three. So I'm fine. Like I was like, look, it puts me into production. I took a couple of my employees and that's it. It's not really that much that there really isn't a lot of the story. It just was a lucky deal. I got the lottery ticket to sell to my second command because of the fact that her property got burnt down. Yeah, I don't think that will happen to most people, but I was going to sell anyways, it was, it wasn't her, it would have been very, there was enough deals on the table that something was going to fall through. Like it was getting close. I was getting that 1. 2 over three years or, and I was like, okay, like we're getting close and it was just a matter of like, what were the terms of the deal were and, you know, I think a really cool thing was, and then this will hopefully help somebody. I like the fact we closed in 30 days. That was it. We said, let's do it. 30 days, we were done. Lawyers, everything. We mutually got a lawyer together. We agreed on all the terms. There weren't, it wasn't perfect. It wasn't, it took us 60 days to unwind everything and pay each other back for whatever we forgot about. But it was done in 30 days and I think that really helped both of us move on quickly. And, and again, I love my second command. She was awesome. And, and I still love her to death. She was just a great person. And I, you know, I really enjoyed working. I, I love my team. I love the whole thing, but I committed that if I made the ink 5, 000, I was going to sell and I kind of wanted to do it because I needed to move into my next phase, which is what I'm doing now, which I think I really enjoy a little bit more. I don't have 30 people reporting or reporting to managers that report to me. And I enjoy, I enjoy it. Things I'm doing, it's not as lucrative right now yet, but you know, give me another six months. This is, you know, beginning stages. I said, we just cracked the, the egg open of this agency and, or this business and it's starting to bloom and you'll see me everywhere. And you know, it's, it'll, it'll become relevant. I'm speaking next week at high levels event. And that'll bring in some people that might be interested in working with us. So we've got some really cool things, you know, popping and I'm excited. We're doing a lot of cool things. We're doing stuff that is avant garde, you know, with AI. And I know you're involved in this as well. And, and it's really cool what you can do today for customers that, and, you know, whether you want to do small businesses, large businesses, uh, SAS. I mean, there's, there's just opportunity. And again, you know, there's, there's, there's just a matter of like cool customers. That's it. I just want to deal with cool people. That's it. And if the customers are cool. We'll get along like gravy. And if they're not cool, I'll just be like, Oh man. Like it's just not, it's not worth my time. I'm I don't know. I'd rather do something
Keaton:very cool. So if someone wants to reach out to you, they just head over to coffee. com.
Matt:No, just go to, um, you can certainly all my socials out there. Just find me, you know, my, obviously my, my brand is profit engines and go to the website. You can look it up online. You can look for me. because obviously my band's more prominent than than me because it's gotten more interest than my little world over there. But that's going to change. I feel like within six months I'll have a pretty sizable organization and brand that's making a lot of noise. But yeah, go to profit engines or, you know, hit me up on any of the social medias. If you can't find me, um, Keaton, I'll give you a link. If people are interested in connecting, right. It would like to have a conversation.
Keaton:Awesome, Matt. Thanks so much for coming on. Uh, very valuable perspectives here. And, um, we already told people where to find you. So head over there and, uh, you'll get a swift kick in the ass
Matt:only if you need it.