Episode 235: Serendipity

"What I learned in my business is do marketing before you need marketing."

When you hit a rough patch in business or in life, what is your response? Matt knew that he was destined for greatness and although his business took a hit at one point, he refused to accept defeat.

Instead he decided to shift his focus on marketing and being intentional with building an authentic team around the business. Scaling your company can be a process, but Eightx is here to help you analyze the data to know what it takes to make it happen.

Tune in to episode 235 as Matt reveals what website's algorithm took him back to square one, debuts a new company and much more!


For more information:

Website: https://eightx.co/
LinkedIn: Eightx - Fractional CFOs for FMCG Brands ; Matt Putra
Facebook: Eightx
Email: contact@eightx.co

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

What's going on, everybody? Welcome back to another episode of the Down to Business Podcast here with Tamar Turner. Can y'all tell I'm feeling good? Can y'all tell that we're kind of we're back rolling where, as I told y'all, we opened the calendar up recently, and so we are just moving and grooving. I feel like I'm right back where I needed to be, and I'm just so happy and I'm just so grateful for all of our guests who've connected with us, Matt included, who's sitting down with us today. But just thankful for everybody, thankful for everybody for just being here, for believing in the vision, for continuing things, and I'm very excited for today's conversation. So um, what I'll do before we get into the interview, Matt, how's everything on your end? How are you doing? Things are awesome, yeah. How are you doing? I'm pretty good. I'm pretty good. You know, it doesn't feel like I worked, but one day closer to Friday to the weekend, I'm leaving early tomorrow home. So I'm good, I'm ready. Okay, so look, I know that we're gonna have a few people from the network. We're gonna have some people tapping in from my side, we're gonna have some people tapping in from your side, but then arguably we're gonna have my favorite type of people. So those who probably know nothing about either one of us, but somehow this interview came up in their rotation. So can you just do two things for me? Can you one just tell me a little bit about yourself, and then can you two just tell me what brings you on the Down the Business podcast today?

SPEAKER_00 1:07

Yeah, my name is Matt. I'm the managing partner of Adex. We work with consumer brands to try to help them scale their businesses, understand their businesses better, and know what moves to make based on data. Um I wanted to join you because I saw that you're all about like showcasing the journeys of business owners. And mine's been bumpy, but I've had a couple unlocks and I just wanted to vibe and share what I could to help others and yeah, have a conversation.

SPEAKER_01 1:35

I love that. I love the transparency just right from the beginning. Now, when you kind of mentioned the word bumpy, if if we kind of throw it back a little bit, if we go back to your very, like, you know, the earlier days of you kind of coming into business, you getting started, you building your brand and everything like that. What would you say was kind of one of those initial bumps in the road for you, an initial challenge or an initial obstacle that you faced that really had you look at things from a different lens?

SPEAKER_00 1:58

Yeah. Um things started off fairly well, to be honest. That we were growing uh from day one and and and things went good. I would say the the biggest bump for me happened when I used to get a lot of business from from LinkedIn and organic posting, and the algo changed, and I and I couldn't keep up with it anymore. And so our lead gen just like really dropped off in a pretty big way. And that for me was the yeah, a big bump uh in the road, and our growth stalled out for like probably about a year and a half. Um, and and it was tough because I was trying to grow and trying to figure it out and added some team members, and so we were fighting with that. And I spent probably 150 grand over 18 months to try to crack lead gen uh and a couple channels that work. And and today we've done that. So we're we've had some of our best months ever this year. Um But yeah, like marketing was the thing that I had to learn to spend more time on.

SPEAKER_01 3:01

Understood. And I could imagine you mentioned that word algorithm. I feel like that's been a that's been a it's been a hit or miss for some people, depending on, I guess, what platform you're on. You can also tell, too, a lot of these other platforms are kind of trying to play keeping up with the Joneses in a sense, as one rolls something out, another one rolls something out, and then they're all just kind of spinning and turning their wheels. So um 150,000, a year and a half. I could imagine that, you know, for some people that's not in their ballpark. That's not something that they would want to do, that's not something that they could probably sustain or even handle. And I've talked to, I feel like a lot of different business owners along the way. I've talked to those who have come into business, who have gone out of business, who are thinking about business. So for you, do you feel like there were any apprehensions over that year and a half? Were you ever thinking about kind of just closing down shop and just going another direction? And if so, as you kind of even said, absolutely, what what would you say kind of kept you motivated? What really kept those wheel training?

SPEAKER_00 3:54

Yeah, a thousand percent. There's a whole bunch of times I was like, I would make more money if I just went and worked for a company full time. There was a while there now, not anymore. Um, but I was like, why am I taking all this risk? We did we took some debt on as well. I got a wife, I got kids, and I'm like, man, we're I would there was a couple of moments where I was like, I'm I'm not gonna make it. Um and I, yeah, like we just kept trying things and spending money and trying this channel and that channel, and and it just kept not working. I would say what got me through. So I joined the Hampton community in uh October 2024. And getting in that community, going to a couple events, meeting like people I really vibe with was for me what really helped me through like the worst times because I could uh ask a question in our Slack group, and like, guys, I'm struggling with this, I don't know what to do. And people would have calls with me and tell me what they did and how they solved it and this and that. And then I met two guys, um, you know, shout out to Alex from Opuscope and Dan from UGC Factory, like good, good buddies of mine now, and they like worked with me one-to-one on building out some channels and connections and stuff. And so, like, through that, still spent more money, but in December last year, we we cracked lead gen in a really big way for the first time ever. And marketing, like we do marketing on Meta now, um, and we do SEO as well. But um up until no like end of November, I was like, I'm dead. Like fucking, we're we're dead. Um, and then December, I met a guy named Rev Laughlin, and he gave me a new way to think about meta advertising, and we just the light switch turned on, and I got 300 leads in December, 300 in January, and we could get as many leads as we want for a decent price, and and we're growing um again uh and fast, which is awesome. Um but uh yeah, it was it was hard, it was very hard.

SPEAKER_01 6:01

And that really just speaks of the trials and tribulations that come with business ownership, with that entrepreneurial journey, just how you could very much have a system, very much just have something in place, very much just have something that works for you. And all of a sudden, an algorithm, something out of your control, something that another platform decides to do could shape shift everything. And you know, the bills don't want to hear that, the the wife doesn't want to hear that, the kids may not even know kind of what's going on. Totally. They need to know that their lifestyle is not going to be impacted in any type of way. So I love that for you, but it also just speaks to the persistence. I feel like with business ownership with taking that step, with taking that journey, yes, it is a step, it is sometimes even a risk, but it's calculated, and it is something where you build a blueprint, you build that rapport, you you build things that you even when things falter, even on those slower months, you have some things to fall back on. So it sounds like in your case that was kind of what it was. Yes, you you took some hits from it, yes, it hurt, yes, it even probably you know had you down a bit personally, but it's still a thing of you know, this could flip any moment. And I and I could definitely imagine that there were probably some times where you were just like, Wow, had I gone out of business or had I went the other way or had I really went the corporate route, I could have missed out on 600 leads in two months. So it kind of begs that question as well.

SPEAKER_00 7:10

Now well, yeah, and I think if if I had to do that last year and a half over again, I would still have spent the 150 grand, call it wasted, right? But what I would do just a bit differently, in case anyone cares, is um I tried three or four different channels in that year. I think if I had stuck with one, I would have had success at the 75 grand mark, probably. Because you know, like, and Alex Ramosi talks about this, he's like, just get the reps in on something. And so we ended up choosing Meta in July of last year. Um, and I spent 50 grand, like just like my first couple leads were $12,000 per lead, like crazy. But I knew, I learned rather, I didn't know this. I learned rather that Meta's incentive is they're aligned with mine. They're not just trying to take my money. They know that if they don't give me leads, that I won't spend my money, so they want to give me leads, right? And so for a product selling company, they want to give you customers. You just got to find out how to communicate with them. And so what we learned last year was try ways to communicate with an audience that wants what you have. And if you can talk to them the way that they want to be talked to, Meta will give you the lead. And we just tried and tried and tried and tried and tried. And eventually I just immersed myself in it, and I just found a guy who had a way of thinking of it, and the the the the whatever the gates opened up and and we got leads. Um, and so I would do the same thing all over again, just I would spend all my time on one channel. Because if you spend 150 grand in a year on one channel, you will make it work, guarantee. Guarantee. We meta made it took six months for meta and 60 grand and we made it work.

SPEAKER_01 8:57

Okay. So no regrets, but a learning experience and a learning lesson, and even some resource and some insight for those out there who may be thinking about meta, who may even be in meta right now, but trying to kind of venture and veer off. And I I think you speak to a great point too, that obviously similar to your story, but just in general, about how sometimes we may have we may just have that vision. We may just kind of have what we want to do and where we want to go. But sometimes we just veer off in so many different directions that we can't give, we can't be intentional about this. Sometimes you really have to have that tunnel vision. Sometimes you really have to have that one-track mind because taking, you know, if if you think about, I guess, 100%. If you give 100% to something, that's what you're just gonna, you know, it's the reps, it's what you're doing, it's every day, it's consistency, it's all that. But if you are are giving 20% here and 18% here, and 32 here, it just keeps you scattered and you can't, you know, the effort, you know, if it you could really be missing out on different opportunities or different strengths in another place. So I love that because that's just that's really just a lesson in itself. Now, you spoke to just the leads and just the audience and just the clientele. Now, when it comes to, I guess, your uh the algorithms and just the ads and just everything you're running, would you say that there are very much a specific type of client or audience that you're looking to work with? Are you kind of just meeting people at various points in their journey? What does that look like for you and ADX?

SPEAKER_00 10:16

Yeah, yeah. So we we serve primarily uh consumer goods uh companies and their founders. Uh we are fractional or interim CFOs or and bookkeeping as well. And so we're looking to work with people who are ambitious, but who own a consumer goods company. So they sell a product uh online or in brick and mortar or retail or wholesale or Amazon, and they are you know five million or more per year, and they're growing and they have big plans. Like we want to work with people that that have ambition. So those are the people that I want to work with, um, and who I want to communicate with.

SPEAKER_01 10:55

I love that. Now, with I feel like you threw a few terms out there that some people may be familiar with, but they may not necessarily know where that relates and how that could resonate with their business. So I want to start with bookkeeper first. So, as a as someone in consumer goods, as someone who has a product, who has a service, who puts that out there, whether it be a website, e-commerce, whatever have you, what is the importance of a bookkeeper? Why should they consider having yeah?

SPEAKER_00 11:19

Um, bookkeeping is one of those super boring things, but it's just one of the foundations of business. And if you if you don't know how you did, you can't really know what to do next, or even you don't even know what to try. And so bookkeeping is the most boring, feels like a waste of money and a waste of time, but they the bookkeepers will tell you how your company did last month and the months before that. And if and if they do that, and if you look at the information, um, and now you give it to Claude or uh ChatGPT, right? You can begin to figure out what you do next. Um so bookkeeping is essentially what I'm saying is it's table stakes. If you it's like if you don't know the history, you're gonna history will repeat itself. So same thing for you. If you don't know you lost money, you're gonna lose money again, um, basically.

SPEAKER_01 12:11

Understood. I mean, as simple as it puts, as you said, I and I feel like a lot of time that's why people kind of veer away from it. Oh, it's boring, oh, it's not. Who don't want to have to deal with that? Who wants to, and you know, and who also wants to see their loss? Who wants to really look at that PL statement and realize that they're not bringing it up?

SPEAKER_00 12:26

Well, I want to encourage people and say that there will come a day where your bookkeeper gives you last month's report and you're you're so happy. And and for me, that happened a couple times this year. Uh, because again, we wasted all this money, right? And so there was months where I did not want to see it, but but I but there's a couple months this year where the bookkeeper gave me a report and I was like, oh my god, like it's happening. And uh so those that's when it's fun.

SPEAKER_01 12:50

Absolutely. We love that. We love when we can be on the the other side of things. And I love hearing that for you, you know, halfway through the year, you're already having those successes and those wins. So we we love that for sure. Okay, so now fractional CFO. I've brought some fractional CFOs on this show, but I feel like, you know, unless you're uh down to business just fanatic, unless you're somebody who's tapped in with all the episodes, you may remember, you may not even remember. But can you just kind of explain to us one what a fractional CFO does and what the importance of that could be in a business, particularly with consumer goods?

SPEAKER_00 13:19

Sure. So a CFO, chief financial officer, they're essentially the head accountant and the head sort of forecaster and cash manager in a business, right? Um most times they you work for a much bigger businesses, you know, high eight figures, mid-eight figures, nine figures, because they can cost on a full-time basis two, three hundred, sometimes four hundred thousand dollars a year. This idea of fractional CFO came about when people who are working full-time and working crazy hours and long commute times like me, we were like, man, I this sucks. Um, I wonder if we could just work a little bit for some people and they'll pay us a little bit, but it's a little bit of time. And so now what happens is you hire a fractional CFO. They will work for you for like a day a month or a day a week or two days a week or two days a month. There's all kinds of variation. But you get that if you if you pick the right person, I should say, you get to work with someone who's managed accounting and cash flow and taxes and insurance and risk and forecasting in a very big business. And you get to use their brain power for your smaller business, even five, ten million a year, whatever it is, whatever the number is. Um, and they can help you avoid making mistakes that they've seen happen in the past. They can help you understand what the future could look like, like interest rates do this, what might revenue do, or uh tariffs happen here, how much is that going to cost you? And what do you do about it? And and so they can help you understand your data, help you understand your bookkeeping like records and PLs and everything. And the most important thing that we do is help you make decisions on what you should do next, where you should put your time and your money and your effort to give you the highest chance of growth next. I think that's the most important thing that the CFO should do.

SPEAKER_01 15:11

I love that. And it's really too about for people we we have business owners out there. We have people who are entrepreneurs, but not everybody, strong suit is the financials, is the numbers, is the books. And you can, you know, you can Chat GPT, you can Claude, you can Gemini, co-pilot, you can do all them things, but it's it's nothing like having that real life example, that real person that kind of just tell you and just go through things. Sometimes you really have to. I think about my my mom, like she used to really keep a checkbook, and I used to kind of run through those things, I'd just be so confused, and I'd be like, What is the is happening? But I promise you, she didn't miss a beat when it came to the finances. She knew where everything should be, where it goes. So I feel like you know, we have these apps and we get these notifications, but it's nothing like sometimes just having that pen and paper and really just taking it back to the basics and really having that, really just somebody who specializes in this who can really tell you what's going on, what to happen, and they know your business. They know you as something where it can be a long-standing relationship, something where you learn along the way, and it's a process. So, all right, we talked about both of those terms now, but now I'm kind of curious about the pain point perspective of things. Obviously, like you said, you work with a certain type of business, a certain niche. But I could imagine that when these people come to you, they're probably at different stages and different phases within their journey. They're probably looking to maybe make a turnaround, they're probably looking to maybe hire somebody who before they haven't had. Maybe they're getting some more wins and they really want to realize, you know, where the money is going, what a PL statement is. Do you feel like there are any commonalities as to when businesses come to you? Like when are they kind of reaching out to ADX? When are they kind of seeking your services and resources? Like at what point are they are they losing money? Are they trying to pretty much break even? Are they trying to make a profit? What do you see when people kind of like what are they struggling with the most when they kind of seek you guys out?

SPEAKER_00 16:47

Sure. I would say, and we we you know we've had like 400 sales calls over the years, and we've actually used AI to analyze all of them. So we have a pretty good idea of what people say. Now, finally, um there is no real commonality on whether they're profitable or not. A couple commonalities for us, at least, uh the people that we vibe with. One is like I mentioned before, they have ambition. They want to do something big. And it's usually for the world, for their family, but no one just wants to get rich because for themselves, typically, like that we work with. So they want to they want to make it rain, but there's a reason behind that, right? The other one, they often are they're looking at all the data that they have, and they and they want to know how to make sense of it. So they have a meta, and the agency has data for them, and they're Google has agents uh data for them, and Amazon gives them data, and Shopify and all these different QuickBooks, and they have all these sources of data. And they want to know based on the data, like how do we best interpret all this into the decisions that will take us to the next level as a company? That's that's a really big one. Um, and the other one we see is can in the we we can we bring in someone who can help us avoid making mistakes that other companies have made on this uh growth path. Um, and then that's probably the other one is just managed cash flow. Like we're growing really fast and we're having to buy a ton of inventory, we don't want to lose money or run out of money. Can you help us? And sometimes it's we're not profitable, we're running out of money, can you help us? And so it's like cash management, um insight and um sort of growing properly, I guess is probably the way I'd summarize it.

SPEAKER_01 18:41

Okay, got you. And I guess to take it a step further, as you as you have your clients, as you develop relationships and build with these businesses and these brands, is this a thing of like you want these businesses to one day not have to need you? Is this a thing of you want these businesses to kind of grow and move on? What does is it is this a thing of, you know, depending on where they are, you may have to be with them for years on years on years, or do you essentially just not necessarily want to push them out, but essentially say, hey, we've met you here, we've done this for you, go do what you said you wanted to do now. Make it rain in a sense.

SPEAKER_00 19:14

Yeah. So this year we've had the the the great pleasure of being released from a number of clients. Uh and last year too. So one sold to private equity for 3x revenue, and the founder gets to still run the company today, but they have a professional CFO full-time now. Another one sold for 25x EBITDA. So they don't need their CFO because they their massive acquirer gave them a CFO. Um, two are exiting to private equity like this month. I think we're just closing off some DD for them. Um guy got so big they needed a full-time CFO. Uh, and so like those are the dream scenario. Obviously, you want to you still want to work with people, but at the same time, it's like you you you got to the point where you we a fractional wasn't enough anymore, or your acquirer put someone else in. That's the dream outcome, to be very honest. We do have another sort of segment that we work in where they're nine-figure bigger companies where their CFO something happens and they need help like very quickly. So we we jump in, we work with them for six months to a year, stabilize everything, and then again, we make way for a full-time person to come and run the ship. So um, you can imagine that the people that work with me, my other partners, are we we like to mix it up. We get bored and doing one thing for too long, and so like those are the kind of people that want to work with me. Um yeah, and so but but yes, we want people to outgrow us, you know? That's the that's the goal.

SPEAKER_01 20:45

Good. I love that. See, I I I kind of I don't like to make assumptions, but I kind of had a feeling like, well, I I don't think he wants to kind of stay with these people forever.

SPEAKER_00 20:53

I get too bored after a couple years.

SPEAKER_01 20:55

Yeah, I love that. We love the ambition behind it too. Okay, so all right, I think about two exits, successfully exiting a company. Now, this was a term that I feel like prior to my podcast interviews, I had no idea what that meant until I talked to somebody. Shout out to Travis, who told me that he had seven, eight, I seven or eight, I apologize, Travis, successful exits from a company. But he also kind of painted the picture of, well, you know, if you think about how many successful exits I had, just think about how many times it was on the other end that was unsuccessful, or how many businesses just didn't go the way that I expected them to. As a business owner, as an entrepreneur, as somebody kind of listening to this who is not really familiar with an exit, but knows that they don't want to work forever, knows that they don't want to kind of run this company forever. What is the importance of that? What really is a a successful exit? What does that look like from the business ownership perspective?

SPEAKER_02 21:48

So starting with the end in mind, what's a successful exit?

SPEAKER_00 21:55

I mean, I think when I think of it, I go, how much money do you I want to have it like 50-55 so that I can comfortably not work anymore, right? And that number for me is one number, and for you it might be a different number, and for someone else, it might be a different number. And so then it's like, how do you set yourself up to have that amount of money where the interest pays your lifestyle and the money still grows, right? I don't know. You sometimes you make one company and it does the thing and you're and you're done. And sometimes it takes multiple. I've had a failed exit, it didn't work. Um so someday I want to exit this company because I love what I do, but I so I want to keep doing it for a while, but I want to exit this company, right? Someday. Um but what is it, what is a successful exit? Is any exit where you get a reasonable amount of money that makes you happy, and you can either do something again or stop doing stuff altogether. So some people like this guy Travis, presumably of the seven, some may have been bigger, some may have been smaller, but the amount of money he got for any of them was enough to say this is a good number. You get you can have this thing now go do something else. I mean, that's successful exit. You get you get a number that makes sense to you and you get to walk away from it. Um that's yeah, the simplest definition, I think.

SPEAKER_01 23:22

I love that. No, and and for me, simplicity is key because as when he really explained it to me, I had no idea, you know, and I didn't, but originally when I was thinking that, I was just thinking success, success, success. You know, obviously if you tell me seven successful, well I'm thinking, wow, like I haven't even I've I haven't even ventured into seven different businesses myself, but I I'm not saying seven different, you know, so it's just very interesting to hear that, but it's also interesting, like you said, that you kind of, and I feel like Travis made the same emphasis of you think end goal, you think long term, you think kind of at that, you don't really think present moment, because if you're trying to get out of this, you're trying to think, well, what can put me there to get out of that? And pretty much once you have that end goal, you then start to work your way back and you start to go everywhere from there. So I love that. Now, I'm I'm curious because obviously you're an expert at what you do. You guys have been doing this for quite some time. You've seen the good side, the bad side, everything like that. Typically, or not even typically, but I would just say when evaluating financially for companies, when kind of going taking a deeper dive, when looking at them trying to scale and just the steps um that they're taking to kind of get to where they want to be, what do you see? What mistakes are these companies making? What are they missing? What are they not doing right? What corrections are you really doing to help them get to where they want to be?

SPEAKER_00 24:36

Um so a foundational mistake is doing something where the margins are low. Meaning if you sell a product, what you sell it for, and what you cost to buy it. So if it if it costs you 50% of more or more of what it caught what you sell it for, it's like a less than 50% gross margin, it's called, that is a going to be a very difficult business to run. On the service side, again, whatever, whatever uh like Sophie, we have people pay us monthly for something and it costs us to deliver the service. If your margins are too low, it is just not fun to do. Um, and so on a service business, you know, maybe you want to have 50% margin. On a product business, you you if you can do 80, you should try to do 80, meaning that you sell something for 10 bucks, you keep eight to for which you can pay for marketing and staff and all these things. So that's the that's the first and foremost thing that I've seen that if you start off the wrong way with margin, it's very you're in for a hard, a hard run, hard. From there, the problems diverge a little. You know, you have people that add too much fixed expenses, so they hire too many people too early, or they get an office before they need it, or they uh they they you know spend too much on marketing or whatever, right? The other one is uh for product business specifically, hiring or sorry, buying too much inventory. Um, those are the the really big ones. Um and then from there would be sort of not uh like doing forecasting. So if you don't make forecasts, you're sort of just kind of guessing. It's like, well, one decision could affect you in a really bad way and and and you don't know how. And and so forecasting kind of saves you from that.

SPEAKER_01 26:33

Makes sense, especially with the uh with the inventory. Uh as soon as you said that, I was just like, you know, I feel like I've I've met some people who sometimes they they kind of felt like they shot themselves in the foot because they're just sitting on things, or they might have over sh overestimated something, or they might have really kind of you know spent, put so much into marketing, and then when it actually came to fruition, it just wasn't what they really expected. And now they kind of feel like you know they've thrown thousands, a couple of thousand dollars away on some things, and now they don't really have anything to show for it in the end. So now that makes a lot of sense now, and then to kind of take it a step further, I guess this more so may even be a two-part question. So I could imagine, and as you even spoke to in the beginning, you you want to work with those ambitious individuals, you want to work with those that obviously have the goals in mind and are willing to do the work to make it happen. I I could also imagine that along your journey and working with different clients and getting different leads, that you've been met with opposition. You've been met with people who clearly need a change, clearly need to revamp things, but they, as I've spoken about on a lot of my episodes, people can be a bit reluctant to change. So when naturally when you're telling somebody that they're doing something wrong and it's just not being received well, how how do you how do you continue to do that, keeping the the because I guess sometimes people begin to take it personally. It's their baby, you know, you can't tell me anything about what this, but that, but you say when clearly you're the expert. So in cases like that where people are just not really seeing the bigger picture, people are not really getting the advice and the insight that you're providing, how do you how do you move from that?

SPEAKER_00 28:02

Yeah, uh to be honest, we try to screen for that and and not work with those kind of people. If we I can figure that out in the in the early couple phone calls. Um, but then I would say the big way that we approach conversation like that is to be data backed. Meaning, if I have a recommendation for you, I'm gonna try to show you with your PL and your in your in your KPIs why I think the way that I think. Um and so when you do that, it sort of removes the a bit of the ego and and it sort of provides proof to what I'm saying. Um that said, I mentioned inventory. Inventory is the conversation we lose the most. So we will tell people that they should cut 20% of their SKUs regularly, and they don't want to do it because they they've created they've created their little babies, right? And it's hard to let go. So we don't win that one all the time. Um and I would say the more abstract the idea, the harder it is to sort of get someone to change their mind. And so we try to bring data, we try to show them how this decision would affect their P ⁇ L and their lives. Um and and sometimes it just doesn't work. And in when it when it doesn't work and when they they don't like our feedback, we sometimes will just shake hands and part ways. Um but I also when when I'm on with people before they sign on with us, I tell them like, look, we have strong opinions, we're gonna make you mad sometimes, but that's my job, right? And so that if you don't like that, you shouldn't sign on with us, right? Because it's not gonna be fun for you as I move on for us. So we just try to tell them.

SPEAKER_01 29:45

We love transparency, we love authenticity. Sometimes, I mean, as they say, the truth hurts. It's just, and especially when it's you know, it can sometimes feel like a personal attack, but it's it's feedback, you know. And but as you said, I do think that it's important that you you you look for those things in the beginning. You don't you would hate to get all the way to a business meeting to now we're working together, the money has been spent, and now you realize that you guys are just not the pieces, the public is not connected, you know. So I do think that doing the due diligence beforehand, doing that research, as I even spoke to in some of the clips that I posted earlier today, it's very important. It can it can pay you dividends in the long run. It can, you know, it can save you too from, you know, some people just some people like to get in there, I guess we'll say like I don't know, aggressive personalities and things like that. People like to leave reviews, people like to throw, and you know, that could always jeopardize the sake of the business and what you kind of have going on. So I do think it's very important to recognize who you're putting around yourself, your partners, your other people just the same, because it can impact just so much more than that initial. So I love that. Now, when it comes to discovery, when it comes to getting new clients, getting new leads. I know we talked a lot about social media, I know we talked a lot about ads and things like that. Is there a is there a pretty popular way that people find out about you guys? Is it more so through social media?

SPEAKER_00 31:01

Yeah, well, does it do right now? SEO has been awesome. So I I in March I we redid our website with Cloud Code, basically. And I just started learning about SEO and doing the best I could figure out how to do with Cloud Code. And now we are getting 37,000 impressions a day uh from our website, which was was not something I thought would be possible. And we are getting a ton of book meetings from our website, and I don't know how they find us, so it's some combination of SEO, AI, search, whatever. So that's going awesome. Um from there, it would be probably Meta is another big way because we're we're trying to try to be pretty oh Instagram, I mean, but we try to be pretty active on Instagram, and then we are working on other channels too. So we're doing up season podcasts, and um I'm looking at PR and again because what I learned in my business is do marketing before you need marketing, right? So we're trying to take that advice now.

SPEAKER_01 32:08

Diversification, but no, I just one of my friends actually just uh recommended me a book about marketing, and it was and I feel like one of the main points of that book was to do it before you need it. Don't wait until now you're trying to promote or now you have something coming up because you're already behind the A bull if you if you get to that point. So I love that. And I love the fact too that you've taken advantage of all these tools. As I said, these there are so many just different platforms now and websites and and all and AI has made automation almost like a walk in the park if you really just do your due diligence and you really just make it happen. Okay, I love that. Now I want to kind of move forward a little bit because I think about bigger picture, I think about futuristic things as well. So, ADX, would you say that you guys are moving in a particular direction right now? Are you guys looking to, and of course, I don't want to spoil anything, I don't want to give anything away prior to the release of this. So, you know, but I also think about there are going to be people who are just tuning into this for the first time or just hearing about you or just kind of learning what you do, but may need your services or may know someone who needs it. So, would you say that there is anything that people should be on the lookout for, anything that you guys have been kind of had in the works or cooking up?

SPEAKER_00 33:12

Yeah. Um, if you want to know about how to run your consumer goods brand the best way that you can, we have a section of our website called Guides. And so regularly we're launching guides about you know everything. So inventory management, CAC to LTV, customer payback, customer acquisition, payback cycles. So I would say if you need help, like check our website out. We have a ton of resources on there, and and I'm loving creating those. Um if you're a consumer goods brand and you need support, again, a website's a great place to check us out. Um, but um yeah, happy to chat with anybody. And and one of the directions we're moving in is ADX will always be our consumer brand. A consumer goods sort of uh we we help those people. Um we've also started another um sort of call it a firm company where we help larger companies with big with transition moments. So are you selling or buying? Did something happen in your executive team? Uh are you gonna be IPOing? Um is there an audit you have to do? Like, is there a transition moment in your company that you need some stability? And that is where we have senior partners there that will that will join you for six months to nine to twelve months, bring some stability to your team, whether it's an extra pair of hands or or taking over a seat. Um, and that's what that company sports called Putra Co. Uh it's launched by the time this goes live, we'll have launched. Um, but there is where, you know, again, when there's a trouble or transition or or something going on, we want to bring stability to companies during those kind of times. I love that.

SPEAKER_01 35:03

And look, y'all see, we just that's why I love asking those types of questions because you just never know what people are working on behind the scenes. You never know what they have kind of going on and kind of happening just the same. Now, we've we've also kind of spoke about as well what it what who you want to work with, what it looks like, you know, the type of individuals that you're looking for, who you're looking to serve, who you're looking to help. For those people who you've their their blinkers are kind of up now, their antennas are kind of moving around, what can they expect working with you and the ADX team? What can they kind of expect from the beginner process to getting to where they need to be throughout that throughout that journey?

SPEAKER_00 35:35

Good, good question. Um I like to describe there's there's sort of two ways that I like to describe this. The first one is we always start off with like a diagnostic, right? So if you're if you're an athlete and anybody who's running a company is is like an athlete, it's hard and it's there's a lot to do. You know how athletes before they start like a training cycle, they'll get a DEXA scan and blood work and get the assessments and all this. We have that, but for businesses. So we do a really deep dive, massive assessment, and then we come out with a plan. How would you train as the train as a business to achieve the goals that you want to achieve in your sort of time frame? And we give you a plan. And then we of course we want to build the plan with you. So that's sort of one idea. The other one is if you if you a business can be like driving a rally car. The the owner is driving and you're flying up things and around corners and this and that. We're like the people riding shotgun with the map with you. Okay, you got to go here, okay, there. And you know, and we help you navigate that race um as your as your co-pilot. So those are the two big ways. The first way is like how you start with us, the other way is how you carry on with us. Um, and so that's that's what it feels like having a partner.

SPEAKER_01 36:50

I love that. I love I even love that comparison about being an athlete, but I love that diagnostic. I've I oftentimes we we see that some people are just looking to just sell that product, sell that service, and not really be personable, not really be authentic, not really get to know you. And that can I I feel like sometimes just taint the industry. And it kind of even goes back to my earlier point about people not necessarily people shying away from bookkeeping or maybe a fractional CFO. And it may not even be that these people are shying away from that. It may just be that they had a bookkeeper who wasn't on the up and up. They had a bookkeeper or a fractional CFO who maybe didn't have their best interest in mind. And now it kind of makes them look at the entire industry. Well, yes, I know everybody out there, I know Matt and the team, I know Matt and Adex are not horrible people, but one bad apple can certainly spoil a bunch. And it can definitely make you look at things a lot differently moving forward, especially when what? When you put money out, when you may have lost money, when you may have been made certain promises and everything like that. So I I can appreciate that authenticity just because it's needed in today's world where there's just so much AI. Sometimes it's hard to it's hard to look at a website and just at face value know the validity of it, know what comes with it, know who you know that you're really gonna be talking to an individual or a team member. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:59

When it and that's part of the reason that when someone wants to sign on with us, we have minimum two calls with them. We got to spend time together, at least a little bit. And we also are our diagnostic process, when we give you the plan, if you hate the plan, we can shake hands and part ways because it's it's you just have to vibe with people that you're gonna be working with for a while, and and so we want to make sure that if if we give you a plan and you don't love it and and we're not the right vibe, let's not try to force each other to work together, you know.

SPEAKER_01 38:35

Definitely, definitely no force in here, and and and I can appreciate that for sure because it also just goes to show that hey, it sometimes it's just not a match, and it has nothing to do with me. It may not have anything to do with me. We may not just be what we need to be for one another right now, and that's perfectly fine. That's that's a-okay okay. Now, your team at Adex, as you were comprising this team, as you were putting everybody together, I'm sure there was a lot of intention behind it. I'm sure there was a lot of just you know moving things around, figuring out who fit what type of piece. Would you say that you have a would you say do you have a big team?

SPEAKER_00 39:11

Uh 25 people. I don't know if that's it's small for some, big for others. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 39:16

Big for others, right. Now, with bringing 25 other individuals into the business, what was what was the intention behind that? How did you, how did you kind of go about figuring out for all 25 individuals, obviously, but you know, I I could imagine that in the decision-making process, you had to really look at who could do what, who could fit where, who was gonna allow this to go. And I could show that, you know, there was a certain point where ADEX, you know, couldn't handle 25 individuals, but you guys have built kind of over the years and over time to now be able to get there. So, what was that journey like of of bringing people together to all operate as one?

SPEAKER_00 39:50

Bumpy. Um, I would love to say that everything was pretty well planned out, but honestly, there's a lot of serendipity or dumb luck is another way to call that in the process. My first real full-time person ended up being an absolute gem of a human being. And I am so lucky to have worked with them. John Bessino shout out. Um they've since moved on, but but they set up the foundations upon which we still operate and we train people and do reviews. And when you work in a professional services business of knowledge workers, training's got to be on point. And John set us up, and I didn't even ask him to do it, he just did it. Um and then my our third guy is now a senior partner. His name's Leandro, he's a CFO, senior partner. Again, you know, I met him through a friend of a friend, and he happened to be amazing. And so I'm so lucky to have met him. Um and then we hired a bunch of people that didn't work, right? We hired this person, didn't work, that tried this, fired them, you know. And so throughout that process, we found out a lot about how to hire, for financial and accounting people at least. Um, so then then we've been getting more intentional uh about how we do it. Um but I would say some of our best people has been serendipity at this point. Um we like I say, when we hire accountants and analysts, we we now we know how to do it. So that's a repeatable process to get great people. But but those like you know, a player senior partner people, it's it's a bit of serendipity for for me at this point in my life. Uh and maybe we'll structure that at some point too. But I can't say that I've totally figured it out, like to be honest. Uh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:37

I love that word, by the way. So I'm so glad that you used that. But no, I can appreciate that because it also just goes to show that even if even with you speaking to the success of Adex, even with you speaking to where you guys are going, even with Poutra and Co. coming as a subset of this, it still shows other people that no matter where you are in your journey, there's still work to be done. There's still things that you're gonna get wrong, there's still losses that you're gonna take. And I also I always want my business owners, my entrepreneurs, my creatives to realize it that just because you you strike that first million and you do it again and you do it again and you do it again, does not mean that things are not gonna happen along the way. That $7 loss could turn to a $70,000 loss. And it's all about just how you compound off of that, how you build off of that. Do you let it take you out of the realm? Or as Matt even spoke to in the beginning, do you realize that hey, instead of trying to put my put myself in so many different places, let me just focus on one.

SPEAKER_00 42:30

Yeah, well, one of my key staff cost us 100 grand uh earlier in the year with a mistake. And um, but but if I was to let that person go, all of that learning would be gone. And so they're still they're still here. Like it's it's just the bigger games you play, the bigger losses you make, too. And so like losing a hundred grand would have been scary five years ago, but it's kind of the day-to-day net, not I shouldn't say day-to-day, but it's still it still sucks. It's painful, but it is part of the cost of learning how to do this. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:13

And I think that too, it it also comes with thinking about the long game. You know, you you want to say that if you if you look at kind of how you first come in, yes, I I look at down the business as, yeah, we cannot afford to take a hundred thousand dollar loss at this point. But I I want to say that five years from now, six years from now, while we still can't afford to take a thousand dollar a hundred thousand dollar loss, we can and will be okay. And if it is to happen, that we'll still move forward from that. And as you said, what's the learning behind it? What's the teaching? What all experience came with that to allow us to be able to be there? So I I say that to also just tell people out there to just be patient, to just be intentional. You're not always going to get it right on the first go around. Athletes, as we compare this to, they don't even always get it right on the first go around. So we have to also be just we have to give ourselves grace, we have to be patient with ourselves if if we All just struck gold when we wanted to, well, things would be pretty boring because we are we would already know kind of what's coming, what's next. Now, something that I love to do on here because I feel like we can talk about a lot, we can we can kind of delve into a lot, we can allow this to kind of flow however it goes. I always love to just see if we've missed anything, or if you feel like you know, for people listening, whether they're consumer, e-commerce, business owner, entrepreneur, creative, somebody just listening because they enjoy podcasts, and I definitely do appreciate those people. But just somebody in general. Do you feel like there's anything that we haven't touched on, or even anything that you want to leave the people who hear this episode in some capacity? Good question.

SPEAKER_02 44:37

Um, I don't think so. No, I think we did pretty good.

SPEAKER_00 44:51

Yeah, you're you're actually you're yeah, you're you're good at what you do.

SPEAKER_01 44:54

Well, I appreciate that. I definitely do appreciate that. We'll be seven years in November. So while there's always room, okay. Yeah, you we started literally in the middle of the pandemic. I had just left grad school at Syracuse University. I just knew that ESPN or MBC or ABC was calling my name, and the COVID-19 pandemic had told other plans for me. So here we yeah, so we so you know we I I would obviously I would have thought that this would have been sports related. I was just a goo, I just wanted to talk everything, football, basketball, you name it. But somehow business really struck to me. And then when I really made this original announcement, it became a thing of wow, I didn't realize how many people I was surrounded by that were either like-minded, either thinking about business, you know, because I was in Philadelphia when the pandemic hit. So I watched a lot of small businesses go out of business. I watched a lot of everything happen. I watched a lot of, we were on a curfew there. So it was just a different time for business, for entrepreneurs, creatives. And then shortly after I moved to Florida, where they just felt like they had bigger fish to fry, and COVID was kind of just on the back burner for them. So it was just amazing just to see what could come from this. So I can, I can, I can definitely, you know, we've we've definitely come a long way because I still listened to some of my earlier episodes, and I'm just like, wow, like, is that what I was doing? Is that where we are now? But I would say like we've definitely come here. But no, I I appreciate that. But I I really just have to take my hat off and thank you. One, just for the responsiveness for making this happen, for doing everything that needs to be done to get us to coordinate. But two, just for what you're doing, just for what you're doing in the business owner community and the entrepreneurial community, and then even for creators out there. Because as you said, you know, this is more than just making money. This is more than just bringing in a positive PL statement each month. This is really just about meeting people where they are and scaling them. And at some point just saying, hey, you've been with us. Now go, go conquer, go make it rain, go do what you need to do where you need to be. So I really just have to give you and the Adex team a big shout out, and I'm wishing you the best of luck. As you said, by the time this drops, we'll you'll even have another company out and about. So I'm I'm excited to see that progress as well. Now, before we officially close out, I do just want people to be able to find you, tap in, network, ask questions, set up calls, whatever needs to be done. So when it comes to social media, when it comes to website, can you just give us everything you got, the best places to reach?

SPEAKER_00 47:08

Oh, sure, sure. Uh LinkedIn, if you search for Matt Poutra, you'll find me there. Our website is 8x.co, e-i-g-h t x.co. Uh on Instagram, I am Matt W J Poutra. Um, and our new website will be Poutra N Co. P-U-T-R-A and A N D C O dot com. Um, and so any one of those, I'm really easy to get to.

SPEAKER_01 47:36

Beautiful. I love it. So look, I mean, we always do the call to action at the end. That's why I leave the social media for there. If you've made it this far, if you skipped, if you scammed no matter what, look, I always just encourage people, just have a conversation, just reach out, just see what's going on. Check out the website, check out what Matt has done prior to even coming on the Down the Business Podcast, because I'm pretty sure you'll be just as impressed as I am. But as I said in the beginning, we're back, we're not going anywhere, we're here, we're happy, we're moving, we're grooving. I thank everybody who has allowed this to happen, whether you're just tapping into the episode, I thank you, Matt, and the ADX team for really putting everything together and coordinating for having you on the show. But I I just want everybody to just recognize that look, the time is now and that there's always steps to be taken. There's always things that you can be doing, and it's not an overnight thing. It's something that, you know, it's gonna take time. It's gonna take, you know, loss a bit. It's gonna take some months of having some apprehensions and thinking, am I am I really in the right place and in the right space? But if you're doing things for why you really want to do it, then that question, that answer should really be a no brainer. So again, Matt, thank you for everything that you're doing. I'm looking forward to staying in touch from Down to Business to 8X and Poutra and Co. And to everybody out there who continuously taps in, who listens, who supports, who shows love. I love y'all. I appreciate y'all. I think y'all. This has been another episode of the Down to Business Podcast here with Tamar Turner.