Three Brothers Built a 200-Person Team From One Client in Two Years

Full transcript of Josh Nelson’s interview with Azhar Siddiqui. Lightly edited for readability.

Josh Nelson: For today's session, it's the Seven Figure Agency podcast, where we interview successful digital marketing agency owners from across the country. And today, we've got a really special session with some really special guests. I'm super excited to have Azhar, Athar, and Yawar with us from RepStack, longtime members of the Seven Figure Agency, now running a multiple seven-figure business. But without further ado, let me kinda introduce these guys, let them tell you their backstory. And if you've got questions on how they were able to grow from zero to multiple seven figures and impacting thousands of digital marketing agencies across the country, please get those questions ready, post them in the comments. So guys, thanks so much for being on here today.

Azhar Siddiqui: Thanks for having us. Yeah. Thanks for having us, Josh. It's a pleasure. I guess, we are what you call a homegrown success story 'cause, you know, usually you'd have, members who'd come in who are at a particular point in their journey inside a digital marketing agency. And, we were able to go actually from zero to, you know, multiple, seven figures in, under two years. And, you know, that's I guess a bit of a different story. And then, you know, we were able to car-carve out a niche after talking to you as well. So yeah, we got an amazing story to tell. I'm sure a lot of people would be, interested in finding out how Josh Nelson kinda, you know, played the godfather and, got, RepStack going now and all of that stuff. So yeah- Yeah. Glad, glad to be here.

Josh Nelson: So before we start, like, just kinda give us the lay of the land, kinda how much revenue, how many clients served, like kinda what's the current status, and then we'll kinda go back to where you started and how you got there.

Azhar Siddiqui: So since we started, you know, I'm glad to say that you were our client number one, Josh, back, two years ago. But since then, we've, been able to service, over five hundred digital marketing agencies, and our revenue is just shy of two hundred thousand dollars, a month right now. And, and all of this stuff has happened over the last two years. Actually, in fact, my brother Athar is there with Yawar in Islamabad, Pakistan, celebrating our, second year anniversary, so we just turned two. And it's, it's been an incredible, and life-changing journey. And right now we have just over two hundred people inside RepStack. When I joined the 7FA, group back in the day, I was, you know, I had my own digital marketing agency, which I still run in Calgary, Canada, the Legacy agency. And it was just me, myself, and I. And I was really working with subcontractors. And you know, so I was just, like, one employee. So going from one employee to, you know, just over two hundred people over the last two years with around two hundred thousand dollars in revenue, servicing over five hundred digital marketing agencies, it's just been an incredible journey.

Josh Nelson: Amazing. What a, what a, what a story. Tremendous guys. Put tremendous or wow in the comments if, you know, in that short period of time they were to develop that level of growth. And what's really cool is that you guys are really impacting agencies and giving them the ability to get the work done, to have that extra pair of hands that they need, which we'll, we'll be getting into here in a second. But I wanna make sure we get introduced to each of you. So if you could just kinda introduce who you are and kinda what your main role in the business is today, then we'll dive into it.

Azhar Siddiqui: Yeah. So I'm, I-I'm the Chief Executive Officer, and, you know, the hardest part of my job is, to take care of these two here who are my brothers also. My, my… We have, added layers of complexity over here, you know, when you work with family. So, you know, we're, all three of us, if you guys can't tell, we're brothers. We grew up together. And you know, the biggest part of my job is, that, you know, I get to manage Athar and Yawar, who, respectively run… Go ahead, Yawar. Yeah. So I'm, looking after HR and finance, and I do mainly the running around and, you know, the, that kind of part for the business. Because I was al-always on ground in Pakistan. That's where we started from. Now we're, looking into Philippines, Bangladesh, and Nepal as well. But, yeah, that's where we started from, so I'm running the show on ground. Yes. Awesome. Yeah. Yeah, so Athar Siddiqui. Basically I'm the US link. I'm based out of Wilmington, Delaware. And, I go around and work with sales, mar- sales, technical operations, that's our SOPs and all our, you know, software. And of course, last but not least, our client success team. That's the ones, you know, our account managers basically. And they're the ones who deal with each one of our clients and our associates. So they're, they're kind of, you know, working through the both. They are two-edged sword of our account managers. So that's my, end of the story.

Josh Nelson: Awesome. Well, glad to have you guys all on with us. And you know, yours is a little bit different, right? Usually, when I interview people on this show, it's, "Hey, I'm a digital marketing agency serving this niche, and, like, this is how much revenue we do and this is how we did it." you guys are actually providing s- you know, VA services or executive services, as you call it, to these agencies. If you could, just kinda walk us through what your deliverable looks like so that everybody can, can connect the dots.

Azhar Siddiqui: So yeah. So our, basically, Josh, our mission is, to provide, growth-orient-oriented and passionate digital marketing agencies, with, you know, with workforces, with associates or VAs who benchmark with the best workforces in the world. And, so basically what that means is that, you know, we are really focused on working with digital marketing agencies, and we only work with digital marketing agencies, and we only fulfill, four roles. It used to be three, but, back in July, you kinda pushed us to start offering, executive assistance as well. So now we have the fourth role. So the three roles that we started out were, we-were, marketing associates, sales development reps, account managers, and now we, also provide, executive assistance for people who are, you know, fifty thousand going to seven figures and things like that. They should also have a solid, executive assistant type person who can take care of their calendaring, their-… You know, emails and social media, which we, a lot of us kind of fall behind on as the businesses grow. But, you know, having said that, Josh, one thing I really wanna point out here is that even though, you know, I came into 7 Figure Agency to really get going with my own agency, and I was on the verge of breakthrough 'cause I got so many breakthroughs early on with the 7FA program. And then one of these things that really turned out was, the virtual assistant services, and there was a real need in the market and, you know, you kinda raised your hand to be, really our guinea pig at that time, which, you know, we couldn't have asked for more, and the rest is history. But what– how we really became successful was using all the same, you know, the things that you teach in the Onramp program, for example, and then the Mastery, you know. Launching our, email outreach campaign, for example. You know, doing then, getting into paid ads as we started making some revenue and things like that. So, so you know, everything to date that we do is all from the 7FA program, which you really teach to your audience, and we implement. We really eat our own dog food here, right? So we couldn't have done it without, those key campaigns, which are still the core of our business. And the last thing that I'd like to point out is that, you know, w- you're working with digital marketing agencies. We're also working with digital marketing agencies and, you know, it's really a– these agency owners are selling to the rest of the world right now. You know, these guys are going and, you know, they have clients in HVAC, they have clients in, real estate and all different niches and things like that, and these guys are doing marketing for the rest of the world, and we are doing, marketing so that these guys would come and buy from us. So it's not, it's not that easy. So, you know, like we have proof of concept from the 7FA side that all of these techniques work, and the reason we've been able to scale so fast is because we were able to go ahead and implement, everything that you taught. And, and, you know, anybody who's coming new to your program, I would highly recommend that, you know, just stick with the program, implement what Josh is, teaching here and, you know, you too will have a really fiery and fast success. Love it. Yeah.

Josh Nelson: And if I think back, kind of the issue was we had our Onramp and our Kickstart training, which is to get people started, and there was a lot of training on, okay, here's how you get your list, here's how you clean the list, how– here's how you send the emails, here's how you should be calling. And the agencies got it, but they were so busy they didn't have time to do it. It was like, "Okay, well, I need someone that can do that stuff for me." And, you know, to try and hire a US person to do that was just cost prohibitive, and nobody wanted to stay in that type of role long term. So even if they found someone that would do it was like they would hire them, train them, they would get a couple of clients going from it, and then that person would wanna move into some other area of the business. And so when you guys said, "Look, we've got great talent," like literally college, you know, educated, sometimes master degree educated people that we can put into these positions at an affordable cost that will really be passionate about doing this and do it at a world-class level, I think is the key to how all this works. Like started with just, you know, I need a marketing assistant and it was like, hey, I need someone to actually do some appointment setting and making some calls. Then, hey, I've got these clients, I need someone to do account management to kinda manage the relationships and the, and the back and forth. It was like, hey, I'm really busy as the executive of this business. I'm really busy checking my emails and managing my calendar. I need an executive assistant, and you guys kinda as the agencies have grown, have filled in all of those gaps, with the people that you can place.

Azhar Siddiqui: Yeah. Not only- The hassle out of hiring, right? So we know it's, it's a human element and there's always guesswork, right? So what we have, we have boots on ground here. That's what our HR is, you know. So we have actual people, and then we have our success. You know, the main, I think, secret sauce that we have for success is our Rep Success Academy, which a lot of successes here, I guess. But what happens is, you know, we hire them for, you know, first a month before even, or maybe some in cases three to four months before they see a client. So what we are looking for is attitude and communication skills, right? So other than that, everything, you know, we can teach them and we see, okay, is this person a leader? You know, we don't want someone who's just gonna come in and do the same daily grind. They're always gonna be the mindset with growth. That's our whole, you know, mantra basically, that we wanna make sure that our associates are growing with your company, you know? So and then at one point, you know, can… They can build a team within the associates, and we are here to supporting, you know, we're here to training them. We are making sure they have, you know, all the, you know, basically upper middle class level, you know, facilities that they can avail with their pay, you know. And we want them to keep growing like, you know, your associate, you know, he's growing, which I just say basically to everybody, we have life before Josh Nelson and life after Josh Nelson. How– That's how much you have impacted us. And just the way you open your books up, right? We didn't have to kind of try and fail. We had everything working. And that also, I think points out to a really good fact that it's your processing systems, they're universal. They can work with any… I know your focus is digital marketing agencies, but it's basically same, you know, business as usual one-on-one foundations. They work across all agencies, but basically. So that was, you know, I think, my say on how, you know, we take the hassle out of hiring.

Josh Nelson: Hmm. Love that. Yeah. Love that.

Azhar Siddiqui: So generally what I would like to mention here is that I've been attending Masterminds for like, two years now, and there has never been an occasion where we feel the disconnect that, all right, we are not an agency, so we might not be able to do this activity. So we are always connected because it- it's really for everybody. So, you know, it just, makes you, connect. So I'm sure if we– if it's not only us, if there are other, slightly different than agency businesses as well, they might be doing well with this as well.

Josh Nelson: Yeah. And one thing, one thing, and I'm seeing some questions coming in as well. Cathy pointed out a really good question.

Azhar Siddiqui: You know, during our initial days, Josh, we were, you know, Yawar was on the ground, and we were having trouble finding the right type of people. And Aftab said that, you know, we wanted to look at the right mindset. But early on, all of these things were really difficult. But as we started growing and we wanted… We kind of figured out which people are really successful with, agency owners like yourself, we find out– we found out that, you know, having the right mindset, a leadership mindset and a coachable personality is, like, extremely important because everything else you can teach. And, you know, teach we did. So what we do now is that from, you know, two years ago to now, we've invested heavily in, one of our programs called RepStack Success Academy. So we hire these people, with usually from one to two years of experience, either, you know, in sales or account management or digital marketing, and we bring them in inside our RepStack Success Academy. And, and our hiring processes are also extremely brutal because most of our clients are looking for extremely clean English. You know, we're looking at work ethic and all of these things before we hire them. So pre-screening processes. Usually, sometimes it takes one to three months just to get through our hiring process, and then another one to three months inside RepStack Success Academy, where they're going through some of your courses, for example. So they're pre-trained on how to clean up a list, how to launch a, set up and launch a cold email outreach campaign, for example, which are some of the things that we just talked about, right? So, so these guys are spending time learning. Not only learning, but we're keeping an eye on them 'cause we're using programs like Time Doctor, and, we're doing one-on-one trainings. And if somebody is not going to be able to, we know now, who are the people who are gonna be able to work long term and connect with the teams. You know, once we've sorted out those things, and only then we are able to take these people in front of our clients, and which, you know, we're like in a very humble situation where usually we have a waiting list of, fifteen to thirty clients who are always constantly waiting to get an associate from us. So you know, in my agency days, it was always running after the clients. In this, particular business, it's, we're in a very, fortunate situation where we usually have a client waiting list, and we can't provide these people fast enough. And that's because, you know, we're, we're focusing on, getting the right people in with the right mindset, then taking them through these trainings, keeping a close eye on these people, and making sure that they have the leadership mindset and they have coachable personalities. 'Cause once they have these things, once they go onto a team like yours or any other digital marketing agency, they're going to have a great time culturally connecting, with those teams. And you know, like, if you can read my hoodie, it says, "Agency future leaders," and that's what we're really all about. Like, you know, these guys will come in as, in an entry-level role. But if we've done our job properly, Josh, these guys should be able to move up in the ranks, really fast. And we're seeing that all around us right now. We're only two years old right now. But, you know, ju-just an example, for example, we have a client, Lynn Askin, who's also a member of your agency. He started out with, Asma Khan, one of our account managers, as an assistant account manager. And, you know, over the last year and a half, almost two years now, she's been able to move up to, you know, not only managing all the account managers but also training the new account managers who are coming in. So, so now we're, we're seeing success stories across the board, because that's the type of the, person we wanna bring in. But also, the agency owner, on the other hand, is extremely important. If the… If we weren't not working with people like you, who can give these people the same level playing field, and that's our purpose, which is to level the playing field for digital marketing agency specialists based on merit. And usually what happens is that, you know, people are getting penalized because they're, outside of the US. In some cases, that's okay because, you know, obviously there's that pay difference and all of that stuff. But, you know, when somebody, for example, like, Henry Adams, who's your associate, who's over two years, you give him the same access to commissions as your local teams get. And that's a life turning, life-changing event for a person like Henry Adams because he's making that money sitting in Pakistan. He's making the same amount of commissions, – Big dollars. Big dollars… You know, and big dollars in Pakistan, right? So, so that's, that's com- that's completely changed, life for our people, and also, I think it's extremely fulfilling for the right clients, when, when these people go out there, and they're able to go in from an appointment setter, to a sales executive over the co-course of two-year period. You know, it's a humbling experience for us, to say the least.

Josh Nelson: Yeah. That, that's awesome. There's a couple things I wanna get into. A-one thing I'd love to have a conversation about is usually when people think about these types of, employees, they're usually… Or you think about international talent, most digital marketing agencies think typically the Philippines. You guys are in Pakistan. You've had great success in Pakistan. Can you talk a little bit about why, it's such a great place to recruit, hire, and run a virtual team?

Azhar Siddiqui: Yeah. I'd, I'd like to, you know, just start out with, giving example of myself and my brother, Athar. Yeah. You know, Athar… We, we both came to the US from Pakistan, getting similar type of education, like, you know, our early education was all done back home in Pakistan, so we knew the type of people we have there. And, you know, when we came over to the United States and I moved over to Canada, you know, we got the same level playing field over here, and we were able to go in and make, you know, the amount of money we were making in, you know… Athar worked for, JPMorgan and Chase up until last year. We're, you know, fortunate enough to, you know, scale back from that job as well, at, VP level. And, you know, and we're both making amount of money which is, you know, in the top ten percentile of the American and the Canadian populations. So when we come here with the same type of educations and when we get this level playing field, we're able to do these amazing things and make a good amount of living and things like that. So, you know, we– Athar a few years ago kinda came up with the idea that we should really do something with our people, and that's, that's how RepStack was born. So we knew that, you know, our people, the pe- the schools that we have, we feel that we have, in that particular area, Philippines, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan included, Sri Lanka in some cases, we feel that we have the cleanest accents over there. We feel that we have the best leadership mindset in that particular area. So, you know, those things combined together, that's why we kinda put together, the type of people that we place are usually in client-facing roles, like account managers. Like, usually, digital marketing agency owners won't think about placing account managers in a country like, Philippines because, you know, they're concerned about the language and things like that. But, you know, me and my brother can come out here and do these things ourselves in physically pre– being physically present in North America. We were confident that our people would be able to do it, and we have so many, test cases now where, you know, our director of, sales right now, Josh, she's closing twenty, thirty thousand dollar contracts on a daily basis sitting in Pakistan, you know, and nobody complains about her English. So, so, you know, so we knew this for a fact, but I think, Athar or Yawer might maybe have something to add to this point as well. No, I'll, I'll, I'll add something to that. The best part about this is, Josh, that, maybe our adaptability to the American accent is pretty, I mean, there. Otherwise, no offense to, of course, India, Philippines, Bangladesh. They have, they have great talent as well. The other thing that is good is that we are targeting the top five colleges in Pakistan. So all these people that you're having in this, group are top five people. Like, we have people from the top university of Pakistan as well. Then the s-second, there's the HR lady who's from the second, best university. Then there are lots of them who are from the third, fourth, fifth university. So, so these are– this is top talent from Pakistan. So I mean, if we're talking about leadership mindset, it's right there. They, they know that they're not gonna be… I mean, we had a roadshow yesterday and I was talking to all of them, based in Islamabad and Karachi, and I was just telling them that we thought that it was something of a data entry thing that we are starting. But it's not that. It's– it has become such hu-huge, talent pool that we… I mean, if– even if we want to, we might not be able to stop you guys now because you're up there, you're working with the top, agencies in, US. So these guys are crushing it. And, Azad gave a couple of examples. I have like twenty more examples with me right now. So which is just, like, heading the project team, people heading like six people team. So it's, it's going crazy. So it– I mean, this talent is something actually. Yeah. There's one last thing, and I think maybe one of the most important things I think that we hit, which, we didn't, you know, foresee, which was like sixty-five to seventy percent of our, you know, associates, they're all women, right? So we have this soft talent, you know, of women in Pakistan and, they're– they can– they wouldn't wanna be going to work at five PM or six PM and coming home at two, three AM. So they're working Eastern Shore hours. They're working, you know, our agency's hours, right? They're West Coast, some in Australia. So they can work from their home, you know, and, we were able to tap this talent pool. You know, that, you know, right now I have a team of, you know, four salespeople, leaders, basically. All ladies. You know, the women, they run the show. You know, I'm just part of their group. You know, I was actually making a video for them that thanks for being, you know, for me being part of the team. I've eight, you know, account manager, client success team. They're all ladies, you know. So we're lucky. That's something we tapped into, because, you know, we pro-provide work from home. The other part that we do, Ray, you know, we talk about all these soft skills and stuff, but we have boots on the ground, and we have a lot of infrastructure, you know, perspective. So anytime internet goes down, we have these devices on the ground. You know, we have these, tech, technical operations team that have– we have five panels of internet service providers. We know which area has the best internet. We have these internet checks. Something goes down, we have a backup and a backup of backup. You know, because, you know, the first concern that someone from sales perspective gives us is, you know, internet. That's our bread and butter. We– That's our kind of heartbeat. If that's not there, so we have, you know, kind of everything covered, and this is in two years, but we're still learning, right? And every time something happens, we keep improving. Because our associates, you know, the ones that we provide, I think they, you know, they've earned it, that we give them the support that they need because if any little things, you know, like something like internet in two thousand and twenty-two, that should not be a problem, and we made sure it is not. Love it. Yeah.

Josh Nelson: So lots of good reasons like why Pakistan, right? I mean, it's a, it's a really good people, really hard workers, and you guys are able to really kind of look at that top tier talent that in the United States would cost Potentially high, you know, six figures, you're able to get there and place them in, into your agency. So that's kind of why Pakistan. Let's have a little conversation around, you know, why use a service like RepStack when you think, "Hey, I wanna go get a– I wanna go hire an international team member," right? You've got a lot of options. Mm. You can go to Upwork, you can, you know, go find someone directly and hire them. You know, what's, what are some of the benefits from you guys' perspective, and I can talk to my perspective, on why go through a service like RepStack?

Azhar Siddiqui: Yeah. I think, I think the biggest thing, you know, we kinda have this sweet spot, Josh, and, you know, there are like, you know… We're doing around 100, 120 discovery calls with agency owners, and we're not able to qualify everyone. So we do give them some options where, you know, if somebody wants to hire part-time, for example, we only provide full-time people. You know, our people work in, you know, where there's, a scope of growth for that particular associate. 'Cause we wanna place these people as a true part of that particular agency's culture and a long-term team member. We don't wanna just come in and place for somebody for six months and things like that. We wanna take care of, our associates', experience as well. So when those situations arise, you know, we point people out to Upwork, we point people out to, onlinejobs.ph and things like that, where you can still go ahead and, find, quality talent. And then there's the other side of the spectrum, which is, you know, local markets, like and we recently did some research in specifically three markets: Tampa, Florida; we did some research in Austin, Texas; and we did some research in, Seattle, Washington. And we found that, you know, for the key roles that we're providing, you know, at RepStack, you know, our price point is around $14 an hour, which is, you know, like in the VA world, you know, it's unheard of, but we still have a waiting list on this price point, and we only do full-time people. And the reason is that, you know, we're really benchmarking with, local US markets right now. So, you know, when you take a look at our contract, which is around, you know, $26,000 a year, compared to Tampa, Austin, and Seattle, where you'd have to go out and hire a marketing assistant or an account manager, is around 70 grand. For example, $65,000 to $70,000. On top of that, there's, you know, the taxation, there's commissions you'll be paying on top of that. Our contract's coming in at $26,000, and we have, you know, proof of concept already where these guys are already doing amazing. Our entire client success team is based out of Pakistan, and they're managing amazing digital marketing agency clients and things like that sitting from there. And then these guys are doing an, amazing job for their clients when they go on board. So, so you know, so there's a huge difference. There's– when you compare us to local market hires, that's where you really– we want our clients to compare us. There's still a saving of, you know, 30, 40, sometimes even higher, grand a year, where, you know, you can have two to three people from us who are still going to be world-class. They're gonna be able to take care of your clients and these guys are really going to come in as a long-term, proper team fit for you guys. So these guys are gonna be part of your team's culture, and they're gonna be able to live and breathe your, organization's values. So, you know, that would be the biggest difference, Josh. Where, you know, we're in the middle on the price points, even still, you know, closer to the VA pricing. But, when it comes down to somebody that you're looking for example, if you go hire somebody from Upwork, you know, they might be working multiple contracts at the same time. You have no control over that. With RepStack, it's in their contracts that at one point, we're only giving out this person to only one client. They're not going to anywhere, to an-another agency. So there's no chance of them moonlighting or anything like that. We got those controls placed early on inside Pakistan so that, you know, these guys can go in and live and breathe, a particular digital marketing agency's culture. So I think that's the biggest differentiator. This person can come in and become a true team member and really connect with the rest of your team and, not only grow themselves but actually become a leader over the course of six months, one year, two years' time.

Josh Nelson: Mohsin- Yeah… I think you hit all the right points. In my mind, you know, using a service like RepStack versus just going to the internet, right? One of your biggest costs is gonna be a bad hire, right? You waste time hiring them, training them, putting them in place. You spend a lot of time and energy, and you could get somebody good or you could get somebody terrible. The beautiful part about using a service like you guys is you know that market. You know where the talent pool e-exists. You've got a waiting list of people that you can kinda put into certain roles within the company. I think that's powerful. I think having a managed layer, you know, as an agency with five, 10, 100, you know, team members, let's just say, trying to manage that yourself is one thing. But knowing you've got a service like RepStack that's helping to keep a pulse on your team member and make sure that they're being productive and that they're submitting their daily recaps, really makes a big difference in that they've got the right infrastructure to be productive. I think the third thing that's really underscored is the, the training that they get, right? The beautiful thing about, you know, what you guys do is you pre-train them in the functions that they're gonna need to do. Like, if it's a marketing assistant, they understand how HighLevel works and some of the other systems. They understand how to, like, pull together email lists and send emails, and they've got a network of other, assistants that work in other agencies that can help- Yeah… Solve problems. And so I think to me, like, yeah, you could maybe pay a little bit less and hire somebody off the open market, but, you know, you're, you're probably gonna wind up with somebody that's not productive, or going through RepStack, you're gonna get a very high success rate with a very productive person that is going to know what they're doing and can be trained, and really stay with you long term and have an immediate impact in your organization. Yeah.

Azhar Siddiqui: We, we invest early on quite a bit heavily, Josh. So these guys get full salaries from day one, even when they're going through our trainings and things like that. And, and the biggest reason is exactly what you said, right? That, we wanna make sure that, you know, the experience on both sides of the table for the associate and the agency owner is impeccable. The only way we can do that is by getting in right people. So, you know, just imagine, like I just told you the amount of time it takes for, in some cases, it's like four to six months before these associates, they join RepStack and they see a face of a client. So that's a lot of time and effort we're spending on making sure their work ethic is good to go, making sure their trainings are good to go, making sure they have their mindset. Not even just the, you know, trainings on, CRMs, like high level, and, you know, some of 7FA trainings, but we're also, giving them cultural trainings, Josh, where, you know, the cultural nuances. 'Cause me and Atul spent 20 years in North America. We understand, how things work over here, right? So bringing that side to the table and making sure that, you know, these guys' executive presence is up to mark. Because, you know, the worst thing is we know for a fact that these guys can deliver at the same quality, but what happens is that, you know, if your internet's shaky, if your lighting is not good, you know, if you're not dressed up properly, you know, things like that kinda, you know, is… My, my analogy recently has been that, you know, your entire team, at your particular agency is going to dinner with the boss and, you know, everybody gets to sit at the big boy chair, and you get to sit at the child's chair, right? But just because of these, your executive presence is not there. So, you know, we make sure that these things are… When, when our person joins your team, they're gonna be able to represent your agency, like, at, the quality that you expect. They're gonna be able to go out in front of your clients and really, with confidence, deliver what you want them to deliver, right? So, so we take care of all of these things so that you don't have to, our clients don't have to. And go ahead, Atul. Looks like you got, you got a point you wanna make there. Yeah. We don't stop there, right? This is all about until they come to you. So I think when you ask why RepStack, that's, that's, that is where my team starts, client success team. We don't throw over, you know, like s- like an associate and hope it sticks. From day one, you know, our associates are onboarded in the Slack, with us, account manager, client success with the clients. Anything that's happening communication, we're there. And if they need some questions, they need some guidance, as you said, we have 100 other associates doing the same thing. We have this network of, you know, making sure that they get the job done, and they understand the job. And if they need more training, we keep going. You know, we have a growth path. We wanna make sure our associates, we don't want them to stay at the same level. You know, we wanna make sure they have a growth path too, you know, as the agency's growing. So our client success team is, you know, the… I think what's the major, you know, the glue that, you know, once we have the associate placed, they keep it there. They are, you know, they're working day in, day out. We are having huddles weekly, you know, with one-on-one. They're making sure they understand. You know, if there's some communication with a client or something's missing, we're there, you know? So I think our client success team plays a quite big role there too. Yeah. Love it. Love it.

Josh Nelson: So if you're, if you're watching this or you're listening to it, and you're a digital marketing agency owner, and you're thinking, "Man, I need some additional support." Maybe it's in the, in the marketing and sales side, right? I'm not getting my consistent prospecting done. I'm not getting enough appointments. You know, RepStack can be a great fit. Or maybe you're on the other side where you're like, "You know what? I've got deal flow going, but I don't have enough support to serve the clients and make sure that they're seeing the reports and they understand the value." RepStack can help place really quality account management, you know, staff into your company that can plug right in and have an impact. Guys, this isn't a sales pitch for RepStack. We're gonna talk about other things. But like if they wanted to learn more about how to, how to use you guys' services, what would the next step be?

Azhar Siddiqui: That's, re- RepStack.co, I guess. Just go onto our website. Check us out, and book a discovery call. And you know, like, w- I think the biggest thing, when you guys come through our, process is going to be, Josh, that, you know, our sales team is going to really sit down with you and help you, really clear things up on what your next hire should be, you know? Lately, I've got this… You know, and this is one of the things that, you know, growing up, especially in the North American culture, you know, I've, I've had the opportunity to work at some corporate, corporations as well. And you know, we, we hear about, yeah, hire slow and fire fast, right? So, so though that's, you know, it's, it's fine and dandy maybe, you know, 10 years ago. However, I feel that, you know, especially some of us agency owners, and I'm a 14-year-old agency veteran myself, and I've made the same mistakes, you know. So, it's coming from my own ex- experiences that sometimes, you know, when we make the wrong decision of hiring a person maybe preemptively or somebody we shouldn't have hired, you know, we hire behind this saying that, hire slow and fire fast. And, you know, it creates a really bad experience for that person on the other side of the table who's letting it, let go because, you know, we didn't think through. So, you know, what I've been saying lately is that you should really be, hiring smart and firing based on culture and values. Mm. You know? And by… What I mean by hiring smart is that, you know, just make sure that you have some systems and processes in place for a new person who's going to be coming and joining your family. Like you did, Josh. Like, you know, you have three people, I think four people from us, and all of them are approaching two-year mark, with your agency. You know, it's, it's not,… You know, that's hiring smart. That's not, you know, hiring slow. You hired when you needed these people, and you had those processes in place. And when these people came in, they had a onboarding, they had a, you know, th- they had a a pathway to success. You know, once you have those type of systems in place, that's what I mean by hi-hiring smart. You know, by all means, hire people when you need them. But, you know… And I've made similar mistakes where, you know, when sometimes I think that I wanna grow my digital marketing agency, the first thought comes to us, "I'm gonna go out and hire a salesperson." No, you don't wanna hire a salesperson. Have you looked at your own marketing first? You– maybe you– first– the first hire you should be doing is a marketing assistant maybe, so that they can put together those key marketing campaigns, and then you bring in that sales development rep so that they can work on some, you know, pre-qualified sales deals and things like that. So, you know, so just let's, let's get away from some of these excuses and, you know, give other people a chance by having some of these systems in place. And then when you start bringing in people, you'll see that every person is going to bring in… You can actually– some of our people, you can go down to the dollar value that, you know, one of our people, which is costing around twenty-six thousand dollars, at least, at least adds two hundred to three hundred thousand dollars in annual revenue for our clients. And we've done the math here, right? So I'm not just pulling this out of my head. So, you know, by all means, come to our, website, repstack.co. What we'll do is that we'll give you clarity on your next hire, first of all, and then, well, you'll also walk away with a world-class job description, which you can actually take. Even if you don't hire from us, you can actually take it to onlinejobs.ph. You can actually post it on monster.com or, you know, some of the local, hiring platforms, and you can use that job description to hire your next superstar. So, you know, just go through that process. I think it'll be a eye-opener for sure.

Josh Nelson: Love it. So good. So we've learned a little bit on why Pakistan, we learned about why RepStack a little bit. Is it okay with you guys if we shift gears a little bit? You guys manage now hundreds and hundreds of teams. Give me a one in the comments if you'd like to get some best practices on managing a virtual team, right? And this can apply really well to international team, but it could apply to a US team as well. So if you guys had to give me, like, two or three really good tips on what it takes to manage a world-class virtual team, what would those be? Athar, you wanna take that?

Azhar Siddiqui: From the, from the client success perspective. So of course, we have all the softwares and everything in place, right? We do these random spot checks for the internet. We have Time Doctor, but the time they– the associate gets to the client, the Time Doctor should gonna be… It's just, you know, like a tick mark for us, you know? Because we wanna make sure that our clients are satisfied. But, the other part of the story is, I think, you know, that our client success managers, they work with the associates day in, day out. You know, sometimes if you go in those calls, they're working with them like, you know, with their pen in the air, and they're, like, trying to make sure that they understand everything, right? They wanna make sure that they… We don't ask them, "Okay, are you gonna be able to done this, do this deliverable?" Right? We ask, "Do you even know?" Right? Nobody knows everything. We are humans, right? That's why we have this constant learning curve. We're like… Okay, my slogan is, it's the peachy version of it, is like, "I don't know anything about everything," right? Nobody knows. So once you go in, we make sure that, you know, they… First, we ask, "Do you understand?" If they don't, then we place someone then who has already done it, right? Then we say, "Okay, this is done." And then we also, of course, want to train our clients that, as I said, you know, they should have systems and processes set. Something that you haven't done, don't– you cannot ask someone else to do, because there's no benchmark, right? We have to make sure, you set up, okay, this show and tell kind of something. So if you haven't closed five deals yourself, don't hire a sales person and say, "Make me rich," right? That's not gonna happen. We wanna make sure-… They have a path like your success. Like, you know, I think I'm gonna go back again, because the way you did it, you trained our associates internally first, and then you had a process. You had like, you know… It was just like, you know, yellow brick home– yellow brick road, like, you know. So that was, like, really good. That's what we wanna make sure, that our client success team is working with the client side, with the associate side, and we're like one team. You don't actually get… You know, we don't sell you nor, you know, we don't have the service of associates. We become partners with you, because the client success is as, you know, into your company and day in, day out with the associate, as is the associate. So, that's I think we take… You know, make sure we take the responsibility of the deliverable that's going to the client. And I think one of the work- What I would like to add here is, Josh, we've worked really hard on the culture. Yeah. We really, put a foot on that because when we started, we didn't know much about what– how, you know, maybe in a remote environment, remote com- company, how would you know, put up culture? So culture is something that we've really focused on. I mean, it's open door policy. Everyone's available to everybody, and, everybody's like a family. I mean, to me, everybody's family. We were together for four days, last four days, and it was such an amazing feeling, like people coming up to us and, you know, they were– they want to tell their stories. They want to tell how successful they're being. So, which is, which is amazing. I mean, it's a, it's a humbling, experience and, I mean, it's– I think it has been the backbone of our company, the culture of, you know, promoting others and giving them the opportunity to per-perform at the world-class stage. And we made this decision early on, Josh, that, you know, we were going to stay 100% virtual. A lot of options are available where, you know, people kind of bring people together inside one office, like in Philippines and, you know, even in Pakistan and things like that. But for us to get access, to the right type of talent, number one, and, also, like, you know, let people,… Kind of put them in a leadership role, right? Like, you know, we trust them that they can work from their own homes and things like that. So we had to kinda,… And then just because of this, we had to have a lot of, processes in place, like for their internets and things like that and their work-home work environments. Like Athar and Yawar are sitting at our home office in Pakistan right now and, you know, we spent some time and effort in getting that, office up and running. And we expect similar, peaceful work environments for our associates. And, you know, so having that as a part of our culture was really important. And then- Also, we do cer- certain things inside internally, like, you know, using Karma Connects. You know, K- Karma is an app that you can get on Slack where, you know, you can give out points to people who are helping each other out and things like that. So, we made… You know, that really helped us out. We do our virtual coffee breaks every two weeks, where everybody in the company is invited to a virtual coffee break. And, you know, we have this hour-long coffee break where people get to do talent shows and, you know, everybody gets to have fun, things like that. So, in virtual environments… And we have this, thing called our employee satisfaction s- score as well, Josh. We've, been able to implement that for the last one year. And one of the things that people constantly talk about is that, you know, they wanna feel connected, and especially in this virtual environment. That was a great question because, you know, now you're- you're based out of Tampa or Seattle or, you know, Austin, and you have this team based out of Pakistan or Philippines. How do you connect with them? You know, my suggestion is, you know, make them leaders and, make them a part of your, team's culture. You know, make them involved, in the things that you guys are doing, like you do, Josh. You know, you give your people same access to not only commissions, but I see when, you know, your people are on vacation, your team in Miami are commenting on their social media posts and, "How is the vacation in Turkey going?" and things like that, right? So, so that's, that's what it is. Like, these people are also, just like us. Give them the same level playing field and let them shine. You'll see that these guys will actually go above and beyond and, you know, w- and what they'd be able to do for you. So, you know, it is a bit of a challenge in the work environment, but I think, we have proved, at RepStack that, you know, given the right type of environment, r- opportunities to connect regularly, talk to people, culturally connect, these guys will outshine any team, any base anywhere in the world.

Josh Nelson: I love it. I think you guys mentioned a lot of stuff, but it sounds like really the main things are the tools, the training, and the community, right? You gotta give them the right tools. They have to have high-speed internet, a decent computer. You gotta make sure they've got the right, you know, e- environment to shine. Training, you gotta train them up so they know exactly what their job is and how to do their job, and the accountability structure to actually plug in and get it done. And then what I think a lot of us miss, hiring virtual teams, is community, right? Yeah. Just because they live somewhere across the world and they happen to be working from home doesn't mean they don't wanna be part of your community. Like, treat them like they're- Mm-hmm… A full member of your team. Bring them onto your weekly team meetings, and make sure that they- Yeah… Can connect with other team members outside of their, like, their little Zoom communication. I think some great shares- Yeah… And some great insights there, guys. I really appreciate it. Thanks, Josh. Okay. So, we've talked about why Pakistan. We've talked about why you guys. We've shared some cool insights on kinda managing a virtual team. I'd love to know, like, now that you guys are working with hundreds of digital marketing agencies, like, what are the hires that most agencies need right away that you guys are placing? And is there an order that you're seeing most agencies hire and place these roles with you guys?

Azhar Siddiqui: Yeah. So, it really depends on, the journey that they're at. So you know, in terms of revenue, if they're below $50,000, Josh, usually what we recommend and where they have most success is, starting out with marketing assistants who can… You know, and then, and also another thing that we've consciously done, Josh, is that we've stayed away from hires, on the fulfillment side. 'Cause there's a lot of, companies, amazing talent out there. You know, Chris Martinez. There's so many people who are doing great work on, fulfillment side. So, we thought that, you know, this is something that we wanna intentionally stay away from. But having said that, the first hire, usually for your own agency, if you don't have that in place, which is, you know, if you don't have your core marketing campaigns up and running, if you don't have your, social media presence, if you don't have your podcast up and running right now, if you don't have a, email list, a cold email outreach campaign running, and you don't have your niche identified, you know, you should really be focusing on your own marketing first. You know, we'd… As agency owners, we do a great job for, our clients, but when it comes down to our own marketing, it's usually nonexistent, right? So, so that's where you should be starting. If you're early on in your journey, if you're sub, $50,000, start out with some of the campaigns that Josh talks about. You know, get the omnipresence going to getting a podcast up and running. Get- launch some kinda email marketing campaign so that you can kinda lukewarm your prospects. And once and only once you have these campaigns set up, now your next hire should be a sales development rep who can now come in, and they can start dialing some of these people. And it's not cold call. Like, we like, you know, as soon as somebody comes up to us and says that, "Hey, I wanna hire a sales development person," they tell us that they don't have any marketing, campaign set up, we're like, "Thank you, but, you know, this is what we recommend." Right? So, in a lot of cases, we're able to convince them that this is where you should be starting out at. So you know, that's the point when you wanna hire a sales development rep, so that these people can come in, and they can call these, somewhat of pre-qualified, people. And as your marketing continues to grow, your sales team is going to just… Our s- inside RepStack, Josh, our sales department was the last department that we really fully hired for. For the most part of the last two years, we operated with one or two people. Right now, we're up to five or six. But, you know, we didn't really need a sales team just because we had our marketing really dialed in. So, start with your marketing assistants. Build out solid marketing plan for your agency, and then, you know, you can go into the sales processes. Hiring an appointment setter for your closer is usually where you wanna start out on the sales side. And, – Because this person is going to be keeping your sales closers' calendars full. So, you know, without this person, you know, your, closer is not gonna be able to succeed. So once you have these key roles filled out, I think you're going to be on a trajectory, to be, you know, g- getting to seven figures and beyond $50,000, $60,000. You're getting to 20, 30 clients, on retainers. This is a time where you wanna start looking at account managers, which are, you know, in agencies like ours, account managers, have a huge role to play because, you know, we work so hard to bring in these customers, and we want somebody to really take care of this, amazing, revenue streams that we've built out. And, you know, and like you say all the time, and I repeat it, that, you know, clients usually leave because of perceived indifference. And, you know, if you're still doing, the account manager role as agency owner, I can promise you that there's gonna be a ball or two that are going to get dropped, if not now, as you continue to grow, they will. So bring– start thinking about bringing in account managers who live and breathe, retaining clients for you on a daily basis. They'll be able to do a lot better job than us, and they'll be able to, take your retention, numbers through the roof. So those are the three roles. And then as you're approaching the seven-figure mark, Josh, I kinda started out this thing about a year ago where I hired an executive assistant for myself and, it's been a life-changer for me. I haven't checked my emails for the last year. I haven't done any of my scheduling, and, I haven't done… You know, I'm extremely active on social media, but I don't do any of my posts at all. So everything is taken care of by my executive assistant, and she's also at the same level as any of our other hires. So, you know, I think those are the four roles. Start out with your marketing assistants, get your marketing straight, then you start slowly building your, sales team, starting with a sales development rep, which is really an appointment setter. And then as your revenues are growing, start looking at building out your account managers and account management team. And then the final hire to help you as the agency owner should be your executive assistant, who's gonna make sure that, you know, the only the most important things happen, on your calendar on a day-to-day basis.

Josh Nelson: Love it. I think you just explained that so well, right? You know, it's the exact logical progression that we suggest that I think works best, right? You're gonna need those extra hands at different places in the evolution of the business. And the best part is, you know, if you're curious and you're not sure like, "Oh, who should I hire next?" That's the first thing RepStack does with you. They spend some time to figure out where you're at right now, what are the bottlenecks. Based on that, here's where we should start. And they can put the right person with the right skills that can hit the ground running for you. So guys, amazing work explaining that. Again, if they wanna learn more about your services, what's the best place to go? RepStack.co. Easy enough.

Azhar Siddiqui: And if you're in one of these- RepStack.co/7fa. Yeah. Seven- 7fa, we have a special link for 7fa members, for sure. So if you're a 7fa member, you're working with Josh Nelson, we have some, something special for you for sure. So, you know, check out, RepStack.co/7fa, and, you'll be in for a surprise.

Josh Nelson: Awesome stuff. Well, I think we covered a lot of really good ground here. Congratulations on building a multiple seven-figure agency in about two years, developing what I think is the very best, virtual assistant service specifically for digital marketing agencies. And kudos on doing such an amazing job serving our members, right? I mean, you guys have become an integral part of what we do at 7 Figure Agency because we've got the training, and sometimes if you don't get those extra pair of hands to do the work, you don't get the outcomes. And you guys have just been such a great resource to plug our members into, where they've got the training, they've got somebody that understands it, they can help them actually execute. I think that's a really a big reason we're celebrating so many of our members going to seven figures and multiple seven figures and beyond. So, you know, thanks on that front as well, and kudos for the great work you guys have done. Anything else you wanna add or share kind of as we come to the conclusion of today's, today's episode?

Azhar Siddiqui: No. I think, I think, it's, you know, it's, it's been a great journey. One thing that, you know, I'll, I'd like to share a personal success where, you know, when we see some of your members who are also our clients, you know, they get up on stage on your intensives. You know, one of our clients, was up there, who has, three people from us. And, you know, we've seen that journey that, you know, they come inside 7fa, they start doing great, and then they start adding some of our people. And, you know, before you know it, within matter of, months, these guys are, you know, it's, it's just c- coming together and these guys are just crossing that seven-figure marks and things like that. It just becomes such a, personal– personally, it just becomes a such a humbling experience for me to kinda see these people. And then, you know, we're on more– at most of your, events, in Miami in person, and meeting all of these people when we're in the room and things like that, it's just become something that we enjoy and we genuinely like to do. And, and then the other aspect of this, Josh, is, the people, the impact that, you know, the agency owners that– who are these, these people are working for, they're having such an amazing… These are, you know, over 200 people, but not just people, they're 200 families that they're having impact on. So, you know, we're– it's, it's feels like it's, you know, this group of people, which is a small amount of people- But the impact goes way beyond. And in a part like Pakistan, where we come from a conservative society, 60% of our, e-employees are, females. And, not just on the ground level, but also on the leadership side. We're seeing, you know, out of our six directors, four are females, just inside RepStack. And, you know, so all of those things combined, it's just been an amazing journey. Would not have started without, you playing a pivotal role, Josh. So, you know, thanks to you and, thanks to 7-Figure Agency and, you know, we're 7FA people for life for sure.

Josh Nelson: Love it. More money, more freedom, and a bigger impact. If you had one last piece of wisdom to leave with that digital marketing agency that's listening right now and just thinking, you know, "What, like, what do I need to do to get to the next level?" Like, what would be that last piece of wisdom? And I'll, I'll let you guys have the last word here.

Azhar Siddiqui: Well, I think I'll, I'll go really quickly. For me, I think I'll go against the 7-Figure Agency mantra. It's like, you know, getting your time back. Nobody gets into work to work more, right? So if you're growing, you know, the main thing is to get the time back. And then you… If you're working, you know, 80 hours a week, you know, you can be multimillionaire or multi-billionaire, you know, that doesn't count. So what we give you is give, you know, getting your time back. Don't go to your mom's house to have, you know, just your favorite dish. Go to your mom's house, cook your favorite dish with her and eat it. That's, you know, that's the kind of, time we're giving back to our clients, you know? And that's the kind of freedom and the leaders that it's running. Like as I said, six, you know, of our directors, they're s- they're running the show. Our job is now even just to go and see if they need our help. That's, that's the kind of leadership roles that we're also providing to our clients. Love it. And one last thing on my side, Jo- Josh, is that, you know, if you're still on the fence on, getting a coaching service, I would highly recommend that because, you know, all our breakthroughs came when we became members of 7FA. You know, it was a, you know… When, when I first came in, you know, it was a big investment for me at that time, but, you know, over the last two and a half years, all the breakthroughs that we've had are because we joined a program, your program in, specifically, and we were able to get those breakthroughs. So, you know, and then, you know, on our side we have, we actually have, you know, we do a lot of number crunching and things like that. We find that we have better retention when our clients are, members of 7FA or, you know, a particular coaching group because they already have infrastructures in place. They have the trainings in place and things like that. They just find the right people to, execute it. If it's a agency owner who's not a member of a coaching program like 7FA, then it becomes a little bit harder to kinda, you know, change their mindset and things like that. So, so you know, like, for sure invest in a coaching program. Josh's is hands down the best one. Highly recommend. It's changed our lives, so you know, for sure, for sure go for 7FA. Thank you so much, guys.

Josh Nelson: Well, I think this has been awesome. Again, congratulations on your growth and success. If you're listening to this and you're still like, "You know what? I need some extra help. Maybe I should, I should talk to these guys at RepStack to get some support," go to repstack.co/7FA with the numeral 7FA. You can schedule in, like… You'll see these guys are very low pressure, right? They'll meet you where you're at. They'll help you decide who you need to hire. Sounds like they'll even give you the job description and then kinda- Yeah… Give you all the raw materials, which is gonna be a valuable meeting in of itself. And if you decide you wanna use their people, which I highly recommend, they'll, they'll plug you in with a really talented person that can hit the ground running for you.

Azhar Siddiqui: This has been a pleasure, Josh. Pleasure talking to your community. This is amazing.

Josh Nelson: Awesome, guys. Thanks so much. Keep crushing it, and we'll talk to you guys later.

Azhar Siddiqui: Thanks a lot, guys. Take care, guys. Bye-bye.