All right. Welcome back to Agency Journey. This is your host, Gray MacKenzie. And this week, I've got the pleasure of bringing on someone who now holds the record for, I think, the longest time span as a guest on podcast. Mike Rose from from a handful of different things room talking about Mike you're here journey at Major Media labs your acquisition to your work as an author and what's coming up next. But welcome to the podcast. Thanks Gray. It's great to be on again after all these years.
I know, so I should have looked it up, but either end 2015 or I think it actually was in 2015, it could have been early 2016. I think you're the 14th episode of the podcast. Then I say, and we talk a lot about you wrote this book, ROE powers ROI are Why back in 2012. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Wow, you basta. You're in the 11th, 11th year now of the book, which is. Oh, yeah. But so we talked a little bit about that. We talked about where Mojo was. I think you're about 14 people at a time.
And so there's this whole, like agency growth story. And then, you know, kind of culminates, I want to work my way. We're in media race here and start and a halfway through the journey or a little bit more than that and then work our way back and work our way forward. But if we start kind of with the event that a lot of agency owners, a lot of listeners are probably anxious for at some point in their life, which is an exit, you were able you and your wife Nicole were yeah.
To sell the business last year to a much larger agency backed by I was a P capital in in gravity global and so can we just kind of start with give folks the real quick overview of what what was Mojo Media Labs and what did the exit look like for you and Nicole and the team? Sure. Well, I'm keeping it real here. My golden retriever is rolling around under my feet, so I'll try not to let that avoid me, avoid the conversation.
But yeah, it it was it was a it was a tremendous opportunity, a life changing opportunity, honestly, for Nicole and I. And we we went through the decision making process to even decide to sell like the same decision making process we did for everything. I mean, higher spires clients, you know, moving, hiring, I mean, you name it, we just follow the same process, which is, you know, and that was really driven by, you know, core values.
And, you know, the first thing it had to be good for the mojo makers as we called them. We we abolished the word employees. We don't like the word employee is seen sound subservient. So we we number one, had to be good for the mojo makers. And number two, it had to be good for the clients. And then we felt that if it was always good for the mojo makers, was always good for the clients, and it would be good for my Nicole and myself and that was the same decision making process.
I think it's just habit that we go through to decide to ultimately, you know, move on to to exit mojo and sell to grab to Global and go through that decision making process in order to make sure it was the right fit for everybody. How long was the time? And I don't know. I don't even know the inside scoop on like the interest inbound to you guys or was this a decision, Hey, we're going to start building an exit plan.
And obviously you guys had done a lot to prepare and which I'd like to talk about as well, kind of the work that that went into getting the agency in a place where it was both desirable and, you know, yeah, the ability to exit and leave day to day operations. But how long was the timeframe between that first touchpoint with the Gravity Global team and then actually closing the, the transaction? We signed the other like on January 3rd and we officially closed on May 12th.
Okay. So we were January. Yeah, relatively speaking. Yeah, I was pretty quick. It's a they're based in London, so it's a it's a London headquartered agency and we went through four stages of due diligence excuse me, for different areas of due diligence to include legal tax, financial, etc.. And so that was, it was, it was a very we prepared for it. We are very grateful to have run a very tight knit and very well-run agency in the sense of we had our stuff together.
So it went it went super smooth. But to answer your earlier question is when we decided the the the bigger decision here was we actually decided on in 2013, I was I won't give you the long story unless you wanted, but I came home from an event one night after talking to multiple friends over multiple years of selling our businesses. And I came on to Nicole and I just basically said, in ten years on May 13th, we're going to sell Mojo Media Labs.
And that would have been ten years from 2013 to 2023. And and she knew the state of the agency at the time, which isn't the greatest state, as we all experience on our journey. And she basically just kind of said, you're absolutely insane. There's no value here. I mean, what we've created is a monster and and our culture wasn't great and, you know, revenues were okay, but profits were terrible. I mean, it was just in a really bad state.
But I said, listen, I don't know how we're going to do this, but that's that's the goal. That's the ten year plan. So we decided I decided and then slowly was able to, you know, get her on board with it. But it was just a it was a mantra for me. It was just it was a purpose that I needed to have happen. And whether I was going to stay involved or whether I was going to stay owning the agency and exit at that time, or we sell it to the the employees or we sell it to somebody else.
I mean, but the objective would be for me to have a what's next and move on. And and so that was a very ambitious goal. And we've been set not only the date and the time, but also the the number.
And I'm really glad to say that when we exited on May 12th, a day before May 13th, which was ironically my birthday, but a year before, a year earlier as well, and for more than what we originally threw out there, which was just a tremendous kind of a realization that, you know, you can set big goals and they can be really far into the future. But I think it's the it's the it's the process of setting that and just relentlessly figuring out I'm not going to worry about the House yet.
I'm just going to know that this will happen in the future. And I think things just kind of align when you do that. Yeah, that's the vision role. It's a to live as if it becomes. Yeah, that's amazing. Congratulations on the sale. The I want to give people a little bit of color. What was the profile of Mojo at the time and what's the profile of Gravity Global. Yeah you know team size primary services that that kind of stuff. Sure. So Mojo evolved over the years.
We had some pretty big what I call kind of quantum leaps mojo in the in the early days and 2011, ten, 11, 12 even we were we were a project shop. We were working month to month, you know, trying to earn revenue like the best you can from project, you know, cash flow, if you will, and just knew there was a better way. So the first big quantum leap for us was to decide to go inbound and in obviously go HubSpot.
And, and that was, that was a big moment for us and that took us into the B2B space, which then over the following many years, probably up to the time we talked in 15 or 16, we made another kind of our second big quantum leap, which was to really go all in on account based marketing, which is, in my opinion, the best strategy you can take if you're dealing with B2B clients.
And that was another big quantum leap for us and that took us even further and deeper and and more upscale, if you will, to that in the B2B world. And so we were really we got to be known for that. And as a result, when we were looking at the potential buyers and we were very, very fortunate to have many at the table to settle on gravity because they are the largest excuse me, the most awarded B2B agency in the world. And I think there were totaled 400 awards last year alone.
So it's it's tremendous. And so we knew they could take our account based marketing processes and clients and we could apply that too much to already installed clients, which was a really nice fit for for both of us, because our team was completely bought in. And when I say the first decision was, is it good for mojo makers? Was it good for their careers? Can they advance? Can they grow? Can they not just grow from where?
From a career perspective now they can work anywhere in the world and most likely walk into a gravity global office, which is which is tremendous. It's really nice to be able to to offer that to them and practice the skill that we help develop over time, which is in the account based marketing strategy space. That that's awesome. Why were there so many bidders for module Media Lab? So was this a very like process working with a broker to go through the exit process, or was it all in Mount?
What did that look like? Yeah, this it was we found a partner that really specialized in working in the agency space and got to understand how Mojo was run beyond just the digital space, but how we were run as a business. It was really important for Nicole and I over the past many, many years to really teach financial literacy to everybody in the business. And we wanted them to understand how we made money, how we lost money, how how the business ran right.
And so I say that because we just we we were in the digital marketing space. We just happened to be there, but we were all business owners. We could take what we've learned from running a business and apply it almost any business. So the agency was well run from a business management perspective and and everybody in the business was very aligned to how to produce the most performance out of the business from a profitability, from a top line and bottom line perspective. And they really like that.
They a lot of the buyers we talked to just liked how well-run the business was and how they could potentially scale that. And it was almost like intrinsic value was it was value. You really can't put a number on, but there was value there beyond the typical value measures of the business to how they could apply that to now a much, much larger agency.
Yeah, I think and I mean, just for listeners to know, like I've had a chance to, to see how you run the business just through working with with you guys. Well you still had the agency and your kind of obsession with data and with like just having transparency around is this like is there a dashboard that shows me, you know, where where are we from growth perspective, where are we from? A delivery package or an operations perspective is abnormal in the agency's face.
And I wish that every one of our clients looked like you had that same drive for, Hey, I actually want to know how this is run. But that led to and you kind of I mean, you really chipped away over the years to like, how do we get a number four? That's how do we quantify this? How do we quantify this and learn on what this what this? And so like and so that that's really cool to hear you say.
Like, there is a lot of sophistication there that wasn't just kind of wrapped up in your I think the coolest part to me about the whole story and way that you in the career in the firm is it wasn't just kind of data hoarding so that you had numbers but the transparency side and teaching members of the team how to think about and understand what running a healthy business looks like. You really nailed it at the end there. And that is the teaching part.
And data is one thing we we just couldn't get our hands on enough measurables or data, but that really wasn't the end goal. The end goal was to provide the insights that the data was telling us right. And hence the teaching part and, you know, the insights, not so much for our clients. I think too many agency owners build their agency for their clients and they don't build the agency for themselves to get the data for themselves, how to run their agency first, then to make good client decisions.
So we just try to collect all that information. We weren't the best at it. We just try to learn day to day and make the best decisions we could based on the information, but mostly how to inspire and empower all the mojo makers with the information. Teach them how to get insights from this information so they can make the best decisions for themselves.
Because if you're working in the in the B2B, particularly space, but any space, really B2B space and you whether you're a front end programmer or a content creator or visual designer, whatever you do, if you know how a business is run, if you're taught how the business is being managed, then you're going to be a better resource for your clients. Well, we would say all the time is we are an expense on our clients PNL Right.
So first of all, we had to explain what a PNL was, a profit loss statement. We have to explain what an expense is and we had to explain what a variable expense is. We had to drill down into what SGMD is and what sales and marketing expenses are on a when they got to understand that how our business ran, how well we we tried to explain how it ran and let them make their own decisions. I was result it put more value on the the the quality we needed to deliver for our clients.
So we stayed an expense there and and be able to just speak business, talk first and then talk digital marketing talk second. Right. So we're already getting into one of the key things that allowed you to achieve your goal ahead of schedule and above budget. Above, above, above target is a budget is normally not a good word, but in this case it generates a billion. But so that, you know, mode was not the only business that you and Nicole have run.
You've you know, we've talked a little bit in the past, so that's another ventures and cool stuff that you've been anti panache preneur for a long time but what else happened like paint a picture for us of if you had to take these last ten years from you making that commitment to actually realizing that that dream other than the data side and and training the team like what are the other check points
that you guys it to have a really valuable salable asset. Sure number one I think it has I mean everybody kind of purchased if only I'm just going to share my opinion but it the agency can't be run with you the owner. I think it's really important to figure out how to remove yourself from the agency. And I followed my own process that I kind of created. But it's it's you know, we hear all the time and I hear talk about you really as an agency owner. I'm talking about owners here.
You really have to work more on your business and in your business. And I see a lot of head shaking and saying, yeah, I need to do that. But it's really never been define what that really means.
And and to me, working in your business is is the areas as such subject matter experts to deliver the work to the client and I worked very hard at not getting pulled into the semi world which is in the business and it was really hard even when we pivoted to that that second quantum leap into account based marketing, it was it's hard for me not to get up to be obsessed about something and not go super deep in it. But I, I just train myself to how do I leverage this and work on the business?
How do I create a strategy, a business strategy, not a client strategy? How do I create a business strategy around this account based marketing concept? And then how to like, create processes? Of course, helping you guys help tremendously with that, to make that strategy implementable, you know, operational within the business. And and that just kind of got to be a habit where I spend probably 0% of my time in the business and 80% of my time on the business.
And and over time, because I knew this deadline is looming nine years, a year, seven years, six years down, the road, that's I had to slowly even take a step further, working more strategically on the business and that then later that led to working more on the vision. And to me, vision is is like sound. It's it's indescribable. We have to create our own vision, and that is through our core values, our mission and our purpose.
So we worked a lot on the culture, the business, and how to communicate that culture internally and externally. And, you know, it's exciting to present Mojo in a in a presentation. And for 30 minutes and not even say what we do, but why we do it. And that that became pretty exciting because we even had people were pitching apply to work at Mojo because they just loved the vision, they love what we were doing, and that was pretty special.
And, and in over time I added another aspect to that ratio to not just work, get out of working in your business, work more on your business, but and most importantly, work out of your business. And and for me, working out of the business was me slowly working on my what's next. So, you know, if you ever plan to sell your business or if you ever sell your business, you're going to get asked this question and just be ready for. And that is what's next? What are you going to do next?
And so I set my what's next the same day ten years ago. Then I set the exit and that was to to really work on my concept, return on energy and and be able to, you know, share that with with other business owners and key executives.
And and that was my driving force to not get sucked into the world when I'm working in it motivated me to work on and eventually getting to, you know, the as they say, the four hour workweek where you're basically working 90%, if you will, out of the business, 10% on the business and 0% in the business. And lastly, I think it was probably more challenging to work 4 hours a week than there was 40 hours a week because there's a there's a psychological thing like, do they need me?
I'm not I'm not I'm not giving enough, I'm not available enough. I'm am I taking advantage of this situation? Are they seeing. So there's a lot of head and as you slowly move through this process. But what we discovered is that as as this process was happening, it was only increasing the value of the business and I'd like to say that was intentional, but it was kind of some unintended positive consequences in that. But that's basically how it worked.
That's the real value because so many follow up questions. Let me ask a one tied to what you just said about just kind of your own psychology.
Did you feel like as you scaled your time down and down and down in terms of time that you're working on or in the business and you were working more out of the business, but knowing that you're running towards this finish line of selling the business, how did you come that the feeling that, hey, like the business is fine, we're okay if I work less and less, but also I could be an accelerant here and we could increase our valuation.
Every dollar that we generate in top line revenue or or profit at least is another six seven we that we make when we go eggs at this thing. So how did you combat that feeling or the the desire to kind of optimize the outcome. It it was it was all consuming. I mean, you know, I think if there's one we all have three resources. We invest every day and that's time, money and effort, you know, and we all had the same amount of time.
You know, money is, I think, quite frankly, irrelevant to a positive outcome, whether you have it or you don't or you you need it or you think you need it or whatever the case may be, it's it's really the effort. And, you know, effort is, you know, the drive, the ambition, the obsession, the the relentless pursuit, the persistence. You know, that that's that's the effort part and the effort that went into this. And to be clear, it wasn't just ten years ago wasn't to sell the agency.
It was for me to exit the agency. And how that looked, I had no idea. I just knew that I didn't want to be running an agency beyond this point in time in my life. And we I set the goal initially because our youngest, my son Preston, graduate, it's in May of, I guess this year in May. And I really wanted to spend that that that summer with him before he goes to college. So I was like, if I can exit on May 13th, that's around the time he'll graduate. That's my birthday.
I'll spend three months just hanging out with him and just kind of really that that was really kind of the silly little motivation that I had it. We can we can set goals to our head, but we really have to process goals with our heart and we always try to connect the head to the heart. And again, just kind of a a repetition thing that we do is habit. It's like, how can I create a goal that touches my heart? And so the exit was for that.
Honestly, that reason, it wasn't anything grandiose than that. And I knew that I wanted to take our we to the next level, return our energy to the next level. So, you know, the the psychology behind it really was how do I exit as an owner? And I don't think I've ever said this publicly before, but I never for from the have spotters out there I never got an inbound certification before and it was really kind of a conscious decision to say that's going to pull me in quote unquote in the business.
And I would kind of obviously take it. I think I could explain inbound and Abby very, very well. But I didn't want to take the certification because I knew that pulled me in. I'd rather find the right people. It was more of a fun on how find the right people to do the the how in order to find the right people in the world that we live in, in the agency world. You had to have an amazing and have a great culture. And anything we could bolt on to have a great culture was objective to to to do that.
And so, you know, if you go to my LinkedIn, you won't find any inbound certifications and all this other stuff I didn't talk to, I was I was part of the advisory council. I was kind of like part of that process, but it was more from a visionary business strategy perspective than it was maybe what it's typically designed for.
Yeah, I'm not necessarily proud of that per say, but it was part of the process to say, I, I want to be, I want to exit and I want to do it under my terms and this is my what's next. And so just kind of a lot of micro decisions every single day led up to that ultimate goal. Is a great illustration. That's a really cool. I feel like there's a lot of those clichés or principles or kind of tests that who really cares about the practical. Like, would it have mattered to you?
Hit your goal if you get certified. Certainly, yeah. I think of that as like, what do I pick up in the morning when I first wake up and I grab my phone first or I go to my Bible first. That tells me a lot about, you know, where where I am functionally, right, right now. Is it wrong if I grab my phone first? Like, no, that does not make necessarily wrong, but it's an indication of where my heart and where my head is at. And so that's a cool a really cool illustration. Important.
I want to go to talk about stage three, like what comes next for you. But last question before we get there, because this one I think is probably maybe not top of mind, but probably something that comes up anytime we talk about exits and your and your long vision for that. Did you communicate that vision to your team or when when and how did you communicate that vision to your team?
Yeah, when I when I moved to the when I moved to the the where was I'm trying to remember I call it the, the, the early ratio. So the ratio is oh no it's out on end. Right. So the ratio was I started, I kind of say a joke and started at zero zero 130%, you know, I mean like a lot of people are and I just knew that wasn't how I wanted to live my life. And so I set an initial goal just to have 33, 33, 33, 33% working out of my business during the 40 hour workweek.
Because if you're trading your time for money and you're an agency owner, you have a job. Whether you kind of want to leave it or not, you have a job. And I didn't want to have a job. And and I wanted to create jobs 100 to create opportunities and for other people. And I knew that wasn't going to be the case if I was sitting in their seat.
So when I moved to an 8020 zero, when I moved to 80% working out of the business four days a week out of the business and 20% on the business, which is a full day, by the way, that's when it was it was running well. And I we stress test that over time to leave for a period of time and it started a week and that was two weeks. And I was like, things are going well.
And the first time the stress test, it was a week in Hawaii and it was like I came this close to flying home halfway through it because it was just an absolute disaster. And, and that was around the 15, 14 timeframe, I believe. And and so it started really rocky. But when everybody saw me slowly making this progress and I was very transparent about this progress, then they loved it because it empowered them to make decisions and they had a decision making structure, our values to to, to do that.
And so long as you're making decisions around the core values, then I don't care what happens. You know, you would have made the right decision if you if it's not ultimately a great outcome. It's an opportunity to learn. Let's talk about it. But I never tried to tell people what to do and that that included, by the way, the leadership team, not just me. So, you know, we try to empower our leadership team to have to have people make
their own decisions. And to do that, you have to be okay with mediocrity. People don't like when I say that, but you have to be okay with that. You have to be okay with potentially really screwing things up.
And but if people are the right person, you know, meaning they're they have the core values and they're living by your eye, your vision that you set, then almost celebrate that, because I'd rather make those mistakes early on and then fix the processes as a result, get more information and to make better decisions and insights from that data to then keep plugging along. So that's kind of the process.
But when I got to the 8020 zero, it was it was people were just like, just go, just get out of here, you know, we don't need you here. And then I started interject myself, then I got sucked in it again and that was the head trash of me saying, Oh, they need me. But it ultimately got to the point where they did. And so when we set this plan in place to be pretty much 100% out just before COVID and when COVID hit, then I just felt the the need to be more involved, obviously.
And and we navigated that super well. I'm so proud of the team, how we how we navigated that. And and as a result, then I was able to put it in place just after that. Yeah, that's really over the year. I think the point about tolerating mediocrity or, you know, some failures along the way is really hits home with me. I found it's easier for me.
I don't know why, but easier for me to compartmentalize that in, you know, coached high school baseball for a long time and totally okay with losing some games early in the season to try to get the outcome that we're shooting for with the program or to make a point here, let somebody fail in a situation because of kind of a bigger picture outcome. And that's easier for me.
I've done some journaling around this, like why is that easier for us than in the business where it's like, Oh no, this one client project is like, we're two days late and we need to solve this. But right now this is the biggest thing and get so worked up about that. But I do think there needs to be a long term view as part of that. And that that's really well said.
One of the one of the things that we followed was if you get if you get sucked into that, if you try to control the outcome or you try to do the work yourself or you don't give up control or you feel like you have control which you don't, or you want to do the work yourself, that's essentially called a micromanager and and nobody wants to be micromanaged, obviously. So we looked at it as micro mentorship and and as a micro mentorship perspective. It's like, how do I I'm a coach, right?
And in order to really mentor somebody, they have to understand how to be a great mentee. And not everybody. I think most people want to be mentored, but they may not know how to be mentor. So therefore part of the micro mentorship process is to help them understand that I'm not here to do your job for you. I'm here to coach you and build your skill set so you can be the expert to do this particular role, this particular role.
And so the micro mentorship is it's easy to say, but what's so difficult about it is leadership and management are technically very easy. It's one to many, but mentorship requires that resource that we talked about time and and that's what's so limited. So mentorship is 1 to 1 and it's hard to mentor, much less micro mentor a team of 15 or 20 or 40 people. But if you put the right pieces in place, mentorship becomes working on the business.
So how do you create more time for people to work more on the business and less in the business and working on your business, not on your client's business? And when we started to kind of look at it through a different lens, it we started to attract the right people who really wanted to be in that environment. And that was what was pretty cool. Yeah, that's awesome. So what's next? The question, right?
The big question that was cool is, you know, I was able to at least check that box for a long time ago. And you know, when officially published return on energy are we powers are why the book and finally Amazon back in 2012 so you know I knew that was going to be my what's next I started jotting down I have a chemistry background so I'm a scientist by trade. So I'm always experimenting and and testing and retesting and breaking and fixing and the methodology.
We're channeling energy methodology back in 2007 and then published the book in 12. And when it when it came out, I was like, that's my what's next? I don't know when I don't know how we're going to do this, but that's what I want ultimately my legacy to be from a business perspective. And, you know, I'm really proud of it.
It's having published the book 12 years or ten years ago and 12 and and it just, you know, going into the 13th year or the 11th year, it's I wouldn't change a word in the book.
I mean, it's been it's I'm really proud of it It's it's it's it's content that's just blessed me across the board in so many different areas and and so that's my what's next I want to create I want to take this and I'm grateful that the business I I'm not in this position say five years ago because five years ago I would have wrote another book out of gone out to Speak and I would have did consulting. I mean, that's what you do, right? And it's like my, my, what I value most is my freedom.
I thought it was financial freedom. But what I discovered over time with myself, that's just more freedom. And and and that's what I'm is done the the the why behind making all decisions moving forward and therefore it's not going to be around exclusively those three things. It's going to be around creating digital products through a learning management system that we can, you know, create and deliver.
And I, I am incredibly blessed to get asked a lot to kind of consult and work with people one on one. And in that that's just not enough time. So by creating these online products, people can take them and then we can touch so many more different lives. And ultimately it's to energize entrepreneurs, to ultimately grow their business, to live a life they love to.
And that's what's pretty special about it, because the technology is really caught up to being able to deliver the product in a digital form. Yeah, let's tell people about the workshops because I think you just ran one of the first workshops that you've done around it, but walk through what that looks like. Sure. So we launched the first set of workshops last week. Actually the week of of February 21st and 22nd and to to a founding member group.
And it was I was just really pleased and I'm I'm my biggest critic so but I was really pleased with how it turned out. There's just a lot of work that went into it. I decided to take six months off after my last year and to fulfill my goal to spend time with Preston and whatnot. But in my family in general, but in the goal and things like that. But I needed that time to just kind of reset and plan and then hit it really hard and in November, December.
But I'm really pleased with how it turned out. I was in a good state of to create it. So the objective is to really help business owners and key executives through the process so that I and we as a leadership team went through. And that is to really come up with a healthy Louie ratio using return on energy. And that is again the ratio of working out on or in your business. And that's step one, which we call the Are We workshop with an entrepreneur breakthrough, if you will.
And then that is a is a prerequisite, if you will, to what we're building now, which is the are we masterclass. That's awesome. If folks want to check it out, what's the wish we send? Yeah. So if you know for you know the agency world's my people so I just love I love your this this audience and but send me a personal email send it to Mike at return on energy ecom and I'll I'll make sure you get a discount code or something to an upcoming workshop which is the next one is on
March 24th, I believe. Awesome. And it's a live online workshop. When we're sure we've got that in the show notes of Aw man, I could ask you so, so many more questions. If a few folks who've written books or some other people to talk to you because you've had that, you know, you've fought through all this stuff hundreds of times before. And so the ability to then articulate and communicate it is super, super helpful. So I appreciate you want to come come back on, share your story again.
Congratulations again on the on the exit and on the transition. And on stage three, I'm excited to see and follow your journey as you keep moving. But but thanks for joining us today. Let's do it again in 2028 and see see what we're after. It's been great great. And you guys have been an incredible resource for us along the journey. And you see, you know, couldn't have done a lot of this without you and your team. So that very grateful for that as well. Yeah, that's awesome. Cool.
All right. Thanks, Mike. Appreciate it. Appreciate you.