483 Credit Score To 8-Figure Business Owner with Chans Weber - 085

In this episode, I'm joined by Chans Weber, founder and President of Agile & Co, a digital marketing agency that does over 8 figures in revenue annually.
 
Chans is a keynote speaker with appearances including David Meltzer's TV Show "2 Minute Drill" which can be viewed on Apple TV and Amazon Prime.

Chans has a natural talent for transforming a company’s visions and goals into tangible revenue, however, there’s nothing that fulfills him more than growing his team both personally and professionally.

What's Inside

• How to build a strong business and culture from scratch
• Where things are headed in the marketing world
• How to connect with the right audience
• Balancing tried-and-true vs. what's new in marketing
• How to unlock your personal superpowers through self-awareness

Connect with Chans

• Follow Chans on Instagram
• Visit Chans' Website

Want To Show Your Support?

• Leave A Review  On iTunes
• Leave A Review On Audible

Connect With Bradley

• Bradley's Instagram

Transcript

Bradley Roth: 0:32

Hey everyone. Welcome back to another episode of the Not Most People podcast. This is your host, Bradley, and this is the show for those allergic to mediocrity group think and following the status quo. And before we get into today's full-length episode, I want to remind you guys of two things. The first is that I don't run ads on this show. I do it purely as a value exchange, so I just ask that if you get value out of the show, if it entertains you, if you learn something that you helped me in some way by either leaving a review. Or sharing the show with someone else, you know, because if you got value out of it, I know that someone you know will as well. So please go ahead, do me the favor and share it with them. That's all I ask. I put a lot into the show and so, I'll keep it ad free as long as you guys continue to help me grow it just by sharing the value. And then secondly, if you want to get in touch with more people who are like not most people who kind of have that mentality, the not most People Alliance is the place to do that. It's our online community mastermind and you can find information about that and all kinds of other stuff we got going on with not most people beyond the podcast in the show notes. But that's it. Without further ado, we're gonna get right into it. I have Chance Weber as the guest today. Chance, welcome to the show. Thank you for having. Of course I'm excited. We have some things in common, which we're gonna get into, but a little bit about chance for those of you listening, he is the founder and president of Agile and Co. A digital marketing agency that is closing in on eight figures of revenue. And he started 15 years ago with a credit score of 4 83 and a$15,000 loan from his parents and has now grown it into a very successful company. And he's also a keynote speaker with appearances. That include David Meltzer TV show Two Minute Drill, which can be found on Apple TV and Amazon Prime, and anyone who knows who David Meltzer is, or you know, just Apple TV and stuff like that's a big deal. So I want to get from that 4 83 credit score that start 15 years ago to now. Right. Cuz people listening are like, okay, cool, he's successful and we're gonna find out kind of how you got there. What were some of those things? Because like 15 years ago, That's, I feel like that's before marketing agencies were like kind of this cool, popular thing. Almost like you were an early adopter for sure. What was it that, like you decided to get into that? How did you end up kind of like killing your credit and then deciding to turn things around and go into business? Sure. Yeah. I'll

Chans Weber: 2:56

start with college. I think I was on academic probation 17,000 times. I actually don't know exactly what the number is, but I was on it more than off of it. definitely more interested in bars and girls than actually reading textbooks. So, you know, I was at a point in college where I was in and out of, On and off, I guess is the proper terms. Of academic probation and I don't know, man, I had like a 2.5 GPA or something. Just, I hated school. I never did enjoy it. I even go back to like high school. I never liked classrooms. I never liked classroom settings, never liked breeding. I force myself to read. Now these days I'm 40 years old and I still like have to actually sit down and make myself read 10 pages a day. Still don't like to read. It's just not the way I. I never has been, but either way I think I've got, man, I don't even know. It's funny, it's been so long now, but I think I've got like four or four classes to finish to, to actually have a degree that I'll absolutely never go finish Uhhuh It's pretty pointless at this point, but I got an opportunity from a guy that I went to college with who was a few years older than me, that was a financial advisor and he recruited me into the space. He had his manager essentially hire me under the stipulation that I would finish my degree at some point, but it really didn't matter cause I had to go get my licensing and all that fun stuff. So did that job, was actually the top producer in my branch in Chicago. So was pretty successful for, you know, an incoming. in that space, which is very hard to break into if you do. It's a great career. But I was the number one rep and did pretty well. I mean, at one point. I was making like 60,$70,000 a year, I guess, in society's eyes, you know, was doing okay for a 23, 24, 25 year old kid. So I was doing all right. But you know, I don't know where you live, but in Chicago, making that kind of money is like welfare. You know, it was not a lot of money to live in that city with the expenses of it and what it goes into it. Either way ended up leaving that job, quite frankly, cuz I hated it. You know, I hated being a 25 year old kid saying, Hey, 65 year old Joe and Mary, you should roll over your half a million dollar 401k that you spent your whole life saving. And trust me with it, because I know everything at 25 years old, I just hated the job. I didn't like the grind of it. You know, if you're gonna grind on something in your life, it's gotta be something you're passionate about and enjoy. So left that job went into recruiting and financial services. Was never really good at it. Hated it as well. Just again, jobs, you know, that's what I would call them. They were jobs, they were ways to make a paycheck and eat and keep a roof over my head. But, you know, that's how the credit got messed up. I think a lot of it was just immaturity, living beyond my means. Maybe had some ego problems like, Hey, I need to have a nicer car than I actually should have been driving at the time. Yeah. Things like I remember waking up one day. I had, I was living with my girlfriend and my car was repossessed, went to go to work, the car was gone. So yeah, just really ruined the credit. Really just at a point in life where I was just miserable. Gained a ton of weight, just video games, just the epitome of earth. When I look back at those years, you know, man just terrible. So, anyway, how I got into where I'm at now is a financial, I was recruiting in financial services and another guy that I went to college with had started a digital marketing agency, and I don't even know how we connected somehow. We weren't really that close in college, but we both knew who each other were. And he recruited me to come do sales for him to do business development for his marketing agency. But I was at this point where I was 29 years old. I had a 4 83 credit score. I had, I was single. I had a girlfriend. We were on the outs, like it was not married, no kids, nothing. So I'm 29 years old. I'm essentially single and I'm like, okay, you know, why would I go do this for somebody else? Like, why not just go for it? and it just kind of hit me. And I knew nothing about internet marketing, as we used to call it back then, digital marketing. So I just started reading, the first book I ever read was actually SEO for Dummies. You know those stupid for Dummies books? Yeah. The yellow ones. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. And SEOs changed 7,000 times since then. but since last week. Yeah, exactly. So that was the first book that I ever read and then got into it started the business with a business partner who I actually bought out very ugly divorce several years later. But we essentially just white labeled and outsourced everything when we started and until we learned the ropes and we learned how to do it, and then, even after I got rid of him. Now we do a hundred percent of everything in house, including even content like I staff full-time, you know, salaried copywriters as well. And you know, now we are a full service digital marketing agency that does, you know, everything from Google ads, Facebook ads, search engine optimization, content marketing websites, email marketing, all that fun stuff. so. Yeah it's been a fun story. I know in your intro you said approaching gate figures. We actually crossed it this year, which was Oh wow. Congratulations. A far reach goal. Thank you. So it was, you know, obviously only got 10, 10 days left, 11 days left here in the year. But yeah, so it's been a hell of a ride. I'm extremely blessed to be where I'm at and it's hard to believe that, you know, it, you know, I get paid to speak now. Like it's insane to me that to look back, you know, when I do these podcasts and interviews like this, to look back on the story. I just told him to think that, you know, a matter of 11, 12 years ago, I was a guy at Rock Bottom, epitome of life and. you know, I'm not trying to be like a bragger, but like I, I take my family and fly private and go places and do things and people pay me to speak. And it's like, man, you know, you can really change your life in a short amount of time. You know, even over a decade you think that's so long, but it's really not in the grand scheme of life. It's really not. Yeah. So, yeah, man that's kind of the CliffNotes version of my story.

Bradley Roth: 8:12

Wow. I mean, that gives me a lot. The first, like, I have probably 12 questions right off the top of my head, but Sure. Yeah. The first thing I wanna say is that it, like the beginning reminds me so much of me, like in school, you know, I was kind of that like BC student, I did just enough to kind of keep my parents happy most of the time. Yeah. And you know, kind of flirted with academic probation in college and all that kind of stuff. And didn't really know, like I, I just had. Kind of like enthusiasm for it, you know? I was like, why am I reading this? Why am I doing this? Why is this homework assigned? Why am I memorizing things I can learn on Google? Right? So, I totally resonate with that. And then also getting outta college and going into something that's kind of just like, like I got into, my main thing was fitness. Like I, you know, I got exercise science degree, so I did end up finishing my degree bar somehow squeaked by, but I got into exercise science, but then it was, you know, part-time. So I'm like, what else can I do to make money? And you know, when you're thinking of like, how can I just make money? You end up in that job that you hate. And I ended up in real estate and I was trying to kind of same thing, like selling. Like, I didn't own a house and I was trying to like help people buy and sell houses that, you know, like, that's funny. Couldn't afford. And I was like, man, this is like, this ain't it, you know? And Sure. Kind of moving on from there. And then I jumped into trying to start my own one man digital marketing agency, which that was what, probably four years ago. So it was kind of a different time. Like, like that was when Ty Lopez's course came out and everyone and their mother was trying to start a marketing agency, but, yep. I'm curious because you. Like you said, it wasn't even called like online marketing or digital marketing at that point. This was like way back, so, yep. Do you feel like being, like, do you consider yourself to be almost like an early adopter in this?

Chans Weber: 9:56

I do. Yeah. Can you, do you think that gave you like a big leg up? Yeah, I mean obviously I think anytime you can be an early adopter of something and beat anybody to, you know, the punch, then you've always got a leg up, right? Yeah. I mean, nothing ever beats experience and I don't care what business that you're in, right? there can be somebody that could be better than you that comes along and those things always happen. There's always challenges, right? But you know, at the end of the day, yeah, that's absolutely play. It's advantages for me. I look at agencies that were started a few years before me, like super early adopters. Yeah. And I look at the leg up that they have on me and they're really, you know, cemented in this industry and I'm like, damn, you know, like you're doing 40, 50 million a year in revenue and it makes me feel pretty small. Mm-hmm. But Yeah. You know, I think that there's always, you can look at anything. I don't know why this just popped into my head, but I just got a new grill, you know these smoker pellet grills? And I bought from rec tech. Well, a lot of people have never even heard of rec tech. They think of Traeger. Right, right. Traeger was like that first big. You know, company to the game. And now their quality is way down in comparison to rec tech, for example. So, you know, you don't have to always be the first, but let's be honest, I don't know what the valuations are of those companies, but I promise you triggers worth way more than rec tech is. Right. So, you know, you, I think there's always value to being, to the game, you know, early or first or whatnot. It's much harder to crack into an established industry that's for.

Bradley Roth: 11:20

Yeah, I know it's kind of a weird paradox because yeah, you can look at those first adopters, they have probably more room for error in a sense. Yeah. Like when I look at like social media, it was, you could just post anything like seven, eight years ago and you'd blow up and get a big following. And now like I see people with like super high quality content and like they're barely growing. They can't get anywhere. Yeah. It's crazy. So it's like this weird paradox because you don't wanna look at people and say, oh, well, you know, I'm late to the game, so I'm not gonna start. And then a lot of people say, oh, it's too early. It's not proven yet. You know, so like there's, yeah, you can kind of go both ways. But I mean, I wanted to, I wanna tie back to like what you were doing before the agency, right? So you said you were number one rep in this company, like right outta the bat. What were some of those like attributes or like, what do you think made. I don't know, naturally skilled in that area. And then how did that translate into, like, you starting what. Sure.

Chans Weber: 12:17

I think that, I want you call it lone wolf when it comes to sales, which is not necessarily a good quality, right? I have, I think I adapt to people well. I think I find ways to resonate with people easily. I, this isn't something that I have taught myself. I haven't groomed these skillsets. I think it was just something I was naturally born with. I am a people person. I do find ways to gravitate towards people. Yeah. I think I'm also a guy that's just very comfortable in his own skin, meaning, If somebody doesn't like me I'm okay with that. It does it, I don't take it personally. It doesn't insult me. I'm just like, okay. Like we're, you know, this isn't our thing. No, it's okay. So my clients that I bring in, you know, they're, they love me. It's one thing that our mentor, Andy Priscilla said to me personally at an an RTE syndicate event years ago. It was just a small group of us talking, and we were having a conversation. He was like, look, man, 50% of people are gonna hate you no matter what you. if you worry about them, you're gonna kill yourself. Like just focus on the 50% of people that love you. Yeah. And I've never, I mean, I was naturally, I think, gifted in that, but I'd never heard somebody say it that way. and since he said that, that's really stuck with me even more over the last several years, is that, You know, your people are gonna gravitate towards you no matter what. And the people that aren't gonna gravitate towards you aren't no matter what. And I think that just accepting that and becoming comfortable in who you are and knowing your people, your circle, however you wanna look at it, your clientele in business, your prospects, they're either gonna work with you and they're gonna jive with you or they're not. And just being at peace with that. And I think that's something I was naturally good at from the beginning. You know, I think that, you know, like I said, I can adapt to people well, and I think that I have a personality that people can gravitate towards. And I think these are all just things that kind of naturally, it's just who I am as a person. I I wish I could tell you that I read some books and evolved myself, but it's just not the truth. Yeah.

Bradley Roth: 14:04

Yeah. It doesn't mean it can't be evolved, but yeah. We all kinda have our natural propensities. But did you find that having that skillset made it hard for you to get out of like, the operations of your agency to like managing the agency

Chans Weber: 14:19

It's still That makes sense. Is it's, yeah, it still is a little bit to this day even where we're at now. you know, I've got tier of, we'll say quote unquote management within my team. and it's still hard for me. I think that, you know, again, going back to kind of being a lone wolf, I think lone wolfs in general are. Control freaks to an exa to an extent as well. and I think that they kind of operate on their own, and those are traits that I have. How to develop and learning how to trust people and learning how to delegate responsibility and being comfortable with it. And I still even, I have a full-time and personal assistant and I still, it's like, you know, she handles everything, like all my travel business personal. I mean, I've got a wife and two little girls. It's like, okay, you booked, it's like we just booked a Disney cruise. It's like, okay, are you sure that you got the right flights, the right tickets? Are you sure that we have the proper car service? It's like, okay. It's like this. My assistant was, has a master's degree and was a high school math teacher before I pulled her out. yeah. To work for me. She's plenty smart enough to book flights in a car service, right? So I think that, you know, there's a down, there's downfalls to some of that as well, but I think a lot of entrepreneurs deal with that. as you scale a business, when. Baby, and you've built it and you've grinded to get it where it's at, to have people to help you. I think we all struggle, you know, with letting go of control of things and trusting people to get the job done as well as you can. And I think we all fight that as we scale businesses. for

Bradley Roth: 15:37

sure. Yeah. It's something that, I know it's coming up, but I think, yeah, being an RTA and having mentors and having these examples is gonna make that transition like way smoother than the trial and error that most people go through, so, absolutely. Yeah. So you didn't read or you didn't like to read, you weren't into personal development, right? You just kind of had these things are, do you consider yourself to be like a big personal development person now? Like has that shifted a lot? No. No.

Chans Weber: 16:02

You know, I don't know. I, this might be one of those things where I'm getting caught up in the woowoo of social media where everybody's personally developing and it's like, are you know, if you're really doing everything you say you're doing, then no, I'm not. Compared to a lot of what you see Uhhuh, you know, man, I guess it depends on how you look at it. I have, I am a super aware person. And what I mean by that is I am very strong at being able to look at the mirror and say, and chance you sucked at this. You did this wrong. You should have done this better. You handled this the wrong way. This is how you should have handled it. And learning, not beating myself up, you know, and just hating myself. But learning from mistakes and being very self-aware and reflective on my downfalls of who I am and where I come up. Short mistakes that I make, and then adapting and getting better at them. And I think a lot of those tools have come from self-development. And I think it's, it is reading the books. It is having mentors that you. To and say, man, how's he doing this? And then hearing him say, this is how I deal with it. you might not do it the same way, but maybe learning something from that and kind of making it your own and how it works for you. So yeah, man no questions asked. Those things have absolutely helped me throughout the years. Yeah. And what I think about all the time is what if I would've had those people or understood what mentorship was in year one. Yeah. Right. Like, I was, ha I was several years in before I really bought into this stuff, right? and I can't imagine if I would've just had a little more guidance and jumped into self-development early in, in my business career. Yeah. But yeah, man, Absolut.

Bradley Roth: 17:47

Yeah, because I feel like there's. I'd say the vast majority of people who I have on the show, who I consider to be successful, they all talk about personal development, self development, read the books, hang out with the mentors, join the masterminds, go to the events, all that kind of stuff, right? And then there's, yeah, people like Alex Formo, he's like, all right. He's like, you don't gotta wake up and meditate and you know, do grounding and all this stuff. He's like, you wake up, grab your coffee and get to work. You know what

Chans Weber: 18:11

I mean? Yeah. Yep. And I'm, and I do that right? Uhhuh So like every, look, here's the biggest thing, man. We're in a world where we have social media where there's so much shit being thrown in our faces every single day about how to do this and how you can do this better. The key to it is take it all in and figure out. Like, what is your plan? Yeah. You know, everybody talks about, oh, you gotta get up so early and you gotta start your day. And I'm, I've got four hours of work done before other people get outta bed. Dude, if that's not you, that's not you. Yeah. I'm a 4:30 AM Sunday through Sunday guy. Like I wake up pre four 30, my alarm is set for four 30. I rarely hear my alarm go off. I go to bed at nine o'clock at night. That's, Yeah. That doesn't mean that has to be somebody else. I know people that sleep till 8:00 AM that make millions of dollars a year. You do you? you know what I mean? But I do think that having systems and accountability and growth are very important. I just think that it's more important to figure out what works for you instead of trying to fit, you know, the square peg into the round hole type of concept. Like you are your own human, do you?

Bradley Roth: 19:14

Exactly. Yeah. It's. You could have the best like bodybuilding routine in the world, but if you're not trying to be a bodybuilder, like it doesn't apply to you, you know, like Yeah, exactly. You have to match it to your goals. So yeah, at the end, all of it kind of comes down to self-awareness and context, and I think that's hard. Especially for people in the beginning, right? Because 15 years ago, like, that's like basically pre, maybe that's MySpace, you know? But that's like pre, yeah, pre-social media, online guru kind of, times. And so now there's so much noise and for someone starting out, they're like, oh, well I gotta do this and that, and have this like three hour morning routine and then I gotta, you know, the list goes on and on. Right. So do you feel like it's almost harder these days to get into, like, do you think. and this is another one of those, like, could go either way kind of answers, right? Like, do you feel like all the information is helpful or do you think it can almost be a hi, like a hindrance in the life of

Chans Weber: 20:08

it? It can be overload, but man, we're, there's never been an easier time in the history of Earth to make money than there is right now. There's never been an easier time to go start a company and be successful than there is right now because the resources are out there. When I started this shit didn't exist. There, it wasn't out there. If so, you're talking about true pioneers that were like ahead of the game, right? So, you know, no, I, I do think that you can be overwhelmed and But again, I think that's where you have to be able to take a step back and figure out you and what works for you. Yeah. And what you can take on at a time or how much you can adapt and. and bring in, I guess yeah. And digest on a regular basis. But no, man, there's never been a, an easier time to make money than right now. I mean, you got kids that just put up YouTube channels that start making thousands of dollars a month on'em. That are teenagers, you know what I mean? Yeah. So there's never been an easier time to make money. there's nothing out there that is not, you know, from an information or advice or guide standpoint, that's not 30 seconds of research away. It's just a matter of, actually it is still the old saying, man, these things never ever change, but you have to do the work. Yeah. You know, you can get the play, but somebody's still gotta run the damn play. It's not nobody's, it's not gonna run itself. Yeah. So, but no I don't think that it's overwhelming. I think that anybody that's overwhelmed is just missing focus. Or lacking focus. Yeah. Everything is out there. That's a beautiful part about the world that we live in. But I will say, going back to, you know, you made a statement earlier. about, you know, back then you could just put some stuff on social media and explode, and now you can't because it's such a crowded space. and you're right. And that's why you're seeing so much marketing become so much more polarizing. Yeah. Like people were taking stances and being more aggressive. Look at what Andy Priscilla has done. I'm not saying Andy doesn't stand for everything he's talking about, because I'm telling you right now, he does. he risked his entire brand. Yeah, his entire personal brand. First forms brand, he everything for standing up for what he believes, right? And he is polarizing. Yeah. He's pol and I don't mean that in a bad way, but he's polarizing, right? he's taken an extreme stance and ownership in saying, this is who I am, come with me or don't. And he's exploded. I mean, his Instagram follower since Covid has like triple. Like, it's crazy. Yeah. And he's not buying'em. Let's be real. Okay. Right. He's not buying him. Okay. Yeah. But I think that. Where you're seeing, and this is why there's also a lot of hate shifting away from Andy as an example, a lot of hate around Instagram. You know, the more naked that the chick can be, the more likes and views that it gets because it's more polarizing. It's more extreme. Yeah. Right. And you're seeing a lot of that where it's having to get extreme to work. And what is the end of this look like, man, I don't know. Yeah. It's an interesting world coming, but if you would've thought that, The chicks half naked that you can see through what they're wearing was gonna be on a social media platform 10 years ago. People be like no, no way. Like yeah, this is where you put the picture of your girlfriend or your wife and your kids not Right. You know, seeing through a girl's bikini, bottom only fan literally everywhere. Yeah, exactly. Right. Yeah. So, so, you know, I don't know, but that's why that has happened. Is because in order to differentiate yourself, you've had to become more extreme. Yeah. And the people that have done it has. Yeah. Whether no matter what you believe or think or you know what I mean? I'm not saying we should have half naked women on social media. I'm just saying like that it, it sells that's why it's working. Yeah.

Bradley Roth: 23:29

Okay. So I have a two-part question for you. The first is, so something like online marketing, it is so dynamic and like constantly evolving and there's all these different platforms now. So how do you balance between. like staying tried and true to like what works. And then also like l like cuz you have to be constantly learning what's new and what's changing and stuff. So how do you find that balance? Like what percentage of e of time and energy goes toward to like staying on top of things and staying ahead of things versus like, you know, working what you already know. And then also to piggyback on that, Where just generally do you kind of see like being kind of really, you know, you're deep into online marketing. Everyone's like, all right, how do I grow? What's the next big platform? What's gonna be hot next? Last year it was reels, you know, this year it's, you know, what do you think that's gonna be?

Chans Weber: 24:21

Yeah. So to answer the first part of your question, there's a couple different lenses that, that of answers that I guess I rotate to. So you say, you said, made a comment, like sticking to what's tried and true. To me, I have, I don't do that anymore. To me I open up every single book, meaning a new client and I try to take a fresh approach no matter what. Preconceived notions are. Like preconceived data is great. When I've seen things work, that's great. Of course, I'm gonna try to use that to my advantage, but I've been doing this long enough now to know that, you know, I've seen Facebook creative come in for Facebook ads and I'm like, this is the worst video I've ever seen in my life. like, I can't, I cannot post this on your behalf, but I do it and it explodes. And I've seen pieces of creative for clients that I'm like, this is the greatest piece of created ever. This is gonna crush it. Like we're this is gonna, this ad is gonna go like fire and have a fall flat on its face. So I've been doing this long enough now where I try to go into everything with an open mind, and this is also why I'm pounding on with my client's. Testing testing. Yeah. You gotta test things to know.

Bradley Roth: 25:23

Yeah. Let me just, I guess to rephrase that, so how, like when you're strategy, like, cuz obviously you get a new client or even an existing client, you're evaluating, you're creating a strategy. Are you looking like, okay, here's what we're gonna try for the next. Month, three months, two weeks. Like what's usually that like, like reevaluation timeline, how often are you kind of checking things and creating like a game plan for, if that makes sense?

Chans Weber: 25:45

Yeah, it does. It's a question that I can't give you a direct answer though, and here's why. It differs for everyone. It differs for everyone and budget. right? So if you've got a client that spends$5,000 a month, let's say in ad spend, so they're running Facebook ads, so they're gonna get data at whatever rate the 5K is. If I've got another client that's spending 50 K a month on ads, I'm gonna get data much, much faster, right? So I can make. Moves I can pivot to a different strategy or plan B, you know, within a couple of days, three days at times, where the 5K guy, I'm gonna have to let that run for two, three, maybe even four weeks to get enough data to say this is working or it's not working. if it's not like black and white definitive. So it's gonna, it's gonna vary on how quickly you're getting data, what the strategy is that's going to determine how we move and when we move. But we operate, and where our name Agile and Co came from is off of the Agile methodology, which is big in the tech world. It's a project development type of model. I dunno if you're familiar with it or not, but there's sprints and there's all these different pieces to it. For us, it just basically says, Hey, look. Every single month, we are going to look at what we did in the previous month, what worked and what didn't. and we are going to adjust your plan accordingly. So I really don't have many, like just Facebook clients. I've got clients that are running Facebook ads, Google ads, TikTok, organically, content marketing, seo, and let's say we've got you. X YZ dollars spread across those whatever channels that we're investing in. At the end of every month, we're gonna look at that data and we're gonna reallocate that money based off of data. So we are constantly moving and shaking and pivoting based off of what's working. We might have a Facebook campaign right now that's underperforming, but three months from now we might launch a new one that knocks it outta the park. Well then I wanna move more money into it and run with it while it's hot. So it's a constant juggling act. This is something that I implemented. This is something, man, that if you're gonna go down this road, you should do this. Now, I can't imagine how much more successful that I would be if I hadn't operated my agency like this from day one. If I had operated it like this from day one it hurt my margins a little bit. Because it takes more labor from my team. But our retention tripled. By operating on a model like this. So, you know, I don't tie timelines, I don't tie anything to anything that we do at all ever, because every single client is different. And we've got, that's what makes us a boutique agency. Is we handhold them. And to me, in today's environment, you have to handhold campaigns as a whole, a client as a whole. You have to handhold them. There is no autopilot. And that's why yeah. I think that we've been very successful in the last couple of years of taking so many clients from huge agencies. I'm talking companies that are doing 5,000, 300 million a year in revenue, and we're taking them from these huge agencies because they're more of a factory line. Right? Yes. They're just running their service down a factory belt where we're getting in it every single day and saying no, we're gonna move this. We're gonna do this. But to come back and answer your question strategically, you asked, Hey, how much per percent, you know, what do you stick to? That's what you know. And how much are you testing with our rules? 90 10. So 90% of your budget's always gonna go into things that are performing whatever services those are. 10% is testing. There's constantly testing. To me, if an agency's not TE testing a percentage of your budget, then they're lazy. And that 10% might flop six months in a row, but in month seven if it blows up, it's gonna repay you for the previous six you lost on. Yeah. So it's a 90 10 rule for us as far as what we test and what, you know, we're trying to optimize to be as most efficient as we can.

Bradley Roth: 29:15

Gotcha. That makes sense. I mean, that's fairly conservative, but it's important to always have that little bit that's on the fence. Gotta have something. Yeah, exactly. So, and then the second part of that question where do you see things moving? In the past year, I feel like the hot thing has kind of, I mean, podcasts have been really big the last couple year, years. now it's like short form content right now. TikTok reels, YouTube shorts. Do you see that changing or evolving much in the next year? Like where would you kind of put your focus on, are there any new platforms maybe that you would try and be an early adopter on? Anything like that?

Chans Weber: 29:47

new platforms? Not necessarily. I think it's very interesting what's going on with Twitter right now. you know, I'm not familiar with any platforms that I am going all in on that I think is gonna be some huge change. I think Twitter's a very interesting environment right now, just to see what Elon's gonna do with that and what's gonna shake out. I think that is is huge as YouTube is now. They're making some changes here and there that I can see becoming. a bigger deal than it even is from like a regular usage basis. So, we'll see. But no man, I think that I, Instagram is here to stay. Facebook is here to say, these are not gonna die out like Snapchat did. I don't think you're gonna see anything like that TikTok. I'm not, I'm still not like a hundred percent sold on it. There's obviously legal issues coming into play. I think Congress is trying to get rid of TikTok for members of the government and that it's there's stuff going on there that. I'm not like, I'm not a betting man. I'm not betting on TikTok is here for the long run. I think it's better. Very entertaining. Yeah. Yeah. But Facebook and Instagram are here. Like they're not the usage rates they're through the roof. They're not going anywhere. And people to think that Facebook is dying and that it's the older generation and kids aren't using it as much. They're Right. They're still not a single social media platform out there that's making more money than Facebook is. as of right here in the foreseeable future, It's still where the money is made as far as actually running social ads. But no man, I don't see anything changing as far as, you know, reels. And to me tho those fads like that, a lot of that shit man is completely out of our control. It's algorithm based. Right. You know what I mean? What like, like Instagram has exploded reels over the last. X, y, Z amount of months, you know? Well, I mean, did anybody have anything to do with that? Not really. I mean, Instagram decided they were gonna push that content. Yeah. So what do I see coming? I don't know. I, I don't know what's coming. Chat. G D P T is what's throwing me for a loop right now. Like, what's going on with this AI content and how's that gonna look for SEO and content marketing? Yeah. And you know, that's what I'm paying a lot of attention to right now because that, dude, that shit's crazy. I can change the game completely. It can, and I actually read a long case study the other day where a big e-comm brand, they had copywriters write an email sequence, like a sales sequence, a workflow of emails to make a sale. And then they had chat, G p t write it. And the automated AI piece outperformed the copywriter piece by 30 some percent. Wow. and that was just something that they asked whatever question, you know, for the AI to write that content, and it was written and it outperformed the actual human written by 30 some percent. I'm like, damn. You know, like that's yeah, it's scary for copywriters. That's a crazy thing. Yeah. It's very scary for copywriters. And now I'm reading that, you know, Google is trying to make ways to flag the content and see it. I don't know, man. I mean it that, that is something that I'm watching a close

Bradley Roth: 32:27

eye on though. Yeah. Yeah. That's something that I think even beyond marketing can change every aspect of human life. But that's a whole nother rabbit hole. We could go down, you know, for Absolutely can. Yeah. For another time. But what do you think about, cuz I always kind of go back and forth. Like, I have a podcast that's kind of the basis of my content. So I'm a little bit biased, but I always kind of like favor like more evergreen type content or platforms. Right. There's just like blogging YouTube. Podcast where you can create this content, you can be law form content so you can rep, you know, there's a lot of repurposing you can do. Sure. But then also, like no one's liking my Instagram post from six months ago, but they're still listening to my podcast episodes from six months ago. You know what I mean? So, and also like if you're starting totally from scratch, you know, does it make sense to. Podcast or go on somewhere like Rumble instead of trying to like go into YouTube where it's kind of like Instagram or Facebook now, and it's saturated. So yeah. If someone's starting new, do you, is your approach different than someone who's established or do you favor long form or short form or anything like that? You know,

Chans Weber: 33:37

I don't, I think it would all be, it's all takes a little more perspective to understand what they're trying to do. Right. You know, like, to me,

Bradley Roth: 33:44

Someone wants to start a brand from scratch, right? Like a, let's say it's a B2C brand, right? Consumer, like an apparel brand. Yeah, sure. That's a good example.

Chans Weber: 33:55

see apparel. When I think of like something like apparel, to me it's very transactional. So what is longform content gonna do for an apparel brand? you either see an item of clothing that you like or you don't. Yeah. it resonates with you or it doesn't, you know what I mean? So that's what I'm saying it, yeah. It all is dependent on, I guess, what you're trying to do and where you're trying to go. But I will say this, man, I think the podcast world is. I mean, man, I've been on a hundred plus podcasts. I don't even know how many, and I've never had my own. To me where my business is at now. I can't keep up with the referrals that we get. Like we, we don't hardly do, I mean, we, I shouldn't say that when I keynote, speak like that is marketing for us. but now like, I'm having trouble keeping up with scaling my team as fast as business is coming to me. Unsolicited. That's just coming. Yeah. And that's part of being in the game for 10 years and doing good work, you know? that doesn't just happen when you start a company, right? I mean, that's, oh yeah. That's over a decade of grinding and making, turning clients into promoters and getting referrals and building a reputation. all that's cost a lot of time and money. But you know, I, like, I will never have a podcast. I will never start a podcast. But I also think, you know, like you're at a very different point in your journey than I am. And, you know, I just think everything's perspective. The podcast world has become very saturated as well, right? it's like everybody, anybody can just go start a damn podcast just like. Anybody can go build a website and say, I've got a business. Right. It's just another one of those spaces. But I look, there's always opportunities to break through. You don't, it's what we kick this thing off with. Yeah. You don't have to be an early adopter or a pioneer to make a hellacious impact. you know what I mean? Like you just don't, yeah. You can find ways. There's always a way and it might take a, it might be a needle in a haystack odds against you, but you know, man, there, the one thing that's. underrated is building a community. And building your following per se. And people think you need millions of views and millions you don't. Yeah. I mean, you can make millions of dollars off of having 10,000 people. That know who you are and follow what you do, and are willing to buy from you. Mil, you can make millions and millions of dollars. Yep. So people get very caught up in metrics and thinking, oh, I, you know, I didn't get 2000 likes. Instagram vanity numbers, who gives us shit? Yeah, man. They're vanity metrics. There's no doubt about it. So you don't need that. You need, you know, I, I have an agency. We have about 150 clients. Okay. Which is a lot for an agency. Yeah. Okay. But man, look I had a great living when we had 50 clients. like I was making hundreds of thousands of hours of year. Like I had a great life when we had 50 clients. So, you know, it's one of those things that it's all, people don't even need that many. You don't. Yeah. Well, dude, you can have 50 clients spending 50 grand a month. I mean, right. You know what I mean? Like, so it's just it's all perspective and and you know, what's important is really what it comes

Bradley Roth: 36:43

down to. Yeah. Yeah. It's the concept of like a thousand true fans, if you ever heard that, where if you have a thousand, I have people who truly believe in what you're doing. Like you'll never be broke. You know what I mean? That's right. So that's an important concept. And then a big part of it, which Andy talks about all the time, is just simply outlast. Like if you, whatever you do, you know, you might get into something saturated, but like with podcasts, classic example, there's like almost 3 million podcasts listed on Apple Podcasts, but about 80 to 90% of'em are dead. They're not adding anything. Sure. You know? Yep. And then I think it's 70% don't make it past 15 episodes, so even just. Sticking with it for like, say a few months. You're you? Yeah. I love that. Put yourself Yep. In the top, like, you know, 30% or whatever it might be.

Chans Weber: 37:30

Well, look man, and we saw a big test when Covid hit, right? you know, I'll never forget it was a Sunday that the famous Trump speech of two weeks to flatten the curve came out. And by Wednesday I had lost 90 some percent of my. in 72 hours, just like that. Yep. Because people look at marketing as it's not a necessity, which is crazy. And it was like, you know, holy shit, you know? And thankfully I had a lot of cash stashed in the business and we did get the P and whatever else, and we were fine. here's the thing, within 30 days I got every single client, but one back. And 2020 was the best year in business we'd ever had up to that point. 2021 was better. 2022 is gonna be even better. But that was the best year of business we ever had was 2020. Wow. And we lost, we, we had no revenue for a month. So you talk about outlasting, what did I have my team do? They went and helped every single client that was no longer paying us. They helped us with their, that we helped them with their messaging, sending out their emails, communication for free. We did it all for free. We said, listen, we're gonna get through this together. So you wanna talk about outlasting people? Yeah. You know, how many digital marketing agencies went out of business in 2020? Dude. Thousand, 80%. It probably, that's. Right. And we had the best year we ever had, so that, those differentiators are where people make it. and I've always said this, and we've got this quote unquote impending recession. You know, we're already in it, but is it gonna like, yeah. Really dive deep and valley out, I don't know. But man, the rich get richer. in hard times. Yeah. And we've seen that happen with Covid very recently. And if we do have some massive recession into a depression, the rich get richer in these times. They don't look at it as doom and gloom and dread. They look at it as opportunities. Yeah. And ways to separate themselves from everybody else. And a lot of that mentality for me, man, has coming from Andy, I mean like he is such a, just a killer mentality it comes to these things. And he has instilled that in me and I think about him constantly. About things like this, like, I am ready, I've never been in a cash stronger position than I am right now. Like, I'm ready for the floor to fall out. I'm not worried at all like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna go buy as much as I can, whether it's real estate other smaller digital marketing agencies that I can buy and bring in their book of business for, you know, pennies on the dollar per se. I'm, I am in full aggress aggression mode, and I have loans. I have cash built, I have lines of credit. I have just all these avenues of the ability to be aggressive with cash. Just waiting. Yeah. And every super wealthy person is doing the same thing right now. Everybody's just licking their chops. Yeah.

Bradley Roth: 40:02

Yeah. They're getting ready. Everyone else is shrinking. They're scared everyone else. Yep. You know, the people who are ready smell opportunity, so That's right. Exactly. And it's also, people might be listening. They're like, all right, well, I'm not in the position to. to do that. I don't have cash at hand and that kind of thing, but it's also, if you're on the other end of the spectrum, it's just as powerful. If you got nothing to lose, like now is gonna be your time where you can separate yourself, where you can like, you know, get your piece of the pie when everyone else isru. It's almost more like that middle ground is the hardest place to be in. You know, it probably is. You have stuff to lose, but you also don't have assets that you can deploy as.

Chans Weber: 40:39

you're probably right. Yeah, no, I would agree with that. There's no better place to be in life than you're back against the wall. No. P I wish I understood that earlier. you know, I built this business out of. You know, everybody has, so many people have these woowoo stories of all. No man, like I fell into this. I am in love with it now. Like I am obsessed with what I do. I truly love what I do. that's not bullshit. That's the honest to God statement. I love what I do. Yeah. But I built this business out of nothing to lose back against the wall going on 30 years old. Broke life in shambles, like now is my. Like that's how I built this. It was back against the wall. Desperation. Yeah. And there's nothing wrong with that though, you know? Yeah. Like people don't understand. There's an advantage to that. Like right now, man, like you know, million dollar homes and lake houses and Bo Man, my kids go to private school if I lost everything now that's fear Yeah. You know what I mean? Like that's scary now. then it wasn't so scary. Where was I gonna go from bottom to bottom? Right. Who cares? You know what I mean? People need to embrace that strength and that opportunity. It's hard to look at when you're there and I get it, but damn dude. It is a blessing if you can understand it and get that energy aligned.

Bradley Roth: 41:52

Yeah. So this is another question that might be hard to answer, but people are listening. They're like, all right, 15 years. How, at what point, like Intuit, how many years roughly, would you say, where it started to like kind of click, you were like, all right, I'm kind of, this is starting to work for me. I feel like I'm getting over that kind of initial hump. I'm starting to get more business than I'm losing consistently. And like, was there a point where you started to feel like, like, I don't know, positive long term. Like you got some real signs that it was really working.

Chans Weber: 42:23

You know, there's been several stages. you know, I love that question, but when I look at it, but let's say

Bradley Roth: 42:27

that first stage, like, okay, I'm not, like, I know I'm not gonna go broke next week.

Chans Weber: 42:32

I think that the first time I ever, so I grew up very blue collar. I grew up in like a 500 square foot home with a single mom, cinder block, foundation basement where my bedroom was. It was like 50 degrees in the winter. Like I grew up very poor, okay? So to me, I remember one year my dad worked for a water company and he made$70,000. in a year and he worked a ton of overtime and he was like proud that he made that money. So to me, coming up as a kid, growing up in that environment, I attached a lot of my success and where I grew in my business to money. So I remember when I made$70,000 in Chicago, it was like, wow, you know, this is a lot of money, but I don't live where I grew up. Small town, rural area. So to me it was like, Hey, I gotta make. Grand. You know, it was the six figures, right? we all, you hear six figures. I remember in business when I actually made six figures, and it was actually, I went up to 150,000 from like 90. I met with my accountant. He was like, look like you, you got, you're making enough money, like you can pay yourself more. So I remember I was like, oh man. And I made a, I was gonna make 150 grand gross. And to me that gross point is gross or is that, That was like me netting that. Not like profit, not that was actually like my income. Gotcha. Not revenue in the business. Uhhuh. It was like me actually making that. Gotcha. And it was damn, you know, like I'm making a hundred and$50,000 like. you know, I'm gonna be okay. I remember thinking that at that point, and I remember shortly after that going, man, I thought I'd have a lot of money making 150 grand, and I don't have shit uhhuh, you know, but you know, I look at different phases. I remember when I made a half a million, I remember the first year that I made seven figures. you know, I re, I rem I look at these phases and I've always and for better or worse, right or wrong, I don't know, but I've always associated these like tiers with my income. I've never really looked at it. Oh, I'm keeping more clients than I'm losing type of thing. To me, I, when I look back on it, and that's just a me thing, and I think that's just a lot of where I came from. But to me that's how I've associated all those things. Gotcha. And those kind of phases. But that was the first time that I was like, damn, you know, like, I'm actually doing something good here. Like this has wheels. You know? Yeah. Like I can grow this thing. I can do something was around then, and I don't remember, I mean, we've typically operated about a 30% margin. We were probably doing, you know, 450,$500,000 in revenue. It was still a small

Bradley Roth: 44:44

agency at that time. How many years in was that roughly?

Chans Weber: 44:48

Oh man. We came out of the, we came out of the gate strong. It was probably only two years in. Maybe three. Yeah, that's solid. So, yeah. Yeah, it turned around pretty quick for us.

Bradley Roth: 45:00

Very cool. And then I'm sure you had growing pains and you know, oh man, you still have'em now? Yeah. One step or yeah. One step forward, two steps back, kind of instances and all that. But

Chans Weber: 45:11

It's hard. I'm learning things now from a scalability standpoint. Even now, like it's nev it never ends. Yeah. You know, I look at,

Bradley Roth: 45:19

Companies, especially in agency it's so energy intensive, right? And so hands-on and Yeah. It

Chans Weber: 45:24

is. And you've gotta have the right people. I've made a lot of mistakes with the wrong people. I'm still learn. I mean, I don't think you ever stop learning, but I, you know, like I love that shit. like, I love it. Like, maybe I'm weird. Yeah. I don't know. But I embrace that. You know, I had to lay my first two employees off. I had to, I, I've never laid off an employee. I've terminated employees. but to me, I've always said, you know, if you terminate an employee, that's on them. If I lay off an employee, that's on me. Like I messed up and I was trying to get ahead of where we were this year, earlier this year, and I laid off my first two employees ever. I laid'em off at the same time and it was gut-wrenching and, cause I just, I felt so much. Right. Like I felt like I failed them and I did fail them. And it won't happen. Like, I will do everything I can in my, me, my mind to make sure that does not happen again. So, you know, I just, the learning never stops. Yeah. And how to scale and, you know, those things never stop. That's why your network is so important. It's not just being an rte getting on, you know, calls with Ed and Andy or, you know, whatever business group you're in. Like you need actual mentors. You need actual dudes or gals that are in the same level of business that you are. I've got three. That whenever I'm trying to make a tough decision, I call all three of'em. Two of'em are from rte. The third one is my money guy, who's a good friend of mine, one of the smartest business people I know. I don't call him about my life insurance policies. Right. But he's a serial entrepreneur as well. But those three people get a call from me for any major decision or tough time that I'm going through, and I pick their brains. Yeah. And then I build out of it what I want and that's what I go execute. And those people are 10 ties more valuable to me than anybody else on. when it comes to my company. Yeah. Because they're in it, they have companies of similar sizes, you know, five to 20 million across the three of them in annual revenue. So like I got'em all surrounded around where I'm at and that's who I lean on for everything now.

Bradley Roth: 47:14

Yeah. That's awesome. I mean, I know I know we are wrapping up on time. Yeah. So unfortunately I know we could, like, I know we could keep going for a while cause we're on the roll, but I gotta ask you the question that I ask everyone who comes on the show, and that is, how would you define not most people, or what do you think of when you hear that phrase?

Chans Weber: 47:32

Not most people, man. First of all, I would say I love anybody that's not most people. Yeah. Yeah. Those are the special people of Earth man. But what would I think of not most people to me, man, risk. Risk is the word that comes to mind. Our society has become so cookie cutter. Go to college, get a degree. go get your job making$50,000 outta school. Pay that student loan debt back until you're 60 years old. You know, get married, have kids. Have the white picket fence, man, fuck that. Sorry if I can't say that on your show. No, go for it. But like risk. right? Like, we're so scared as a society, we've been so like brainwashed to like, this is how it should be, man. Nobody's making you get married at 25. Nobody's making you get married ever. Yeah. Nobody's making you have kids. Nobody's making you stay in a job that you don't want to be in, that you're miserable to do every day. Real people that are d. are risk takers. that's why I'm so infatuated with entrepreneurs as a whole. I dedicate, I don't even know how many hours a year helping people for free that are business owners because I love it. I naturally gravitate towards them and love them and who they are and the risk that they're willing to take risk. Like that's the number one characteristic I think of when you ask that question. Risk take. Yeah. Not scared to go against the grain. Yep.

Bradley Roth: 48:54

Man, I love that answer. I've gotten a lot of answers on that and that was probably one of my favorites and most in line with kind of like my whole vision, right? There's some people who may be happy you don't live in kind of this, go into the safe prescribed path, but Yep. I know a heck of a lot who aren't and aren't willing to take the risk and. Yeah, they're stuck and all that. So I love that answer. And then right before we hop off, just wanna give you a chance if you wanna share anything you got going on or where can people find you and that sort of thing.

Chans Weber: 49:20

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I could be found on Instagram, it's chance, C H A N S B, and then last name w e b E R. You could find me on Instagram. My company's Agile and Co. So A G I L e A n d co.com. I'm obviously, as I told you before, we kick this thing off. I'm not the solicitation guy, but if there's anything that I can ever help anybody with that's what I try to do, help as many people as I can, and if we're a good fit to work together, great. If we're not, that's perfectly fine too.

Bradley Roth: 49:46

Very cool. All right, man. Well, I know you gotta run, but I really appreciate you coming on the show today. I really enjoy this conversation. I hope you did and for. Everyone listening, I know you learned stuff as well, so thanks man. I appreciate it. Sounds good, brother. Thank you for having me. Of course. And tho for those of you listening, thank you for tuning in. Again, if you got value outta the show, please share it for me and we'll see you in the next one. And always remember, don't be most people.