He Broke a 15-Year Plateau to Hit $50K a Month

Full transcript of Josh Nelson’s interview with Will Hanke. Lightly edited for readability.

Josh Nelson: To be joined by Will Hank. Will, I'm sorry if I pronounced that wrong, but really excited to have you with us. This is the Seven Figure Agency podcast, and we're interviewing successful digital marketing agencies from across the country on what they've done to grow, scale, and take their businesses to the next level. So Will, thanks so much for being on with us.

Will Hanke: Glad to be here, Josh. Thanks for the opportunity.

Josh Nelson: So you gotta let me know. Is it Will… I always ask, and the team always tells me one way or the other, and I'm like, "Is it Hankey or is it Will Hank?" Hankey.

Will Hanke: Yeah, Hankey Pankey. That's the easy way.

Josh Nelson: Will Hankey, now I know for sure right from you directly. So Will, give us a, like a high level overview kind of where you're at in the business now, kind of the niche that you serve and kind of where you're at in terms of clients, revenue, et cetera.

Will Hanke: Sure. I had a, had a government job paying really well way back in the '90s and, decided I wanted to start my own thing. I was reading "The 4-Hour Workweek," things like that. I said, "Man, I really wanna do that." rode my bike over one day to city hall, bought a business license, started my business, and it was a typical generalist agency. Anybody that would raise their hand and give me money, you know, I'd take it, if it was a divorce attorney or a mattress company or whatever it happened to be. And you had to learn the industry, right? And did that for obviously a long time. 2017, 2018, Seven Figure Agency came on my radar. And, it's funny, Josh, I was at the point where, I could recite your ads, you know, as they were playing. I'm like, "Oh my God, I'm so tired of seeing this guy," and, "Hi, it's me, Josh Nelson." You know, I c- I could recite them back, and finally one day it clicked that I probably ought to pay attention to that. So, got into Seven Figure Agency and started, the niche agency called Window Treatment Marketing Pros, in 2018. And, had a couple clients in that industry, was doing really well for them from a lead gen standpoint, and, it was kind of a no-brainer. It, it's a little different than a lot of these guys in the group because it's not necessarily a passion that I have for window treatments, but I saw, I saw a blue ocean opportunity and went for it, so.

Josh Nelson: And so w- where are you at now in terms of recurring revenue, number of clients?

Will Hanke: We're around 32 clients right now, 50K in revenue, and, super excited about it. You know, I never, I never thought we'd get this far, but it's, pretty exciting to be here.

Josh Nelson: Amazing. Well, congratulations on getting to 50K. Guys, if you're excited to hear Will's journey and kind of how he made the leap to 50K in his agency serving a very specific niche, window treatment companies, give me a yes, give me a one, give me a let's do this in the comments, and let's dive in.

Will Hanke: Yeah, it was a lot of- A little bit of feedback on your end. Maybe I've got a tab open on my end here.

Josh Nelson: Okay, let's keep going. So I guess, tell us, tell us a little bit about how you got into digital marketing in the first place. I think it's always a fun place to start.

Will Hanke: Yeah, a little bit of a weird story. I, back in the '90s, I built a website called postcardformom.com, and the idea was just to prank my mom and get people from around the world to send her postcards just randomly. And, and it kind of blew up, went viral and, it… You know, I was, I was on the front page of the Washington Post. I was in all these different things, and that's when I realized, oh, you can actually, like, monetize building websites. It's not just building websites for fun. So started getting into SEO, was on websites like Digital Strike and some of these old sites, you know, and learning SEO and all these different things. Back in the day, it was a lot different than it is now. But, just starting to learn it, fell in love with it, dug in really deep, and then I started teaching it, to other business owners in the area, and that's, that was my plan for getting clients, really was local networking and teaching classes on how they could do it themselves, which obviously, you know, a portion of them would say, "We can't do this. You know, can you just do it for us?" You know? That was the plan, so.

Josh Nelson: Education-based marketing, right? To like give them the how-to- Yeah… And then they're like, "can I just pay you to do it?" Yep.

Will Hanke: And I'd say we still do that today. I'm very heavy on dumping value, to potential clients or just people in the industry, providing tons of value where there's no way they don't know who we are or what we do or what they can do themselves. And at some point, if they follow some of the things that we talk about, you know, they're gonna get busy enough that they need to hire somebody to do it because they can't keep up.

Josh Nelson: Got it. So you have a m- I know you have a military background. Kind of tell me, like, where you, how you exited the military, went into entrepreneurship, and kind of where you were when we started working together back in like 2018-ish.

Will Hanke: Yeah. Got out of the military in the early 2000s. Had an IT background, electronics type stuff, and always had a computer. I've had a computer since I was little Vic-20, you know, back in the day. Yeah. And, and we would get the Commodore magazines, and we'd be punching in the code line by line in Basic just to make some character animate or something on the screen. And, you know, then that eventually turned into, me starting the agency, in the late '90s, and building websites is really all I was doing. You know, ha- building a website, handing it over to a business owner and, here you go, good luck. You know, and I had no idea that I was doing a disservice by not helping them actually promote the website. So once I, once I found out about that really through that Postcards for Mom experience, how you could monetize things, that really opened my eyes to everything. Fell in love with marketing, read every book out there I know Bill Crawford earlier today was talking about going into Borders and just looking at all the books and, oh man, that was awesome, going in there and finding all kinds of things. But just really, immersing yourself in, everything business related. And, my wife would argue that I still do that today, maybe a little bit too much. But, you know, that, it is what it is.

Josh Nelson: Passionate learning. You actually enjoy it like me. Like, like it's not just 'cause you wanna learn, it's like you really wanna know and it's exciting for you.

Will Hanke: Yeah. Absolutely, for sure. Yeah. Yeah, and I wanna share it with others. I really enjoy the education piece of just teaching other people how to do things, that I know and that I've learned over the years. Here's how you do that.

Josh Nelson: Love it. Okay, so fast-forward, gone through military, did, you know, website builds around 2018-ish. Where was the agency at that point? At like how much revenue on a monthly basis typically?

Will Hanke: Yeah, kind of embarrassing. From, from we'll call it 2003 to 2018, I probably, I probably just kinda leveled out around 10 grand a month.

Josh Nelson: Mm. Okay.

Will Hanke: Some, some were seven, some were 14. You know, those were really good months. But pretty much constant until 2018. And even after joining Seven Figure and starting to figure out the niche, one thing a little different about the niche I chose was there was nobody marketing to these guys. It's not like roofers where there's somebody every day, you know, pounding on these guys' doors. There was nobody talking to window treatment, owners about what they could do and how they could get more leads online. So kinda had to overcome that, first of all. Gaining their trust, I guess you could say, and I did that, you know, as I said, just by dumping value out there, tons of value. And, and eventually gained their trust and started to get some people sign up, which was obviously a good thing as well.

Josh Nelson: Yeah. So give me, give me one of the comments if you can relate, 'cause I know in my first agency that was, that was it. I would get to like that $10,000 monthly level and, you know, just couldn't break through to the next threshold. And it sounds like, Will, that was your story for going on 15 years or so.

Will Hanke: Oh, for sure. And then- Yeah. Yeah. I think the other thing too is the scarcity mindset. I was definitely part of that crew. And, there were, you know, when I got to 14, I dialed back things. I'm like, "Oh man, you know, I don't, I don't want this to get outta hand." you know, and I- An internal thermostat said, "Whoa, whoa, too much. Too much money, maybe too much work." Yep. "Let's, let's, let's take it back a notch." Absolutely. And the, and the self-sabotage was a real thing, for me. And just making sure that I didn't get like a, you know, like I said, too out of hand, which is kind of a silly thing to say, but, it's funny how your mind kinda works that way. And finally around, I'd say 2019, I gave myself permission to succeed. And, once I did that, things started really rolling.

Josh Nelson: Love it. I love that. You know, it was a mindset thing for you probably more than anything else, 'cause you knew- Yeah… What to do, you knew how to do it, you were really good at websites and SEO and pay per click, and just mentally you had to give yourself permission, like you said, to, you know, make more money and take things to the next level. Thinking back to that time, just curious, 'cause I know a lot of people were stuck in that place. What, what, like what were some of the readings or some of the thought work that you did to, you know, get through that internal hurdle?

Will Hanke: Yeah. I was, I was big on, you know, like you said, learning. Once I, once I kinda realized I needed to change my mindset, I just started, doing a lot of things related to that. Listening to podcasts, reading books on it, that are around that a- abundance type of thinking. And of course, Seven Figure Agency, everybody in that group is that way, so you can't help but be immersed in that. Just by hearing other people talk, listening to their answers, and how my answer would've been a lot different back then, that really helped as well, just understanding that, you know, these guys understand that the sky's the limit. And, and wow, that was, that was really a change for me, quite honestly. So, so just changing your thought process can have a huge impact and, you know, thinking, you know, not 10K, but aiming 3K or more, you know, just really sh- it changes what your expectations internally are and kinda what you do.

Josh Nelson: That's a great share. And I think all of you guys, you know, we all have an internal thermostat of some point, right? Whether it's 10,000 a month or $50,000 a month or $500,000 a month, you know, you have to consciously decide that you're worthy to earn more, right? And that you've got more to bring to the world. And until you change that thermostat, you'll continually bring yourself back, you know, to where your, where your comfort zone is. So I think that's a, that's a great share.

Will Hanke: Yeah. Definitely, definitely important to give yourself permission to do that. You know, and Kevin O- Kevin O'Leary I think is always talking about you've got a hobby, not a business. Right. You know, just changing that mindset too that, okay, this is no longer a hobby for me. This is… E- even if it's considered my full-time gig, it was still kind of a hobby. You know, just something to do for fun. But making that shift to, okay, let's, let's hit the gas and go, really changed things.

Josh Nelson: So good. So let's, let's talk about some of the shifts. So you kinda went from that $10,000 stuck point to now you're at 50 in monthly recurring, you're continuing to grow. If, if you had to point to like three or so changes that you made, what were, like what were some of those shifts and changes?

Will Hanke: Okay. Probably the biggest one, was webinars, and being more, dialed into that. Mm. Being more dialed into… You know, I would do them from time to time. Got pretty good at them, but there was, I wasn't, I wasn't, consistent I guess with doing those. And doing webinars and using that platform to start to teach. So now I'm no longer just teaching, in St. Louis in my town, you know, to people that show up, I'm teaching to hundreds of people, maybe thousands of people across the country. And, and they could, they could teach it and, -… Consume it on their own time, which is really different. They didn't, it didn't have to be Wednesday night at 7:00 at the La Quinta, right? It can be whenever. It can be whenever No, it's great. It's marketing, really embracing the- Yeah… The monthly webinar method to put out great content, to position yourself as an expert. Yep, for sure.

Josh Nelson: We talk in the 7-Figure Agency about omnipresence, and I think that's a big part of that, is just being everywhere, that no matter where somebody is, they're getting some sort of value from you, from your business.

Will Hanke: That's a big key for us.

Josh Nelson: Love it. Great share. So if you're not doing webinars on a consistent basis, you know, and this is a power play that almost everybody that comes through 7-Figure Agency implements, and it, and it helps you create content, nurture your database, remain top of mind, and it leads to new clients coming in at a much lower sales resistance basis. Yeah, for sure. And then of course there's always the other pieces of cutting that up and using that on your social media, sh- sharing short snippets out in a newsletter or something. There's a lot of ways to use that one piece of content. And in some cases you can even cut those up into podcast episodes and reach that audience as well. Awesome. All right. So we've got w- number one, webinars.

Will Hanke: Yeah. Number two is probably the book. Writing a book and getting that out there has really helped us leverage, quite a bit. Just the fact that we've written a book about marketing for window treatment companies is very strange thing for a lot of them. Yeah. So when they hear, wow, they actually wrote a book about this, they're, you know, it's a great lead magnet for us, and I'm happy to spend the money it gets to, you know, get it printed and all that kind of stuff, and mail it out. Mail those out, priority mail so they get 'em within a day or two. And we also offer, our book as a free, freebie when somebody signs up for a webinar. Mm. So it's kind of a little carrot there when somebody signs up for a webinar. At, at that point, we already know that they're kinda interested in what we're doing, so let's go ahead and hit 'em from another angle by sending them a book as well. So it works out well e- especially since a lot of people don't attend the webinars. You know- Right… That's, that's usually not something they attend live. They sign up for it, don't, don't show up for it. So having the book as a secondary method to the webinar works really well.

Josh Nelson: So you're, so you're saying power positioning, you've published the book, and you're the author of Internet Marketing For Your Niche: Window Treatment Companies. Yep. That gave you some authority, and it also gave you some different assets to get in front of that niche- Mm… You know, by mailing it out, by offering it free plus shipping, and then also actually mailing it to people that register for your… I like that angle. Are you physically mailing them the book, or are you sending them the digital copy?

Will Hanke: No, I physically mail every single book that we have, – Very good… Out. They, they can just go to the website, grab a copy of it, and off it goes straight to their mailbox, usually within a day or two.

Josh Nelson: Hold that up. Hold that up. Con- congratulations- And then-… On getting that done. I know you were one of the early implementers on getting the book done. You've had it out for a while now. – Yeah… So I think it's really important to tip your… He's saying that, yes, the book positions you know, differently in the industry, gives you expert positioning, but there's something powerful what, about the physical copy as opposed to just digital.

Will Hanke: Yeah, you could send them a PDF and it's the same content, but them getting a mailing with a book inside of it, having it on their desk, or having it f- like, in the physical world, don't discount the power of that from a positioning perspective. Absolutely. The book goes out, like I said, two-day priority. There's a little letter in there from me, you know, about our business. It's not real salesy, just real quick about our business and, of course, a link to sign up for a strategy session. But that's a, it's a great, it's a great positioning piece. I love it. I take it to the expo and the conventions and things like that and give those away. Typically, I'll exchange it for a business card so I don't just set it on the table and anybody that comes by can grab one. They have to pay for the book with some sort of a business card Give, yeah, give me something in exchange for the book so I can follow up with you, right? Yeah. Yeah. That works really well. We, we only took, I think we took, like, 100 and something to the last expo, and they were gone the first day, so, we had to- Nice… We had to, we had to hoard three or four back on the second day and say, "We're not giving these away, but sign up for-" Only for qualified prospects…

Josh Nelson: Get one and we'll get you one in there." Right. That's, that's great. But it was a great excuse- And, and you think, you know, when you think about the alternatives at a trade show or event like that, you know, you could print out tchotchke, you could print out, like, tchotchkes. You could have a nice brochure. And it's funny that the cost for your physical printed book is practically the same as you'd pay for a brochure, but s- just so much more sticky in terms of when they get home. Like, they actually keep that instead of throwing it in the trash.

Will Hanke: Yeah. And I think one of the things is we don't necessarily care if anybody reads the book, right? If, if they do, that's fantastic, and sometimes I'll get an email or something saying, "Hey, Will, I'm on chapter three of your book, really enjoying it." I'm like, "Wow, that's, that's crazy," right? But for the most part it's a positioning piece that, you know, those are the guys that literally wrote the book on this industry, so.

Josh Nelson: Yes, for sure. Okay, so we've got one was webinars, two was the book. What, what's number three?

Will Hanke: Number three for us was joint ventures. Starting to find out who are the big players in the industry and taking some time to, again, dump value on them, but position ourselves in such a way that they say, "Okay, what do you guys do?" You know, and, "Can you help us?" that has worked out really well for us for several joint ventures, where now I'm, I'm writing, for the industry magazine, doing webinars for them from time to time, and just, you know, partners, partnering up with these different industries and, buying groups, associations, things of that sort, has really helped us gain momentum in a terrific way.

Josh Nelson: So good. So like the JV jumpstart strategy, like figuring out who's already selling to the people in your niche, connecting with them. I think the stacking order at which you mentioned these three, you mentioned webinars first, and I'm sure the webinars helped you create the content that formed your book, right? 'Cause I know you did a lot of customization of the book. Second to that was the book itself, which is this physical- Yep… Asset to position you see as the expert. So when you start to go after the association, when you start to go after these joint ventures, you're not just like, "Hey, I'm some dude, you know, that wants to sell to your clients." It's like, "Hey, I've got all this great content. If you want, I can do a webinar. I'd love to put a book in their hands." And they see you as an expert that can come in and add value to their client base or add value to their, to their association. And so I think that that stacking of those three makes a lot of sense, and it's great to hear that probably where most of the business comes from is those relationships with the joint ventures that have access to your client base.

Will Hanke: Absolutely, 100%. That just having those, key partnerships, I've got a little whiteboard over here. I wrote down who are the people I wanna get in front of. And the same thing when you go to a conference. You know, you… There are certain people that you just wanna get face time with, and make sure that you're in front of those people, and that you're introduced to them. And, and you're not there to sell, you're not there to do anything, just get in front of them at that time. And, and then down the road you can, you can, follow back up with them and say, "Hey, I'm the guy, you know, and gave you the book," or whatever it happens to be. But, the joint ventures have really, changed the game for us for sure.

Josh Nelson: So good. Great shares. Guys, if you have questions on these three plays and kind of how Will has leveraged them in his agency, post in the comments. Where I wanna go now is I wanna go back. So, you know, we're at $50,000 of monthly recurring revenue now. There was this period where we got to 10K and we were kind of stagnated. It seems like one of the first pivots was, like deciding on this niche and deciding rather than being a generalist, I'm gonna work with window treatment companies. Can you talk a little bit about why you chose that niche, what your process was in kind of landing on that particular vertical?

Will Hanke: Sure. I actually, when I started kind of through that process, I built a list of niches, and that list was probably 200. It was everything- Wow… From garage doors to chiropractors to, you know, everything you th- you typically think of. But I would drive around town and say, "Oh, garage doors, that might be something." You know, and I would, I would keep a list of all these different things. Along the same time, I had a client, that I probably had for six or seven years in the window treatment industry, and he was just killing it here in St. Louis and still is today. You know, he's… You look for anything, you're gonna find this guy, right? And I also had an awning company. So I actually went to my window treatment client and said, "Hey, you know, if we did, if we did some work with awning clients, does that affect you in any way, you know, like the other side of the window?" And he said, "Nope. Two different industries." so I kind of doubled up, you know, just because I had clients in both of those and they really don't compete with each other, but they're the same end result, right? Yep. So had two clients, in the industry. Noticed that there was nobody marketing to these people. I take that back. There was a book on Amazon called, you know, Marketing Your Window Treatment Company or something like that had been written two or three years prior. And, I went and looked up who the author was, did a little stalking, and turned out that he had actually quit his marketing career and was a pilot or something now. I'm like, "Okay. Well, that was my only competition that I thought might be up against me. So I knew right away that was a, you know, blue ocean kind of deal. And, I realized it's gonna take a while for this to kind of ramp up, but there's, there's little competition in this particular industry, so went for it.

Josh Nelson: Love it. So, so what you did there is like one of my favorite plays, which is as a generalist agency looking at the client base, like where do I have clients? Where do I have wins? Where can I kind of like say, "Hey, look, here's some like interesting pocket." Like for me it was a plumbing company we'd done business with and was like, "Hey, I've got this one plumber that we did well. Let's, let's see if we can replicate that success." And so it sounds like that was the play for you. You had this client in windows that you did great work for. You're like, "Okay, there's not much, you know, competition here. Let me position myself in that particular vertical." so now like, you know, you've got the one client, how did you parlay that into five or more clients? Like what were the initial strategies to land those first five in the niche?

Will Hanke: Initial strategy for me, I'm a big, implementer. I get stuff done as soon as I can.

Josh Nelson: So, you know, once- Speed of implementation. Love it.

Will Hanke: Yeah. Once I, once I decided on a niche, I think I had a website up in two days. Mm. You know, and it was a bare bones, but it worked, and and, you know, got that up and out of the way immediately. I had a legacy agency, so I kind of already had a good idea of packaging and pricing and that kind of stuff. So I… So that was an easy transition, it was just rebranding as the, as Window Treatment Marketing Pros instead of the generalist agency. So, so speed of implementation, one thing, joining the association right off the bat, and then hiring somebody to scrape that list, so that we could get, find out who those people were, get in front of those people, or at least get them on some sort of a list. And start through the, process of reaching out to them. Cold calling. Cold calling is still a big strategy for us today. I know when we first started in '18, you know, y- the idea was get enough people to s- to say yes to a video or something that you're gonna send to them, and, then that gets them on the list. We still do that today. I'll have,… One of our VAs, you know, we'll pick 10 cities and say, "Okay, go to s- go to Google, type in window treatments Memphis. Go to page two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10 and find out who all those companies are, and let's, let's get in front of them." So, that strategy we still use today, both from the cold calling side and from the cold email side.

Josh Nelson: Love it. So, like, was it the association? Was it some introduction through a JV? Like, if you had to think about were the s- the next four clients to get you to five or more in the niche, what do you think? Was it straight cold call, they responded to your video, you sent the video, and you got the deals like that?

Will Hanke: Yeah, mostly. And, and that list was built… We did buy a list, but had a, had a real struggle getting that list together, 'cause there wasn't that many window treatment companies out there that were doing big numbers, or we thought there was, it wasn't. So we did buy a list, but most of it was from the association, and then reaching out to those people and, saying, "Hey, we can help you." And there were two wins right off the bat. Like, within the first month, we got two new clients, I think 1,500 each, and I was like, "Wow, this is the coolest thing ever." You know? I was like, "Wow, I can't believe I didn't do this years ago." and then we had a four, five, six month stretch where nobody signed up, you know? So, okay, maybe it wasn't such a cool thing. You know, tho- those two wins right off the bat were, great, adrenaline for us to keep moving forward, I think. Yeah. And, and then they just started coming in, through those methods, through having the website. The other one thing that I did was since I had a legacy agency, that had a nice history behind it, and I had been working on SEO on my own website for a long time, I actually built some pages on my legacy agency website, about the niche because they ranked a lot faster than my new- They had a little bit more authority behind them already, right?

Josh Nelson: Yep. Yep.

Will Hanke: So those pages ranked really quickly, and then once I got the niche website up and it started getting its own authority, redirected those to that, and I was off to the races, so.

Josh Nelson: So good. So good. So it sounds like, you know, guys, for those of you listening maybe that are at that initial phase, you know, choose the niche, find where you've got the win or at least create a win, c- a client case study that you can point to and say, "Look, this, I did this for someone just like you in this industry. Join the association." And that to me is an obvious play 'cause then you've got lists, you've got affinity. And then it's, it's brute force, right? It sounds like for you, Will, this was brute force. Making calls- Yes… Sending emails, getting introductions, shooting custom videos, saying, "Here's where you're not ranking. Here's why you're not ranking. Here's how we can help." And that activity was what kind of got you to the five clients, and then it was joint ventures and content and webinars that's kind of kept the momentum going.

Will Hanke: Absolutely. And along the way, you know, I was, I was trying to joint venture the association too. So- Yeah… Hey, you know, here's who we are, here's what we do. We'd love to help you guys out. And so that if some of their, people, as we're kind of brute forcing them, if they called the association and said, "Hey, what do you know about these guys?" "Well, matter of fact, they're helping us, you know, rebuild our website," or something like that. So kind of came at it from two different sides at the same time.

Josh Nelson: So good. So good. Love that. So one thing I'd like to talk about is the transition from general to niche, 'cause a lot of agencies struggle with this, especially some of the early seven-figure members. They'll say, "Okay, I'm gonna go down niche, but I've got 10,000 or $20,000 in revenue that comes in every month from my generalist agency." Yeah. And you still get referrals that come in, and you've still got, like, legacy clients. So how were you able to make that pivot, and get over the hump so there was enough revenue in the niche that you could just say, "Okay, this is where I'm gonna focus"?

Will Hanke: Yeah, I think, for the, for the legacy agency, at some point you just gotta start saying no, which is really hard when you're hungry, right? But as the niche agency starts to pick up momentum, you can start to say no to the legacy agency side, you know, and some of these random things, that come along that are just really crazy. And starting to be really particular about who you bring on. You know, in those early years if, a landscaper or something like that would've came to us, we're still home services and still very similar to what we were doing, we probably would've took it, and done the work for them. But we would be very specific about who those people were during that time. And then once the, once the niche agency hit, you know, three times what my legacy agency did for f- 20 years, I knew this was the ticket to success. I mean, I knew it before that, but, you know, once that, once that kind of hit, then you pretty much unfortunately just kind of let the legacy agency either die on the vine or try to sell it, something like that. But put all your effort into the other one. The one thing I would say is, be careful about just 100% switching and going full on with the nig- with the, niche agency because you're gonna get hungry. You know, u- unless you're really good at sales, there's gonna be that transition period where you need that other revenue coming in. So, don't, don't… What is it? Chop your, chop your foot off or something like that, you know? But make sure that you're, you're still focusing on both for a short period while building the niche agency.

Josh Nelson: Yes. Great, great tip, guys. When you're in that phase with, like, less than five or 10 clients, you gotta keep yourself open, right? If, if you… Like, like for us, we thought we were going after restaurants. That was our initial niche, and we were all blinders on with restaurants, calling restaurants, sitting in on restaurants- Yep… Going and networking in restaurants, and then we got an opportunity in plumbing If we hadn't, like, recognized, "I gotta pay the bills," right? "I got, I got family to feed, I've got bills to pay, I gotta take that revenue," right? We would've never made that pivot. And so sometimes you find an opportunity in a different niche that's better for you. Sometimes you just get, you know, two or three projects that help pay the bills in the interim while you get your niche off the ground. So just be open to that, especially in the early game where there's not, you know, at least $10,000 or $15,000 a month of recurring revenue coming in where you can say no, right? Like, you gotta, you gotta get past the startup and struggle phase before you start turning things down.

Will Hanke: So hard, Josh. It is so hard to start telling people no, you know, when they're dangling money in front of you and- Right… But, you know, you still gotta be focused on the niche. But, but don't pass up some opportunity in those early stages.

Josh Nelson: Yeah, no doubt. So I… You know, I just wanna divert for a second. So you went from, like, this years and years and years and years and years at, like, 10,000 in revenue and now you're up at 50. How is, how is life different or better, you know, with that being the, the state of the union in your life and business?

Will Hanke: Oh, a lot different. First of all, my wife doesn't bother me anymore- That's funny… About the electric bill, you know, or something. It's quite different, from what it was and, you know, I think, again, I treated it like a hobby and not necessarily a business. So once I kinda made that switch, lots of freedom, lots of, lot, lots of, more opportunity, I think, that you see out there of things that you can do, which is kinda weird that there's more opportunity when you're focused on a niche. But there is a lot more opportunity that way. And just overall lifestyle, I… You know, like I said, my wife doesn't bother me as much about things, which is, which is fantastic, so. Happy, happy wife, happy life, right?

Josh Nelson: Yeah, for sure. So I always like to say we're trying to make more money, have more freedom, and have a bigger impact. And it sounds like for you, obviously at 50K there's more money, there's more freedom in that, you know, your wife's not upset about anything. She's like, "Okay, bills are paid. Life is, life is good." Yep. And you're serving more clients and getting great results for those, window treatment companies that you do work with.

Will Hanke: Absolutely, and I've hired two of my four kids as well, so, you know, I'm making an impact on them, – Yeah… To help them out and the grandkids, obviously eating because of, because of that work. So the, so the impact side is great. I always love when one of my VAs or somebody will say, "Hey, I need a certificate of employment. I'm, I'm getting ready to, submit my… A loan for a, for a house." You know, and that's overwhelming when just what, just that request you're like, "Oh my God," you know, we're helping somebody buy a house. You know, or they just had a baby or something like that. It's just incredible to be able to help so many people, just by, just by owning an agency or doing something, so.

Josh Nelson: I love that. Yeah, you're right. When, when, you know, you realize, wow, that income and now they get that house and they're taking care of things. 'Cause it is fun to be able to employ family members, right? And give them a career opportunity maybe that they would not have gotten, and now they're developing skills that, yeah, they're gonna make money in the moment, but they're also gonna be transferrable whether they continue to work with you or not, which is- Right… Which is amazing.

Will Hanke: Yeah. Yeah. And you know my daughter Amber. I mean, she's- Yes… She's a 20-something female working at home in her pajamas. I mean, geez, what… You know, that's a great life. You know, I would've loved that when I was in my 20s.

Josh Nelson: Yes. So good. All right. So let's talk… We, we've talked about the niche, we've talked about kinda how you get your clients and kind of some pivots that you made. Let's talk a little bit about your program. You mentioned a $1,500 price point. Like, what is it that you're doing for the clients? What do they pay? Just lay of the land in terms of service offering.

Will Hanke: Sure. We've got three packages. We've got one that is kind of the SaaS play. It's, 197 a month, and it's just access to, our SaaS system, which we call, Lead Boomerang. So that's, that's pretty much it. No marketing. From there we've built what we call an SEO roadmap for those people, and then we give them this roadmap and say, "Here's where you are. This is the next thing you need to do. You need to optimize your Google business profile." That's a $350 charge or, you know, whatever that number is. This is the next thing that you need to do to move the needle. And the nice thing about that low-end program, even though it's not a lot of revenue, we see growth from those people. You know, when the mom and pops that are wanting to get going but can't afford 1,500 a month right off the bat, but we give them the roadmap. Here are the things you need to do in this order. When you have the budget, we'll do the next thing and the next thing. So that's a really cool program, that we call that our foundations program. Then we have our scale program, which is obviously for those doing, you know, a half million to a million. Usually, it's 1,500 a month, and that is, S- local SEO, website, custom website, and paid ads, but of course the paid ad budget is separate. So all in there, they're probably closer to three grand, four grand, at that point per month, with the ads running. And then we have, our Outshine package, which is 2,697, and that is, that is us being more aggressive doing the local SEO, doing the ads, putting more money into the SEO side of things to really ramp that up a lot faster, and get them those leads a lot quicker. Obviously, the pay per click is a piece of that as well. But we kind of, we kind of preach pay per click as a great start to getting those leads quickly, and then down the road, you know, it becomes, a supplement. You can keep it running and keep getting those leads, or you can pull that budget back and maybe implement it elsewhere towards social media or Facebook or, you know, who knows what. There's an endless wave going about things. But overall the pay per click has to be a big piece of the, of the beginning or else they're gonna be four or six months in with no leads, and they're probably gonna cancel, right? So kind of like on the higher end, making sure it's a blended SEO and pay-per-click and website, and just a little bit more aggressive on all, on all three fronts.

Josh Nelson: Yep. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Like, of course- Yeah. And so that we kind of have an entry level point service for the smaller guys. We've got a scale service, which is kind of probably what you- your average client is gonna buy, and then you've got the high end that you can move people up to over time, which is about 2,600 bucks per month.

Will Hanke: Yep. Yep. And then we've got a couple add-ons. Social media is an add-on. We've got a service called Email Boomerang, that goes out and figures out who your visitors are and, reverse engineers those and then sends them a message. So some really cool little add-ons that we do. So we've got clients, you know, at the, at the 4,000 mark, 4,500, as they continue to add things on and come to us and say, "What else can we do?" You know? That's a good situation to be in. Doesn't always happen, but when it does, it's great to be, one of their partners, right, in their success.

Josh Nelson: Right. It's smart to be able to have new things to add that, you know, incrementally increase your revenue, but also add more value to them and make you stickier- Yeah… With them and generate ultimately what matters most, a better result for the client, which ultimately is win-win-wins all the way around.

Will Hanke: Absolutely. And they're, they're also some of your best cheerleaders, right? When you're, you're just coming up with other things that you can do to make them even more successful, they're very much likely to cheerlead you on and tell their friends about you.

Josh Nelson: Absolutely. Awesome. So cool. That, that's a great breakdown of kinda your program packaging in that niche, kinda what you do for it, how you get paid for it. I know you're a big SEO guy. I think you're a big student of SEO. Any cool SEO tips to share with the group on like kinda what works best to get clients ranked either in the map or organically for you?

Will Hanke: Yeah, I think SEO in the last year or two has really shifted. Google's put a lot of work into the Google three-pack, into the map packs. And I think our efforts have changed to, go that route as well. We see- Mm… In some of the cases, 60, 70% of our clients' leads come from that three-pack of results, which is just an insane number, more than organic, which hurts a guy like me, right? It hurts an SEO guy- Right… To see that pe- people ain't scrolling down to the organic anymore. So we've really shifted towards everything and anything we can do to get the Google, business profile ranking.

Josh Nelson: Citations, press releases, all of those things just to really start building that Google stack and getting that, getting them into the three-pack more and more often. I think it's a great tip, right? And recognizing the difference between the, the map and the organic and making sure to recognize that's where it's at, right? They're, they're clicking, they're calling, the leads are coming from the map listings. I've always in my mind, you know, considered organic to be the map and the, like, the actual organic listings below. But it's important to have that distinction explained to your clients, 'cause if you're talking SEO and they don't know you're also talking Google Maps, they could quickly be like, "Oh, well, I wanted to come up in that three-pack thing." Well, yes. Our organic strategy is gonna get you ranked in the map.

Will Hanke: It's gonna get you ranked in the non-paid listings, and then we're gonna layer paid on top of it. I'd agree. I mean, when SEO started it was, it was its own thing. Now it's kind of- Right…

Josh Nelson: An umbrella of a lot of different things.

Will Hanke: Mm-hmm. And like I said, we just see our clients getting a lot of traction in that Google Business Profile, so it makes sense that we kinda call that out to them and say, "This is an early on strategy for you to get this going, which means you have to start asking for reviews sooner than later." You know, so that's another piece of it obviously, is getting those reviews. So we need to make sure that we're at, you know, getting those things in front of our clients so that they know to be doing those things. We print out, business cards for every new client when they sign up that just has a QR code on the back, so their installers can hand that to the client right there in the, in the living room and say, "Hey, if you really like your new shutters, you know, why don't you leave us a review?" so we print those business cards out and get them to our clients as soon as possible so they can start generating those reviews right away.

Josh Nelson: I love that. And, you know, obviously that's gonna help train the technicians ideally to request the review, right? Yeah. And to really get those reviews, which is gonna move them up in the rankings. It's gonna help with the conversion rates. But it's also you smartly getting something physical in the hands of the client. Like, anything you can do to get physical, like you send your book, which is great. Now you're also sending these review cards that their sales team can hand out after the service call. And that's a great tip all of you guys should take note of. Whatever you can do to put something physical in our digital world, outside of the emails and the social posts, is going to carry weight.

Will Hanke: Absolutely. Yeah. We get those business cards out to them, and if they've got a sales team, we'll build, custom QR codes for each one of them so that the business owner can track who's asking for reviews, who's getting reviews, who isn't. And, in some cases, our clients will incentivize their installers, to ask for those reviews, in the first place. So, so some really cool ways of going about tracking that as well.

Josh Nelson: Love it. The… I'm just curious on that point. So then does the QR code take them to like a, like a gateway that says, "Who was your technician?" And write the review and then share it after they submit? Or does it take them straight to Google where they can write the review and it's just tracking the link basically?

Will Hanke: QR code goes to Bitly, and then the Bitly link goes to, the Google- profile. But then each QR code has its own Bitly link, so we can say John's referral link is this one, Joe's referral link. So, so we're tracking it So John had nineteen people this month click on it, where Joe only had three.

Josh Nelson: Yep. And then you're still, you're still taking them straight to Google, so you have the highest probability of getting that Google review as opposed to an internal form and then expecting them to take the next step to submit. Yep. I like that.

Will Hanke: Yep, just going through Bitly so that we can track it.

Josh Nelson: Very cool. Love that. That's a, that is a great little tip right there, guys. It's something to consider, especially when they've got multiple technicians or they've got multiple salespeople to help them track that activity. Yep. So let's talk, let's talk a little bit about retention, like one of the most important aspects of growing our agencies. Yeah, we've got to be able to land the clients. We've got to be able to deliver great results, and you guys do great with that. What are some of the things you're doing to improve client retention and client experience and to keep those clients with you long term?

Will Hanke: I mean, the easy one is the business reviews. Make sure that we're doing that, all the time. My son, Ryan, I hired him basically to be an account manager and to consistently reach out to them, every month and actually every week. We just build a task list where in week one, his task is to call the client. In week two, it might be to make a video. In week three, it's to text them. In week four, it's to tell them, you know, how many, how many leads we got for you in the last month or something like that. So every week, he's reaching out, but he's always reaching out via a different form just in case they don't pick up the phone, but then they'll see the text message the next week. I think that's huge, just to be consistently communicating with your clients, because, as you say, Josh, perceived in-indifference is probably the biggest killer of accounts. When they just think that, you know, y-you're just, you're, you're not doing anything or they don't know what you're doing, right? And I've fallen into that trap many times where we're just working away, and we don't hear from a client for three or four months, and then all of a sudden they cancel. You know, and it's not because we weren't doing anything or not even doing good work for them. They just, they just thought we were just taking their paycheck and, you know, I don't know, going to the casino or something. I don't know.

Josh Nelson: I love that. So kind of strategically leveraging a team member and account manager, your son, to check in with a client every week. "Here's what's going on. Here's a win." And just let them know that you're there, that you care, and that you're on top of the ball.

Will Hanke: Yep, absolutely. And then I'll even do some Loom type videos, for the clients. "Hey, it's Will, just checking in. Here's some really cool stuff. I saw some ranking changes," or something like that or, "Here's a new blog we put up and look at how many, backlinks we already got from that." You know, so just again, keeping top of mind is the best piece of that.

Josh Nelson: Love it. Some, some great tips there for retention. So thinking about, thinking about scale, you know, now you've got this fifty thousand and growing in monthly recurring revenue. But still, you say you've created more freedom where you've got more flexibility to do what you wanna do. Talk to me about the team. Like, what does the team look like? Are you virtual? Are you international? Are you VA based? Like, what's the, what's the mix, and how have you scaled that operation?

Will Hanke: Yep. Fifteen total employees besides myself. Three of those are in the US. So we have a US-based writer, that writes our content. And then we also use SEO Content Hero for a lot of content. And then, my daughter is the lead web dev- developer. And then she's got two web developers under her in the Philippines. And then of course, Ryan doing the account management. So then everybody else is in the Philippines. – Nice… Operations manager, two go high level experts. So, you know, the whole team, well, two pay-per-click people, everybody's in the Philippines then. And it's fantastic. I always thought that, you know, that wasn't the way to go and thought it was a little– would be just really too hard to build a business like that. But everybody that we've brought on is just fantastic. And, obviously you have to have the pieces in place, right? You have to have, a project management system. You have to have SOPs and task lists and things like that, so people know what to do. But, you know, once that is kind of in place, and you're never gonna stop improving on that. But once that's in place, you know, the team, the team overall has a goal and, with the niche, you know, it's the same thing over and over. It's just a different client in a different part of the US.

Josh Nelson: I love that. So, I like the fact that it's a family affair and that like kinda your strategy, like the core unit is here in the United States coming up with, like here's the operational infrastructure, and then you've got, you know, international team that can get the work done, do it well, follow the SOPs, follow the procedures, while still keeping your overhead structure in control. So you can still have healthy margins and deliver a world-class result at kind of scale as the business continues to grow.

Will Hanke: Yeah. And I'm not afraid to hire before we, the need is there. We've maybe overhired a little bit right now, but I'm anticipating bringing on more clients. So that number can kinda, you know, from a, from a payroll standpoint, it's not gonna change much, you know, but I can keep bringing on new clients and keep that number pretty, consistent across the board.

Josh Nelson: Love it. Great, great stuff. Good, good tips there. There's a couple questions I wanna make sure we get to, before we, before we start to close, 'cause you've shared some great insights on how you chose the niche, how you landed your first handful of clients, how you land clients on a consistent basis today, kinda, you know, what the delivery model looks like, how you've scaled the team, how you retain the clients. Give me one of the comments if you've gotten value. I know I've gotten a lot of great nuggets from today's session. All right. So first question here is from Jim Swan. He's on, he's on YouTube, and his question is, "It's intimidating to think of writing a book or creating a webinar if you've never done anything like that before. How did you overcome that?" That's a good question.

Will Hanke: I started out by teaching at the local library. The libraries in pretty much any town will let people come in if they're, if they seem to be an expert on something. So I think getting that one-on-one time in front of just five or six business owners in your area is a great way to start. You're not paid for it or anything like that, but it gives you that experience. And then from there, it's just doing a webinar to, you know, even if the webinar is to nobody. And, and a lot of times when we first get started, there's nobody on there, right? You know, you're just kinda talking to yourself. But if as you're doing that, if you're also thinking about, "I'm gonna be able to slice this stuff up and use it for promotion for my business elsewhere," then I'm not just wasting my time talking to myself for an hour. There are some additional benefits to that. So even now, you know, years and years into this, if I have six or eight people on the webinar, I consider that a win, because I know those are people that are interested, but at the same time, I'm building all this content that's gonna go out to thousands after it's over. So, in- interesting, Josh, my first book, was called Your Internet Marketing Plan for Window Treatment Companies, and it literally was my webinar, first webinar I did. I pulled the transcription of that webinar down and turned it into a book. I had it done in a, in a matter of a week. You know, it wasn't a ton of editing. It wasn't the most eloquent book in the world, but I had a book in short order. So I actually used the webinar to create my first book.

Josh Nelson: That's a, that's a great play, and I recommend it for a lot of you guys. The other thing I would add, Jim, is if you haven't done it, right, the fir- best thing to do is to become a student, right? Best thing to do is to research. Read the books. Sit on other people's webinars. Learn the, the tactics, and then from there, choose your path, right? Some of us prefer to write. Others of us prefer to speak and be on webinars and stuff. So if you're more of a writer, then go straight to blog posts, straight to content that can become a book. If you're more of a speaker, more of a video person, jump on, record your webinar, even if it's just you talking to the webcam. That will create that practice and kinda get you through that hump. So Jim, hopefully that helps and answers that question. Great feedback here, Will. I will do one last question, and then we'll, we'll move to wrap up 'cause Will's got another meeting after this. So Jeremy Mullins asked, "What questions do you wish you had asked when you got started that would've propelled you further quicker that others might not ask?" questions to yourself or questions to- Questions you could, you just, you know, like what questions would you ask earlier that might have helped?

Will Hanke: I think to myself I would ask, what ways can I repurpose content? – Mm-hmm… What else can I do with stuff I'm already doing? What other ways can I get this out to more people? And, I hope I'm answering this question right. You know, get the, if I'm doing something, what other ways can I use that to, get in front of people on multiple platforms? You know, like I said, with a webinar, you can turn that into a book. You could turn that into a podcast. You can, you can slice that up and use it for social. You could even put it into a podcast. You know, there's a lot of ways you can do. So, so when you're building things, and you're building, exposure for your brand, I think asking yourself, "What is something I can do that has multiple, ways of implementation after the fact?" Love it.

Josh Nelson: Great questions to ask yourself. Hopefully that answered that question for you. So Will, great insights here. Really appreciate you sharing. Congratulations on your growth and your success. I know that we'll be celebrating your seven-figure status sometime very soon. If you had one last piece of wisdom to share with the listeners that are kind of just trying to get to the next level, what would that be?

Will Hanke: Don't give up. I think especially with my niche, Josh, you know there was times when we really struggled. We just couldn't get a new client, and it was really frustrating. But I was, I was diligent enough during that time to continue to create content and value. And there were big gaps between new clients. But, you know, once you kinda get over that hump, and you know, I'm not saying you're coasting, but you know, people are paying attention. So don't give up in those early stages, when you're building. And, and there is a lot of stuff, even in the seven-figure, the Kickstart group, right? There's a ton of things that you have to go through and all these different steps. Take the time, put your head down, and get, and get through it. And, and don't give up on it. Funny story, I've got some, baseboards in the house here. You know, I, we remodeled during COVID, right? That's what everybody did. So I got, I got the new flooring in, got the walls painted, but the baseboards have never been done. It's a, it's a, it's just part of my personality, right? Not to kinda like to get to the 90% mark and stop. But don't do that. Don't, don't stop right before you hit those goals. Keep pressing on, and it, and it's gonna, it's gonna work out in a very good way. And, and doing it with a niche agency is, the obvious answer to that.

Josh Nelson: Great. Great tip. Guys, the only way you're gonna fail is if you quit, right? If you keep going, eventually you're gonna get there. And Will, that award you have behind you, kinda put your finger up- Yeah. Right there… It was the Breakthrough Agency of the Quarter award because you had that period where it was like, man, we're just kind of at this lull. I don't know what it was. Maybe it was 20 or 30K, and it just felt like you were there, and then you broke through. And that was 'cause you kept taking action. You kept- Yep… Kinda looking at what was working and what wasn't, making shifts, making tw- adjustments, and you, and you broke through the next level. So, I think that's a great tip to end on. Keep pressing forward. Keep making adjustments. Don't throw in the towel, right? Because, you know, it's the story of the acr- acres of diamonds, right? You may just be one or two more digs away from, from the acre of diamonds that are gonna take you to that next level.

Will Hanke: Yeah. And with something like Seven Figure Agency, you've got the roadmap, so it's just a matter of implementing it and, you know, and getting it done. Obviously, there's a time piece in there to get it done, but just keep your head down and moving forward, and you, and it's gonna, it's gonna work. It always works.

Josh Nelson: Outstanding. Well, Will, thanks again for being here. Really appreciate you sharing. Guys, if you got value, be sure to thank Will. Be sure to tag him in the Facebook group. If you have follow-up questions, we can keep the conversation going over in the Agency Success Facebook group. You– He's in there, so you can tag him in there with any follow-up questions. And if you'd like to listen to more interviews like this with highly successful agency owners from across the country, be sure to go to sevenfigureagency.com. S- register for the, for the podcast. Grab a free copy of the book if you haven't, and, we'll see you guys again on a future episode of the "Seven Figure Agency" podcast. Thanks so much, Will.

Will Hanke: Thanks, Josh. See you later, guys.

Transcript of Will Hanke’s testimonial video.

My name is Will Hankey. My business is Window Treatment Marketing Pros. So I joined Seven Figure Agency because I had run a business for twenty years. So when we started in two thousand eighteen, we were at seven thousand MRR, and we just surpassed eighty-four thousand this month. About a year into being in Seven Figure Agency, I had one of the coaches say he just wanted to help us get to forty thousand dollars in MRR. I thought he was crazy. I thought that number was not achievable. And, uh, part of what they taught me in this agency program is mindset and just understanding that there are bigger things out there that are possible.

Once I was able to start kind of grasping the mindset thing, it really helped us grow. So when we joined Seven Figure Agency, it was me and my daughter, Amber. We were the agency. We were in charge of sales, fulfillment, everything. Now eighty-four thousand, we have twenty-one people on staff. Uh, we've got team leads, and we've got an entire process built out. It's quite a different animal at this point. So you should join Seven Figure Agency if you're struggling with your business. Don't take twenty years like I did to, uh, pull the trigger.

But if you're struggling getting past a certain point or maybe you're self-sabotaging once you get to a certain point and you're not understanding the mindset behind it and the potential growth that you could have, definitely worth checking out the system, and you'll be very glad you did.