Unlocking Entrepreneurial Freedom | TJ Murphy

PROFITABLE TALKS...

In this episode of the Profitable Creative, host Christian Brim speaks with TJ Murphy of Height Digital about the journey of entrepreneurship, the challenges faced by agency owners, and the importance of community and accountability in business. They discuss the impact of AI on marketing, the significance of client retention, and the necessity of understanding client needs and expectations. The conversation also touches on the financial aspects of running a business and the importance of redefining success beyond just revenue growth.

PROFITABLE TAKEAWAYS...

• Surrounding yourself with smarter people is crucial.
• Checking your ego can lead to better business decisions.
• Community and accountability are essential for growth.
• AI is transforming the marketing landscape.
• Client retention requires ongoing relationship building.
• Understanding client needs is key to providing value.
• Financial conversations are often overlooked in marketing.
• Success should be defined beyond just revenue growth.
• Entrepreneurs often chase shiny objects instead of fundamentals.
• Building a strong foundation is vital for sustainable growth.

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Transcript

Christian Brim (00:01.461)
Welcome to another episode of the Profitable Creative, the only place on the interwebs where you will learn how to turn your passion into profit. stumbled over that one. Special shout out to our one listener in Ida Bell, Oklahoma. Ida Bell is an interesting place that is a little Dixie down there in Southeast Oklahoma. Yeah, I'll just leave it at that. I am your host, Christian Brim. Joining me today.

TJ Murphy of Height Digital. TJ, welcome to the show.

TJ Murphy (00:35.054)
Christian, it's a pleasure to be here. It's been a long time coming since we chatted over a cocktail in Nicaragua.

Christian Brim (00:39.081)
It has. Why did it take so long to get, how long, why did it take so long to get scheduled? don't, I don't know.

TJ Murphy (00:44.236)
You know, that's all on me. I remember we were scheduled a few months ago and I got asked to play in a charity golf tournament for our local Boys and Girls Club here in Bend. I serve on their board and I got asked to play last. I'm a terrible golfer, but I enjoy it. I don't let my ego get in the way of having a good time out there. So it was a good day.

Christian Brim (00:51.159)
Hmm

Christian Brim (00:56.491)
How'd you shoot?

Christian Brim (01:04.498)
I remember both of both of my brothers at one point in their lives were scratch golfers and one of them will not play with me anymore. And the other one, he, made the comment and he's like, why, why do you get mad? You're not good enough to be mad. And I'm like, geez. Okay.

TJ Murphy (01:21.836)
That's my mentality. like, I got no ego in this game. If I can par one hole, have a good drive, that's winning for me.

Christian Brim (01:31.307)
Yeah, yes. So you are with Height and that is a, I don't want to say global, but definitely a national firm. How do you fit into that?

TJ Murphy (01:46.082)
Yeah, I mean, we are we are global in the sense that, you know, our team is located all around the country. We we recruit some of the best talent from, you know, everywhere outside of the US. I live here in Bend, Oregon, have some of my team locally here in Oregon, all parts of Latin America as well. And, you know, for me, I joined height after running my agency for about four years, kind of doing it the hard way, learning, learning how to figure everything out on my own. And

After a little bit of coaching and a little bit of checking my ego, I realized, you know, there's an easier way to grow and there's an easier way to be able to serve. And that usually involves surrounding yourself with people that are smarter than you and that share some of the same common values. So got introduced to the folks over at height and you know, eventually decided I wanted to move in that direction and grow alongside them. So I run our office here.

Christian Brim (02:22.56)
Hmm.

TJ Murphy (02:42.07)
in Bend, Oregon, where I'm very fortunate to be able to live with my beautiful wife and our little Boston Terrier puppy. We love it here because we've got all the access to the things that we like to do, which is anything happening out in the great outdoors, skiing, biking, rock climbing, all that good stuff.

Christian Brim (02:57.353)
Yeah, you described the activities there in Bend and I was like, wow, that's a lot. You can do a lot in Bend. correct me if I'm wrong. So this was when you joined a franchise model, correct? Okay. Were there any other franchises that you looked at?

TJ Murphy (03:05.932)
Yeah, it's kind of nature's playground. We like it here.

TJ Murphy (03:17.102)
You're correct. Yeah. Yeah.

TJ Murphy (03:23.208)
No, you know, at the time, this was was kind of a unique opportunity. There wasn't a whole lot of digital marketing franchises out there. You know, the traditional model for a lot of small agencies is to to either white label or contract out the fulfillment of their services, which, know, we dabbled with doing things in-house for a while. We dabbled with some independent contractors and some white label agencies and

Ultimately, the value proposition that that height provided to be able to have an amazing team of specialists in all the areas of marketing from web design and branding to Google ads and meta and SEO, but still being able to have all of that internal and control over the strategy and really knowing the people behind the scenes, the people pressing the buttons and pulling the levers. For me, that was the biggest.

Christian Brim (04:11.543)
Mm-hmm.

TJ Murphy (04:21.826)
value at the time. I was still handling a lot of that stuff myself. so being able to offload that to a team of experts so that I could focus on growth, but also just building stronger relationships with our clients and helping to find new solutions and ways to serve them. That's what I needed at the time and it served me well.

Christian Brim (04:42.903)
So were you looking for a solution? It kind of sounded like maybe you didn't know you had a problem to solve or.

TJ Murphy (04:50.56)
Yeah, I think I knew I had a problem. I didn't quite know exactly what it was. But, you know, like many business owners at one time or another, I was just wearing too many hats in my business. I was the sales, I was the marketing, I was the brand and I was the fulfillment at the end of the day. And so not being able to continue to scale, I kind of reached a point where I was super profitable because

Christian Brim (05:00.972)
Mm-hmm.

TJ Murphy (05:16.032)
It really was just me and a small team of contractors. So I was paying myself well and we were serving our clients well, but my capacity was no longer there. And I was slowly starting to burn myself out. When you're in the agency world for that long, at that point, four years, you start to deal with a lot of other people's problems on a regular basis. And you're the one that people are calling to come in and put the fires out.

Christian Brim (05:29.547)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (05:38.603)
Hmm

TJ Murphy (05:45.516)
without a team behind you, without the right systems in place, the right processes, it's only a matter of time before that's gonna slowly burn you out. So I was down that path for sure.

Christian Brim (05:56.437)
Yeah, because, you know, I think a lot of entrepreneurs start out thinking they're going into business with themselves so that they can control the variables and like, okay, I'm going to work for myself. But what they build ends up being an elaborate job in that it's a hundred percent dependent upon them. And then they're, they're stuck with the time commitment and

I think the sweet spot of entrepreneurship is when you have both the financial freedom and the time freedom. But many get stuck in the financial freedom in the sense that they're making money, but they don't have the time to spend it and enjoy it. Was that kind of what you were bumping up against?

TJ Murphy (06:46.444)
Yeah, you know, for me, when I when I started the agency is my first dipping my toes into entrepreneurship, my first venture. And from the very beginning, I wanted to design a business that maximized my freedom. And, you know, for a time, especially in the early days, we were growing, we were bringing on, you know, a lot of new client opportunities. But I was the one doing it, as we've already talked about. I had the ability to live where I wanted to live. I wasn't

tied to, you know, corporate office living in the big city, which I did for many years prior to starting a venture. So I was realizing that first goal of freedom, being able to choose when and where I worked. But as I continued to grow, as you said, I was trading my time for money, and there's only so much time. And especially as you, you continue to grow, that becomes your most valuable asset. And it took took some hard

long weeks for me to finally realize that this wasn't sustainable. And I really needed to check my ego and, and learn how to empower others to let other people do where they shine and where their expertise really are and remove myself as the bottleneck in the business. And, you know, for a while I was going, going it alone. I didn't have, I didn't have a coach. didn't have mentors in the agency space. I didn't have a

Christian Brim (08:04.055)
Hmm

TJ Murphy (08:12.586)
a community, a tribe of people that I was growing and learning alongside. you I was also feeling really lonely at the time. I didn't have that same type of camaraderie that existed in other jobs that I've had in the past and sports and clubs and things that I did throughout high school and college. And I realized that that was an important pillar that really I needed in my business. so through

Christian Brim (08:19.329)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (08:38.827)
Yeah.

TJ Murphy (08:40.984)
kind of checking my ego a little bit, hiring a coach, finding a community. I started to see what the other side could look like. I could see with other agency owners, sit down, talk to them about their businesses, come onto podcasts, learn from people that were doing it, that I didn't have to figure it all out on my own. I didn't have to take the hard route. And so part of that was franchising. Part of it was just learning how to be a better leader and

Christian Brim (08:48.821)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (09:09.536)
Mm-hmm.

TJ Murphy (09:10.176)
surround myself with people that are trying to raise the bar and continue to elevate, but doing it in a way that was intentional and maximizing for freedom.

Christian Brim (09:19.977)
So, would you say, since you made that decision to join HITE, have you noticed a change in your profitability and your time?

TJ Murphy (09:34.37)
Yeah, absolutely. mean, you know, initially, whenever you're looking at a franchise, you have to realize that you're going to be sacrificing some of that financial surplus, some of that profitability in exchange for the systems and the fulfillment in my case. But where we're at today, mean, prior to franchising, I hadn't taken a vacation fully unplugged in five plus years. And I guess it was three years ago.

Christian Brim (09:46.283)
Sure.

TJ Murphy (10:04.12)
kind of about a year into being with height and growing my team, that I was able to take a three week vacation completely unplugged, went on a cruise with my parents who are in their seventies now, and my little sister, my aunt, my wife, and being able to achieve that goal, that was actually my biggest goal for the year. was like profitability, everything else comes second to the ability for TJ to be able to take these three weeks off.

in July and go on this amazing trip with his family. having done that now every year since then, I've been able to take longer vacations. But, you know, we also do a ton of traveling for for work, where we go to, you know, maybe a conference like we were just down in Cancun attending a marketing conference, spent an extra week after the fact, just exploring the Yucatan Peninsula, unplugged for most of that time. And, you know, the business continues to thrive in my absence now.

So that's night and day difference from where it was five years ago.

Christian Brim (11:04.855)
Yeah, I mean, it sounds like you've got that sweet spot. So what, mean, I'm sure you run into colleagues that are in the industry that look at you and say, well, that's great TJ, they worked out for you, but that wouldn't work for me. what do you say to them? Like, I guess what I'm getting at is like, what do you have to change to believe that it's possible?

TJ Murphy (11:25.87)
As a

TJ Murphy (11:34.498)
Yeah, for sure. It's a great question. mean, first thing I say, when you see me, there's nothing special about TJ over here. I struggled for years doing it the hard way. And I think the biggest thing is that mental game, first and foremost. Like you have to be able to see where you're limiting yourself before you can do anything to diagnose the problem and make a serious change. For me, I knew I needed to be surrounded by people that were ahead of me that had figured it out.

Also people that were kind of similar stage in business as me that I could help guide and teach things that I had learned. And when you have that just constant feedback loop and, you know, new idea kind of people bringing things to you, holding you accountable, pushing you to take that next step and you being comfortable to verbalize and tell other people where you're struggling, where you have found success.

and ultimately making that a habit in your life. For me, that's the biggest pathway to freedom is being able to hold yourself accountable by talking to other people and creating that tribe that is really looking out for you, but is going to call you out when you need to be and push you in the right direction. So I think the mental game is the biggest thing. Of course, there's tools. Of course, there's ways of hiring and delegating, but without the mental piece, I think that all becomes second.

Christian Brim (12:35.991)
Hmm.

Christian Brim (12:55.436)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (13:00.695)
Yeah, I think you're right. And I think we tend to chase the solution, the quicker fix, the, what are, whether it's, you know, I see this a lot in marketing where business owners chase the next, you know, quick fix, but it's like, until you address the underlying issue, which is that you don't like where you are and you believe that there is an option.

TJ Murphy (13:17.262)
shiny objects.

Christian Brim (13:30.913)
But to your point, I think you spoke to it, you said it a couple of times, is setting your ego aside. Like understanding that it's not 100 % dependent upon you. It doesn't have to be.

TJ Murphy (13:37.87)
Mm-hmm.

TJ Murphy (13:47.266)
Yeah, and you're, you at least in my case, I am not the expert in all things, right? And in the beginning, I felt like nobody else could do it quite like me or take care of our clients like I could. The clients were buying me and yeah, ego is the enemy. You know, what I've found since then is, gosh, I don't know half of what some of the people on my team know about their specific discipline. They're spending all day

Christian Brim (13:54.049)
Right.

Christian Brim (14:11.946)
We out.

TJ Murphy (14:15.096)
focused on that, learning that, staying on top of all the algorithm changes and the latest tools and everything. It's too much for one person to be an expert in all things marketing these days. There's just so much to stay up with.

Christian Brim (14:28.481)
So that begs the question then, what are you personally the expert at? Let me rephrase that. What is the most valuable thing that you do contribute to the business?

TJ Murphy (14:41.538)
Yeah. I mean, for me, it's, it's very focused in community. You know, we, we have clients all around the country, but over the last few years, my focus has been here where I live, where we're putting roots down and, I'm trying to make an impact here, both through the business, but also in nonprofit work and helping out and volunteering and, just being as much as I can, pillar to the community. So all of that stuff that I'm doing.

behind the scenes extracurricular wise is fueling awareness towards height. It's bringing in client opportunities. And then what my main capacity is in the business is being that bridge, helping people to say, okay, I have this problem. I'm reaching out to TJ or an agency to try to fix this problem. But usually there's many other things that they're not seeing that might even be more important than this big

Christian Brim (15:36.917)
Yes.

TJ Murphy (15:37.614)
problem that they've made out like, our marketing sucks because we don't do social media or whatever it is. There's likely a lot of other things, both internal within their processes and systems and external just in terms of how they're being perceived in the community that we can make quick fixes and start to get a good ROI and have them heading in the right direction. So for me, that's where I really come in and shine is building that relationship, helping people to see the big picture, where they are now, where they're looking to go.

And then building that bridge between the two where our team then comes in and becomes their outsource marketing department. And, we might start with a certain scope of services, but along the way, we're going to find opportunities to help plug other holes and create more value. And we're always bringing that to the table. We don't want to just be seen as a service provider. We want to be seen as a growth partner and someone that, you know, any business can partner with to grow for the longterm.

Christian Brim (16:36.535)
So do you still do sales? Okay.

TJ Murphy (16:38.798)
Yep. Yep. I'm still our primary sales engine. So most of my time is spent on that side of things and business development and marketing, as well as getting out there in the community.

Christian Brim (16:51.093)
Which I would say in 80 or 90 % of businesses that for, for, I mean, at least until you get to several hundred thousand dollars in revenue, that's the highest and best use for the owner. Like, I mean, that's, that's what no one's going to sell it like you are. No one's not going to have the understanding. Yeah. mean, besides that,

TJ Murphy (17:11.234)
Yep, 100%.

I'm going to do it all better than the owner. Yeah.

Christian Brim (17:20.695)
hiring and managing salespeople is a pain in the ass. you know, they're literally the hardest, hardest position in the company to manage. They really are. Okay. So I'm going to pivot here. What, what do you see as trends in your industry that are going to have a significant impact, say the next 18 to 24 months?

TJ Murphy (17:23.786)
Yeah, 100%.

TJ Murphy (17:46.548)
trends.

You know, for for what we do, what we deliver service wise, I mean, there's there's no ignoring AI, obviously. I mean, when it comes to building websites, designing anything, writing, copy, creating ad, like all of this is going to become very easy and automated for anyone with a little bit of tech savviness to be able to do on their own. And

Christian Brim (17:59.009)
Mm-hmm.

TJ Murphy (18:20.758)
I think for us, we can't ignore that, obviously. The differences for most business owners that we work with, like local service-based companies, even if they have a widget where they can press a button and do it, they still don't have the overall strategy. They don't have the time. They don't have the ability to create synergy across all the different areas of marketing. So for us, we're just positioning ourselves to

Christian Brim (18:24.631)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (18:40.502)
Mm-hmm.

TJ Murphy (18:50.126)
continue to do what we do really well, which is be that problem solver, to be that guide to growth and to be able to plug in the right tools, the right systems to create dynamic and some synergy across everything that we're doing from a marketing standpoint. Now, will it become a lot easier for us to deliver and cheaper for us to deliver the actual ad campaign, the website, whatever it is? Absolutely. so, you know.

cost and what we're able to charge. We'll see how that ultimately plays out in the competitive landscape. But the difference maker for us and what I'm definitely hanging our badge on is just the fact that we're always going to be that growth partner looking for ways to serve and create value and ultimately grow that business, whether it's using a shiny AI tool or something more tried and true and being that connector at the end of the day.

Christian Brim (19:46.761)
Are you seeing any price pressure in the market with these new tools, like ostensibly making it easier and cheaper? Are you seeing that show up in your customers?

TJ Murphy (20:01.036)
You know, I'm sure it is. We haven't felt it yet. You know, if anything, we've been raising our prices over the last 24 months. So I imagine it will come at some point and it probably is already out there, but, you know, maybe it's just the way that we're pitching our services differently than others, not just kind of a one trick pony. We're doing your meta ads or we're just doing your SEO or Google ads, or maybe it is just kind of.

a little bit of a lag there, but haven't felt that major pressure when it comes to pricing at this stage. And if anything for us, we're able to do a lot more for our clients, whereas before it wouldn't have been feasible with our team structures to deliver that same level of support. And so for now, we're able to even charge more for that.

Christian Brim (20:36.705)
Do you see?

Yeah.

Christian Brim (20:51.691)
Do you see more do-it-yourself in the prospects? Like, well, I don't need an agency. I've got AI to do this. Right.

TJ Murphy (20:58.958)
I can, yeah, I got a savvy AI nephew who can do it for me. You know, again, it's not something that I've had a bunch of cases where I've seen that yet. Most of our clientele, local home service, business owner, even if they know they could do it, they don't want to. They have a billion other hats that they need to wear and ultimately their greatest value of their time spent is

client facing is building cultures, is managing their teams and sales and sales. Absolutely. So to be able to continue to pay a team that's living with these tools and using these tools and staying on top of everything that's going on, like that's still worth even more than it used to be now to hire an agency or at least somebody savvy. Like, you know, not every business needs a, agency you can.

Christian Brim (21:31.317)
for them is probably sales as well, right? Like, yeah, yeah.

TJ Murphy (21:57.676)
You can hire a contractor that's dedicated to your team and that can be a great route to go as well. It's just finding the opportunities.

Christian Brim (22:05.695)
Yeah. Okay. So I, I, don't know if you've listened to the show, but I have bagged on marketing agencies a lot, over the course of this, this program. Well, I guess, so I kind of want to dive into that and get your perspective because I, I've only, I've never owned an agency. I have had clients that were agencies and I worked intimately with them. So I understand certain things about the business, but

TJ Murphy (22:15.426)
We get a bad rap for sure, rightfully so.

Christian Brim (22:36.201)
I'm no by no means an expert on the industry. I'm more of a consumer from the industry. And one of the things you mentioned, Nicaragua, one of the things that shocked me, mean, just shocked me was the retention of clients in the industry. had no idea it was that bad. And it was kind of like just accepted like, yeah, that's that's

That's the nature of the business. But to me, what I saw was that that that sounds like some kind of disconnect, like whatever the problem the customer thinks they have or actually has, the agencies as a whole are not fixing the problem. What what what do you say about that?

TJ Murphy (23:27.288)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

TJ Murphy (23:31.426)
Yeah, I mean, I think across the board, there's so many agencies of all shapes and sizes out there today and it's predatory in nature. So, I mean, you could be knocking it out of the park for a client, but unless you're doing a great job of articulating and showing that value and building that relationship on a weekly, monthly basis, another agency or a dozen other agencies are always pitching your clients.

Christian Brim (23:49.815)
Hmm.

TJ Murphy (24:01.358)
cold email, direct message, in-person, cold calling, it's just constant barrage. And so I think that's where a lot of agencies are missing opportunities, really losing or leaving money on the table is just not doing a great job of showing the value that they're creating to building that relationship with the client and making sure that they're continuously, not just in the first month, the first couple months, but

Christian Brim (24:01.493)
Mm-hmm.

TJ Murphy (24:30.762)
over the long term, finding new ways to provide value, more moments of just delight for clients. It doesn't always have to be a new service you're offering, just like sharing your expertise, sharing your knowledge, being knowledgeable about their industry. All of those things are ultimately what build that trust and lead to retention. And we have had clients that have been working with us for four or five years. I mean, on average, our retention's right around

18, 24 months. you know, I think the thing that really cuts into that lifespan the most is when we do get complacent and, we're not as engaged as we should be with our clients. I think that's the biggest differentiator that an agency can make today is not just being a service provider that's sending an automated monthly report each month. Maybe you're having a monthly check-in call, but

How are you continuing to build that relationship and provide value in between?

Christian Brim (25:33.855)
Yeah, I think and I see some parallels between what you're describing and in our business. And I guess it's probably true for any professional service that, you know, clients don't always understand the value you create. And what I what I find fascinating is that some of the things that they really find valuable are like not expected, like.

TJ Murphy (26:01.966)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (26:02.145)
man, can't believe that was the thing they hung their hat on. Like that was the thing they really loved. mean, like that's to me simple or like that should be right. And so a lot of it I think is in professional services is aligning expectations. But I also think, you know, I've described

I've described modern marketing, the environment as crackhead energy. And it's, it's like the business owner and, and, and, you know, I hate to blame the victim here, but I think the problem is the business owner, not the agency, because the agency is just selling them what they want. Right. at the end of the day, you can't sell somebody what they need. You have to sell them what they want. Right. And so if they want crack instead of.

you know, a nutritious meal, you sell them the crack instead of the nutritious meal, because that's what they're going to pay for. And business owners just run around from provider to provider and strategy to strategy and technique to technique without understanding some basic marketing fundamentals about their own business. Like they just don't understand some things that they have to understand, such as, you know,

Who who what is the problem that you solve? Okay And you you can't use any of your business services to describe it so And in your case it would be What are they solving? Well, maybe it's reputation. Maybe they've got a bad reputation on on Google reviews and Facebook

TJ Murphy (27:33.45)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

TJ Murphy (27:43.352)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (27:57.521)
and that's what you're solving for them. But you can't describe it in terms of what you do for them. Well, we manage your social media. Because that's not the way they perceive the problem, right? You have to describe the problem the way they describe the problem, okay? And once you get that, okay, so I know that the problem that I'm solving is X.

TJ Murphy (28:12.814)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (28:26.593)
Then you have a clear understanding of the solution that you provide and the value it brings. Once you have that defined, which leads you to your target market, like once you have that, then you have your target. So these are the people that I'm looking for. Then the fundamentals of marketing can kick in. you look at messaging, you look at the journey.

TJ Murphy (28:34.71)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (28:56.011)
You look at where they're hanging out, you know, just the marketing 101, right? But until you solve that original question, you're just grasping at straws and so many businesses do that.

TJ Murphy (28:56.152)
Mm-hmm.

TJ Murphy (29:09.004)
Yeah. Now you're right on multiple points there, I think, Christian. mean, the first point that you brought up about business owners are like agency owners, too. Our clients are similar to us. They're crackheads. They're chasing that hit, the new shiny object. you know, all the time, prospects and clients are like, what are we? Are we doing this? Like, have you seen this? How are we staying on top of this kind of stuff? And, you know, over the years, I've learned that, you know, we're not the right fit for everyone.

Christian Brim (29:17.963)
to crackheads.

Christian Brim (29:22.367)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (29:32.215)
Mm-hmm.

TJ Murphy (29:38.318)
We can't serve everyone. If someone wants to chase a rabbit down a hole, go for it. But at the end of the day, I tell clients and it's why we take a slower approach to sales where we're going to meet and really understand each other first, both what you're looking for, your business, but also just who you are as a person, what your culture is within your company, what you're doing within your community. These are important signals for me to know if we're going to be a good fit to work with someone. And from there, I'm always very clear about

Christian Brim (29:38.644)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

TJ Murphy (30:08.428)
Look, there's a lot of things we can do to be successful. We want to make sure we've got the right foundation. We've got the right fundamentals. I'm always down to look at new toys, new tools, new tricks, new hacks, and we can see how we can bring them into our overall strategy. But if you're going to be in order or shock collar saying, hey, we need to be doing this. We need to be doing that. It's probably not going to be the right fit. And, you know, I think that is where a lot of business owners are are losing out on a ton of value.

If you're investing all this time in vetting out an agency, onboarding with an agency, starting whatever plan it is that they're putting in place and then jump and ship after three months, you just lost so much value because they were probably just getting to the point where, all right, they've got all the foundational bricks laid and now they're going full steam ahead and have kind of filled some of the holes in your bucket, so to speak. When it comes to marketing, I always use that analogy.

We don't want to pour marketing dollars into a leaky bucket. So let's make sure we've got that strong foundation so that I know every dollar I'm to be spending of your money is bringing up the most ROI, the right multiple that we're looking for. And then to your point, when it comes to what is the problem that we're solving, usually the client doesn't really fully understand. Like, well, yeah, I want to hit this revenue goal or...

we just need more leads. And it's like, well, do you need more leads? Like, let's look at the lead flow you're getting now. you're only converting 10 % of those. Okay. Well, let's dig into that. Is it the sales side or are these just bad opportunities? Are we targeting the right services that are your most profitable highest value? Like until we can get in there with the, you know, the lens and put the detective hat on, you know, we don't know just as they don't know what the real problems are.

Christian Brim (32:02.807)
Yeah, I had an agency client that they were doing all this work and the client came to him and said, well, you know, after like six months and they're like, this isn't working. We need to stop. And the agency came back and with the report and civil, these are all the leads that we tracked and sent to you. and like, well, we haven't gotten any leads.

TJ Murphy (32:33.038)
What?

Christian Brim (32:33.547)
What do you mean? And come to find out the number that it was going to was unattended. No one answered the damn phone, right? And to your point, like, you know, there's only so much you can do, right? I mean, you can't sell it for them. You can't fix their internal processes if they do a shit job and, you know, generate bad karma out there because they're doing bad work.

TJ Murphy (32:41.912)
Gosh, yeah

TJ Murphy (33:02.382)
for sure.

Christian Brim (33:02.497)
No, you can't do any of those things, but you know.

TJ Murphy (33:05.718)
I would say in that case, though, that is also partly on the agency. mean, how did six months go by without anyone picking up on that? Clearly, there wasn't a lot of back and forth dialogue happening.

Christian Brim (33:14.103)
No, I agree. Right. And, you know, I think that if you go to like, I put it in terms of my business, I can give you, I can give you all the structure. I can give you all the advice, but at the end of the day, you have to do certain things. Right. And I think a lot of business owners approach

service providers, whether they be marketing or financial, it doesn't matter. could be legal, whatever. They have this expectation that I'm just going to throw this ball of crap into your lap and you're going to fix it and I can walk away. And it's like, no, it doesn't work that way, dude. Like, you know, here's what we do, but here's what you've got to do. And part of it is a mindset change, right? Like on their part, like they have to understand that they still have ownership.

TJ Murphy (33:58.338)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (34:12.713)
in the outcome of the result. it's, it's, you're not, you're not turning that outcome over to me. You're just bringing me alongside to help you achieve that outcome. But ultimately it's still your responsibility, right? I can't, I can't do these things for you.

TJ Murphy (34:29.794)
Yeah. And you know, ultimately there's, there's usually a ton of things that just as a, as a growth partner, looking outside of just the marketing lens where we sit down with the business owner and we create a roadmap to the changes that need to happen internally that we can't control. We have nothing that we can do for them in order to make that change. That's ultimately going to result in

Christian Brim (34:52.727)
Mm-hmm.

TJ Murphy (34:57.582)
you know, the revenue goals that they're ultimately trying to achieve. So being able to sit down and, have that owner hat and say, no, we're hiring this partner to come in and take a lot of this stuff off our plate that we're just not suited to do well and don't have the time for that marketing, the branding, the online presence, all that kind of stuff. But also that we know is going to be looking at all areas of the business and bringing ideas for us to go in and

and having that relationship, having that trust and that accountability to get that stuff done. Because, you know, if that's not there, there's nothing that we can do magically on the marketing side to get them the results that they're looking for. So that's got to be a part of the conversation on both sides.

Christian Brim (35:25.695)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (35:42.259)
Yeah. And I think what's interesting, I think also is marketers tend, I don't know about you, but a lot of marketers don't have the financial conversation with clients in terms of like, okay, they come to you and they say, well, I want to grow 10 % and that's this many dollars. And you say, okay, well, what is your lifetime value of a customer?

TJ Murphy (35:56.846)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (36:11.391)
What is your cost of your current cost of acquisition? And the and the business owners like I don't even know what the hell you're talking about. Like. Right, yeah, like what are you talking about? Like, but again, yeah, it's on us to educate them whether I'm doing it as a financial advisor or you're doing it as a marketing advisor. It's on us to to explain it to them, but ultimately it's their responsibility to know that stuff like you know, because because if you say. Absolutely.

TJ Murphy (36:17.92)
Usually they have no idea.

TJ Murphy (36:34.798)
And it's okay to not know it, but you got to be able to go and get that information. And it's not rocket science. can sit down with a business owner and guide them through, all right, here's how to go into your books. Let's look at some of this information in your CRM. Even if we have to make some guesstimates based on Google Analytics and other tools in place to say, all right, here's roughly probably what your conversion rate is today. Here's what your...

Christian Brim (36:41.747)
Absolutely. No, no.

TJ Murphy (37:04.072)
average lead value is, your cost per lead, all of these things, we can at least set a baseline if they don't have that information.

Christian Brim (37:11.187)
Yeah. And, and I think that there's, I, I've spoken about this a few times. Like, I think there's this gap in the market for most businesses of, of bridging the marketing to the financial, like there's, there's the, that there's a disconnect. Right. So if you're the marketing agency for one of my clients and I'm the CPA for one of those clients, do they ever talk? Right. Like, is there any communication there?

Because it's a very key one. Because if I'm sitting there advising that client, well, your cost of acquisition is x dollars, and you're telling them, well, I think it's going to have to be y dollars. OK.

We need to get our heads together with the business owner and have that conversation. Like, what does that actually look like if we go forward with Y dollars? Like, what does that do with the cashflow of the business? Exactly. Exactly. But I have never not once had an agency owner call me for a client. Never not once.

TJ Murphy (38:13.102)
The math has the math at end of the day.

TJ Murphy (38:24.664)
Now, that is actually a good point. say, I have spoken maybe with one CPA for one of our clients. We usually have those conversations through the owner, but to your point, you know, if they do have a CPA in place, that's a missed opportunity on our part. We should be developing a relationship and getting the information that we need straight from the source rather than through telephone from the business owner's perspective, which sometimes

Even if they're getting accurate information, it becomes inflated in their head as to what's really happening or deflated.

Christian Brim (38:56.727)
Yeah. Well, and I'll be honest with you, most of the time the business owner isn't having the conversation with the CPA either. You know, it's like they have these business goals out there, but they haven't done any more thought into what that looks like from a marketing or a financial standpoint, other than, I want to grow this much this year, right? But there's no conversation around, okay, well, do I have to

hire more people? Do I have to buy new equipment? Do I have to open another location? And again, what does that do to my cashflow? Like, can I afford to grow that fast? Or am I going to have to have some other source of capital, line of credit, or I'm going to put money into the company to fund it? Those conversations are happening between the business owner and the CPA.

TJ Murphy (39:39.566)
Mm-hmm.

TJ Murphy (39:52.334)
Yeah, yeah. mean, it's one, it's questions we always ask, you know, just in terms of capacity and what success looks like and okay, well, say we do everything right and that does happen. What then? You know, what is that going to empower you or enable you to do in the business? What kind of challenges might that create if all of a sudden you're getting twice as many opportunities coming through the door each month? Being able to have a plan for that and bringing your CPA.

Christian Brim (40:19.371)
Yeah. Do you have, do you have somebody to discover the damn sales calls? Right. You know? Yeah, absolutely.

TJ Murphy (40:23.5)
Yeah, yeah. Is the phone even getting picked up? Things are important questions. And that's something that I always try to guide people when they ask me, because sometimes it's like, well, we don't we don't work with your industry with, okay, what should I be looking for? I'm like, well, these are the types of questions that I want to be asked if I'm looking for that kind of support. And it's getting into this stuff. Like, what does success look like?

Christian Brim (40:44.331)
Mm-hmm.

TJ Murphy (40:50.008)
How are we going to define success in the first place? What is the future goal and how are we gonna plan for it? And ultimately make sure that we're not just throwing money into something that could ultimately sink the ship if we're not careful.

Christian Brim (41:02.367)
Right, right. And you'll notice through this last 10 minutes conversation, we haven't talked any strategy, any tactic. Like this is completely agnostic as to whether you say, well, I'm to go to trade shows to generate business, or I'm going to do it through Google ads, you know, or direct mail. None of that matters. These are fundamental questions that the business owner has to ask.

TJ Murphy (41:26.83)
Yeah, absolutely. And you know, whether it's a, marketing partner, a coach, a mentor, having someone that, that can guide you through these conversations, these questions to ask yourself. I think every business owner needs to have it. If you're not designing for the future, you're not putting a plan in motion before you hit the big goal. I mean, you're just going to run into a whole world of problems that you could have planned for. Oh, thanks.

Christian Brim (41:42.817)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (41:53.961)
I know I sure did. mean, you my, my, my, my whole thing was grow. I had no thought beyond that. mean, yeah, I had to think about like hiring to staff that growth, but gave no consideration to any other elements. It was just grow and, and I never asked myself, why do you want to grow? Like what, what difference does it make? Like, you know, is there, what happens if you're 50 % larger? What does that look like for you? Does that change anything for you?

TJ Murphy (41:56.386)
Likewise. Yeah. Yeah.

TJ Murphy (42:15.438)
Mm-hmm.

TJ Murphy (42:24.642)
Yeah, I thought the same. I was facing that revenue growth for the longest time. And then it was really just within the last couple of years, I started thinking, was like, well, now I don't want to have a bigger agency. I don't need to have millions of dollars in recurring revenue. Like if we're at this level and this level of profitability with this size team, I'm making great money. I have time freedom. I can really focus on going deep with

Christian Brim (42:24.855)
Or is it? Yeah, I mean. Mm hmm.

TJ Murphy (42:54.476)
my team with our clients, we can create better culture. And ultimately for me, my values of creating freedom, like that translates to my team as well. I want them to have lives outside of work and be able to have flexibility in their schedules and all these things become a lot harder when you're managing a huge team and a huge book of business. So.

Christian Brim (43:11.607)
Yeah, I'll never forget the very first entrepreneurs organization event that I went. Vern Harnish was the speaker. He's author of Scaling Up and Rockefeller Habits. He's known as the growth guy, right? And he is a room of about 50 entrepreneurs and he asked them, he said, how many of you could cut your revenue in half? And you know, like in order, in other words, be smaller.

Cut your revenue in half, make more money and have more time. And 80 % of the entrepreneurs raise their hands, right? Because that's the reality that we end up in is we just grow, grow, grow, grow. And then we look back and we're like, Holy shit, I'm working more than I was and making less money. And it's like, that doesn't make any sense.

TJ Murphy (43:58.956)
Yeah. I've seen it firsthand with a lot of agency owners. get caught in that trap of growth and then they talk to me and they look at my business and they think, well, how are you able to do all that? Like, how are you paying yourself that much money? You're like a fraction of the size that we are. I'm like, I designed it that way. I built it in a way where I could maximize those two things without needing a huge team or

a huge book of business.

Christian Brim (44:30.219)
Yeah, I did not coin the phrase and I can't off the top of my head tell you who said it, but I use it all the time. Revenue is vanity, profit is sanity, and cash is king. So yeah, stop chasing those dollars. TJ, how do folks find out more about you if they wanna work with you? Or if they just wanna see what you're doing in BIN?

TJ Murphy (44:42.274)
Yeah, for sure.

TJ Murphy (44:48.088)
Holds true. Holds true in every business.

TJ Murphy (44:58.446)
Yeah, if they wanna check out our travels, talk marketing, talk life, talk business, anything at all, easiest place is just my link tree, tjmurphy.me. That'll take you to all the social medias, my podcast called the Adventurous Entrepreneurs Podcast, and a few other things. I don't know, I keep adding stuff in there, but you'll find everything TJ on there.

Christian Brim (45:15.649)
Mm-mm.

Christian Brim (45:21.623)
Perfect. Listeners will have that link in the show notes. If you like what you heard, please rate the podcast, subscribe to the podcast or share the podcast or do all three. If you don't like what you heard, shoot us a message, let us know and we'll get rid of TJ. Until then, ta ta for now.

TJ Murphy (45:38.862)
Fair enough.