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In this episode of Open Source Growth Podcast, Frederic Joye, co-founder of Arcanys, shares a fascinating journey through the software industry. The discussion commences with an introduction to Frederic and his pivotal role in establishing Arcanys. Together, they delve into the profound impact of the software outsourcing industry on the Philippines’ economic landscape.

Notably, the podcast explores how outsourcing BPO services can uplift wages in developing countries, such as the Philippines. An essential facet of their conversation revolves around Arcanis’ triumphant employee culture, fostering both professional development and career progression for its developers.

In summary, this podcast not only offers a glimpse into Frederic Joye’s dynamic career but also underscores the unique and empowering philosophy of Arcanys. It stresses the importance of holistic development, inclusivity, and self-confidence in the professional world.

Lessons Learned

Here are the top 5 lessons learned from the podcast with Frederic Joye:

1) Impact of Outsourcing: The outsourcing of software development can have a significant impact on the economy of countries like the Philippines, contributing to GDP growth and increased wages.

2) Employee-Centric Culture: Fostering a positive employee culture and offering opportunities for personal growth can lead to a low attrition rate and a more engaged workforce.

3) Client Focus and Adaptation: Being adaptable and shifting focus from large corporate clients to entrepreneurs and smaller businesses can be a strategic move for long-term success.

4) Unique Business Model: The podcast showcases a unique business model where payment is received only upon achieving success, emphasizing the importance of helping clients succeed.

5) Diversity and Inclusion: The importance of diversity and inclusion in the workplace is highlighted, and personal experiences underscore the significance of creating an inclusive environment for all employees.

Welcome to open source growth, your number one destination for growing your software company through the power of direct response, advertising, Facebook advertising, and so, so, so much more. And in today’s episode, I have the exceptional gift of having a long standing client. I would consider not just a client, but also a friend of mine on the podcast by the name of Frederick Joy.

Fred is one of the most inspiring co founders I have ever met when it comes to building a software development agency that scales. Fred’s been in the game for over 20 years. He’s been working in IT and operational projects in the finance and software industry in Switzerland. Before arriving at an epiphany with his best friend, Alan to co-found AR Canis in 2010.

After 20 years of experience in the industry, Fred is now leading the worldwide sales and marketing efforts of Arkanis. And they have been recently crowned, and I want you to correct me on this Fred, the number one workplace in the Philippines or like, what is it exactly? Yeah. Number 26 on the list of the best IT BPM workplaces in the Philippines.

Yeah. Number 26. And like, as we all know, if you’re, if you’re building a SaaS product here, We know that everyone is offshoring their shit to the Philippines. So like to rank number 26, like how many it BPM firms are there? Actually, before we start, what is BPM for those not familiar with the chat? So hi, Dean.

Thanks for having me. I’m also super happy to do this with you. Yep. So BPM is business process, um, management. Um, Uh, outsourcing, I think, uh, the way they, they say, um, yeah, so NBPM and yeah, amazing, amazing. And now from the last time you checked, how many firms are offering, you know, outsourced software development in the Philippines?

I don’t know. Um, I don’t know. Like, I know a lot. So if we look at all the BPO, uh, BPOs, as we call them, so some can be IT related. Some others are more like, uh, customer centric or technical support. It’s thousands. I mean, it’s employing, I think. Close to 10 percent of it’s creating 10 percent of the of the GDP of the country.

So it’s a really huge industry. And so it’s millions of jobs, but I don’t have the I don’t have the numbers. Yeah, well, you certainly have some numbers. So what you’re telling me that for every, if you have 10, uh, Philippines people in a room, one out of 10 of them is likely to be working in this situation from based on everyone should.

Developing the same amount of GDP. Yeah. Well, a bit less. Exactly. A bit less because it’s higher paying jobs, right? Compared to the rest of what Filipinos are earning. So all these VPOs, uh, um, are usually paying a bit more, uh, than the regular, uh. Jobs in the Philippines. So I would say it’s slightly less than 10 percent of the population, but it represents about 10 percent of the GDP.

That’s amazing. So what you’re telling me is that like, even like, because in Australia and in the Western world, outsourcing has had a dirty name in the past. They’ve always thought of like, let’s cut costs and stuff like that and pay and, and experience the joys of the arbitrage of Charging a whole lot for a service and then finding someone in a third world country to do it cheaply.

But what you’re telling us is that by engaging BPO services, you’re able to really increase like that average wage for the people in in that country. Is that what’s going on? Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. So cool. Yeah, yeah. So for example, a software engineer in the Philippines earns at least 10 times the minimum wage, maybe not at least, but close to 10 times the minimum wage in the Philippines, right?

So that, but that’s, that’s the highest paying job, for example, in the Philippines of average is a software engineer. So they are earning a lot more. Then I don’t know the people who are working in supermarkets without mentioning also all the, um, the, the, um, economy that’s. Is not counted, right? Like these small jobs and things like that.

So, yeah, yeah. Wow. That is phenomenal. I think it’s, I think it’s really interesting to see, um, that and, you know, I’m, I’m a huge advocate for supporting, you know, you know, these BPO firms like yourselves in the Philippines, because. At the end of the day, if you’re able to, you know, lift the quality of life for people who have been for a significant amount of time while we disadvantaged, it’s just so empowering to be able to do this.

And I think that if we start, you know, looking at it from a humanitarian perspective as well, but. The work that these BPO firms are doing. It’s just amazing. Like you are literally, you know, you’re really elevating countries and turning them into destinations where business really thrives. And, you know, the wildly educated and widely skilled people can thrive.

In, um, the setup of a great company. And that’s one thing guys, that one thing I’ve noticed about Arcanis when we’ve worked with you guys for the better part of five to six months now, um, is that Arcanis, unlike any other, um, software development company has really nailed. Employee culture, like I don’t know anyone who has got so many team, like talk about your engagement stats like here, Fred, because I know you, you guys have done a huge body of work on this.

Yeah, so, I mean, the main stat that we have is, um, is that we have a low attrition rate in the industry. So I think, uh, it’s well above 20 percent in general, both in Australia and. The Philippines is even higher, actually, for, uh, software engineers. If we look at the BPO in general, it couldn’t, it can go close to 100 percent per year.

Yeah. But that’s not our business, right? But at Arcanis, we’re like, maybe slightly below 10 percent of attrition per year. So we’re At least half of of what other companies are experiencing. And, um, but that’s because we put emphasis on on the, um, I mean, on the culture, as you said, and trying to make sure that people feel really great, uh, working with us.

So it’s not just the perks. It’s, uh, uh, and the salary. It’s also like. We choose who we work with, like our clients. We put as much effort selecting our clients as they put efforts in selecting us. And one of the reasons is we want to make sure that our developers are working on projects that make them grow.

As an engineer, um, and as people, uh, obviously, uh, preferably as well, but, uh, that’s, that’s how we see it, right? If people like what they’re doing, they’re interested, and then they don’t see this as a dead end for their career moving forward, because we know that probably they won’t, you know, stay their whole life at Arkanis.

At least they have some stepped up to, uh, to have a better life after that. And actually a lot of people that leave the company, uh, they don’t. Leave for another company in the Philippines, but they go abroad. Um, they go to Singapore or Australia, New Zealand. Some of them left for Canada as well. And so that’s a huge, I think, stepping stone, uh, for them, for them.

Um, wow. Dennis. Yeah. That’s amazing. And do you hear back from any of those developers that Yeah. Decide to, to head off to Canada or Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Uh, so there’s people like in, in, in Singapore, if I’m traveling, there’s one I became really good friends with. So I would have, you know, dinner with them or, uh, when I’m in Australia, visit my clients from New Zealand that I have a few that are like, Hey, you’re around Fred, you know?

I don’t always have the time to see them, but, uh, yeah, they reach out and, you know, because they also keep their friends at Arcani. So we are kind of updated, Alan and I, with what’s going on with other people, um, that we had been working with in the past. So, yeah. Yeah, that’s, that’s so cool. And that’s so cool.

Like, imagine that as a, as a young developer, you get a job at Arcanis, you develop a great set of skills. You, you work on tip of the spear projects with the biggest names in the Australian SAS landscape, and also some of these massive names around the globe. Like, talk about some of the global clients you’re working with.

Like, what are a few of the names? I keep on forgetting, like, is it John here and a few other big, sorry. Who are the big players that you’re currently working with? We’ve worked, uh, yeah, with some big, big companies like GE or, or, um, or Honda or, uh, what else? Uh, L’Oreal. But, so that was, that was in the, in the past.

We, we finished. Projects with them. Um, now we’re mostly looking at working with, you know, like, uh, entrepreneurs or small to medium businesses that where we can really have more of an impact. I mean, because we are impact driven where we want to also give purpose to our employees and not just be numbers in teams, right?

And so that’s why we really want to work with companies that are medium. Some of them are, are later scale ups if you want. So it’s still sizable enough so they can have a sizable team with us, but that they’re still part of the, like the, uh, a team, um, that’s a human size as well. And I think that’s helps them identify themselves to the companies they’re working with.

And, um, just, it’s just. Nicer to work in a smaller business than just a huge, uh, corporation. That’s maybe a little less personal, but, um, you know, it’s still interesting to work with. Yeah. There’s a real sweet spot with, you know, being in the services businesses, like with the businesses that you support and you serve, you know, I’ve noticed that with my own marketing team and the clients that we work with, when it’s just like a single marketing person in the company, or you’re working directly with the founder often.

It can be a little us and them, but when you’re part of like a fabric of a marketing team and you come in there and you support, whether it’s from an advisory perspective as a CMO, or if you’re just providing them with a traffic service, it’s just so much more fulfilling. And I’m sure that’s how your developers feel because from the sounds of things with a lot of the clients that you work with.

And obviously, I know, because I help you with a lot of this stuff too, right? Is that you want these developers to come in like 2 or 3 developers to be inserted as amongst the fabric of an already already. Strong tech team, right? Yeah. Yeah. Wow. It’s so cool. Like, so like, cause here’s the thing guys to get to, like, to be qualified as a great place to work in the Philippines.

Like you say 26 or 27, it may not sound that impressive, but it’s damn right. Impressive. Like the amount of work that. Arcanist has had to go through to get to that stage. Actually. That’s an interesting thing we could talk about. How did you arrive at winning or placing in that award? Like that’s, that’s impressive.

How did you get there? What, what, what, um, So to get placed there, it wasn’t that hard. We just sent a survey to, to the employees and they, they responded to the, so it’s anonymous and it’s handled by this work. Right. And, uh, actually, uh, I have, uh, uh, so that’s the number 26 in the Philippines. Let’s go. So, um, yeah, so it’s so we send a survey and then they responded to, I don’t know how many questions and, um, and then it’s compared to other companies that, uh, that have responded.

And then they rank you based on, I mean, the answers, right? So they covers different topics and, um. And we actually received the results so we can keep on improving. But, uh, so that’s kind of like the easy part is sending a survey and then having people, uh, uh, respond to it. But it took years, uh, for us to really, uh, build that culture.

And we still doing it right. We, we try to improve, uh, every year on, on, on things. So it started small. ’cause when we started like, uh, 13 years ago, we didn’t have the means that we. And today we basically started with zero clients. Yeah, let’s, let’s get to it. Let’s start, hang on, hang on, before we even go there.

So you will, let’s, let’s even go a step back before you even thought about partnering with Alan and all the crazy stuff. Like, so let’s talk about, cause you would have been in your early twenties when you were in the banking world, right? Yeah. Uh, yeah, I started in insurance actually. So I did really the insurance guy.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, but I didn’t sell insurance, but I’m an insurance guy. Um, and, uh, actually before starting Arcanis, I never sold anything. Uh, not even my used phones, but, um, but, uh, so yeah, I was in my, Okay. I was very bad, uh, in school and, um, I tried university and, uh, I was also very bad. So at some point my parents kicked me out and said, Hey, Fred, how about you, you know, uh, try to get a life and do something.

Uh, so, so then I got an internship in an insurance company after applying to a hundred. Companies are so, and then, uh, yeah, well, but then I got, I got, uh, helped by, um, by a friend of mine who knew the chairman of the company. So I have no, uh, you know, my, my, my resume had absolutely nothing for me. Uh, but, uh, so I got to, I got this internship and, um, uh, which was supposed to be for one year for me to be able to join, uh, Uh, the university again, because I got kicked out from one, um, faculty, but I wanted to join another one.

And this one required me to have at least one year of professional experience. So I did three, four months of like, wherever they put me, cause they didn’t really know where to put me actually. Um, it’s like, Oh, the boss is telling you to take this one and then just do whatever, you know? So, um, I got put in a team where I was really interested, where we had to solve.

Process issues for one of the departments and the department I was in was the department of internal outsourcing. If you want, if you have, if any department had problems, they would call in these people to actually. Uh, do business process outsourcing to this department with people to do it. So I got put in, in one of these teams, um, and I got pretty fascinated by, by what we had to do.

So without knowing it, I took the lead. Of that team of, I don’t know, four or five people, um, uh, and, um, and then three months after, four months after my boss came to me and he’s like, um, Fred, we can’t have a trainee being a manager. That’s not okay. And I was like, oh my God, I’m going to get fired or something, you know, and they’re like, so how about, um, we give you an actual job and you become an employee.

And so, of course, I was super happy. And so that’s how it started. I worked at that company for five years. Uh, so I did all these outsourcing kind of things. Yeah. Um, and then I also, um, became the deputy. Manager of this department after five years with 120 people or something like that to, uh, to look after.

And I was doing, um, I was working a lot with, um, providers from. Different kinds of I. T. Uh, non I. T. providers because I was, uh, purchasing, um, head of, uh, I mean, not head, but like, uh, one of the purchasers for the company and also, so dealing with all the contracts and, um, uh, our RFQs and, and things like that.

Plus, I got also involved in, um, a migration. Project of their, um, software that was running on mainframes. So, and then there, we hired a consulting group, um, to, to, I mean, to do the work. And so I was involved in these projects as a young, um, I mean, young professional. I was, I don’t know, until 2025. Uh, I worked until 20.

Okay. Five or 26 years old at this company. Um, and so at the same time, I kept on studying to get my, my bachelor’s degree. Um, what was your bachelor’s degree? And out of curiosity, business administration and entrepreneurship. And so that was like during the five, first five years of my career, then I moved, um, onto doing the same thing as a.

Uh, uh, in purchasing and also in, in outsourcing, outsourcing inside the company. So we had like, uh, one of the internal services kind of, uh, a department in a private bank. Um, I did this for about 18 months. Um, and, um. I, uh, uh, I had to leave because it was, it was too boring for me. Like, there were too many, you know, limitations and stuff like that.

So, cause like, let me just, let’s just, just, just to unpack this just so, you know, because at the end of the day, right, there’s a lot of color. In one’s life before they arrive at starting their own company. And if you go from insurance, which is quite highly regulated, and then you push across to banking, which is quite highly regulated, one was, was an exhilarating experience where you picked up this fascination.

With business processes and, you know, that the runnings, the internal runnings of a business and how they go about in sourcing and outsourcing. Like, I don’t it’s really cool. Yeah, I think it’s, um,

look, I don’t, I don’t know. Um, I’ve, I’m always, I was always interested with strategy and stuff like that. And, uh. Um, the, the first job, the insourcing part led me also to participate in a project where we analyzed every single process of the entire company for, um, everything that was related to signing an insurance contract to a claim.

And stuff like it’s all the business thing. That’s what an insurance is, is made up. So we went in all the agencies, not all of them, but a lot of the agencies throughout the country. Uh, interviewed people, measured exactly what they did. And so we mapped with, uh, with, uh, it was a McKinsey, um, um, consultant and an internal consultant with this with, and that’s from these people.

I learned most of the organizational stuff and the analysis and things like that. And so we had this map of the entire processes of the company and we knew down to the second, how much time every task would take. So that’s our mission that we were, uh, meant to, to perform. Right. And so, um, and the second thing that they didn’t tell us when we started is, okay, now you map everything.

So then we had the calculation of how many per, uh, agency or, or branch and per year and like, and so, Okay. We have all the load. We know exactly what people do. And then he’s like, okay, so given the number of people, the amount of work that’s done, how can we fire 20, 20 percent of the people there? Oh,

yes. And then so every year, every 6 months, I had to crunch. Because the one of the, uh, consultants got fired. And so I had to crunch all these data by myself. Um, every 6 months, so it took me 2 months to crunch all the data, but I knew everything what was happening everywhere. Um, and so it, it also kind of, um, taught me a lot because everybody was afraid talking to me.

Because I was the messenger, I mean, the bad messenger, not to fire people, but I was the spy or like the spy in the company, knowing everything that people did, uh, it would give me all the numbers. So I knew exactly where people were too many and then, uh, where we could also have efficiency gains. Um, and, uh.

Because all of these decisions were strategic as well, uh, then I got on onto, uh, the board of that company as a, as an executive, like I was 25 years old. People said no one had ever been this young at this thing. And then of course, a lot of people were talking shit about me because they knew I knew the chairman.

So everybody thought it was because I knew the chairman. Um, but anyway, so there was, uh, there were lots of stories, but it was, I got. So obsessed actually, uh, with that. And I think a lot of people probably like you with marketing at some point, uh, at some point in your life, and that’s how you build your career.

You become obsessed with something. So with, for me, I was obsessed about efficiency. I was obsessed about, uh, making things, uh, work better in everything I did. So it was the processes of the company. It was the purchasing part of things. It was. Uh, uh, yeah, any project that was given to me, I was trying to make it easier and and more efficient.

So, and then when I went, like, what an amazing proving ground to build a wildly successful, um, software. Outsourcing firm like yourselves are like that. That must that experience must have paid spades for you now. Yeah, I guess. I mean, um, uh, I guess. I mean, I can’t always relate exactly what I had learned there to me.

I am right. But, uh, yeah, I guess I think it’s. Maybe what attracted, besides our friendship, Alan to ask me if I could work with him. Yep. Um, because, uh, I visited him in 2008 in Hong Kong. I was bored in my, in Switzerland. I knew, I always knew I wanted to leave. And, uh, uh, but I never had the opportunity to, to do something entrepreneurial before that.

And so when he asked me like, Hey, I’m setting up a new business, uh, you want to come work with me and knowing that he had exited his previous business for a couple of hundreds of millions of dollars, um, these guys asking me to work with him. Uh, I can’t refuse. Like, I mean, he’s, you know, uh, why would I refuse?

And it was the second time he asked me actually at the first time I said no. Um. And I was like, for years, I regretted it. I’m like, Oh fuck. I said no to these guy. I could do, I have lived an even more incredible experience. Um, and so when he offered me a second time and it’s like, dude, I’m starting these small business and e commerce thing in video games, I don’t have much money.

You know, because we’re not making money in that business, so I can pay you a little bit, uh, and then I didn’t even ask what I was going to do. I’m like, yeah, just help me with the visa. And, uh, and 3 months later, I had my luggage. I was in Hong Kong. I had sold everything I had, uh, in Switzerland. And then, uh, I landed in Hong Kong and that’s what we worked on for the next 18 months.

I would say. Well, and that’s when we. Decided to move parts of the, I mean, the operations that we had in Hong Kong. So customer service people and a bunch of, we had a bunch of developers in India. We, we moved to the Philippines, uh, cause of the skills, the English was a lot better than in Hong Kong and the cost.

Was also, uh, lower than what we had in Hong Kong. So the value for money was much better. So we didn’t go there for charitable reasons and because we wanted to change the world and stuff like that. We just had a business we needed to run and we had to service our clients better with the money that we had available.

Right. So, but then. We discovered the beauty of the Philippines and, and the people and so on, and that e commerce business wasn’t doing so well. So, at some point, so what were you selling out of curiosity? Oh, we were selling, okay. Selling and buying game accounts for World of Warcraft, um, stuff like that.

It was a bit of a gray area, right? But then the industry changed because the game editors were like, hey, why don’t we capture. That for ourselves, instead of having a third parties doing it. Right. So then we kind of died, um, slowly. Uh, and at some point I told that I’m doing, um, I’m taking money from you as my salary, which was not much, but I was still taking some money out of this to live because I didn’t have much money.

And I was feeling bad because I’m like, I’m not delivering much value because the business is dying. Um, and I didn’t see this carrying on. So I was at some point, I was like, so what do I just, what do I do? Do I go back to Switzerland, uh, you know, and, and call it quits, you know? And so that was not really an option I wanted to follow.

And then the amazing story of Arcanis. Here we go. Here we go. I’m, I’m, I’m exaggerating because It just happened over a pizza. So there was no, there was no business plan, no nothing. Um, so I was like, Hey, so what do we do? You know, business is not going great. We had a bunch of developers that we had hired for ourselves.

And to maintain the e commerce platform. And then we had another bunch of friends, uh, devs.

Um, so it was maybe one or two or something like that or like, what’s up with devs? Like, yeah, because at the time we had the dot net store fronts for the e commerce stuff and our partners were, I think, using dot net guys or maybe Java guys. I can’t remember. Yeah, but, uh, so we had this and I was like, so what do we do?

And Alan was like, uh. I don’t know. And we came. I don’t know if it’s him or me. I can’t remember. But we like, so how about we do better outsourcing? Because we had been clients of outsourcing companies. It was always a pretty shitty experience from what we had. Um, so we’re like, We know how to hire devs. Oh, there’s plenty of devs in the Philippines.

They’re pretty good. Um, why don’t we do this? You know, and, uh, so basically, yeah, so basically what you’re saying is you, you guys didn’t quite get where you want it with e com, but what you figured out in the process was how to hire devs effectively and yeah, I think people in general. Oh yeah, absolutely.

And. Yeah. This is where I’m really curious because I think this is where a lot of people are going to be interested on this episode. Can you unpack your experiences working with these outsourcing companies? And what did you learn through those processes? Like what, what, what were you, what, what were you so frustrated about when you were going through it?

Because obviously you were trying to build the store. You were trying to hire devs. You’ve been burned, blah, blah, blah. Just tell me about that. Well, I think the outsourcing industry has evolved a lot over the years. But 13 years ago, it was mostly Indian companies who were kind of not very honest in the way they were doing stuff because they were hiring people.

And then, uh, when you, when you reach out to them, like, Hey, I need to this, whatever. And they would play place. They’re 18 for you for about a month. You know, like when you hire the guys, super nice, you have a neat ish and, uh, uh, someone else. And then suddenly the same neat ish and whatever else, suddenly their quality would drop one day.

Uh, but he’s still the same person. You’d never see them on camera. Yeah. Uh, you just talk to them through a chat and stuff, and then actually what they were doing is they would change people all the time without telling you and and charging you, I mean, ongoing more money, of course, over the years. And they were delivering a really shitty, uh, outsourcing experience.

Um, the management practices were probably not as elaborated as today. Uh, remote work was, uh, maybe just 10 years old, you know, and so it was an awesome, uh, uh, industry. And, um, and also there were so many cultural differences, you know, like, uh, so we were in train for that. We. Just try to do whatever we were so inexperienced with, with these guys at this level.

When, when we, when we were, I was working with the insurance industry, for example, we had like hundreds of people who are working for us. They were on site in Switzerland, probably costing tens of thousands of bucks a month. But it was super high level things for high level companies, but we’re not fortune 500 and stuff like that.

So I had seen how it was well managed. I had seen how it was badly managed and the same thing with outsourcing in China and India and stuff. So we’re like, Oh, fuck that. We, we want to make this, you know, but a lot better. We wanted, we called it between us outsourcing 2. 0, you know, like, uh, Um, and that’s what we tried to do, but we kind of sucked at the start, like, uh, we were pretty bad.

Um, don’t we? Like, I think that’s what’s really, what’s cool though, right? Is the fact that you can acknowledge that you sucked at the start, but then you’ve gotten to a point where you’re clearly one of the best in the entire, like in the mecca of outsourcing. So like, you know, No, no, but think of it this way, right?

Like I know, I’ve seen the Clutch reviews, like they’re, they’re gnarly for Arcanis, like, and I, like, like, wasn’t it, I think you were ranked number one in Clutch or there was a, few different, um, there was a few different, um, benchmarks and scorecards that I’ve seen over the years for Arcanis and it’s been number one.

In 2019, in 2021, in 2022, I think it was only this year that you dropped off like the number one. I didn’t ask reviews for, for my clients for a while. And, and, uh, And so we dropped in the rankings because we didn’t take care of that. And, uh, we’re fixing this. Uh, but yeah, I mean, uh, yeah, our clients are happy.

We have an NPS score of like 81 or something. And so I was kind of surprised when I was measuring the stuff. But so, yeah, I, I think we’re, I mean, I don’t know if we’re the best, but our clients are happy and that’s, you know, what matters. Um, yeah, 100%. I think that’s the only way you can measure. If you are the best or not, if you, if, if your clients are speaking highly of you, are you receiving referrals?

What sort of doors are they opening for you? That’s when you know, you’re doing amazing things as a services business. So after experiencing, you know, the, the highs and lows of working. Um, you know, with, um, you know, these Indian outsourcing companies and obviously Allen’s worked with Chinese and, you know, there’s all different outsourcing companies.

You arrived at the Philippines and you thought, hang on, these people are magnificent. This is a great work culture. We could, we could start up Arcanis. We could do this really, really well. And you began at Arcanis with BPO work. Was it always? Software though, because I, I have a funny, I have a funny feeling.

Also, everyone I’ve been looking at the Google AdWords account that it wasn’t just, um, yeah, it wasn’t just software dev like you’ve tried a few things. Yeah, we, we did customer service or technical service stuff because we had all these people from the, uh, from the e commerce stuff. We had a lot like 35 or 40.

Uh, customer service agents and as the business of, uh, it was called toon store was going down. We didn’t want to fire people. We wanted to try to find them, you know, new projects and stuff. So we, we, um, but. What we realized is, uh, uh, uh, to grow a business with, with, uh, customer service, it’s harder, uh, if you like a boutique kind of stuff, if you want to do mass stuff, like, you know, uh, with thousands of people, then you can grow that and it’s dirt cheap and it’s just churn.

But if you want to create a great work culture, uh, with, you know, people who stay and, and, um. Uh, uh, something where it’s not like thousands of people that you’re just who are just numbers, then software development was, was better because the margins are higher as well and allows us to create a better, better company that is maybe lasting longer and, uh, is more.

It’s it’s more knowledge involved. There’s more technology because all the customer stuff. Okay. There’s been years. They’re saying, oh, is going to take the jobs and stuff, but I think it’s really coming now for software engineers. Yes, I will, uh, probably, uh, increase the productivity of people a lot. It might reduce a little bit the demand, but.

We still need to have people who are trained as engineers to talk to computers to understand what code is, uh, and so on. It’s not like you can just take someone off the street and give them chat GPT and then build me a software, right? That’s not how it works. That would be awesome for all those budding software founders.

But sadly, there is a barrier to entry. There is. There is right. And, uh, and, and, and, and like, I think that’s something that we’re all going to have to grapple with with AI that, you know, it’s a, I does your leg work, but it doesn’t do your, your strategy. It doesn’t develop your plan to develop your products.

It’s going to help. Oh, it helps a lot write questions and I use it every day, and I think it’s super useful to be smarter. Yeah. But it’s not gonna do the work for you. Yeah. Yeah. 100%. And I guess like now we talk about like ANA 2.0 or outsourcing 2.0. When you had that conversation with Alan that night over a pizza and a beer, what, what did you strive to create?

When you built out Arcana, it’s like, obviously a revenue stream that worked. Let’s not, let’s not joke about that. What did you, what did you really want to create? Like, what, what were you, what were you thinking at that moment? So the 1st thing I think we talked about, uh, maybe that night or maybe later, I don’t know, but I think.

Our dream was to create a technology company in a way. Um, and so the way to do this for us was to create, uh, Arcanis. And then pretty quickly, it became, okay, we have devs. Um, we help companies build their products and stuff like that, and down the road, because this is not the technology company per se, we create, uh, we created, uh, first Arcanis Labs that now is Arcanis Ventures, where we invest in startups that we find.

Interesting, both in the team that’s running them, uh, and the product or the service they’re selling, um, and, and their culture and their values. Right? And so for us, that’s how we kind of create or own partially, um, uh, technology companies that we fuel because we fuel the companies with our team members, um, uh, every year.

Right? So, uh, that’s kind of like, uh, indirect way of, of, Okay. Of creating a technology company. Yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s almost like. We wanted to create a tech company by owning 10 percent of 10 other companies. You know what I mean? And that’s that’s what’s so cool about your unique model. And I think for those who are listening today, and if they, if you are in the process of considering some form of dedicated, um, A dedicated development team, or if you’re looking for a software developers, or if you’re looking to scale your product, one of the things which is unique about Arcanis is their ventures arm, which has some of the best performing small to medium size, like tech startups across the world, mostly Australia.

Are most of your investments in the Australian market? Uh, well, yeah, I mean, maybe half of them, and then the rest is in Europe or Switzerland. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, because I guess what this tells you about the way Fred operates, guys, is that with the way you do things, Fred, it’s so obvious that you can only make Arcanist Ventures work.

If and only if your tech team has their shit together, you know, and what’s more compelling about this as well is like, if you’re a founder and you’re looking for investment, and then you have someone like Fred, knock on your door and go, Hey, I know you’re looking for investment. You’re going to be using the money to build your product instead of money for, um, money to pay for someone to do the development.

We can provide our. Tip of the spear developers to work inside your business. Now, a lot of developers, when they first hear that we’ll say not developers, a lot of SAS founders, when they first hear that, they think, oh, there’s some fill my team with shitty developers, but that’s not a way you would get a return on your money.

Is it like you need to actually have your very best team members in the, in, in the startups, which you’ve got a deep. Invested interested. Otherwise, you’re not going to get any money back. Yeah, because it’s 100 percent the test fee, right? If, if we suck, we don’t get paid and we lose our money that we could put our devs, uh, elsewhere and being paid for that, right?

So we do this when we, when we believe in the team, we do this when we know we can actually make a difference for that company. Cause if we can’t make a difference, then There’s no reason for us to come in. Um, and, and so, yeah, uh, we only get paid if we succeed, right? And because it’s a significant part of our business, um, we, we want to make sure that, uh, that we, we succeed.

We didn’t get paid yet so much in terms of the exits. We did because it’s only been five years or six years that we. Slowly started doing this, and it has been accelerating, uh, recently. So we had one exit that was a good return on the on the small duration that we that we had. But we are in on in for the long run.

We’re not like looking at making a quick, quick exit. After one year and say, Hey, we want our money back and stuff like that. So we, we want to help build a business as an investment. We want to help companies raise more money at a higher valuation because they are doing stuff that’s working and creating products that people love and, uh, getting more customers, maybe more investment and things like that.

And we might even keep on investing. Uh, in succeeding rounds if we believe in that story and double down, right? Um, and in some cases, um, Founders just start paying our team instead of getting it for free Uh, I mean not for free. It’s for equity, but not I mean easing the cash flow i’d say um, and and then become, um, you know, uh clients and great partners that we I mean keep on helping just uh, Anyone else we’re working with?

Yeah, absolutely and Like, I just want to touch base on the size of your team, because I think like any professional services business, like often businesses try to scale. They go from like a 1 person show, and then they turn into like a 3 person show, and then it’s unmanageable. And then they try and go to an 8 and they shrink and all that sort of crazy stuff.

And this could be a lot like a software team in many sense, because it’s a professional service happening internally inside of an organization. How many developers do you have inside the Arcanist Fabric now? Total number? 280 maybe, something like that. Okay, so I think what’s evident here is that you’ve got 280 developers and they’re all happy and they’re all engaged and they’re all moving along.

99 percent based on the survey, something like that. 99 percent is practically all the developers. It’s not always. It’s pretty good. It’s pretty good. I want to know how in the world did you scale like that and keep everybody engaged and involved? Because I’m sure there’s going to be a technical founder here wanting to know.

It’s like, how did you build such a big software team? This is amazing. Like, how did you do it? How do things not slip through the cracks? Well, uh, the first thing is. Uh, if you, if you look at the day to day stuff, it’s mostly our clients managing their own team. Right? So, um, good. Right. So, uh, that’s the thing.

And we take care of all the HR stuff. So, all the feedback, the coaching, the training, obviously the hiring and all that stuff. We, we, we do that, but the day to day tasks and, uh, the project itself is mostly managed by, uh, our clients. We have some clients for which. We have senior European, uh, architects who are doing the CTO if you want for them, but it’s like maybe 20, 10, 20 percent of the projects that we have.

The rest is managed by the client. So it kind of makes our scaling a little bit easier. Um, uh, because, because of that, right? So, um, but we had to change a few times the structure of, of the management if you want when, uh, as you said, there were stages, right? And so we went through, I don’t know, three, four.

Stages of growth, uh, where we kind of had to stop for a sec, regroup, uh, rearrange how the management was done and then, okay, now we can keep on growing ’cause we’ve removed the, uh, the paints and so yeah. The stage we’re at now is the operations are really running smoothly, but it’s all the support functions that we had.

Um, really under invested in, uh, any at many levels. So accounting is a lot. People are working too, too much. So we have to, uh, help them, um, even sales and marketing. Um, I mean, in sales, I’ve been alone for many, many years. I mean, until, uh, this year. So now we’ve hired another person do that. Um, in, in the marketing.

We also, well. grew and then we’re working with you and another agency as well that, uh, help us like do a lot more stuff that we, that we have been able to do, um, just by ourselves in, in the past. So that’s what we’ve been investing in a lot in the last, uh, uh, year, uh, in the, yeah, eight, nine months. Um, yeah, right.

Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, it has been, it has been really interesting to see. How things have, you know, evolved over the past 6 months with you guys, you know, um, you know, when we got involved, we never saw, you know, any form of demand generation or lead generation happen off Facebook. Like, I’ve never been targeted by an ad.

The first time I heard of you guys, despite like this, the weight the Arcanis name has in the Philippines BPO circuit, um, you never heard of it in Australia. You jump on the website, you think, Oh, who are these people? But it was only until. You know, you got in contact with me and then we started peeling back the layers on how magnificent Arcanis is.

Made me realize, oh shit, like this is an incredible organization that, you know, values not only, you know, doing amazing work for great clients, but it’s one of these businesses that, you know, thinks about the holistic development of the individual. Two. And I think Fred, like, if you want to feel free to talk about a little thing you’ve created on your Arkanis campus, which I know you’re very proud about.

So you can talk to us all about Fred. Everybody has actually created a CrossFit gym for all the Arkanite employees on the campus. And I think this is because of Fred’s love of health and fitness and all that sort of jazz. So. Give us a bit of a background into the health and fitness journey and how you believe, you know, embedding this culture of like company sports and activities and all that sort of stuff.

Ends up creating amazing workplace results. Yeah. So besides the processes, uh, there’s another, um, obsession that, uh, I have is that with CrossFit, right? So, and, um, in the games. I know I started way too late for that stuff. And I don’t, I wish I could spend like five hours in the gym every day, but I can’t.

Um, uh, but so we, we’ve created a CrossFit, uh, affiliate, affiliated CrossFit gym, uh, in St. Lou for. For ourselves, for our employees and soon for the public. So we just opened like two weeks ago for our employees. We’re learning how to run the classes and stuff. We’ve hired two senior coaches from France that we’ve relocated to the Philippines.

We’ve got a really, one of the fittest girls in the Philippines, uh, last year that has joined us. So she’s also a great athlete. And, um, this has started really as a. Something as a personal journey, right? When I was younger and like plenty of issues and and so sports really helped me, uh, with that. And so that’s why I put such an emphasis on on health and fitness as a way to to blossom as a person to grow as a person and and also You know, teaching you good values and things like that, especially in CrossFit, because it’s kind of team based, although it’s not, but you do this, you’re in this together.

And I think it creates great friendships and things like that. So I started. With health and fitness. And then, uh, the first person I tried to convince, uh, was Alan because it was pretty unhealthy when I joined him in Hong Kong, but he didn’t listen to me for many years, um, trying to avoid going to gym and telling me all the reasons why he shouldn’t work out more than twice a week or whatever.

Um, and then also nutrition because I was obese. I, uh, when I was younger, I tried to also learn about. You know, proper nutrition. I’m not perfect, but, um, uh, I’ve tried and, and so I, I saw the effect of myself and then I started bringing this in the company because in the Philippines, people are pretty unhealthy.

They don’t move much. They really like crappy stuff. They didn’t bother me. Uh, it bothers me to see people wasting their potential and their health by not knowing. And so we created these Wednesday classes where I would nag people with stuff, with information about health, about fitness, trying to move.

And then so you can go only so far when you start telling stuff to people and how to do things, you have to show them, right? And so I brought a bunch of people. In Spartan races with me, uh, and and so I think that’s what really started because a bunch of people started liking it and the goal was to beat Fred, you know?

Um, and so the first few ones, they didn’t, they weren’t able to to beat me. Thanks. Uh, they didn’t beat me the first time, but after that they improved and now probably, uh, they’re like a crap ton faster than I am in running or, or better at CrossFit or whatever, but, um, but it started and then, and then it, you know, people liked it and then they, um.

Then they kept going on. And then the last thing that we did with Alan was, uh, so first we created a kitchen in the office trying to serve healthy meals so people, it’s free and then they eat better and, uh, just showing them, you know, like it’s healthy food is not disgusting. It can be really nice. So we had an Australian chef actually, uh, doing the menu and, uh, Insane.

Yeah, because it was… Guy owning a restaurant, we became friends. And then, uh, then when we started the kitchen, we’re like, Hey, Steve, why don’t you help us? Um, and, um, uh, yeah, and so the food and then we started doing like yoga and Zumba yoga classes in the office and recently after traveling a lot around the world, um, and going to various CrossFit boxes.

Every time we came back here, I’m like, yeah. I think we could do something to improve the landscape of CrossFit in Cebu. Wow. And so I tried to convince Alan about this. Um, and very quickly we were like, okay, let’s do this. Uh, let’s, let’s start building a place. So we had to find a place and build it. And, uh, now we’re open.

How long did it take you to get Alan off the couch and into a CrossFit gym? Um, so in Hong Kong, I started bringing him to fitness first. A few times, uh, but he didn’t like it and I understand why the gym is, you know, can be intimidating and it’s not that fun, you know, it’s just working, um, but I have a good friend who, whom I, I, I met in Bali years ago and, um, and he got into CrossFit and he was, I saw the journey he had and how he’s been transformed, like physically, as well.

Um, and one day he’s like, Hey, one of the coaches in Bali, uh, moved to the Philippines. Go to that box and try it out because I’ve been telling you to try it out for years. And I was scared because CrossFit has a bad reputation, which is not true, but that’s what it is. And I don’t want to get injured and stuff.

So I didn’t go. And finally I went, I found it made, it was hard, but I’m like, Holy crap, that’s, that’s it. You know, cause I was bored at the gym. I needed something else. Yep. And I went once or twice and then I told Alan, I think you should try it out. And then he came and I think almost immediately he is like, okay, that’s it.

That’s what I’m gonna do. what? It only took him one class. And then, uh, we both obsessed with CrossFit and that’s how we. Yeah. And he’s better than me in many aspects in CrossFit now because he’s so dedicated and, and, uh, he’s super into it. So that is actually so funny. I didn’t realize it was only one class.

So it, it’s often, it’s, it’s really a case of like your own internal product market fit. Oh, yeah. Yeah. It’s just like, Oh, you come to the, come to, you know, come to the gym, come for a run. Let’s go bike riding. Let’s go swimming. Let’s go this. And then all of a sudden, cross country cross country skiing becomes their new addiction.

And yeah, I think the reason for Alan and also me is because there’s constant learning and you’re pushing your boundaries all the time. And so for him, I, I, he never told me that, but I’m sure it’s that he’s like, he realized that I’m going to learn. New things my whole life doing CrossFit because it’s so complex and but you also can measure it and there’s a lot of strategy in there as well.

So I think it’s typically made for him like he loves it and, uh, um, he’s strategizing all the time is calculating everything when I’m asking, I’m like, Oh, it’s like a calculation and stuff and you’re like, Oh, yeah. Okay. Of course. Yeah. Uh, so, uh, yeah, that’s the thing for him. There’s math, you know, there’s, uh, there’s, uh, uh, learning.

And so that’s for, uh, um, Well, I can’t believe that. That’s amazing. So like, I think you would have to be the only BPO with their own dedicated CrossFit gym in the Philippines. That has to be, I think that’s something you can claim. Yeah, probably. Yeah. I mean, uh, we’re probably not the only ones who have a gym or something like of that sort, but a CrossFit for sure.

Yeah, CrossFit. Yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s pretty amazing. Like the way you look at like the holistic development of the individual. At Arcanis, and I think it’s so cool to see that, you know, developers come to you, not completely junior, because again, you’ve got a policy that you really want tip of the spear developers inside your organization.

They come in as, you know, really quality, mid level developers. They become someone great. And, you know, at the end of their journey, they don’t start out, um, as. No, they don’t end up as just a better developer. They end up as a better person. They, they understand nutrition, sleep. They understand diet. They understand working out.

They may leave Arcanis. They then move to greener pastures across in Western countries and pick up amazing job opportunities. Like, how does that feel? Like, you’re really making a difference, Fred, if you think of it that way. Well, we, I mean, we, we don’t, I don’t know, we, as Swiss people, I don’t know how it is in other countries, but we’re very, you know, we, we come from a reformed or protestant kind of a background and, um, it’s very Um, I don’t know how to say it.

It’s very sober. So it’s about doing stuff working. We don’t celebrate much. We should do that more. I mean, I think we’re not good at that. Um, and we just do stuff we believe in. And, uh, it’s true. It’s nice when you see people, uh, uh, you know, growing and stuff like that. And there’s a bunch of people that We see them change quite a lot and it’s impressive and it’s not pride because I’m just happy for them, you know, and, and, and so, uh, uh, yeah, that’s, that’s pretty much it.

There’s 1 area where we know we have to improve his mental health, um, and we’ve seen these during covid and, uh, we can’t do everything at the same time, but that’s kind of the next, um, I think the next chapter. For us is to, um, is to at least for me on the radar is to help, uh, more with, uh, mental health.

Yeah, it’s a, it is a tough one. You know, um, I think professional services businesses, um, and it’s not just, uh, you know, dedicated, um, outsourcing shops, like yourself, like it’s, it’s like the accountants of the world, anyone that’s in B2B, um, professional services, it is tough because there’s like, there’s huge, there’s huge deadlines.

Yeah. Um, you know, the stakes are high a lot of the time. Um, so many competing priorities, many clients wanting your attention at any given time. Like, it’s and, you know, I think mental health is 1 of those things that it’s, it’s getting big in Australia. I’m not sure what it’s like in the Philippines or in in Switzerland or any of those other countries, but, you know, it’s, it’s really.

Gaining momentum. And, you know, the more we know about it, the better it’s going to be for people to really enjoy work. Um, yeah. Have you got any initiatives on the cards that you’re planning to roll out with Arcanis at this point? So we started in June working a lot more on the diversity and inclusion, uh, policies and stuff like that because we know we can do that better and that was triggered by an article that I’ve been invited to write in Tatler about my own experience as a part of the LGBT community and talk about it.

My journey and I’m like, okay, it’s the month of June. I’m talking about this. Um, and, and I just reflected on my journey and I’m like, oh, shit, I wish you’d do something.

Because I’ve been lucky to be able to go through that and come out of this, uh, because it was not always easy. Right? Okay, and so why don’t we try to offer these to people like they feel comfortable at work because when I started working, I was in the closet. I was afraid. You know, I didn’t know how people would judge me and stuff, especially in Switzerland, which was pretty conservative, especially in the financial services industry.

Um, so, uh, I don’t want people, um, at our counties to experience the same stuff. I want them to come as they are at work, um, and just be themselves, you know, and, and not be afraid. And, and, um. Because if one thing goes well, then the other goes well, you know, it’s this virtuous circle. And so we want to try to ignite that spark if you want.

And so whether it could be by sports, doing sports, or which gives a lot of confidence, or it could be yeah, Uh, feeling, you know, a part of something or feeling like you can bring yourself completely at work and with your team members that you’re safe. And so that’s kind of like, uh, I think that’s kind of like the next thing I’m, I want to do.

Yeah, man, like, that’s a real brave step and, you know, good on you for, for being a champion of diversity and inclusion in your business, because that is such a tough gig. You know, like, I can only say this coming from being, um, a heterosexual male, um, obviously with a beautiful wife who works inside the agency who you’ve met, luckily, Fred, and I’m a blessed man, but, you know, like your journey, um, and being, you know, as you said, like, closeted in the financial services, which is very much a bro culture in many In many ways and able to wrestle with that.

And now, obviously, you’ve been able to build this incredible, like, wildly successful software development business. And, you know, now you’ve got that opportunity in that position of privilege and responsibility to really champion for people to be themselves at work and be comfortable and knowing that they’re going to be accepted being themselves at work.

Like, wow, it’s. It’s that’s crazy. So, wow. I don’t even know where to, I don’t even know where to go on, on this topic. Like, I don’t know. I I’m here, I’m here for a marketing and business podcast, man. I know, but it’s been great. You know, I, so many things I didn’t expect talking about. So you, you, I think you ask great questions and, uh, uh, so yeah, uh, reflecting on what I said is like, actually you don’t realize how much power you have to, to change other people’s lives.

Until you talk about it, because for me, like before the Tata article, I just do my thing and I do what I think is great, but it’s just like, you know, um, and then you have other people looking at all what you’ve done is amazing because of this and this and that. And you’re like, at the beginning, you’re like, well, we just did what you know what you think is right.

And then, uh, which is the case anyway, but then you realize, oh, but I’m actually able. To influence people’s lives in a good way. Um, and it’s actually super motivating to hear that feedback and like, Oh shit, I can do more. Actually, I could do more, you know? And so it’s a great, it’s a great feeling to, to realize that then like, okay, I should do more.

Yeah, and it’s, it’s really interesting. Um, Fred that, like, at O& D, like, I’m really proud of the clients that we get to work with in the sense that if, if I can’t, this is just a rule that I have, and this is a weird rule. I’m not sure if I’ve ever disclosed this on the internet, but if I can’t look up to.

The client as either a mentor or someone who I’d aspire to be like or aspire to have many qualities like in the next 5 to 10 years. It’s not the right client for us. You know, and I see the work that you do as a, as a leader in the sales and marketing team as a co founder, as a man, who’s really understood this whole engagement and process piece to building out a massive, um, a massive company, like it really is a monster, like 280 devs is like, how many total stuff?

Isn’t it nearly 400 now? No, uh, maybe, maybe at the end of the year, we’re like maybe 320, 330, something. Yeah, it’s not, it’s not a trivial business that you’ve built and like, you’ve, you’ve done some amazing work. And, you know, I think that. You know, for those out there who feel like they’re on the, they’re, they’re a fringe minority in the society and, um, and stuff like that.

Like, you look up to someone like Fred, who has actually gone through it. And just for just for those listening who feel like they’re not. In an inclusive environment or they feel like, well, what was that? Sorry. Five minutes. Yeah. Yeah. I need to go after that. I’m sorry. Yeah. Yeah. We’ll cut this bit out.

Keep going. Sorry. We can cut that. But that really have to go. Yeah. Yeah. That’s okay. For those who, um, for those who feel like they’re not part of the fold and they may not feel like they fit in like Fred has like, like, what would you. What sort of advice would you give them?

Maybe it’s just an illusion, uh, that you don’t fit in, you know, uh, it’s what you, because you’re hard on yourself. You’re like, you know, people, I mean, most, I don’t, a lot of people maybe look at themselves and are overly critical. And I, I, I used to be like that and, you know, bashing myself for all my shortcomings.

And I still do it in some fashion. Right. But, uh, we create these stories in our heads that Are probably not true. And we feel like we’re judged by all these people, but most people, most people don’t give a shit. They just see you as who you are. And, uh, uh, and yeah, you don’t have, uh, friends. Not everyone’s your friend, but majority of things are going well.

And, uh, and, uh, and then it’s just about realizing the value you have as a unique person. Uh, you have strengths and weaknesses and being aware of that and. Focusing on, on your strength, uh, and, and working on your weaknesses, uh, maybe, uh, in the, in the, in the background, but, um, there’s so much more than who you are attracted to, for example, or.

Uh, or for some things you don’t like about yourself. That’s not what people see. They see you as human beings and they take what’s good from you. Yeah. And so, uh, but that’s what I took me years to learn it right and to not be ashamed of being in a room or feeling like I was, uh, uh, you know, this imposter syndrome and stuff like that, which I do.

Still do have sometimes, you know, um, but you can’t eliminate it completely. It’s just part of us having doubts. Yeah, I guess. Um, um, but sports helped me. So because the physical parties is, is here, like you can’t deny it. That’s us. We are physical. Being so if you can achieve something with your body, um, or you see improvement with your body and you can do this with friends and they accept you, uh, it can help you build your confidence, which then kind of, uh, helps you in other areas of your life.

Wow. That’s some, that’s some amazing things to part with. Now, I am really blessed because you’ve spent so much time on this podcast today. And I really enjoyed it. It’s been awesome. I’m not even going to ask you to plug Owens any, it’s all good. We can get that for another episode. What was that? Sorry. No, it’s true.

I thought you have great questions. Um, ’cause we didn’t prepare anything. Right. And, uh, really nice we got in there. I think that was part of the fun because I think that whenever Fred and I have a chat guys, it’s always like a fair, like a fairly natural like chemistry in the way we communicate and it’s all very flowing and I thought that would be the best way to run this.

Um, Fred, like it’s been. A true pleasure being on here. If you get any final words to the audience, like, if you want to plug Arcanis, go for it. Um, you can talk about what you have on offer at the minute, like, go, go, go nuts. What do you want to say? No, I mean, I have nothing, nothing else to add. I mean, we’re just, uh, you know, a software development company, uh, that’s extending, uh, Development teams.

We’re trying to do our best for our employees, our clients. Uh, if what I said is interesting to you and you want to reach out to me, uh, you can do so on LinkedIn or even simply on the Arcanis. com website. Um, and thank you for listening, uh, this far, uh, in the, in the episode. Guys, thank you so much for tuning in to open source growth with Frederick Joy, co founder and head of sales and marketing.

At Arcanus it’s been unreal. And if you liked what you heard on this episode, feel free to smash that subscribe button on any of the podcasting platforms that you are tuning into today. I’m your host, Dean Denny founder and director of Owen Denny digital Australia’s number one SAS marketing agency. I’ll talk to y’all soon.

Catch you later. Alright, there we go. Thank you. Yeah. That was fun. We got to do that more often. Yeah, that was good. Thank you. You’re so welcome. And you’re looking sharp. I, I’m, I’m going to buy that shirt again because I freaking miss it so much. So last, I really have to go cause I’m going to be late for my appointment.

But my haircut, sorry, um, but I hated this portal. I like, I like the, so this is like a linen, right? I like this fabric. Um, I like the shirts, but I hated the, the, the fitting. And now they have like this slim fit stuff, which potato bag. Um, so then I got some, yeah, look, they’ve got slim fit, custom fit and classic fit.

It used to be better fitting about 10 years ago, but, um, yeah, I think this is a medium slim fit. That’s what I found. I have a medium slim fit and it’s great. Oh man, we can share clothes with like the, we could be like the yaya sisterhood. It’d be great.

All right. Have fun at your haircut. I’ll speak to you all soon. Um, I’ll, I’ll talk to the video editor and he’ll sort this out. Cool. And then just one thing. Um, if you send me the recording as well, we can, uh, add this to our own podcast. I’ll just make an intro and an outro at the end, and then we can smack this in there.

And I think that’d be great. That’d be amazing. We can do that. Thank you. Bye.

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On this Part 2 episode of “Marketing A Marketing Agency”, Dean Denny and Sam Kariuki discuss how to generate leads and create offers for their target audience. They explain how they initially made a mistake by offering a free website to the wrong audience, and how they then created offers such as a free LinkedIn order, Facebook go at it, and a strategy session. After two months of hard work, they launched their ads and generated a hundred and thirty leads.

They also discuss how to build relationships with potential customers and convert them into sales qualified opportunities. They explain the importance of giving value and gain trust before selling.

Timestamps

[00:04:40] Mismatched target audience; wrong market awareness

[00:09:06] Testing mindset yields success.

[00:23:09] Trustworthy relationships yield success.

[00:32:35] Building trust through events.

[00:38:30] Help clients solve challenges

[00:44:34] Marketing success through testing, failure, and data.

[00:50:13] Data-driven decisions for quick wins.

All right, everybody. Welcome to Open Source Growth. I am your host, Dean Denny, founder and director of Owendenny Digital. I can’t even say my business name, but Owens Denny Digital, Australia’s top ranked SaaS marketing agency. Now I’ve got a funny story for the next quarter because it’s just on this.

We actually took this advice and we laid it out and we’re going to talk about how we won an incredible client with this exact advice. So let’s. Guess how many leads we generated for the entire quarter for January to, January through to, uh, the end of March. How many? Just total, just pluck it out of the air.

Uh… Don’t look at the numbers, don’t cheat! More, more than, more than 20. Nah, we had literally only nine leads come through, but at the end, I know it was a failure. It was like a one out of 10 from the marketing team. Oh, thank you, Hannah. Oh, you’re the best. Uh, our beautiful copywriter and my beautiful wife, Hannah has just dropped me off a hot chocolate.

I am a lucky man. Um, now here’s what was interesting though. At the end of March, I was looking at the lead flow and I was feeling, I honestly was feeling a little bit dire about like, shit, this is not good for the agency. If we don’t sort this shit out, we are screwed. So I decided Sam and I, let’s run some Facebook ads.

And we started testing bottom of funnel ads and we started to generate some leads on Facebook again, but guess what? They’re more qualified. They weren’t just people who wanted to have a free hypey training. They wanted to work with the marketing agency and it came back to the whole, what is your lead quality?

And that was the next question that we started getting into because the last quarter of this financial year has 100 percent been good enough to make up for all of our cock ups at Owendenny Digital. 100%. It’s been great, but why has it been great? Because if you look at it so far, it’s looking insane.

And like. The number of leads we have generated for ourselves from the start of April, all the way through to the day we have today, we’ve, we’ve generated about 113 leads for ourselves. Right. And they’ve come from all different directions. So we’ve literally blown it out of the water. Right. So we set ourselves a target.

At the very start of the year to generate how many leads? Let’s have a look

to generate 261 leads at the start of the year. Now we didn’t do that. How much, how many have we generated? Generated 178. Now we didn’t, we, we got, we nearly got there. And I reckon by the end of the week, we’ll probably have close to another 20. So we’ll bet that 200 of the 260. So from a total lead volume thing, we’re going to do okay.

It was an ambitious target to begin with considering where we are, but now how far we’ve come, we’ve hit that point of actualization. We’ve properly profiled the avatar. We’ve developed different offers. We’ve gone through the entire hundred million dollar offer process with Alex Hormozy. We did that in the first quarter of this year.

So that was between January and March. We spent, we’ve got a hundred and something page workbook we created for this. I don’t know when we’ll make it available to the public to show you our process that we went through to get there, but it’s amazing. Then we decided to launch shit. Loads of offers, shit loads.

Yeah. So, Sam, I’m I’m, I don’t wanna do all the talking here ’cause I know you are immensely proud of the work we’ve done over the past two months or so. But let’s start with the worst offer to begin with. So we got, we got a bit busy and we got, we, we did the same cock up as usual. We got desperate. And what did we do?

We came up with an unfreaking believable offer. I’m going to tell you, I’m going to tell you what it is and then you’re going to tell me why it didn’t work. So basically I came up with this great idea. We do web design, we do digital advertising, we do copywriting, we do all sorts of cool, crazy, amazing, freaking growth related shit.

But we just, we, so we decided what’s a way to turn things around. It’s not looking good. It’s April. We need to figure out, what are we doing? So in May, I sat down with Hannah on the 1st of May. It’s like, we have to do some really serious shit. And I was like, we’re going to offer a free website if they sign up for more than six months.

Like a 15, 000 website for a client. And I thought that was unbelievable. I spoke to, I spoke to Kathleen, our web development, um, project manager and office manager. She was the most unbelievable thing ever. Hannah was like, whoa, that’s fricking insane. And then you were like, wow, that’s amazing. But it fell flat on its ass.

Why did it fall flat on its ass, Sam? Yeah. So I think one of the, one of the major thing we did there was not to understand our avatar. We taped out, didn’t we? We didn’t do our process. Yeah, we, we, we are looking for sales marketers and we, we don’t want, uh, startups, but who’s looking for a website? Like who’s looking for a website?

These, the people who are the people we were trying to work with were people who already had the people who the website was not their, their immediate problem. But then we came up with a very brilliant offer, but not for our audience, you know, not for our target audience because we, we, we came up with an offer for a startup for a person who, who doesn’t have a website because having a website.

As an offer that was up for a person who doesn’t have a website at that point, at that point, and even going back to the type of client that we have had previously, most of them had websites already, we could improve on it, we could improve on those websites. They designed the conversion. We can improve on that, but they had that already.

So it wasn’t enough for them. They didn’t need it. They didn’t know why they needed our website for free. They already have it, you know? So I think we, we mismatched, you know, we miss, we misread our avatar because we are offering like most of the clients that we get. We usually end up improving on their website.

So we thought that the website was an issue that they had at the point of coming to us, but that was not the case, you know, you know, it’s, it’s funny. So that was not the case. Yeah. So on this, there are five stages of market awareness and it goes by the acronym called upside. Unaware of a problem, problem aware, solution, solution aware, your solution aware, deal and offer of your solution aware.

Yeah, the funny thing about When people get engaged with a marketing agency, they may come. It’s like, Hey, I need new clients. I want to run Facebook ads. So they, they, they come fairly prescriptively into the funnel, right? They, they come in like, Hey, I want to grow my business. I want someone who can support me with my Facebook ads.

And so you can manage my services and make sure it all works. And I need a guarantee and whatever. Okay, cool. Yeah, great. Rad. We got this all, all for you, man. We got this. What’s interesting though, is we get in there, we start scoping out the project. And then all of a sudden we’re like, hang on. Whoa, wait.

If we’re going to be running Facebook ads at this website, we’re going to have some serious issues getting this right. So what do we end up doing? We’re like, well, in fact, not only do you need to do Facebook ads with us, but we also need to rebuild your website. And the problem is that it’s almost like, Hey, here’s a free website.

They were unaware that they needed it. So that was the problem. That was the wrong. Level of market awareness, and they don’t have the prescriptive understanding of what they need at this point. Number two, here’s what’s interesting for people who get their website built. It’s often a, it’s, it’s an exciting experience to start, but it’s a frustrating experience to finish and people never want to pay for headaches.

If I said to you, Hey, Sam, would you like a free headache with your marketing services? What are you going to say? No way. Exactly. So my point is that we’ve been really quite. Think this through properly, but the biggest sin that we’ve, we committed again was when you get desperate, do not try to broaden your audience.

And that’s what we did. We were like, and we made a really foul assumption as marketers. We, I enacted my, my lizard brain, my, my reptilian brain, and it went bad for me. I believed. That it would be easier to smell, not to smell, to sell a small business owner on a free website plus marketing. But guess what?

It’s so much tougher. It is actually tougher than selling your target market. So if you’ve got an agency or if you’ve got a business or whatever and you’re thinking broaden the audience, make it really cheap, let it go, it’s not better for you. It actually is so much worse because, you know, guys, if you’ve been in business, you know that profits are better than wages, but here’s the thing.

If you reduce your, if you reduce you, if you, you know, if you give people like a 20 percent reduction in overall cost, that’s a much bigger chunk out of your profits. You might be doing things profit free, and that will kill your business because it’s what I had for a business to work is profit. And if you don’t have that, it’s game fricking over.

So we did that in April, we did it badly. And then two weeks into the campaign, we were generating all these leads. None of them were closing. They were all startups. They were all people that just wanted to get kicked off in business. I was doing the whole thing. Oh, well, if you get some results for me and then I can pay for you and then it’s going to be a good thing.

And I was just sort of like, nah, this is wrong. Hannah, my wife sits me down and goes, Dean, you’re a SaaS marketing agency. Focus on SaaS, do it right. What would you do if money wasn’t a problem and things were working out fine for you right here, right now? So I sat down and sat down with it. I was like, I would create.

Marketing qualified lead offers to test for Facebook ads, for LinkedIn ads, for a SaaS user growth guide, and I would develop a couple of sales qualified offers around a free LinkedIn audit, a Facebook audit, a strategy session on a whatever. And that’s how I would, and that’s how I would do it. I would develop the different things that have email sequences and we’d go from there.

So then we spent the next two months in May going hammer and tongs creating all these things a lot of late nights a lot Of eating Domino’s pizza and garlic bread Typing away using chatGPT to help create these lead magnets and offers and all sorts of crazy stuff And guess what happened? We launched the ads and boom like 130 leads like bang done Yep.

Bring it. Exciting things. Start working. Hmm. Yeah, I think, I think, I think getting, uh, getting the right offer, I think one of the learning is have the right offer for your type of audience. Yep. Yep. Understand what that offer is. And by understanding what that offer is, you must understand the issues they are going through, you know, so that that’s what, because also one of the other thing we realized was that the offer we thought would be working really well.

Didn’t really perform, you know, the Facebook ads offer Oh, I know. Didn’t work really well as we thought it would’ve worked, you know? But the other offers that we came up with were working really well, and we were wondering, oh, that, what does this mean about our audience? This means our audience have really learned about this type of platform, and they don’t have much information about this type of platform.

And that’s where they are. They want to go, you know, and even now that way, now you understand, you start now understanding your customer awareness. You know, how aware are your customers? You understand if this Facebook is not working is either, if this offer is not working is either they, they really know about, about how this platform works.

Or they don’t trust it to work for them. A hundred percent, a hundred percent. And it’s so funny because like we go through it and we were so wrong, like so many times, and we’ve done the research we’ve been on all the forums, we’ve done everything, but then. You get out there and you run the ads and it can just still slap you in the face and put you back in your place so quickly.

And it’s so funny because like, remember Sam, it’s like, Oh, the Facebook ad thing is going to just absolutely shred it. No Google ads, LinkedIn, SaaS user guide, absolutely crushed it. Then LinkedIn.

Um, no, no. Then we had the Facebook ads and just had to turn it off straight away. Then I thought, okay, people don’t want to do a strategy session. I, we, so we created for our, like our, you know, our introductory discovery call, we’ve called it a T2D3 strategy session. And we go through where they’re at, where they’re in their journey, bloody, bloody, blah.

And we tailor it to the person there then and there in the, in the thing, just to get them on the phone. Right. It’s so funny though. We had, I thought, Oh, well, people don’t want a strategy session. It’s a thinly veiled sales call. That’s what most marketing agency people think when they hear strategy, they’re like, Oh, that sounds like a bullshit call.

No one wants that. We haven’t been able to generate a single Facebook audit or a LinkedIn audit or a Google ads audit, but guess what everyone wants a strategy call. Yeah, they all want the strategy call. Like so we’ve got a, um, we’ve got marketing qualified lead campaigns that are working. We’re nurturing people through that.

Our database is blowing up. We’ve got sales qualified lead offers that are working and are generating appointments. Like we have a funnel. My friends, it’s amazing. We’re so blessed and we’re so lucky ’cause we do this for our customers so well, but now we’ve got it for us, like fricking and one. Yeah. And one of the things that, um, you know, people listening to this, uh, need to understand is that, uh, this marketing, this marketing industry, the more you know, the more you know about it, the more you understand your customer, the more you know, you don’t know.

Oh, you know, you come up with things, you come up with things that you thought the mindset. And this is, I usually repeat this to, to our clients. The mindset you have to have is a testing mindset. You know, if an offer is working today, really well. You can’t just sit on your laurels and think that it’s going to work forever.

You know, at some point it’s going to change. So you must keep on testing, keep on testing. And something that did not work yesterday doesn’t mean that it won’t work tomorrow. You know, it just means you just have to keep testing and keep testing and having that mindset really helps has helped us also even to, to reach where we are at the moment where we are generating sales qualified is out of.

Testing different things and not just saying this did not work. So it can never work is saying this did not work at this point. So if we do something else, we test it out, you know, and see whether it’s still,

it’s something, you know, any who could change, you could, is the way we name the offers, you know, name it in, uh, there’s a lot. Uh, there’s a lot that, uh, goes into naming an offer and it’s very important. And I think even this is a step that we are going, we also taking, you know, in how do we name this offer in a way that communicates value and communicates understanding that we understand the issue that these people are going through, you know, so naming is also something that people need to spend time on and naming an offer and then.

Because you can find that just by changing the name, you’re going to offer the same exact thing, but just by changing the name, people, people respond differently. 100%. And now we’re going to get talking about this because it’s really interesting, like at each stage we’ve had in each different quarter.

Right. Where we’ve had objectively good and bad months from a marketing perspective, we’ve learned different things about our business, but the problems have become more and more developed as the business has grown. Right. So initially the problem was, how do we generate leads? And then you’re like, oh, okay, cool.

We’ve done that. Okay. It didn’t work. Okay. How do we optimize the webinar? Okay. That’s our next thing. Okay. Optimizing a webinar is too difficult. Then the next thing we do is we go, okay, cool. How do we go back to optimizing SEO? And then we do that and it starts to work and then it starts to fail. What do we have to go again?

It’s, it’s just so dynamic. And what’s really interesting now is that we’ve now got a new problem, which is good because every level of growth you go through, you go through new problems. And our newest problem is Sam. It’s not. It’s not how to generate leads. We’ve got that down pat. Thankfully, we’re a marketing agency.

We do lead generation for other people. We’re good at it for other people, but we’re now learning about ourselves because we’re using our own processes on ourselves, which is the ultimate testimony to say that our shit actually works. Woo! Now, but like number two, right? Like this is where it gets exciting.

Is that our next problem we have to conquer. Hang on. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Let me get back to this in a second. You know how we’ve been talking about like personality and entertainment and experiences and how we have to bring that into the content now? Yeah. So, at the start of the year, I started to Towards the end of last year and the start of this year, I’ve started taking podcasting very seriously.

I’ve been doing the content. I haven’t been promoting the content, but I’ve been doing the content. So I, I told you this and everyone knows about it, but I think not many people may know on the podcast, but you know, I started infusing, I started using ChatGPT to come up with a lot of outlines for podcasts and whatever, and it wasn’t very good.

Then one night I had a big day. I was like, Oh, I can’t be bothered doing crap tonight. Be grumpy, whatever. So my dog Zoe, I’m sitting on the couch with my wife, Hannah. We’re talking and all that, our copywriter as well, FYI. And then my dog Zoe comes with this big sloppy ball and puts it in my groin. And I’m like, Oh, Zoe, I don’t want to play with you.

So it’s like, go away, Zoe. Then she comes back with like a tug of war toy and I’m like, Oh, tug of war toy. And I’m like playing with tug of war. And I’m like, hang on a second. My dog did some AB offer testing on me just then. And then what’s crazy. I’m like, Oh, podcast. My poodle did an AB split test on me. I did the podcast.

I recorded it. SEO optimized it. So people would pick it up. It’s on AB split testing, whatever. You wouldn’t believe it. Everybody. Because of that podcast, I now coach a Forbes lister with their direct response advertising. Now, what does that tell you? We have less than a thousand listens a month, guys. Like we are, we are not a micro podcast.

We are a nano podcast. Like we are little, little podcast and. Whoever listens to this, I hope you get some massive value out of this, but guys, if you are going to do a podcast, do start, make sure you optimize the living shit out of your podcast descriptions, get the timestamps, get everything. So Spotify knows to put you like right near the top when you’re wanting to look into things.

Like I’ve had some podcasts go viral. My podcast on quitting caffeine went well, but again, story, my podcast on AB split testing on my poodle got a client, which is paid for all the time I’ve had to podcast for life story. Stories sell. Marketers are liars, as Seth Godin would say, and it’s all, it’s about lying.

It’s about storytelling. Yeah, yeah. Guys, I think like we get so caught up in the direct response advertising game where it’s just like straight down the line sales or straight down the line, all this crap, but guys, just recognize that stories are what’s going to push your needle forward as a direct response advertiser, a brand marketer or whatever this year, because AI is going to create a whole heap of unimaginative, an unimaginative shit for your brand.

And everyone’s going to realize us being generated, people are looking for human stuff. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, I think, I think stories, personal stories, experiences, you know, those are the things that are going to, that are going to sell and now a way that the marketer who’s able to fuse your marketing principles, whether it’s a B testing and how Zoe is doing that with you, you know, if you can infuse that Uh, experience with a specific marketing principle and now share it in a way that is exciting and, uh, and something that is relatable.

Yep. Those are the marketers that are going to win, you know? Mm-Hmm. . Those are the marketers that are going to win. And, uh, in this age of everything being o uh, automated AI and things like that, stories. Personal stories, personal experiences. Those are the things that are going to really work, uh, for, for, for businesses, basically businesses has to start coming up with stories about themselves, about, about the people who work there, about their customers.

You know, whether it’s a cleaner in your office, what are the stories that you can come up with about, about your own as a business, probably about your own values as a business and things like that, you know, so it’s, it’s, it’s about, and, and, and it’s coming a time where you, you, as a business, you will need to, to come up with the, uh, stands and values that you stand for, you know, yeah.

Thank you. Because, because the market is going to be fragmented to very micro, micro, uh, audiences, you know, and markets. So it’s very important that you understand those people, understand them, understand what moves them, you know, and now give content at that level. Give content at that level. Once they trust you, once they, you, they build that, uh, relationship with you, then they’re willing to spend money with you because people understand, you know, people understand that we are not angels.

People are not angels. People have challenges and things like that. All they want to do is, do we have a vibe? Are we clicking? You know? Mm-Hmm. you as my service provider and me as the business. Are we clicking? If we click. I’m able to spend money with you, you know, because I know we are having, we are not, it’s not about Uh, an issue where I’m going to follow up on you every time.

You know, you are understanding my business. I’m understanding you even in terms of payment and things like that, we can work together in the journey of success because that’s also something that people are looking for, people are looking for longterm, uh, if, if it’s a marketing agency, a marketing agency that we can work with longterm and, and most marketing agencies go for short, short term projects.

And then they leave that client, you know, if you leave that client, where do they go? You know, how do they market? Probably even offering a training for the in house team, you know, for the in house team as part of the thing that you’re doing could work, you know? So all those, it’s, it’s about you as an agency, as a business, looking at the success of your client, how best can I help them succeed?

How best can I help them save money, you know, and being genuine about it because Google is now our friend. So people are Googling everything. YouTube is there with a lot of content. So there’s, there’s information overload. Absolutely. If you go to a client and you can be able to lay down that information and how to execute each specific step and, and you remove that.

burden of understanding what all this information is saying. Those are the people that people are going to trust. These are the people that people are going to engage and they will be willing to pay. You know, they will be willing to pay and it won’t be like you’re selling. It will be to be conversation.

You want this and this is how to get there. And because at some point you will understand people are not scared of spending huge sums of money. They’re just scared of spending huge sums of money with no results. You know, people are scared of not getting the results. and they have, they have a right to be skeptical about agencies.

They have a right to be skeptical about people who are providing services online because they have been scammed before. They have hired people who, and they have those stories, you know, so it’s about, it’s about agencies, it’s about businesses. creating, creating their own value, creating their own persona that is trust, uh, worthy of trust, you know, trustworthy and, and, and, and something that people can relate to.

And people are understanding that I’m not coming to do miracles. I’m coming here to work. You know, we are going to work together and we are going to achieve these results. If we follow this process. You know, and and and also being able to interact with them in a way that is trustworthy and they can share information because something else that as an agency you struggle with is having a client who’s not giving you all the information.

Oh, if I had a penny for every time I heard that. Oof, oof, oof, oof, yeah, yeah, yeah. If they’re not giving you all the information, so you are working with the wrong information, not full disclosure. So. You’re not fully grasping the, the enormous task that you, you, you actually have to do, you know, and, and, and as an agency, we know that information, getting all the data information, you know, if we, if we give you 50 leads, it’s about you going through those leads, understanding who they are, whether they are qualified or not qualified, because that information is going to help us, Uh, change tact, you know, be flexible in our strategy, change time, change offer and do something that is working, you know?

So all those small, um, moving parts that, that as an agency, you have to incorporate in, in, in your execution of your own strategy and the client. It’s, it’s, it’s key to your success. Now, here’s the last thing, and I know you’ve been wanting to talk about this today because I know it’s your new favorite thing.

You know, that’s what I’m about to say. So before, before we went down the, that great rabbit hole, we were talking about, okay, we’ve got new problems now. We’ve got so many leads to talk or call, where can we find the time of the day to do this? How do we sift through all the junk leads? How do we sift through all the good ones?

How do we properly nurture the right ones? And at scale, how do we take people from marketing qualified lead through to sales qualified opportunity, right? And that’s really crucial. And I just did a podcast, which would been released. A couple of days before this one goes live, and it was on the topic that email nurturing sequences are no longer enough when it comes to taking someone from a marketing qualified lead through to a sales qualified lead or a sales qualified opportunity and.

This is where, you know, with this problem, with the business growing and there’s greater leads coming into the company. And we’re all really excited about how all these amazing things are. And it’s just, it’s, it’s, it’s overwhelming and just so beautiful. We’re going to have our biggest year, like our team’s getting bigger and it’s getting badder and stronger.

It’s like, we’re really turning into the Mike Tyson of helping SaaS companies grow, you know? And, um, but here’s the thing guys, like. We don’t need a huge lead volume to be successful because we are a boutique agency, but what we do need is a means of taking all our hard work and capitalizing on it. Now, if you’re generating a heap of marketing qualified leads and you’re nurturing them and they’re not nurtured enough.

There’s something missing in your sales process and Sam, what do you think you want to talk about today? It starts with a, and, and, and ends in vent. Why are we going to be doing now? Tell everybody, why are we going to be doing live events? Every fortnight or even every week depends on how good these go for us.

Again, guys, this is all speculative. We haven’t put anything in concrete yet for next year. So why are we focusing on live events coming into the new financial year? So this is, uh, this is an important, um, an important aspect and it’s about touch points. It’s about customer touch points. You know, in, uh, you know, people think that, uh, marketing has changed really has changed in, uh, enormously and things like that.

But I think it goes back. It’s just the basics. It’s the way we deliver changes. We are offering, we are offering things online. Digital is changing things, AI is changing stuff, but the core of business marketing has not changed. You know, the reason why people. Why you need events, why you need to keep, you know, in constant contact with your customers hasn’t changed, you know, the way it’s being done has changed, but the essence of it hasn’t changed.

So the question is, we have gotten these people online. We have 150, 200 people leads. We know that there are people who could be our customers, but this is their first, because if you look at it, we have really great offers that are working that we only need the person to click on our ad once, you know, for them to, to, to become, uh, to become, uh, a lead, you know, so we really targeting the right people, the right people are taking the action, you know, and they are taking it once they see it, They, uh, they, they, they do the necessary, they become a lead, right?

But now that means that the first time they have seen it, that the first time they have engaged with us, you know, so it cannot be that at first, that, that first instance, the next day they are going to convert, give us the 10, 000 that we are looking for. You know, we need time now to build that relationship to a point where they trust us.

The way we’ve been doing it is having an email sequence going out to these people a week, two weeks. We ask for the offer that really is not building the relationship that we need, you know? Mm-Hmm. . Because these people need to see us. These need, these people need to, to know who you are, your personality, because we say that is very key to, to building trust.

People want to know that you are actually not just using automated sequences. Yeah. To reach out because know it now. Yeah. They know it, they know it, especially understanding our, our specific client is that they know these things, you know, they probably have these systems themselves, like, like, we have a SaaS, we have a SaaS client.

Whose main product is email sequencing, you know, , and then we’re using email sequencing to them. They’ll see it and they’ll know, oh, this is exactly what I’m selling, you know? Yep. So they understand. They understand the space that we are in, the tools we are using. They understand because they ares customers.

So the only way they trust you now. Is when they have one on one with you, but now getting them one on one, they know, you know, they know this is a sales call. That’s what they do. That’s also what they do. You know, when they get you on a sales, on a, on a call, they are going to try to sell you, you know, but for us, we have to be very genuine about our processes about the things we do.

And that’s where the event now comes in because you cannot have. These people coming onto a call one on one. Now you can have one to make. One to many talking to them about the problems that they are facing and the solutions that are there in terms of marketing, you know, and getting them onto something like that is, is key and events are the next big thing that you need to do at that point, because they are going.

And this is what is going to happen in an event. They are going to see you. They are going to gauge your personality. They are going to see, you know, because you are talking to them, they can see your face. They can see, uh, the challenges you’re having in explaining what you know, you know, because that’s what they want to get.

When I come to you one on one, what I’m looking at is, do you understand what you’re talking about? You know, , do you understand what you’re talking about? Do you understand the problem I’m facing? You know? Mm-Hmm. . And once I’m able to identify that, then I know, okay, this guy seems to be a good guy, right?

Mm-Hmm. . Yeah. This guy seems to be a good guy. It’s a guy that I can follow up a little bit further, you know? Mm-Hmm, . And now the next, now that event have to be scheduled in a way that helps you. To eventually give you an offer, you know, and, and, and now in the planning, the event that’s where now it’s important, you know, and, uh, what we are saying, uh, is we can have an event where it’s just, uh, us talking the way we are talking right now, you know, it could be just us talking, no seals, no nothing, just giving gems and pointers on how you can grow your own business.

That’s great. That’s one way, you know, but because you want as, as a marketer, you want to move people from one point to the next point, this content, the people who come to these events and you understand them and everything, the next thing will be to, to design the event such that we give all the value that we can give.

We gain all the trust that we can gain. And then we have an opportunity to actually. Sell, you know, we have an opportunity to actually sell and without, without, you know, hastening the process, because I think one of the greatest challenge you are having is trying to make this process really fast. And this process is really, really slow, you know, because people will want to come to you.

They will want to hear you. They will want to, as they trust you, then they will be able to. Come back and, and, and at a certain point later on, you will be able to sell. So for us as a, as marketers is to understand how do we frame our, our event so that we, we narrow that journey. We build trust and people trust us because we’ve given them really great content, really great value.

Yeah. Then tell them infuse our offers such that people are easily. Going to, to, to schedule the calls, you know, schedule the calls, uh, get into the offers that we are offering at the, at that point, you know, it’s about understanding that process and understanding the reason why we are doing the event is purely, purely for building trust with these people.

The reason why a person can schedule a call and not come or show up for that is. They haven’t really trusted, you know, it’s, it’s just, they don’t trust you to give them the solution. Probably the issue is they think it’s a sales call so they don’t show up because they think, you know, It’s it’s 10. It’s 20 minute call.

So they’re just going to give me really quickly They are not going to understand my my problem, you know, so the offer Is it is it me Is it me having 10 minutes to speak about my product, my service, or is it me having 10, 30 minutes with a client for the client to talk about their business with, you know, once they are facing.

All those challenges. Then I can say, you know what? Uh, I think this is, uh, we identify issues with them and that now with those issues, then we can lay down the solutions that can work for them. You know, it’s not about selling. It’s about helping. I think that is a mindset that has to change, you know, Yourself, but go out there to help, help, help.

And if a client, if, if a pro a client’s problem can be resolved by just saying, go try this.

Let them go. Try and let them build a, a, a problem that is, that is bigger. Because I think also some clients have really simple challenges. You know, it’s just a challenge of telling them you can do this and it’ll change, you know, and, and. Framing your call, framing your call to be something that helps them resolve some of the challenges they are facing will really get people to show up on that call, but they will only show up once you build and and the way you do that is through events and online events for now are the most, uh, the easiest to do, but Even as time goes by is actually having people come physically, you know, the way you build that trust, get people to come online, get people to come physically.

And as. As, as you interact with them more times, you’re going to get them to engage, engage with you. Because remember, it also depends with the amount of money you, they have to, they have to pay for the services that you’re offering, you know? Yeah. So if you have 10, 000 per month, You are, you are seeking 10,000 per month.

Then you need to spend time with them. They need to understand you. They need to understand you really well and to trust you really well, that you can provide what you say you could. So it’s about as, as businesses understand that process and understand the amount of trust you need to build for a person to buy.

And, and the amount of trust you need to build is increasing. You know, the value is increasing doing it. There are so many people doing it. So for you to stand out, you have to do more. Mm-Hmm, . Yeah. And on this, on this topic as well, Sam, I think what’s good for everyone that’s listening right now is that with events, you don’t have to have some crazy thing.

An event could be something as simple as an ask me anything session. It could be a hot desk, it could be, um, a live interview on Facebook. It could be even an interview between your team members on Facebook. It could just be Sam and I like we you are listening to today. It could just be this, we could do this live and this is what they could do, but like.

That’s the, the thing. Because, again, people are so used to automation. People are so used to, um, You know, just getting crappy lead magnets flicked at them and all sorts of stuff, you know. Like, um, you know, everybody’s just used to so much like generated crap. They just want real people that can really help them.

And I think, you know, with these live events, which we’ll be doing every week and every fortnight, you know, this is going to be, uh. So we can help more people at scale. Like if you’re listening to yourself to this today, you may be one of the, you know, the 10 or 20 people that listened to this podcast this month, but this could really blow your mind.

There’s a lot of content that we’re covering today. Um, and just remember guys that this should be like. Oh, I want to just say here and really emphasize, cause we’re going to wind this episode up in the next two minutes or so, um, is that everybody, like even the best of us, like, like tip of the spear marketers like us, we can get it wrong.

And does that upset us? No, or maybe for 10 seconds, but when we do get it wrong, we’re upset. And then we’re like, then we get curious. Right. And, you know. It’s interesting. We, we, we we’re happy that we know one way that doesn’t work, . That’s exactly right. It’s the process of elimination. Strike it out work.

So we go on to the next. Exactly. You know, and, and the funny thing is like it, you know what, if you listened to the story, you, if you listened to the, the four months we had, we had a okay, we had a good, we had a good court first quarter, even though I was not really there to be seen in the business in the first quarter of the year, then.

October to December was average. January to March was even worse. And then this May, this April through to June, we have got our shit together and it’s really starting to hum. And if you ripped off, if you ripped off this last quarter, this financial year, you would have given us a marketing score and I don’t blame you.

Of like a two out of 10, but here’s what’s interesting. We don’t need huge volumes of leads a year to be successful. Like 250 high quality leads a year. We’ll, we’ll turn our business into a seven figure business. Like it’s very simply if we’ve got it, right. The second thing is that with our business is that.

You know, I think this is with any business is that you just need one good quarter and you can turn it all around for yourself. It’s very simple, you know, and what there’s been a few massive learnings here, Sam and I, and I think, you know, apart from, you know, don’t cheap out on your process, really go back to first principles, get down to your customer avatar.

Um, you know, get back to your customer avatar, really refine and develop your offer and spend the time doing it, you know, launch different ads, test a whole heap of things, recognize there’s a difference between developing offers for content and there’s offers for sales calls. And then. Once you get bigger, you get better problems.

It’s not just about leads. It’s specific types of leads with specific types of buying intent. And then during that process, how do you ascend people from low intent to interested in you because they’re showing up at a webinar. How you take people from interested in you to jumping on a sales call with you, whether it be through automation or whatever.

And it’s really funny. There’s been some real cool stories we’ve learned this year. And. It all comes back to, sometimes you just got to stay disciplined, stay, stick to the plan, don’t get, don’t get desperate and just do the work you set out to do and you can really succeed. Um. And I think that’s really it for me.

Any final comments from you, Sam?

Uh, yeah, I think, I think you’ve said it, uh, pretty much, uh, everything that needs to be, to be said. But it’s for listeners to understand that marketing, for you to have successful marketing, whether you’re an agency or any other type of business, you must allow yourself to fail. Allow yourself to fail.

Understand that marketing is about testing different offers. And the greatest thing about digital marketing is that you can really feel fast because it’s about that. Feel fast, feel quickly, you know, get out of that. Understand things that don’t work because you’re going to have really brilliant ideas that.

That really don’t mean shit.

Those, those ideas that you think are brilliant and everything, but when you lay them out and you take them to the market, the market is going to say, that’s not what we need. And you must be willing and ready to have that emotional. Uh, intelligence and also like, like, don’t be depressed when the market says no to your best offer, you know, just come up with an offer that they actually love, you know, because another thing that People have is that, you know, you came up with an offer, you spend time, everything.

And it’s actually going even to spend your own money to deliver this offer, but the market says no. So it’s, it’s about you separate yourself, separate your emotions from it. If they say no, understand they have said no to the offer, come up with a different offer. And you might find that the simplest offer, the simplest offer could be the one that works.

Something that is easy for you to do. You didn’t like, like you thought that was not valuable to the person at that point. That’s exact thing they need for that simple step. They need to take the next step. So understand always, always think about what’s the next step for my clients. What’s the next step?

And it would be just information, you know, do this. Do that and they will love you for that. They will trust you. They will, they will be coming to you for information and, and the next thing, event, hit record, record everything you’re doing, have it out there. You’re definitely going to start showing people you are.

a human. You can do things. They’re going to trust you, trust your personality, and that will be the thing that will help you win. Differentiate yourself, build your own, or create your own blue ocean. And, uh, and, and at that point you will be in the category of one. I think that’s in the 100 million offer, right?

The category of one. Yeah. Where, where, where you are the only one who’s leading in that category. Yeah, absolutely. I’m, I totally believe you there Sam. That’s exactly what it is. It’s about. Yeah, and I’m, I think, you know, if I was, if I was a, say a B2B business, whether it be an agency or a SaaS products today, listening to this.

I hope this gives you a bit of hope, you know, you can turn it around in a quarter, you can create a category of one, you can grow your, you know, your pipeline through digital advertising, you know, there are several ways of doing this, like, you know, you’ve got your outbound, you’ve got your people telemarketing, you’ve got your people running Facebook ads, LinkedIn ads, Google ads, YouTube ads, you name it, it’s all happening, right?

It’s through this rigorous process of transcription by Going through anecdotally, but also through the numbers and the statistics of what worked, what didn’t work and doing it every quarter or even doing a bit of a roundup like today for the year to give you some flavor of where we go. Like we can’t reveal all the things we’re going to be doing.

This year just yet, because I want to make sure that’s another episode in itself of Dean and Sam talk. Oh, and Denny digital’s marketing strategy for the year, because I think once we’ve got a pretty good understanding of what the next 12 months look like, we’re going to go do, we’re going to run this back again.

Do you think that you’ll have a bit of fun doing that? Yeah, definitely. Those are the things we look forward to, you know, cracking, cracking the data. And, and, and actually one of the other thing is, is for people to. Work with the data. Look at the data. What is this saying? Do that, you know, don’t, don’t impose your feelings onto the data.

You know, Yeah. Yeah. Feelings. Don’t pay the rent, let lead you. Yeah. You know, , let, let it lead you. You know, make decision based on the, be data driven and that will help you. Yeah. Make the, the, the changes that you need to do quickly launch what you need to, to launch quickly. Learn very fast. And, uh, those are, those are the things that are going to give you really quick wins.

Yeah. And, um, yeah, I can’t wait for the, for the next year, you know, next year for us to launch all those things that we’re talking about. A hundred percent. And, uh, to get, to see, to see exactly. How, how, how that one works out and sharing, you know, sharing that journey, because I think also that is very sharing that journey with, uh, with our audiences in the podcast and, uh, and, and other platforms, you know, sharing that journey will be, will be, I think the most interesting thing.

I think so. And I think that, you know. I think that there’s real value in sharing this journey and, um, we’re having a whole heap of fun doing it. So look guys, I think that’s probably it. Let’s wrap this up. Thank you again, everybody for listening to open source growth. This is a new format. Um, you know, obviously it’s Sam and I going through what’s working and what’s not working, but I hope you got a whole lot from that.

Um. Get back to your, get back to the basics, customer avatar, do the numbers, do the math. Um, we’re going to do a, I think we should be doing a few of these coming in soon, Sam. So, um, I think, I think, I think what, what, and this is just something that I’m, um, I’m throwing out there, you know? Okay. It’s a listener.

It’s a, it’s a world first listeners. Here we go. Like if you want to have something like this and, uh, let’s, let’s say we want to test out TikTok. You go, you go live on Tik TOK. I go live on Tik TOK and, uh, and, and, and we are now live. Both of us discussing this, we have our meeting on meeting on, on the Google meet, we are live on, uh, on Tik TOK and we share this, you know.

It definitely is going to, to, to establish us in that platform because on TikTok, going live is really, it’s really something that is, uh, peaking, you know, so it’s about understanding a platform and understanding how we can create content in that. from easily, you know, easily. So if you are, if you are lying, both of us on that platform probably would be having like, uh, uh, 200 people watching you and watching me on the same platform, understanding all this content.

Why not? I gotta, I gotta feel like I’ve been blessed with the biggest challenge. Yeah. It’s something, and this is, this is. Yeah, this is the thinking that each business have to have with all these platforms coming up. It’s about how do you use them? How do you infuse them in your daily working of your business?

You know, because having time to do stuff for a specific platform, you know, it’s time consuming and we only have 24 hours and probably eight of those are sleeping time, you know? So, so it’s very important that we Each time, whatever we are doing, hitting record, you know, recording each, everything that we are doing that is recordable, recording that is key, you know, recording that will help us to, will help us to generate the content we need to push us to the next level content that is relatable content that is not scripted content that is on the go.

Content that will help us build the trust that we need. Let’s do it. All right, Sam. I think that’s, that’s it for today. Thanks for your time. Um, it’s been unreal. I appreciate everybody who’s who’ll be listening to this. Who’s listening to this. It’s a, it’s really interesting. Looking forward to feedback.

Yeah, please guys, if you like what you hear today, uh, feel free to subscribe to the podcast. Um, you know, we do do this every week. We try to drop two to three episodes every single week to help fill your ears with all the good shit to help you grow your SaaS, B2B or online brand effectively with digital advertising.

If you need. Anything more from us. If you just want to see whether it help it working with Owendenny, any can help you. All you need to do is jump into the show notes and hit book a 10 minute chat. You’ll speak directly with me, Dean, and we can go through your business, your unique problems and issues that you’re facing with growing your business and see whether or not we can actually help you.

Yes, we do turn people away, but the people that we do welcome and accept. They fricking love the Owen Denny experience guys. It’s been unreal. Thank you so much for tuning in. It’s been a long one today. I hope you got something from it. Stay well, God bless. And I’ll speak to y’all soon. Cheers for now.

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