Welcome to The DevLaunch Podcast. Bring you insights from industry experts on how to grow the digital agency you love. Have you ever wondered what it takes to build, grow, and eventually sell an agency? In this episode, I'm sitting down with Jason Swenk, an industry legend who's done it all, from accidental agency owner to a massive eight-figure exit and beyond.
You dive into the secrets of agency profitability, the art of knowing your numbers, and the pitfalls to avoid when negotiating your exit. With your thinking of selling your agency or you just want to run it better, this conversation is packed with actionable insights you won't want to miss. You're kind of a podcasting legend actually, Jason, because I've been looking at why you're stuff and been an eye-in-if for a little while, so I appreciate it.
All the more reason why I'm super excited to have you on the show today, Jason, I don't know, would you mind just even introducing yourself a little bit about your background, who you are, why we're talking today?
Yeah, Jason Swenk, I started an agency by accident in 1999, I was just designing a website, making fun of one of my friends. I looked like Justin Timberlake, so I got my start because of Justin Timberlake, but the website was called in shit, you got popular, and then people started asking me to design websites.
So, just start doing $500 websites, and then that turned into doing eventually many years later doing websites for Porsche and Lotus Cars and Building Legal Zoom, and all of those, the biggest brands in the world, and then Exiting, and then Sold, DeBressed, tried to do a couple different companies that I didn't like, and then started a podcast 10 years ago.
In 2014, where I just interviewed some of my old competitors and friends in the agency space, and we just talked about agency life, and I've been doing that ever since, and now we run a lot of different masterminds for agency owners, where we connect the most amazing people together. And you along that journey, you also had a pretty successful exit, right? Yeah, it was an 8 figure exit, right? Something like that, might have been a little bigger, but at least 8 figures, yes.
Which is, I mean, that's substantial. When we're talking about the agency space, like that's not nothing, because I mean, I'm sure people who are listening to this, we know, agencies typically don't get great revenue multiples or even to multiples in comparison to something like a sales company or something like that. So, to get an 8 figure or more exit, it's not nothing.
Well, the numbers that you need to hit are probably around, if you're going to get a 5x multiple, you just need to get 2 million in EBITDA to get an 8 figure exit. But if you can get more, right? Because like, we've bought 10 agencies in the past three years, and we've only been buying agencies that are over the million in EBITDA, or net profit, if that's easier for people to, because for many years when I was running my agency, I was like, what's EBITDA?
But you are right. The valuations for a service-based business are way lower than a technology or a SaaS. Because like SaaS and technology, for example, I interviewed, I don't want to say the company. It's a huge, huge, like they sold for billions of dollars. But he only owned like 3%, and then after taxes and he paid everybody, he still only walked away with like 7 million. And if I said the company, I probably used this company like every day, or when you go on trips.
But I kind of felt bad for that, because they're always taking investments, and they're always designed to spend all the money they have versus service-based businesses, we want to be profitable. Right. I mean, arguably you have to be in order to get the type of valuations you're talking about. You're even saying 2 million in EBITDA. For some agencies, that might be a real stretch.
I might require a lot of revenue, because it's not a very efficiently run agency. I'm assuming when you exited, you were pretty well-willed machine, or what did that look like when you exited? Yeah, I mean, we were well-willed. We had the right people in the right seat. Our financials were, you know, and that's not because of me. I fucking hate spreadsheets. I see in color and pretty pictures. But I always knew that we hear the KPIs that we were going after, and then making sure that was there.
So when the person buying us, you know, they were like, ask for this particular report. Here you go. Versus when we come in and we'll buy someone, they're scrambling. And they take like a week to put that information together, and then I'm like, hmm. And then what we find is a lot of times the agency is not where they're thought they were. They're not even close.
So if I did a letter of intent to an agency that was a million in EBITDA, and I valued you at five million, and then you came back to me, and with the real numbers, and it was five hundred thousand, well, that valuation probably went to five hundred to a million dollar valuation. Like that's a pretty big deficit. Yeah, I'll say. And I mean, would you say that that happens? I guess like relatively often?
All the time. Really? People don't know their numbers. They're so, you know, they're they were like me. They were an accidental agency owner. They knew how to do something cool, and someone offered, you know, like, hey, can you do this? And then you were like off to the races, and then you built the business on referral and word of mouth. You just kept getting the same, and you were just being reactive to the market versus being proactive.
And so, you know, it's just it's a cycle to hit a plateau very quickly. Well, I mean, so you had already said this though, when by the time you went to exit for the first time, you did have a lot of stuff in place, not because of you. It was actually in spite of you, but like what led up like, did you hire like a CEO, a CFO? Like how did you get to that spot?
Well, it's many years of failing. And you know, like I just got off a mastermind call with with their members a little while ago, and one of the questions I asked them was someone asked how to do something like how to scale. I said, that's the wrong question. You should be asking, you know, where do you want to go? And then the two who's who do you need to hire to figure out the how and then who do you need to become in order to take the agency to the next level?
And so it took me like we were when we started transforming like I we all started as agency founders, but not many of us reached to agency CEO. And it took me to a point where I almost shut down the agency and we were around two million at that time. And I took a job interview like I literally was like I'm out.
Like I don't want to do it. And they asked me two questions. What do you want to do every day? What do you ever want to do ever again? I couldn't answer it in the interview, but you know later on I thought about it. And I started writing down all the things I never want to do. I don't want to do delivery. I don't want to do HR. I don't want to I don't want to manage anybody.
Now managing people and having a ton of people is totally different. Like I believe you hire people you don't need to manage, especially your managers and then they have their own philosophy in that kind of way. But like I'm a horrible manager like I don't you don't want me as a as a manager. And so I started thinking all the things I hate and then all the things I love and then I realized I don't need to take a job. I can transform the agency into this.
So I was like, who do I need to become and hear the five roles that I started figuring out I love and I wanted to go into and then I started as I've been interviewing people for the past 10 years. I'm like all the most successful people are doing this in their agency. One is setting the vision and communicating it to your team all the time. So then they can make decisions without you. And it takes you out of that really kind of out of the day today.
And a lot of things number two is coaching and mentoring your leadership team only. All right, don't coach the whole company, but just coach your leadership team and try how can you make them better and make them better managers and leaders like transform them into leaders. Number three is understanding the KPIs and the numbers to see where you need to make and change the vision or the direction where you're going.
Then be the face of the agency and then set up strategic partnerships and build strategic relationships. That's when we started going fast. And that's that's really what changed everything for us. How about that? And I do want to talk a little bit more about the strategic partnerships because I think that's been something that's been coming up a lot as I've had more conversations.
I want to zero in here for a minute because you're talking about knowing your numbers and really having clarity on on that side of the house. Again, was there was there somebody in your leadership team that really kind of ran with that and gave you that clarity and who was that person? VP of operations and so but at the level we were it made sense to bring that in but for someone listening if they're at five or 10 that might not be right for you yet, you could get away with the director.
But what you're trying to look for is a good operator like for example a bad operator is going to come in and they're going to create a ton of stuff on top of everything you're doing. If you're going to eliminate anything a good operator will free up your time will give you great freedom. So one of the things I look for when I'm buying someone or when I look for like in a successful agency owner's not doing marketing they're not doing delivery and they're not doing sales.
You have to have operators in each one of those and if you're listening and you don't well figure out which is the one that you're the weakest at right now and put someone in that. And then so on and so on and then you can get to the you know the next level. I mean that sounds very very similar to kind of the EOS methodology is that what you guys had described to in your agency. No, but I mean you know I know Gina and I know a lot of agency owners that go through it any framework.
You know that's people have success are very very similar so that's very very true. Yeah a lot of these things are very transferable. It's fundamentals basically fundamentals of business management. Yeah. So I guess maybe last question when it when it comes to the exit in particular like had you guys been fielding offers you know during your growth stage or did it just kind of fall into your lap.
Whenever you start growing fast you start getting a lot of attention you'll have lots of people reaching out. The thing you have to do is figure out who serious and who's going to waste your time. I do believe you should go through the process because then you'll understand how people think and what do you need to change if you do want to have the option to sell.
But there's a lot especially out now there's so much crap where people pay let me own a buy your agency and then really they just want to do a stupid roll up where they don't give you any money they just give you fan of equity. And you turn over the lead like like there's so many people out with BS courses around that and it drives me nuts.
Like you should not set like and let's talk about a lot of times when I talk to people I actually talk them out of selling to us and my partners get mad at me a lot of times on this I'm like look you're making over a million dollars a year. You're not working much what am I missing why do you want to sell what are you doing next I have no plans which tells me there's something they're hiding right.
Like who wants to sell a million not a business that they're taking away a million dollars or have the opportunity to not working much unless they already have plans. So I tell people you only want to sell if you know exactly what you want to do next. So if you want to be an airline pilot I just got my pilot's license right so if I want to be an airline pilot and I knew for very clear I'd be like all right time to sell this business and I'll go do it.
But when I sold the first agency I was kind of lost because I just related myself to being an agency owner versus you know creative innovative father husband all that kind of stuff right that you know that I am that no one can ever take away I can never sell. And then other reasons to is like medical or health issues right or if you need the money to right.
But if you hate it and there's no way to fix that particular problem like a lot of times our mastermind members will come to me they're like hey I want to sell.
Well what's wrong well I just don't want to deal with the business anymore what's the real problem it's lead gen or this one point well what if we fix that would it would you still sell no do you think we should fix that they're like okay yeah versus if they hate everything about it like I hate the agency space then I'm like sell the damn thing.
Yeah right right which I mean I think it's it's good though I mean even what you're saying here is you're not necessarily interested in what's going to be in your best interest but also like when people are coming to you you're you're wanting to know what's going to be in their best interest here and sometimes the answer is you just need a tweak and fix a particular thing in your agency not necessarily just get rid of the whole thing.
Yeah good a good exercise to think about is if you are going to sell tomorrow you know all the skeletons in your closet what would you fix tomorrow. Like we all should be doing that right now and I'm a hypocrite on some of the some of the stuff right now like I like I'll give advice on one of our mastermind calls and then I'll call my team right after like hey you remember that advice I gave to.
Jackson we need to do that again but it's one of the great things about being a coach and being an educator is that like you're constantly being reminded of oh I should probably also eat my own dog food exactly. That's so good I do want to move on to another question but before I do I'm I'm so curious you're talking about how you are acquiring agencies I guess and you've done this was it you said three times so far.
10 times okay multiple times at this point do you take a roll up strategy when you purchase agencies or do you let them run kind of independently. Yeah so what we do and and this is what works best for us right like that's the beauty about you know listening to people's advice is there's no silver bullet but there's all these different types of silver that you can kind of pull on them make your own silver bullet for what's right for you but here's what worked for us.
The criteria is most of the time they have to be at least a million in EBITDA so we'll say you're worth five million Tony will give you two and a half million in cash they have close. The other two and a half will be an equity in the new company the day one of closing you're still going to operate and the same name same personnel we don't want you going anywhere.
We're not even going to tell your clients for six months because we don't want them to worry so when we go to them in six months we're like hey we sold six months together like services actually better cool great. We don't have that churn right and so that's our strategy we want them to keep operating but now they have more resources we can help coach them they can tap on.
We can go to our finance or our marketing team we can you know eventually after six months we can start eliminating some of the duplicate things that we have that they don't to make them more profitable and that kind of stuff so that's how we operate. But eventually do you ultimately like merge them into and roll them up or they all independent they all operate independent and they're a wholly owned company by us.
Wow and I suppose that probably gives you some flexibility in terms of the niches that are being served the services that are being rendered. Yeah and don't get me wrong this is not easy the easy parts buying the hard parts the integration. And we're still struggling with that honestly.
Yeah it's I mean it's a continual evolution I part of where I worked in corporate America you know we saw mergers and acquisitions happen all the time and it was that same thing it's like do you have this run independently or do you integrate it in with the brand.
And I feel like nobody is really knows the answer to that one so yeah I think it's very valid so Jason in a lot of the content that I've seen you you put out there you emphasize the importance of profitability over revenue when you come when it comes to valuing an agency so when you went explaining a little bit of the metrics and factors that owner should consider to determine agency worth.
Yeah I mean revenue is nothing and especially with the agencies and you know who you are who do the pass through income like I'll talk about 50 million dollar agency and got ten employees I'm like wow that's amazing profitability how much is in the media spend 49.
So you're a million dollar in service like come on like you're not fooling anybody so the top line revenue doesn't matter but profitability does and it should matter to you as well like the owner because that will dictate how much cash flow they have which is the blood of the organization allowing you to do things and operating and make the right decisions that's not just based on money.
Then you have some capital in order to invest or act as your own bank and that kind of stuff so you know but I think people get in the trap because they don't know what to charge. And they like for example like going back to mine like I charged $500 and that was big like I was a 22 year old stupid kid knew nothing like $500.
I was like I was living used to living on ramen noodles so I was like huge and then I went up to a thousand I'm like big bucks you know it's kind of like you know coming to America and the guy is that big dolls and he's like I'm on fries now but when I get on the hamburgers the real bucks are rolling in right so like I was like that.
But then you hit a certain cap and you can't figure out how to you know get the prices or whatever or you start thinking I have 20 clients now and I'm only a million in revenue.
Man I can't I can't get 40 clients to get to 2 million but what if you could replace those 20 or what if you could replace 5 with bigger clients then you don't need all that infrastructure and then you start thinking man what if I could you know like I went from $500 websites I think the biggest website we ever sold was close to a million bucks that's big delta right but people just haven't thought big enough and figure now going who can I help
who do I want to help who can I have the most impact for and if you and here's a good exercise for people to think about is if you were going to only be paid on performance only what would you do who would you do it for
like they're only paying you after they get success and they're going to pay you a percentage on that so if you answer that question then then you got like because people come to me and we like I'm really good mark like there's many companies that popped up but they will be nameless they're really good at marketing they're really good at sales but they suck at delivery they can't deliver results.
So who can you deliver amazing results for and then the rest will flow easier right well and essentially what you're touching on is something I talk about which is revenue quality not just revenue quantity it's like how can you maximize the value proposition so you can extract the revenue and it's like that's going to be one of the fastest ways for you to grow that EBITDA is by not necessarily doing more work but doing higher value higher quality work. Yeah. I think that's right.
So I mean like obviously EBITDA is going to be a big component when it comes to valuation for an agency are there any other metrics especially as you're looking at acquiring any other metrics that you're pretty tuned into or keyed into reoccurring revenue predictability stickiness their churn rate.
Right I'm looking at is any client more than 20% of the revenue you know red flag like I'm trying to we're trying to predict out like what's our revenue and what's our return on investment you know are they do they have one channel where they're getting building their pipeline versus three how can I scale that channel goes back to the day to day operations are they run by the owner.
Because I can promise you as an owner you're going to get bought you're not going to want to stay very long because you're not you're used to being the alpha well now you got to be the you know the Bravo or sometimes the Charlie right like you're a lot low on a lot of agency owners have egos right like I always tell people give her to the ego.
Like I don't like people in the mastermind if that he goes right like if you need the awards and the acculation all that kind of stuff to make you feel better great go do it but you know I get rid of that because those are the people that make the horrible team members later on what else audited financials which you like CPA. Yeah you like that oh yeah I bet you didn't think I'd say that.
No I was going to say that's actually surprising I mean especially the size businesses you're talking about is that typically what you're going for is you want to engage a CPA to help audit those financials. Yeah exactly because it goes back to people that they think they're a lot higher than they really are. But if I had if you had a third party go through it tell you what it is then you have a better idea of what you the better decisions to make.
Like that just tells me you're you're able to make better decisions because now you know the numbers absolutely oh my goodness. Very low there. Well hey Jason I appreciate that I'm absolutely going to get that little excerpt and share that with everybody and everybody. But it's interesting right because like when we talk about like our group of advisors that are helping us to grow our agency a lot of times we can look to rather Jen which don't get me wrong like even I am a massive advocate of.
Let's spend the money that we need to spend so we can get our revgen engine working well. But a lot of times we can overlook the importance of having that financial person on your team because it's like you said like you might be growing and you might think you're growing a lot faster or in a better spot than you actually are. And having somebody to kind of hold your feet to the fire is pretty important if you want to ever exit.
Yeah I mean it's like you want to lose weight but you never get on the scale. Yes. Okay like you're gaining weight dummy like you haven't you haven't weighed yourself. So then you keep making the same decisions until like it's like it's almost like you want to lose weight and you only weigh yourself on January 1st. And then you can't adjust so then the next year comes you weigh yourself on January 1st and you're like oh that didn't work then a whole year waste.
First if you got on the scale once a day then you could adjust every day or every week at least. Right. Yeah. I mean maybe on that note if you were giving advice, I mean you give advice all the time in your mastermind group but you're going to give advice to somebody who's like at some point I'd like to exit my agency. What's kind of a sweet spot for them to really start to get serious about making plans? How many years out of it?
Maybe a year but everyone should build a business that has the opportunities to sell because that business will create you more freedom and more money and more time. Yeah all of us got into business so we have more freedom. I do not know anybody that gets into business to not the opposite. Like I want to be in prison by my business.
So I don't know maybe comment comment in the comments if you're that person if that's your person perfect prove me wrong but any sane person I think once have more freedom. And so if you build a solid business where it gives you the freedom and the profit and you can pick and choose to do what you want who you want to work with who's on your team without you know all the other different things then that's a business that people want to buy and you don't have to sell it.
You'd rather be in a spot where you have the opportunity to sell but you just don't want to rather than the opposite where you want to sell but nobody is interested in buying. And there's many options right like like when I when I asked people I'm like what's what's the goal of the agency out and I always go is it to sell it is it an incubator agency where you build other things right like there's lots of agencies now that will buy like let's say they work with Amazon.
And so that's what we're going to do is we're going to have to sell it on Amazon. Well, though by companies that sell on Amazon and use that as an incubator to grow that brand to sell or the build a technology and they'll sell and you know it's like you just got to think what's the end goal. Even though you and you don't have to do it and please don't say I'm going to sell in five years and put a timeframe.
You don't know how where you're going to be what if the market's down and you get to five years and you want to sell you want to buy a stock at high and then sell low like that that's not smart. Yeah, be prepared at all times essentially is kind of the takeaway on that front.
But in the topic of the selling and specifically on the sell side sale side, you know when when agency owners are going through negotiations what are some of the common pitfalls that you are aware that they should be aware of when they're negotiating and how can they avoid those from happening.
Well, I mean the biggest pitfall is is they there's so so many emotions because they treat their businesses or baby and I goes back to how I was I I related my business to my baby I am you know an agency owner that's how I would you know look at myself.
If you take that motions out you pretend you're giving advice to a friend then you're like I don't like all right you're going to give me stupid money for it great right like there you go it's an easy decision versus like I put so many sweat and tears in this and love.
Other things too when you're going through negotiations whatever they ask you for ask for that back they ask for financials ask for their financials interesting because you want to evaluate them do you have the opportunity and capability to buy us. If I would ask have you done this before and can I chat with them how long ago was it so then you can chat with the you know the person that sold like you preferably a year out.
Because the first years the honeymoon stage then the company really pisses you off after that. And then earnouts hardly ever see him the one advice I tell you about an earn out that I've been telling a lot of our we've been having discussions are a mess because there's lots of members that that have sold and getting ready to sell I was sell with an earn out it's based on performance and it's something that the company doesn't think you're going to hit.
They kind of want you to hit it but they really don't because that means that's a pretty big pay day that they have to pay out. And when you sell they take control of your company so it makes it harder for you to make decisions.
So what I've told everybody is this if there's any kind of earn out you say acquiring company we make all decisions until the earn out is achieved or to time frame that time when the earn out is awarded if we award it by that time frame or before that time frame then you'll pay us the earn out. If you're not able to pay us the earn out we will take back 100% of the company and keep everything that you've given us. Wow now that's some strong negotiation there.
Yeah right and I've had companies get their companies back and they've kept $3 million in cash that they got. That's incredible I mean I wouldn't control everything. I wouldn't have thought about that piece but you're absolutely right it's like there's a contradiction or a misalignment of priorities there where it's like the earn out is here but you don't have any control to really make the earn out happen. So conflict of interest that's a really really good point.
It's almost like you've done this before Jason. Well I've messed up a ton of times. But I mean I guess I mean you've already shared a lot and the negotiations and things that people might you know have faltered on in the negotiation process. Is there anything else that you can think of and any other examples that people should be aware of when they're entering into negotiations. Always have them say the number first. I mean that's basic 101.
If you say the number first you know that's the ceiling. I think that I say that right. Yeah. Thanks. Yeah. You want them to go first and then they set the floor and everything else is going up. Yeah. You're your spot on with that as well. I mean you talked about this earlier though when it comes to you know fielding you experience this yourself when you're fielding potential buyers is really getting to the root of what are their motivations.
Could you maybe tell us a little bit more about how agency owners might be able to effectively uncover true motivations for potential buyers. Well that's I mean you just got to ask and a lot of times they'll tell you. Or you asked them about past acquisitions. And why did you buy them. And sometimes it's based on revenue sometimes it's based on client or sometimes it's just faster. To acquire all your team members and your clients right like once you get to a certain level.
Let's say you know 50 people like hiring another 50 takes a lot of time. It's easier to buy versus higher and train and fire higher again and train right like you can just buy something already working. It's easier. Yeah. I mean your example or your situation what were the true motivations of who you sold to. There's was revenue but I thought it was they were buying you know our team and what we wanted to do. So I didn't ask the right questions and they weren't this forthright to us.
So that's what I learned from that. I see I see. So ultimately what ended up happening was they're really in it for essentially the client list the work that you guys were already performing and they wanted to add in organic growth to their revenue. Yeah and we sold nine months or they sold nine months later. So you know it was it was good. I got two exits in a period of nine months. So yeah.
But did you did you do that where you ended up getting kind of Phantom equity in the company that acquired you. Yeah part of the deal was equity so that's why I said I was able to kind of benefit twice. Well and I think you had mentioned this earlier but it's like maybe something to avoid when it comes to being acquired is where possible get cash because Phantom equity for another privately. It's like a G. Yeah.
Yeah. But you kind of looked out nine months later that they sold because then it's like okay now we actually made money on that. Yeah because if they never sell you have this okay. Unless you have a deal in there where you can say I want to sell it and here's the price that you're going to buy me for. You know which could be another negotiating thing. Yeah well you also touched on this too and it has to do with after exit what people's plans are.
What should agency owners be considering when planning life after a sale. And to the before I get to that asking that in a second because there's something important I want to tell everybody that I see takes down agencies. When you go through a letter of intent and the due diligence a lot of agency owners take their foot off the gas think it I don't need to solve this problem because it's going to be the person acquiring.
And then you're not bringing in sales or like screw it that someone else's problem and then nine months later to however long it takes they back out last minute now you're screwed. And then you're scrambling so something never until you have the money in your account and the contract is signed don't assume it's going to happen. That was really good. So what was the question again.
Yeah no it has to do with after exit or life after exit what what should agency owners be considering when planning their life after sale. I mean I just think they unless you get the the the F you number right that's like one of my friends a little part of many years ago. They were losing a million dollars at the time and someone came and was like 25 million will buy it he said no 50 million said no finally they get the F you number 75 and he said yes.
You're always like depending on however you're old you are like when I sold I think it was 34 35. And you need to create you've been creating for 10 years or 12 years or whatever it was like you doing nothing is boring is shit. And then you don't have that significant so you just need to think what do I want to do what do I want to create what kind of business do I want to put together like now money's not an object. So now you can make decisions without money which only people with money make.
And then the people with money tell people with non money that and then I screw you that's not true and then right like that's how I was I was like yeah you get your idiots you still make decision based on money. I know it's like and I can prove that point like especially now I'm getting closer to you know 47 now you know I look back I'm like I would give all my money back today in order to go back 10 years.
Right like and maybe pulling on that thread I mean is there like is there regret in that or is it just like it would just be nice to relive 10 years ago like like I mean think about like any time you're upset with your business right now just think you're 10 and you're on the road and you go man I wish I was here versus 10 years older and like I'm not as you know flexible or fast or whatever it is right like or or you know like people will sacrifice anything for their business.
But that's a mistake right like you should your health should be first then the family then your business and it's always the opposite. That's what I've learned over the years that's how I have a just like through the business like I could build another business I could start over like I had I was some jackass is that I've been using our trademark like we own the trademark agency playbook because we have an eight system framework for that.
So I set out like a cease and assist like a nice one and then this jackass was like posting on LinkedIn all this guys you know gurus trying to protect their mark like just making up terms I'm like and then like all these people in the bad way again on it like that like 10 years ago
that probably would have set me now I'm like laughing at it I'm like you guys are the dumbest people in the world. Yeah it's just like businesses business treat it like monopoly I can start over I'm going to make mistakes like might sunbeats me in chess every day and drives me crazy. But we can restart tomorrow there's a chance. That's right. Yeah we don't we don't place too much significance into something that is not of utmost significance. Yeah.
I totally totally agree with that and I guess one thing I'm curious about you you mentioned this already you've had your exit you're now acquiring businesses like what's kind of the goal or what's the what's the desire for you right now as it relates to to business. My whole goal and throughout you know agency mastery and everything that we do it's all around being a resource I wish I had that's how we make decisions.
Like even our goal like we don't have a revenue goal year like year over year that people look for our goal is to double the EBITDA of our mastermind members and reduce their time that they work in the business by 25%. If that happens yes our revenue will go up yes we will get more people you know joining that we want that kind of stuff.
So we look at it that way which I know is a little bit different than I just said about you know knowing the KPIs but we know the leading indicators for the members and we lead with them first. So like if you did want to get in but we are extremely profitable and all that other stuff so we do track that stuff but we don't come out and go guys we need to hit 5 million we need to hit 10 million every year like who cares right right.
Well maybe on that note with agency mastery this is your mastermind group like I'm sure people who are listening to this you know maybe some have already I've already been a part of that so they already know this but for people who are not familiar with agency mastery what like what is it like what's the format how long is the commitment what does that look like.
Yeah it's really pretty amazing you know I've I always joke with people I've always been looking for a mastermind for myself and I've always struggled with that. And so I've created one that I've always wanted and it's where we have amazing people that are humble that love to share that want to grow and we get together a couple times throughout the month you know virtually and we talk about what's working what's not working we have members go through strategies that they're crushing it on.
And then we have some just open discussions around like we were talking about open discussions around what's everybody's churn right so they can kind of get a benchmark around that or what's everybody doing it improve their stickiness or you know people are encouraging them to replace their operations person that they've had for four years that they've outgrown.
Because this business and any business is very lonely and if you have outside kind of advisors where they can see the thing without emotions then you can make faster and better more informed decisions and then twice a year we get together in the next month we I run out this hundred thousand acre ranch in Colorado and they have 2000 bison and tons of horses it's all it's a hundred.
It's a hundred fifty year old ranch. So if you guys watch Yellowstone we kind of play cowboys and cowgirls and then we mastermind in the morning but then we go have fun. Hmm out on this ranch. That sounds like so much fun and it sounds like a great opportunity to like to build camaraderie and to build friendship with other people who are kind of in the trenches.
But the conversations that happen so I always tell people regardless what mastermind or what community you ever join the real magic happens outside of the scheduled calls. Hmm if you can get to a physical event where you can meet with people even outside horses and we're just riding up the sand dunes which are amazing just the conversations going on be like.
You know it's or sitting around the campfire like that's what we all want you build kind of those lifelong friends that really get to know where you're going who you are and then you can form those relationships and build businesses and we've had many like you know merge together or others of bought each other like shared business so.
You know that's the that's the special thing that that I'm most proud of those guys and gals and we're about 40% women too that's what I'm proud of that's huge I mean because agency is I mean typically I could be wrong on this but I think the typically leads a little bit more male. It does lean more male but there's more more amazing women like my wife has an agency I didn't know it for a couple years.
We don't talk about work but I was kind of funny I was like just don't buy any my competitors stuff that be kind of embarrassing that's awesome I love that so I mean like how how big is this mastermind usually. We have 70 members and then when we meet we break them up into smaller groups of less than 12 members and we break break them up into. Around the employee count that they have because if you have 200 employees versus 10 employees it's very different.
And then also two once a month we help them figure out what are they need to focus on each quarter whether it be at a track converter scale that's our methodology and then we have separate meetings for that that they can attend so they can meet all the other members so it's really pretty cool. That's awesome and I assume somebody can just go out straight to your website and they can go and sign up for this or.
Go to go to agency mastery dot IO and it will take you right there and then you can just check out how we can help and and then just fly then we'll have a conversation see if it works for you. That's awesome I love that well I'm going to assume Jason we've talked about a lot of really really good things I'm sure people have thinking as it relates to exit the probably think of themselves man I'd love to ask Jason even a couple more questions.
The obvious answer would be you know join the agency mastery get access to this to but if people wanted to follow some order content or even just like get to know you at all what's the best way for people to do that. Yeah if you guys go to agency or just go to the easy URL go to swank.com SWENK it will take you to our agency playbook which is an eight system framework.
And as it like a gift for you guys listening I'll give you access to the first three systems these are the foundational systems every agency needs whether you're starting or you're trying to scale or you hit a plateau it will help you get that focus for where you need to go and share it with your team.
It will show you how to position your agency so you're the choice rather than a choice and it will show you the right offering that you need to do so you can win deals faster at a higher price and win them more often. So if you go to just swank.com SWENK I give that to you guys for free Jason I appreciate that that offer and I really hope our listeners avail themselves of this this has been a very insightful conversation. I'm so thankful for the time that you spent with us today.
Yeah thanks for having me on Tony. And thank you to our listeners if you found value in our episode today please leave us a review and tell your friends about us if you're interested in being a guest on our show as a digital agency owner or maybe somebody with insights that can help you. So if you're interested in being a guest on our show as well as with insights that can help digital agencies grow head over to our website to learn more at equip.com forward slash podcast.
That's ACCQIP.com forward slash podcast. zan