He Picked the Wrong Niche First. That Was Not the End of It.

Full transcript of Josh Nelson’s interview with Sean McMeen. Lightly edited for readability.

Josh Nelson: All right. Hello and welcome. So excited to have you with us today. We're gonna be interviewing Sean McMeen from Vinnie Mac Marketing. This is part of the Seven Figure Agency podcast, where we're, interviewing highly successful digital marketing agencies from across the country, and I am so pumped to have Sean with us today. So Sean, thank you so much for joining us.

Sean McMeen: Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Josh Nelson: So if, if I recall correctly, you kind of over the last twelve, fifteen months or so have made the leap from that like fifteen to twenty thousand dollar mark to o- over forty thousand in monthly recurring, with your, with your agency.

Sean McMeen: Yes, that's right. Yeah. Back in,… I, I believe I joined, Seven Figure Agency in September twenty nineteen, and I was about fifteen right then. Okay. So, and this is the second month now that we're gonna be over forty.

Josh Nelson: Boom. That's amazing, man. Congratulations.

Sean McMeen: It feels, it feels great.

Josh Nelson: So if you're in that place in your agency and you're like, "Man, I, you know, I need to get out of this struggle phase to, you know, to the scale phase," this interview's gonna be great for you. So Sean, to kick things off, just kind of give us an overview of, you know, your agency and kind of the services you provide.

Sean McMeen: Yeah. So we focus on restoration contractors and, the restoration contractor space is water, mold, fire, disinfecting services and, you know, we also have legacy clients as well. We… In the medical space, so medical spas and chiropractors, a- and a few little, still little local, mom and pops that we help out as well. But the vast majority of our business now is in the contractor space. And so what we do for them is we basically provide a comprehensive package from PPC to SEO to website to social media, and it's about building the brand of their company and not just selling them leads. In the restoration space, it's highly high com- highly competitive, and my whole thing is like, you wanna build a company, you don't wanna just go lead by lead by lead, right? You wanna build a brand, and that's, that's what we really focus on for our restoration clients.

Josh Nelson: Nice. Nice. So, so how long have you been in the agency game? Like just, you know, in general doing websites, SEO, social media, kind of what's your transition period?

Sean McMeen: Yeah. So, I, I should start off with saying when I was younger, probably ten, eleven, I,… That would… Commodore 64 was around. I don't know if you've ever heard of that or not, but my dad, taught me how to program. I had a Commodore 64. Right. He taught me how to program, when I was in like third grade. So, that's, that's when I first got into computers and things like that, and I was never really a hardware guy, and I liked the visual side of it. And so like in high school when FrontPage came out, it was like around ninety-six, ninety-seven, I was like, "Wow, this is awesome. You can just, you know, plug and play things in here. You can do s- little coding, a little customization." And then, when I went to college, I started my first business in college and, developed a couple websites, s- one that was kinda like match.com and then a local directory, joined a chamber and like interacting with businesses and stuff like that. And that was my first dip into the actual like business to business relationship and things like that. And so, after I graduated and got my master's degree and everything, I kinda took some time off, grew my family, and at the time I got a corporate job, a company called Thomson Reuters that sells financial software. Hmm. And I was in that, working fifteen years in that space and did technical sales, had a team. And around,… During that time, I did a lot of white label fulfillment for agencies, so I knew the operational side. I knew how to get results. I just didn't… Because I had a full-time job, I didn't have the, time to meet with clients, you know. And so, you know, I had the experience and then around two thousand and sixteen, my boss, basically we had another downsizing, in the corporate world. And so that's when I went to my wife and I was like, "You know, now is the time for me to volunteer and go." I was already making over half my salary on the side in freelancing, and so I was like, "You know, I wanna be able to control my own destiny going in the for- going f- in the future," you know. So I wasn't at risk at that time of losing my job, but it's only a matter of time in the corporate space. So, that's when, that's when I decided to go off on my own in two thousand and sixteen. And, luckily, I had a severance package that helped. My wife is in the military, so we had TRICARE for insurance.

Josh Nelson: You know, that's the big- Mm. That's the big difficult thing when you have a family.

Sean McMeen: – Yeah… I always weighed that risk/reward, and so I didn't wanna risk my family's, you know, security. And so when the time presented it, you know, I haven't looked back since, so…

Josh Nelson: So, so kinda you saw the writing on the wall. You're like, "You know, I've got this little passive income that's coming in from my freelance work. If I focus on this full time, I could, I could build it up." Yeah.

Sean McMeen: I mean, that's- Okay… That's, that's how it was. You know, I have a huge operational background, so…

Josh Nelson: And that's a good and bad thing when you're starting your agency, right?

Sean McMeen: Yeah. So, and, the operational side still to this day is still it- I'm in it, and I'm trying to get, dig myself out of it, right? So that I can be above it and actually grow the agency versus, doing the, the work in the agency.

Josh Nelson: Yeah. So it like, it makes a lot of sense where you talk about the good and the bad. The good is you know exactly how to do the work, you know exactly how to deliver the results, and that's good. The bad is you wind up doing it yourself or feeling like you have to have your hand in almost every little thing that's going on for your clients, and that's one of the struggles you've had is like, "Oh, I'm still doing some of the work," which doesn't let you focus on growing and building the business, right?

Sean McMeen: Yeah. And this year with COVID and everything, that gave me a chance to look back. When COVID first started, we really doubled down with our clients just because we did… I mean, there was so much unknown with it going, right? And so we were focused on making sure we produ- all of our clients get As much results, restructure, helping restructure their business and everything. But it also allowed me to really sit back and look and see where am I struggling personally the most, right? And it was the being in the operational side. And so we've, we've, grown our team by three people, over the last six months, so, to help with that.

Josh Nelson: Nice. And so how has that impacted you being able to afford to do a team, but also having a team with the extra hands?

Sean McMeen: I couldn't do it without my team. My team is awesome. Abby, who's my op-opera-operations manager/project manager, she is, she's, she's right there in with with me. I mean, I couldn't do it without her. I've got, I've got a team of, let's see, five now. So operations person, slash project manager. I have a content writer, dedicated c-content writer for our SEO results and things. And then, I have a marketing assistant. I have an account manager, and also, we just hired a dedicated SEO person.

Josh Nelson: Nice. So a good team to get the work done to execute for the clients. That way you're not physically doing it yourself. Do you feel like that team is kind of… You've got enough people now that you could scale to, you know, fifty, sixty, seventy without having to add a lot of additional, you know, team members?

Sean McMeen: Yeah. So the next hire I'm making, and I'm doing interviews right now, is on the PPC side. Mm. With that hire, I've interviewed tons of people for it, and that's kind of where my background comes from and I've spent a lot of energy in that, dialing it in for our clients. W- in the water damage space and contractor pla- space in general, you know how this is, it's very competitive, and it can get very expensive. And the last thing I wanna do is have mistakes for our clients, right? And so, I spent a lot of time documenting that and, making sure we refine that process so that way when we hire somebody in, they're gonna be able to start, you know, a-and understand what we do. Because we do extremely customized campaigns. We don't just throw up one campaign and say, "Okay, water damage, and it's gonna cover all this area." You know, it's, it's very complex and, it's, it's, it's hard to let it go, let's put it that way. But that's, I know without doing that I'm not gonna be able to, scale past much more where we are. Just, there's just not enough time.

Josh Nelson: Yeah. Awesome. All right. So let's, let's kind of shift back for a minute here. So you were at fifteen thousand. What were the, well, I guess, what were the things you needed to solve for in order to break from, you know, that fifteen thousand to the twenty-five, thirty-five, forty thousand dollar range? Just talk a l- about some of the things you knew you needed to solve for at that point and that helped you kind of get through that barrier.

Sean McMeen: Well, I think the biggest thing for me was, because I had the operational background, was getting out of the head that trying to do everything yourself, you know? I think that's the big struggle for a lot of entrepreneurs and a lot of business owners themselves because it's their baby. It's their, it's their company, right? And it represents them. And so, for me it was adding team members that are good, a good fit and giving them the tools to be successful and, not trying to second guess and ho- and micromanage them. Give them the tools to be successful. They're gonna make mistakes. They're not gonna, they're not going to do exactly like you do it, right? Yep. And if you're, if you're lucky, they're gonna do it better, right? And so that, I've been fortunate enough to have a team that is… You never wanna be the smartest person in the room, let's put it that way. You wanna surround yourself with people that are very knowledgeable and that can help you grow along the way. So that's, that's one of the big keys for me, was getting some people in to help and then giving them tools. And then secondly was outreach. So, our basic big success w- is the case study testimonial, Facebook ads. And that's, that's how we've been able to grow, over the, over the last year or so, w- from a restoration side. And it's totally different from switching from a local agency where you can meet people face to face to actually somebody that's across the country, right? And then when you do meet with them, how do you show them the value that you can bring them and, turn that in from a webinar situation into a, a relationship? And it's all about building relationship. If they trust you, they're willing to d- they're gonna do business with you.

Josh Nelson: Yeah. So it sounds like, you know, freeing yourself from the day-to-day operations, I definitely wanna talk about that. Putting a system in place to get clients outside your local area, 'cause it sounds like the first fifteen thousand or so in monthly recurring came from your local market, right? Yeah. Anybody that was a general type client could raise their hand and kinda hire your services. Yes. Okay. And then what I, the other thing I wanna talk a little bit about is kind of the struggle of choosing the niche, 'cause I know for you kinda landed on one and then you had to, you were like, "I don't know if this is the right one," and you changed, which a lot of agencies struggle with. So let's, let's start there. – Okay… How did you, like, so tell us about your process on finding a niche and then, you know, how you do, you know, ultimately landed on damage restoration.

Sean McMeen: Yeah. So, so like I said before, we have a l- had a lot of clients from either medical spas to realtors to contractors, and we're generating tremendous results for them. I, our retention rate is extremely high and because I, I think that is because of the personal relationship and the relationship building. But, the way, I started with focusing on medical spas because we were just killing it for one of my local companies with, Facebook advertising for CoolSculpting, Botox. And then when High Level came out, like that just really made us explode. And we're still doing that for them. We still do get great results for them, and w-we know that market very well. But for me, I've had always a background in, remodeling and construction and things like that. So in college, not only was I starting like a internet business, but I also flipped like four houses in college and- Mm… You know, and remodeled. And, and my house I live in now, I basically rebuilt it from the ground up. So, I have that contractor background in me and- As a DIYer, I'm not necessarily a contractor, but, I love and enjoy doing that. And so, we had a client in that space, producing tremendous results for them, got some case studies from that, and, ended up deciding to flip from medical spa focus to restoration contractors. And I remember having that call with you, and I was like, "You know, I'm torn between this. I put so much work into this." And you said to me, "Do what feels more comfortable to you. Do what feels right in your gut." Right? And, and that's what I did. That's, you know, it's been well over a year just strictly, restoration contractors now. And, we've had restoration clients for over five years, but just adding, from the seven-figure agency side, adding on restoration clients, and that's our, that's our niche that we're, we're all into right now.

Josh Nelson: That's awesome, man. So I wanna talk about that selection process. I think, you know, that that's something everybody needs to, needs to kind of think about, and sometimes you do have to pivot. Sometimes it's just not a right fit, the niche that you thought was gonna be the right fit. But before that, I just wanna hear, like, how has being in the restoration niche or being in one niche specifically impacted your ability to grow and scale? Like, do you feel like that is part of the reason you've had the accelerated growth that you've had?

Sean McMeen: Yeah, absolutely. Because, you know, at the end of the day, when you deal with local businesses and li- businesses all over the place, you have… If you do it right, you have to learn about them, not only th- them, the business owner, but the actual business that they run and the customers that they serve, right? And if you don't do that, then you're not gonna provide an excellent service. And so constantly relearning every single type of industry is just it's, it's not good for you, it's not good for your team, and, there's just no efficiency there at all. And so when you actually s- focus in on a specific niche, understand their concerns, their pain points, their fears, you know, what drives them, then you can address those on those sales calls, have a meaningful conversation with them, and then show them how you can get them from A to B, right? And so, that's, that's kind of, you know, from an… Focusing on a one niche or, you know, some agencies they have two niches, and we kind of do too. You know, it's, it allows you to scale, you know? And, and so then you create repeatable processes for your team so they can do their work, and they don't have to be waiting on you all the time to tell them what to do.

Josh Nelson: Yeah. Yeah, no doubt. Like, good, good feedback there. As it, as it relates to how you chose the niche, I think you did the right thing. You looked at your past experience, you looked at the clients you had success with. You kinda narrowed in on med spas. You were crushing it for a client there. You had a proven model. And then you looked at damage restoration, similar, and it was just kinda which one do you like better? Which one do you have kind of a foot in the door with? Which one do you feel like is gonna be the better long-term fit? And you just stayed the course inside of, restoration. I know it was a to- a tough decision, but it sounds like it was the right decision- It was…

Sean McMeen: In retrospect. It was. And part of that decision was actually talking to those clients too. So I've talked to both of them. When I was starting in the med spa res- the medical spa space, I actually had a conversation, said, "You know, hey, this is what I'm looking to do. What's your thoughts? Like, how can I connect with people?" And so when you have a client that you're producing results with, that they're gonna open up with you and make connections. Same thing happened with the restoration space is, gave me a great testimonial. We use that to generate leads to this day. And, you know, just having that personal relationship when to fall back and ask them questions is huge. Yeah.

Josh Nelson: Powerful, powerful insight there, guys. I think that's the place to start. If you have some past clients, start there, right? If you don't, start with your sphere of influence. Think about the people you know, people you've done business with, and don't s- you know, like start selling right out of the gates. Have a meeting with them. Talk to them about what you're thinking about doing. See what they think. See if they have anybody they can introduce yourself to. Right. Early in your agency, I think that's one of the fastest ways to gain momentum.

Sean McMeen: Yeah. Especially when you're first starting out is you wanna be helpful. Like, y- y- you wanna be helpful, and you wanna show that you can provide them value without trying to sell them. Nobody wants to be sold. Nobody likes to go buy a new car because they don't wanna be sold, right? And so, if you can be helpful and show them value, then that's… You're gonna get trust. And at the end of the day, if somebody trusts you, like I said before, they're gonna do business with you.

Josh Nelson: Yeah. Great. So we've had the kind of the niche conversation. I think a number of really good, useful insights there. Thank you for sharing. Now, as it relates to getting the clients in that space, you know, you went from 15 to 40. Like, you said the case study funnel has been working well for you. Let's talk about where you're getting the clients from or at least where the first seedling clients, outside of the initial client, where did the first ones come from and where are they coming from now?

Sean McMeen: Yeah. So like many agencies, I've tried a million different things. Tried, you know, cold emailing, cold calling. Oh my God, pulled my hair out on that. Like, I can't do that. You know, we tried mailers. We've tried PPC. We've tried Facebook ads. And by far the best results that we get is testimonial case studies using Facebook, to dial into your, your specific niche, right? And so, that's, that's been the biggest driver for us is getting them th- showing a testimonial case study, getting them on a Zoom session, and actually, you know, s- very similar process as what you use as far as showing them, doing an audit for them real quick, showing them results that we get for our clients, showing them the system, the dashboard system that we use for call tracking, and, you know, learning more about their business and listening to their problems, their concerns. And they're gonna tell you, if you dig deep enough during that initial phase of it, they're gonna tell you why they won't do business with you right then and there, right? If you ask the right probing questions. And if so, you can– If you can get an- solve the, answer those questions or solve those problems right then and there's, at the end of the call, there's, you know, there's very few reasons why they should say no.

Josh Nelson: Yeah. I, I love that. I mean, and I think that's… There's, there's a lot of ways to grow your agency and your niche agency. One of my favorites is get a client in your, in your vertical, generate an amazing result, document that result, shoot a video of yourself explaining, "Hey, here's what we did. Here's the result they got. Here's how many leads they're getting." and then ideally, a Zoom interview, like we're doing right now, with that client. Yeah. Ask some questions, ask about their experience, about… Ask about why they chose you, ask about the results. Now, you can go to that vertical, not with, "Hey, you wanna hire me?" But you can go to that vertical and show a proven example of what you've done, and they've just gotta decide do they want a similar result for themselves. And so, you know, that- that's awesome. Did you get any clients through the cold outreach, the networking, and a l- a lot of the hustle- Yes… Efforts? I- or was it pretty much the Facebook ads is what worked for you in your, in your business?

Sean McMeen: I actually got,… I tried the cold email template, I think Jeff and that's, that's in the training. Mm-hmm. And I actually signed one client through that. So- Okay… It went out to around 2,000 people. I had several, strategy sessions with people. For me, I, I know how hard it is to get results for restoration clients because it's such a competitive niche. Similar to lawyers, so competitive, lots of money for advertising that goes in that space. And so I do not discount my services. I, I, I won't do that because, I know what it takes to results. I'm not going to discount our services 'cause I know the value that we can bring. And so we could have added additional clients and been less profitable than what we are right now. But for me, I just didn't think that, you know, it was worth it just to add clients to add clients, you know? Especially if they didn't have the money right then, it just… The money issue, it, it's alwa- if it's an issue at the beginning, it's always gonna be an issue some- sometime down the road, no matter what results you're gonna get for them.

Josh Nelson: Yeah. Smart, smart move, right? You know, the client that nickels and dimes you at the beginning is gonna nickel and dime you for- forever. And you already had a case study client, so you didn't even have to negotiate. Like, you could say, "Look, I've already got this client this result. I have a proven model." I think it's okay to maybe negotiate with the first client in a vertical if you don't have anything, just to cut your teeth and prove the viability of what you're bringing to the table. After that, stick to your guns, right? Yeah, definitely. So I think, I think that's a great place for you to s- if you could, just kind of explain how you package your service and kind of what the price points are, just so we understand kind of what you're, what you're selling to that space.

Sean McMeen: Yeah. So it all starts with a website. We make sure that their website is… Most of the time we rebuild the entire thing. You know, and that's not only just about branding, but also conversion factors, right? We wanna make sure that it's mobile friendly, it loads fast, it… That, at the end of the day, when emergency happens, and that's what our space is, they need to be able to contact them quickly and easily. And so it all starts with a website. At the same time, we implement our PPC campaigns. And so, the PPC campaigns, you know, depending on where they're located, you know, if it's in a big metropolitan area, it can be a very complex campaign because we dial it in by location and then by specific keyword. So SCAG campaigns. Once we get the PPC going and the website launched, we also do, SEO plan f- for GMB optimizations. We do, social media posts for local branding and, you know, th- that's pretty much our main comprehensive package. We all, we use high level f- to encompass all that and for our tracking and analytics for call tracking. Because at the end of the day, if you can show the value you're bringing in for calls, then it's, it's gonna prove… It's gonna show them,… Let's put it this way. If you say, "Okay, I got you 30 calls this month," and the, and client says, "Well, who were those people and what was it for?" Right? If you can relate a call to a name, to value and job type, if you can do all of that, there's no questions. There's no questions around it, right? Mm-hmm. We, we can't control if they close the deal, but we can control that we get… Send them qualified calls for services that they offer.

Josh Nelson: Yep. Powerful. So, so it sounds like website, SEO, pay per click, marketing automation, lead follow-up type stuff. What is a monthly average fee for that?

Sean McMeen: Yeah. So the… That package is $2,500 per month. It does not include ad spend and a $1,500 setup fee. We do not waive setup fees either. We've, we've tried to package it and present it as, okay, it's, it's $4,000 for the first month and then $2,500 for the next month. I've had better results breaking it out- Mm… And basically explaining the setup fee is that. To, to speed up the process and get your new website dialed in, and get things rolling and, you know, most of the time, you know, I'm… I close one out of five calls. So- Nice… That's, that's been what I've been lately, so.

Josh Nelson: Fantastic. So thanks for breaking down the kind of the program. How many, how many variations of that, like if somebody wants to just do a custom website or if they just wanna, you know, just do like SEO with you, how do you handle those situations?

Sean McMeen: So we have a PPC only package as well, and so that's $1,200 per month, with a, with a $1,000 setup fee actually on that because of… We can reduce that one down a little bit, depending on their market. You know, if it's a smaller market, it won't be as much work to get everything dialed in. But we… That's the d- that's the one downside we have. Outside of that, I don't have any other packages. So it's, "This is the program that's gonna work. This is what we believe you need. You take it if it's a fit. If not, no hard feelings, you know, best of luck. I wish you luck elsewhere." And, and yep, and then we put them in our, cold follow-up sequence and, you know, at the end of the… I've had a couple clients that Said no on the initial call, continued to get communication from us, and then signed up later.

Josh Nelson: So- Love it. So you just kinda nurture them until they're ready.

Sean McMeen: Yep. You know, and at the end of the day, results speak volume, right? If you can, if you can go show results, get the, get the client results, document that, and present it to people that are looking for the same results, then, you know, that's, that's speaks volumes right there.

Josh Nelson: Hundred percent. Now, if I recall correctly, earlier in the agency, you weren't niche-focused, and you were kind of a la carte, like somebody could buy a website, or they could buy whatever they needed. How has kind of packaging it and having like, "This is our core thing that we're gonna sell," simplified your operations and, you know, do you feel like that's helped in the growth and scale in your agency?

Sean McMeen: It definitely has because everybody, you know, on my team knows what they need to do when a client comes on board. You know, at, out of the, at the… Once the client signs, pays the first month set-up fee and everything, we have an onboarding call with them. Usually, that's 40 minutes or so, where we just dive deep into everything. We have an onboarding checklist that we go through. And once we get all that information, my team members know what to do, right? They know websites first. We get the PPC dialed in, Google Maps optimization. And, and so we've got everything set up in ClickUp, from a template that we can clone over for each individual one of our clients, and we just go through that list as a team and make sure everything gets rocking. You know, the important thing is to produce results fast, so we do make sure within the first seven days they have their PPC results up and running. If they don't have Google Local Services, we help them get that done. And so it's, it's important to get that phone ringing as quickly as possible.

Josh Nelson: Hundred percent. And you just shared a writer-downer if you, like, if you're listening and you didn't hear that, you need to generate quick wins, right? They just signed up for 2,500 bucks a month. Yes, you're gonna do a website. Yes, you're gonna do SEO. Yes, you're gonna do a lot of things behind the scenes. But as quickly as feasibly possible, you need them to get a call, a web submission, a lead, something where they're like, "Okay," they can see the return, maybe not entire return, but they can see some types of wins that are gonna keep them excited about the journey and the process. Yeah. So I think that was a, that was a great, a great tip.

Sean McMeen: Here's a perfect example. So now we've got our website process dialed in so much that it used to take us 30, 40 days maybe to revamp a website, and that's with location pages and all that, with our branding and everything. A-and we just launched… We signed a client, two weeks ago and already launched the website. So, once you get that process dialed in, it's just a matter of making sure that, you know, everything is set up in their branding and follow the process. Simplify. Simplify to multiply, right?

Josh Nelson: Yep. Good stuff. A couple questions here I wanna, I wanna address 'cause I think this is, this is, this is great stuff. Tyler wanted to confirm, how much is the inclusive package?

Sean McMeen: 2,500 bucks a month.

Josh Nelson: Right, Sean? You said with the $1,500 setup fee. Correct. Okay. And then, do you offer the website as part of that package? We do. Ricardo wanted to know.

Sean McMeen: We do. With the six-month minimum, we do. So he's, he's launching the website, he's creating the content, he's doing the SEO. That's all part of the strategy to help generate the best result possible for that particular client. It… I always tell clients it's, it, you know, a lot of times they're like, "Well, I just want leads." And, that's, that's one strategy. In the water space, in the, in the restoration space, there's a lot of insurance companies, and there's a lot of pay-per-lead services. I tell them to keep them. Keep them, right? You wanna have as many poles and hooks in the water, right, as possible. But you also wanna build a company. If, if you, if you're looking to build a brand and a company in your local area, like I'm your guy. I'm gonna help you with that. If you're looking for just a pay-per-lead thing, there's plenty of other companies out there, home advisors, that can help you with that, and they work good. They work good. But it's only, it's only gonna get you so far.

Josh Nelson: Yeah, no doubt. Ke- yeah, ab-absolutely love that. Kenneth wants to know what the, what the minimum PPC budget is that you're telling the client.

Sean McMeen: It depends on the population and the market space and the competitors, right? So, you know, if it's a smaller location, you might be able to get by with $1,500 per month. In a lot of our bigger markets, you're looking at 4,000 to $10,000 per month, depending on the results you wanna get. The thing that a lot of restoration contractors struggle with is there's tons and tons of competition, and there's tons of, like franchises and things like that, and they have these huge marketing budgets, right? So they'll take a loss on one service to se- upsell on another. And, the other thing in the restoration space is the job size is getting smaller, right? So insurance companies are beating down the cost of it. You know, I had one client tell me that they were, the insurance came and get, were gonna give him $30 to install a dishwasher and hook up the water line. He says, "I can't even pay a licensed plumber to hook up a water line for that." And, and so, you know, that's what they struggle with, is so much competition and the value of the leads have dropped. So, we try to make it as much as cost-effective for them to get leads and increase their branding, so that way they don't have to rely on paid ads all the time. They look up the company name too.

Josh Nelson: Yeah, 100%. And it's an important question. Like you need to know what that minimum viable spend is for your vertical and for the market that that client's in. Yeah. And it's usually more than the client probably perceives on the front end. I think also im- and important a-as it relates to your price point, as it relates to, you know, the types of services you provide, how large are the companies you tend to work with? Are they startup restoration companies? Are they bigger restoration companies? Like what's your ideal customer that you tend to work best with?

Sean McMeen: We do not have any startup companies. I find that, you know, they need to be doing at least $500,000 a year in revenue to, and have a team in place, to be able to have a sustainable… It, it can't be just a side hustle type thing. Because, you know, last thing I wanna do is, you know, bring on a client and three months down the lay- down the way they can't They can't pay for the services, they can't pay for the ads to drive the leads and everything like that. So, if they're, if they haven't been around very long, usually w- it's not a good fit for us. It's, it… I'll put them in my, sequence, and I've said no be- I've said no before and given them tools so that they can do, get themselves in a better position to succeed. A-and that's, that's kind of the way I approach it.

Josh Nelson: Yeah. Good, good feedback there. Let's see. Megan's asking, "Can you please go over how these testimonials on Facebook and that case study piece works?" there's a training in the members' area called the Case Study Builder. I don't know if that's exactly what Sean's doing, but the concept of you take your client, you document the result, you record a video of it, you run ads targeting your list, or your ideal prospects on Facebook, and, you know, like they opt in for to watch that case study, and it takes them straight to the calendar, right? So there's a training that walks you step by step through that in the, in the members' area. Can you… A-any gaps that you wanna fill in on kind of that and how it works for you?

Sean McMeen: Yeah. We're in the process of revamping our ads because they kinda got played out a little bit. So, if you go to my Facebook page, you're not gonna see anything right now. We just redid our landing page as well. For us is w- we do a very informal, not polished, testimonial video from the client. And basically, it… There will be a little f- few breaks in that interview type thing. We ask them where they, where they started before, where they were at before they started working with us. We ask them, you know, what kind of results they're getting now, since working with us, and we ask them if they'd recommend us to someone else, right? So o-one of my better case studies was a new client we brought on. Within, within 30 days, they were, they're f- they had 30 jobs, and they had to hire another crew. They had to go out and spend $60,000 on new equipment.

Josh Nelson: – That's huge in damage restoration. Yeah. Like i-it's a no, it's a no-brainer when you see that video. It's like, "Okay, how did they get those results for that client," right? And some of the- So it's like a juicy teaser video on Facebook- Yeah… That brings them to a page to watch the rest of it, and then it's like an application or a schedule right there.

Sean McMeen: Correct. Yep. Love it. Yeah.

Josh Nelson: Hopefully that helps. So like th-this strategy works really well. And you have to- Yes. You know, the key is you have to have a client win, and you have to knock it out of the park for them in the vertical, and then you gotta take the time to document it and get the client to speak to the, you know, to the impact.

Sean McMeen: Yes. Definitely. Definitely. You know, if it, if… You know, i-it's, it gives you a lot of social proof and it, and it also,… You know, you can say, you can say it works to your green and… I mean, you can say it works all day, but if your clients are actually saying it's working, then it speaks volumes.

Josh Nelson: 100%. Brandon, great to have you with us, Brandon. Brandon's asking: What do you recommend for the Facebook ad budget to generate leads for an agency?

Sean McMeen: Yeah. So what I did was I actually, I customized my audience and, I was spending, $75 per day actually on ads, before I paused them about a week ago, to revamp the videos, landing pages, and things like that. About $75 a day is what we were spending, and on average each week, I'd probably have five to six strategy sessions with that. And then we would, we would sign, you know, o-one in six, one in five, something like that.

Josh Nelson: That's great. Great, great insights there. So like 75 bucks a day should be generating appointments, right? If you're spending 75 bucks a day and you're not getting nibbles and you're not getting people scheduled in your calendar, there's either something off with the targeting or there's something off with the case study or there's something off with your funnel, right? But, you know, that's super powerful.

Sean McMeen: Yeah. And you can do it for less. It just depends on your niche and how you're setting up your custom audiences. I'd definitely take a look at the training because it goes in depth on how to set all that up. There's, you know, there's a number of people in the group that have, that offer that service as well. I haven't used them personally, but, you know, with the operational background, again, I get pulled into- You're like, "I know how to do it. I'll do it." Yeah.

Josh Nelson: "And I wanna know how to do it," right?

Sean McMeen: Right. I need to get out of that mindset sometimes and so, you know, that's where I'm headed. But, yeah, it w- it definitely works.

Josh Nelson: That's, that's great. So let's see. How long is the teaser video that you run on Facebook or the one that you were running before you're updating all of this?

Sean McMeen: So I had two. I had one that was, that was about 45, 50 seconds, something like that, and then I had one that was three minutes. The three-minute one actually produced the best results.

Josh Nelson: – So a little three-minute, not too long, not too short, enough to be like, "Wait, this sounds pretty interesting." Yeah.

Sean McMeen: So when they get to the, to the page where they can watch the rest and schedule in, they're pretty, they're pretty warmed up. A-and here's the, here's the, here's the tip I have is like if you try to, at least in my experience, if you try to polish something up and make your logo and sat- music and all that stuff like that, those for me, they haven't produced as good of results. But if you tell the client to take this little phone and take a video of them and, let them talk, that's the, that's where I get the best results.

Josh Nelson: Yeah. And it's very counterintuitive, right? Most of us wanna have a super polished professional, perfect lighting, perfect sound, you know, production, but on Facebook that's not that impressive. You know, you'd rather see the authentic kind of broken video. And you know, Sean, that's, that's your tested result, right? Right. That's what actually bore results for you better. Yeah. And you've got some really nice polished videos. I've seen them. They look really great with the lower thirds and the music coming in. Yep. Very good insight there. The thing that I would do also is make sure you have captions on there and it's actually saying what they're saying too because a lot of people on their phone don't, they don't turn on the volume, right? They're on… Who knows what they're doing, right? And so, – Sitting on the toilet, right? You don't wanna be crass, but let's face it And they're like, "Ugh, I'm not gonna play this out loud right now." But if the- Yeah… If the caption is down there, they'll read it, right? And they'll get sucked into it.

Sean McMeen: Yep, definitely. Definitely.

Josh Nelson: Good stuff, man. Good stuff. So lots of great questions here, and I definitely wanna address many of these. Yes, we– If the seven-figure agency coaching and mentorship program, we have a number of trainings like this to kinda break this stuff down with examples and things. So that's what we're referring to there. Alpha Team, how do you entice clients to give you the video testimonial? Like, how did you get that client to say, "Yes, I'll do it for you"?

Sean McMeen: Produce results for them, they will. Yeah. Yeah. The… So, – People tend to like it when you knock it out of the park for them and you generate 30 jobs. Like, they're gonna be pretty happy and pretty willing to do what you want. If you, if you crap the bed, you don't, you don't deliver the goods, you're gon- you couldn't pay them enough to do anything like that for you, right? Yep, yep. If… And, and I mean, at the end of the day, they… You gotta produce results. You can s- promise and say everything, but if you don't produce results, it's, you know, it's all for naught. So, for me, it was… One of them was done via Zoom, and the other one, the guy just took it on his cell phone. You know, and I have a couple other ones too that are a little, just very unpolished testimonials. So, you know, just make sure y- it all starts with a relationship. I can't tell you that, express that enough. If whether you have account manager or you're the, you're the person that goes to, if you can build that rapport with them and they feel like you're ge- you're, they're getting something of value from you, they're gonna open up to you and tell the, tell you their problems. They're gonna do whatever they can for you as well because they're running a small business just like you are.

Josh Nelson: Yeah. Great, great insights here. So decided on the niche, simplified the service offering, put a strategy in place to get five plus strategy sessions per month, started landing clients and kinda growing the agency quickly. The, the big thing that you started with, which is probably the biggest struggle, is now how do we make sure you're not personally doing all of the work? And this is where the team came into place. Let's just talk a little bit about that evolution, how you mentally bought into, "Okay, I've gotta hire some people," and then who do we hire first and how do we hire those people and how do we train them? Let's just talk a little bit about that now.

Sean McMeen: Yeah. I mean, again, the, the biggest struggle for me is, is letting go of things. I… It's, it's, it's my company, it's my baby. I wanna produce tremendous results for our clients. But, you know, if you can… I think, I think Jeff is the per- best– If you struggle with that, Jeff is the best person for you to talk to because, you know, he kinda breaks it down like, you know, are you, are you a person that… Like, what do you make per hour? If you, if you were to pay yourself, what do you make per hour? Like, are you getting paid 15, $20 an hour? Are you at the $100 range or whatever? What's your time worth, right? And so, if you look at it at that standpoint, you know, would you rather pay somebody to do a job for $20 or would you rather yourself make $20 versus making what you should be making, which is growing the business, you know? So if you look at it in that standpoint, I don't know if I explained it very well, but- Perfect… That's, that's kinda how I looked at it is and I still struggle with it. I'm not trying to paint a pony, a rosy picture here because, it's ingrained in me. The operational side is just ingrained in me. And at… I want results for our clients. And so, I still struggle with it, but if you have processes documented and you have a good project management system like ClickUp or Teamwork or whatever works for you, it makes your life so much easier. I can't tell you how much easier it is since I've added two, three team members where things just get done, and then I'm like, "That's not…" I mean, how good that feels that they just get done and you don't have to, you know, check up on it, you know? So I still find myself like, "Hey, did I get done? Yeah, it got done two days ago," or whatever, you know? So, it's, it… I can't tell you, like, if you can just, look at it that way as far as like whether you pay somebody versus your time, because we only have so much time, and that's kind of what it boiled down to me. With four kids, I have four kids, wife, and I did, I coached my son in baseball for since he was nine years old or eight years old, and now he's going on to high school, my time is limited, right? And so, my family is number one priority, and if I'm spending 60, 70 hours a week trying to fulfill things, it doesn't matter how much money I'm making, right? I have no time to spend with the people that I love and care about. So, that's what is, has driven me to, really put a team in place and give them the tools to be successful.

Josh Nelson: I love it. So, like, what was the first position that you realized, "Okay, I gotta get this type of p- person in place"? Like, what was that first person and how much revenue were you generating before you were like, "Okay, I know now I can afford to make that investment"?

Sean McMeen: I've had a couple interns even, over the last couple… S- well, since I started my agency in 2016 off on my own from freelancing. I've had a few interns in between there, that did 20 to 30 hours a week. And so they would do basic website stuff, and WordPress makes it so much easier. We s- we use Elementor for everything and,… And so those were the two. I had interns before, but the main hire for me was the operations project manager piece, and that took so much m- off of my plate. And you've got to find somebody that's, that's a doer, like somebody that just gets stuff done, right? For me, I'm a multitasker, and I have 30 windows open. I'm dibbling in a lot of different things, right? That's not an operational Project manager type role. You want somebody that can– has a job to do, gets it done, right? Moves on to the next one. Doesn't mean they're not juggling multiple things, but you want somebody that gets things done. And, you know, if you, if you're– I just saw somebody comment, "That's me," you know, I got thirty tabs open, right? I'm, I'm dabbling in a lot of things. That's just my mind works constantly, right? And so if you can find somebody that gets things done for you, that is a game changer. It's a game changer. And, that was the biggest hire for me. Abby's my team, my, operations person, project manager. She, she's exceptional. I couldn't do it without her. And then I have other great team members that fill in, around her. So, yeah.

Josh Nelson: That's awesome. So I think that usually the first thing you wanna take yourself out of is operations, right? The day-to-day fulfillment of the work for the clients. And so you had, you had like freelancers, but there's something difference between, you know, having freelancers that you have to direct and having a project manager, an operations director, whatever you wanna call them, that now takes over responsibility for operations. And while you still know what's going on and you still have a pulse on it, they're responsible for making sure when the client comes in, this, this, this and that gets done. And if you've got a system, like you said, like Teamwork or ClickUp, and you've got all of the steps documented, you can confidently feel like, okay, this person has the right profile to go out and do this work and make sure that it all gets executed. You can focus on positioning, running those Facebook ads, selling the new clients, and know that you're, you're, you're still gonna generate great results for the client base, right?

Sean McMeen: Yeah. For, for me, it was, you know, I was like, I always knew I needed to document everything. And then I'm sure a lot of people, even on this call or, or they'll listen to this and be like, "Yeah, I know I need to do it. I just don't have the time to do it," right? Because I'm too busy doing it. So Loom was a huge thing for me. If I do a task more than once, Jeff's a big proponent of this, video it, right? Yeah. Video it and, then whoever on your team is gonna be doing that, let them write up the task, right? And let them write up the template, whether it's a Google Doc, ClickUp, Teamwork, whatever. And so the more and more I've been able to do that, the more and more I've been able to take off my plate. And so I mean, that's, that's key right there. Powerful. Yeah. Su-super powerful.

Josh Nelson: So how did you find your project manager? You know, did you… Was it Up-Upwork or some other platform? Like, how do you find somebody like that?

Sean McMeen: Yeah. So I actually found them from, Express Scripts, which is a temp service. I, it was kind of random. I– they had reached out to me, "Are you looking for a marketing person?" And, just so happens, they had somebody, and so she started with thirty hours a week. And, you basically with that type of service, you just call them and say, "Hey, I need somebody that has these skills," and they'll try to find you somebody, right? So you pay a little bit of premium there for that. But they pay them, they do all the payroll and everything like that. And then after X number of hours, then they become on your payroll. And so just, I mean, if I could clone Abby, ten times, like I'd be set, right?

Josh Nelson: You'd be off to the races, right?

Sean McMeen: Right. And that's so that's how, that's how I found, her. But, the intern, I have a friend that's in the university here, that's in town here, and she's my mar– my intern is my marketing assistant. She, she came from a recommendation, and then, my content writer came from the staffing service as well. She, she, graduated from university in, a career or a degree in journalism. So, perfect fit there. And then, my account manager was from my operational, she a referral from my operations person. So, you know, and my SEO person I just hired, I actually hired off of Upwork. And, Jeff helped me out with that process and wasn't, you know, I've had everybody in-house before, but this person is over in the Philippines, and she's outstanding. I've had her… She's been on, been on board for three weeks now, and game changer big time. So, you know, I've kind of tried a lot of different ways and, you know, so far I've kind of lucked into it and g- found good people and, you know, if you can treat your people right and have a good team in place, you know, it makes your life a lot easier.

Josh Nelson: I love it. So Kenneth had thirty tabs open, but he was wanting to make sure he didn't miss out. Well, how much, approximately how much recurring revenue did you have when you made that investment in that operations manager? Probably around twenty. Okay. Yeah. I think that's when we got ours. We were probably like seventeen in monthly recurring, and then that's when you're like, you've got enough money coming in that you can say, "I could take a little bit of a financial hit to create a lot more, you know, potential revenue, or I can just keep all this myself and be completely bottlenecked." Yeah. So I think that's a, that's a wise spot, somewhere between like, you know, seventeen and twenty-five thousand a month in recurring, invest in a resource to help take over the operations load so you can do, you can do other things.

Sean McMeen: That's a great question. A lot of questions that come up in the group I know a lot is like, do you hire in-house or do you outs– you know, find somebody in Upwork? Do you, do white label services? For me, it's just all about what you feel comfortable with. Since I have a bit of a more operational background, like I felt more comfortable training them to, you know, to be successful and put them in the right spot and then, go from there. The SEO side, like, I'm, I'm okay in SEO. You know, I've g- in the past generated tons of results for my clients, but, I need somebody that had more knowledge where I didn't have to handhold them as much to get them to be up to speed, and that's where I found this person on Upwork, had them do a test project. Had them do two te-test projects as fixed cost projects, for our agency first before I had them do it for the client. And, she knocked it out of the park and, you know, hopefully it's a long-term relationship with that person. So next hire is a PPC person, and then that's, if I can get that, you know, it's gonna take a lot off my plate.

Josh Nelson: Yeah. That, that's awesome. Yeah, I mean, a-and so great stuff, Sean. Guys, if you're getting value, you're watching this on Facebook or you're, here with us live, put a yes in the comments or a Y if you're like, "This has been great stuff, Sean's u-unpacking how he went from fifteen to forty, the pivots that he made." If you're watching on Facebook, give us a like and a comment. Engagement is appreciated. And if you're watching this after the fact, be sure to tag Sean and thank him. He's got such a generous spirit to here to like just share exactly what's working for him and exactly how he's grown and kinda what he's focused on next. So we've got about a couple minutes left, so if you have specific questions for Sean… And thank you guys for the feedback and the comments in here. If you have specific questions, put them in the comments. Wanna talk a little bit about retention. So now we've got, I don't know how many. We've got clients, they're paying us a monthly fee, twenty-five hundred bucks a month. What, what things are you putting in place in order to, you know, to retain those clients and keep them with you month after month? Sounds like you've got a very high retention rate.

Sean McMeen: Yeah. So I think the high retention rate is a testament to, number one, results. If you're not getting results, you gotta y-you gotta make changes to get the results, right? And, and number two, you have to have that relationship. P- in the past, it's always been I've had that personal one-on-one relationship, and it just can't– I can't keep that going. And it doesn't mean I'm gonna go away and, and be gone, but, you know, as a business owner, I have to let go of some of that. And so I hired an account manager, she's been on board for about three months now. And so she's now regularly providing value to the clients. And when she introduced herself, she wasn't like, "Okay, I'm replacing Sean," or, "I'm your go-to person." We're slowly introducing her as the go-to point. And the point of that, I think when you did your last intensive with the account manager, training, right?

Josh Nelson: What was it? Mm-hmm.

Sean McMeen: Yeah. So- The, the account manager advantage. Right. Right. So, I was in the process of hiring somebody, and that training actually helped out with that. So I, you know, she's just providing value to them. And at some point they're gonna realize that, you know, "Hey, Jennifer's she's helping me out big time, right? I'm gonna ask her questions." And that way they don't have to c- go to me all the time. You know, so th- you know, I have to… She has a degree in, psychology, so she knows how to speak to people and, relate to people and have a, you know, a conversation, whether she texts with them, right? So, that's been, that's been great, you know. And so, for me, the retention side is just really produce results, share those results with them. Don't overload them with, "Oh, I did this for you on SEO side." At the end of the day, depending on your niche, all they wanna do is the phone to ring or sales to come in. And if you can show them value from, if it's, if you're tracking calls or leads or whatever to… And, and just don't show them a number, show them actual real data, clients, services, value of those services, you know, your retention rate's gonna be much better than if you just say, "Yeah, it sent you fifty calls." What does that mean?

Josh Nelson: Right. I love it. So- I love it. So just, you know, kinda focusing on the relationship side, taking yourself out of it, right? Because at a certain point, you can't retain the clients and do the work and focus on the business. So you made a wise decision to get that account manager in place to manage that relationship, so they don't, they don't sense perceived indifference, right? Get them amazing results, provide an amazing experience, and the clients will stay for the most part. Not always, but for the most part.

Sean McMeen: You, there's, you know, there's, there's one thing. I had my first cancel in a long time, not too long ago, and that was after you had asked me to talk about retention in the seven-figure agency thing. I was like, "Josh, you jinxed me there." but ultimately it was a thing that was out of my control, you know? And so, as a business owner, you, it's hard to… Sometimes you take it personal, right? And there's, there's only so much that you can carry from a baggage standpoint. If you look back and you say, "Okay, I did these things that I promised that I would do," and if they're not happy, there's some things you just can't control, whether it's money, their attitude, their decisions, their business. You can't control that, right? And so if you can somehow disconnect the personal feelings from the business side of it, you know, it's, it's easier to swallow. It doesn't mean you don't learn from it and, you know, kind of, you know, grow from it. You know, it's, it's, it's just one of those things, you know, you just gotta move on from, 'cause you're gonna have people cancel.

Josh Nelson: Yeah. A powerful insight there. Like, don't take it too personal, right? Pay attention, but don't let it, let it happen where it brings you all the way down to the ground 'cause it's, there's gonna be natural churn in any business, right? So- Yep… You know, live with it and kinda move on. A couple great questions here. First of all, Ron says he's a long-term, friend of yours and- Hey, Ron. How's it going, buddy?…

Sean McMeen: You guys worked together and, – Yep…

Josh Nelson: He's happy to see you crushing it. So that's cool. So Brent, Don wants to know in high level how you actually show the results than just the calls that have been generated.

Sean McMeen: Yeah. So there's a training that, in one of the, monthly, let's see, it was a operations training that, that I did. It wasn't the, reactivation campaign, but there's another training that w- I break down and show you how we do that. But at the end… Really what it involves is we have, my account manager, this is her responsibility. She actually goes into each one of our clients and will spot listen to phone calls and make sure we're generating results from those calls, make sure we're getting qualified leads, and actually put name, a name to that, that call or that opportunity. So whenever a call comes in, we have triggers set up that will create an opportunity. The, obviously, the call is recorded. We tag a name to it and a job type to it. So then at the end of the month, we can send them a fancy little screenshot that says, "Okay, we sent you… This was the total number of calls you had come in. Lots of spam stuff that happens all the time, but these are the qualified calls you had come in, and this is what we estimate your value to be of those calls if you close them," right? And then we try to provide them resources and training on, you know, how to answer the phone correctly and, you know Kind of, in a corporate world when I worked with Ron, I did, I had a team and I did call coaching. So, we would have to sit there and listen to our calls and learn from our calls how to speak to people and things like that. So we provided some training on that to our clients as well. So Yeah.

Josh Nelson: So I'll make sure if that's not already converted to a module, I'll convert that. I think that would be a great one to convert to a module, how to track your client ROI in high level. 'Cause yeah, you broke that down really, really nicely, in a step-by-step fashion. Sometimes it's just realizing it can be done, right? It's okay, I can see how that, the fact that it can be done makes you feel like, okay, I gotta roll up my sleeves a little bit and figure out how to make this work. I think the bottom line is it takes work, right? You can't just think the client is gonna magically go into high level and update their pipelines and put an exact dollar amount because they won't. So Sean invests the time from his own team to listen to those calls, rate those calls, and kind of track the outcomes, right?

Sean McMeen: Yeah, definitely. I mean, it does definitely take time. But I c- i-if you can– if there ever becomes a question, from a client, I don't feel like there's, I got work this month, right? Or, I didn't get any qualified calls. Well, if you have a name associated to a job type, you can say, "This is the calls that we sent you," right? Not to say, you know, "Hey, client, you're wrong," but just to back it up, right? You have the call recordings, you have the names associated with them, and, you know, the estimated value associated with it, right? You can't control if they're gonna close that deal though, you know? But you can have conversations with them and help them understand that, you know, maybe a team member that's answering the phone isn't answering the phone the way they should be, or they answered the phone and they say, "Hello?" You know? Like, that's not how you should be answering the phone, right? So the call recordings is huge. High level helped us change our business and simplify our business. You know, Sean and Rob and those guys over there, do a tremendous job. The software is continuing to evolve and we love it. There's some things that I would l-like to add in there and he, and Sean knows that about some call stuff, whatever. But, you know, at the end of the day, it's such a game changer and I know you're high on high level and everything. It just simplifies your life, so much easier than what we used to have to do with multiple systems.

Josh Nelson: Great stuff. Well, and this has been awesome, man. Congratulations on your growth and your success. Thank you for all the specific, you know, insights and actions. Members, what an honor to have Sean as one of our mentors on the team that, you know, shows up for the skill sessions and helps people and answers questions and helps figure out, you know, helps you figure out how to do this stuff. It's like s- Vincent, Vince Stott is asking if you can get together for lunch 'cause I think he really liked what you shared.

Sean McMeen: – Yeah, definitely. Hit, hit me up on, Facebook. I'll be– I'm actually visiting a client in Pompano Beach on Monday, so next week.

Josh Nelson: Cool. So I guess in closing, you know, if you were to have one last nugget of wisdom for that digital marketing agency that's struggling and trying to get to the next level, what would you say? And we'll, and we'll wrap up on that.

Sean McMeen: For me, it's about accountability. The reason why I joined Seven Figure Agency is to be able to network with people, be able to learn from people that, have gone through what I'm going through. In the agency space, it's, it's a, you know, when you're a local agency, you feel like you're kind of in a, in your own little bubble. You don't wanna talk to the agency down the street 'cause you're competing for the same customers. And, for me, it's, it's just about being around people that are gonna help lift you up, right? And if you can associate your-yourself around those people, you know, it's gonna drive you to want to do better. You know, I have a,… I told myself once I reached forty thousand MMR, monthly recurring revenue, the, I was gonna put a pool in the backyard of our, of our, of our house. And I had that picture up on, up on my wall up here, and we're putting it in next spring.

Josh Nelson: So- Dude, that's awesome, man. Love it…

Sean McMeen: And that was, you know, on my, on my sheet here, that was on, from the last, I think it was from the first intensive, first or second. That was- The reward for the reward for hitting the goal… That's my reward. That was my reward. You know, and so for me, it's, it's all relates back to family. And if I can provide for my family, keep my family in my house, and support my family, that's, you know, that's the most important to me. And being a part of the Seven Figure Agency has allowed me to do that. Being around yourself, Josh, and the, and the tremendous other agencies in the group have just, I mean, it's lifted me up and driven me to wanna do better, to support my family.

Josh Nelson: That's awesome, man. I appreciate you saying that, and thank you so much for coming on. Thank you so much for sharing. If you have follow-up questions, we can move this into the, into the Facebook group. Feel free to, you know, tag Sean in the questions. Make sure that you reach out and thank him for sharing, right? Too often we just take, right? We sit on these sessions and we learn, and we get good ideas. Be sure to share some appreciation with Sean for what he's given you and kinda what he's, what he's shared on today's session. So- Sounds good… That's it for now. Thank you. Thanks again, man. And, we'll see you guys in the Facebook group, and we'll, we'll continue the conversation there. I'll see you next week.

Sean McMeen: Yes. Looking forward to it.

Josh Nelson: All right. Bye. Bye, guys.

Transcript of Sean McMeen’s testimonial video.

Yeah, my name is Sean McMeen. I'm the founder of Vinny Mac Restoration Marketing. We help water damage restoration companies, uh, get more phone calls online. So I've been part of a Seven Figure Agency for over five years now. Uh, when I started, I was a generalist, and I helped a lot of other agencies with fulfillment, or actually, I helped a lot of general companies around me, right? And so, uh, we started, we were about 15K per month, and, uh, we've continually grown from there. Right now, we're at 110K, uh, and continue growing, uh, pretty rapidly, uh, in 2024 now.

Before Seven Figure Agency, uh, every single client that we brought on, it was very difficult because you had to relearn what they were doing, who their clients were, and, and how you could actually help them the best way. One of the great things about Seven Figure Agency, it gives you a blueprint to follow so that you can, you can scale your company so that you as the owner can step out of the day-to-day operations and focus on things that you enjoy doing and that you love. And ultimately, it gives you a blueprint to follow, and I think that's what a lot of us want as, as agency owners is to understand what levers they need to push in order to get us to reach our goals that we're looking for.

My agency has changed so much since working in the Seven Figure Agency. Not only have I been a member within the agency, but I've been a mentor, a coach, um, and it's been, uh, life-changing, honestly. Uh, I don't know where we would be. I probably wouldn't have the agency if I didn't, wasn't able to find this group and find Josh's training and, and being able to, uh, connect and network with, with the entire community. So life-changing is the, the simplest way I can look at it. Um, it's provided more for my family, um, more for my team, my employees, um, and we've also been able to do better for our clients because of what we've learned here.

One of the things when I was smaller as an agency, I felt like I was wearing twenty different hats, and it was difficult for me to say, "Okay, I need to hire somebody," because maybe I think I can do it better, right? Ultimately, when we get to a certain level, we need to be able to hire people to help us do things and then create processes, and they're gonna do better than what you actually did once you, once you, uh, dial in that process. Uh, so hiring is really critical in scaling, and Seven Figure Agency really gives you a blueprint to fo- to follow and to, to, uh, to expand upon and make it your own.

So impacting my personal life, uh, more freedom, more resources, uh, is the biggest thing. For instance, uh, because of the growth that we've had in, uh, in our agency, I was able to pay myself more and actually was able to build a pool, uh, for my family so that my four kids have a place to hang out. I know where they're at, and, uh, it was, it's been one of the best things. We've had that for, for about three years now, and so every summer, I know exactly where my kids are at.

They're hanging out with me at my house. I see my agency in the next to six to twelve months, uh, we've gone through a tremendous amount of growth, and that's because of some of the coaching that I've gotten myself within the group on being able to get out of my shell and be in the right room with the right people, so going to, uh, conferences, building franchise relationships. And my agency over the last three to four months has, uh, increased by about twenty-five percent, so we, we added t-twenty new clients in October of 2024 alone.

And over the next, uh, six months, we're gonna be at Titan status, which is gonna be multiple seven figures. The most valuable thing about being part of Seven Figure Agency is that you're part of a community, and you have an amazing group of people that you can lean on when things are good, when things are difficult, and when you need, uh, to run things by somebody else. Before that, I had an agency. I was local, right? And you can't talk to the other agency down the street because you're competing for the same generalist clients, right?

The, the amazing thing about this group is there's multiple agencies in the same niche that I have, and we're all communicating. We're networking and building each other up so that we can, uh, provide, uh, better results for our clients and, uh, provide more, uh, uh, resources for our team and our community. So the network within this group is amazing, and that's the one thing that I, I love the most about coming to these intensives and, and being a part of this community. You should join Seven Figure Agency because it is literally life-changing.

You will s- you will join a group of people that are open and honest and just generally good people, and they will help you understand, uh, what sort of things you need to help, what things you need to accomplish in order to get to that next level of your goal. Whether your goal is to not be seven figures or, or, um, it i- go past seven figures, I think what we all need is a blueprint to follow, and the community here is great. The training's great. The guest speakers at the intensive are great.

I think, uh, the, the, the community aspect is, is by far the best thing about Seven Figure Agency.