Podcast

Ryan Blake (04:46.177)
Yeah, it's right. The whole thing is just hard to figure out exactly what your niche is because I mean, it is just a modern day radio show. Basically, you know,

Kevin Mooney (04:59.436)
Yeah, it really is. And I don't know, I've struggled. I've struggled with the idea of. Nitching down. And I think I'm already realizing the pattern of not niching down by just the first few that I've done speaking so broadly about things. It's like, well, what is this thing and what am I even listening to? So it's like, all right, I guess I could.

Ryan Blake (05:03.959)
So yeah.

Ryan Blake (05:11.096)
Mm-hmm.

Ryan Blake (05:23.929)
Mm-hmm.

Kevin Mooney (05:29.44)
eventually transition this thing into a very specific marketing podcast. I just don't want to be a part of the rest of the cool kids that are doing it. And again, that's fucking ego. It's a bunch of ego bullshit in there, but yeah. So speaking of that,

Ryan Blake (05:41.784)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (05:53.866)
I follow this gal named Adley Kinsman, I believe is her name. Have you heard of her? She's on Instagram. She's a big, big time, you know? I bet you've seen her. Well, I bet you've seen her stuff. She is...

Ryan Blake (06:04.48)
Never heard of her. What's the deal with her?

Kevin Mooney (06:15.362)
She's a gal that sort of uncovered this whole viral content game on Instagram, whether she learned it from somebody else or she figured it out. I don't really know. It doesn't really matter. She's got a shitload of followers. Her videos get millions and millions and millions of views. And she basically sells...

Ryan Blake (06:38.754)
Hmm.

Kevin Mooney (06:43.79)
course and then she sells one on one coaching and she sells all these things. Right. So it's, it's very much that new way of, of doing business, monetizing your social channels. So I, I'm a sucker for these $200 packages. I bought a $200 package and there were some great things in there, right? The idea of the hook, the curiosity gap, um, the suspense, and then the payoff.

Right. It's, something that we kind of try to do with, with, our golf clients ads, right. It's like, use that system a little bit. And I developed that from her developed it. I, I use it because I bought it.

Ryan Blake (07:16.745)
dude.

Ryan Blake (07:20.946)
Yeah. Yeah.

Ryan Blake (07:28.17)
Yeah, she's the one that talks about that, like that target scenario, right? Where she's like, you're showing you're going through target and you're trying to get like ingredients or whatever. And you're like, don't know. I think Yeah, I think I have seen her stuff.

Kevin Mooney (07:44.62)
Yeah, that's probably her. So anyways, I bought I bought the package. I bought it so that I could use that for our clients right so that we could have better impact and I don't know maybe the success that we've had with that client is because of that little formula. I don't think that they were super viral. I don't think they were super catchy, but maybe they were just different enough in that space that it worked.

Ryan Blake (07:45.727)
Yeah.

Ryan Blake (07:58.679)
Mm-hmm.

Kevin Mooney (08:13.24)
So anyways, long story short, she sends out a bunch of emails, right? Cause now you're in, now you're in her funnel. An email had come through that she was doing a webinar with this other gal named Danielle Canty. Danielle Canty uses the viral framework to build a community and sell services, digital products and services inside of that. And.

Ryan Blake (08:18.061)
You

Kevin Mooney (08:43.01)
You know, the email was a little bit misleading. It said, come watch this webinar to learn the whatever steps to monetizing your social content. So it's like, sweet, I'm going to learn about this. You get into the, you get into the thing and you realize that they're doing the same type of gross shit that everybody does. Testimonial, testimonial, testimonial.

value proposition, value proposition, da da da. They don't tell you how much it costs, whatever. I was actually just talking to Kara about this in the last episode. So it's definitely repeat information. But the point is where I landed at the end of that conversation with her was I might, I might buy the thing that she's selling depends on what the cost is. So yesterday I had the call with a salesperson.

Ryan Blake (09:34.392)
Mm-hmm.

Kevin Mooney (09:39.167)
And you know, the questionnaire that got me to the sales call was like, what's your goal? What's your revenue goal? What's your niche? What's your value prop? Things like that. And I just wrote in there, I don't know what any of this stuff is for me.

Ryan Blake (09:53.984)
Yeah, you tell me you tell me yeah

Kevin Mooney (09:57.614)
Cause it's so hard. Right. Right. Right. So for this fee that I am supposed to be paying you, I need you to like figure it out and tell me. So we have the call. The guy was really great. She goes, um, you know, with your experience in branding and marketing, like you're going to crush this. Like, you know, I don't see a problem for you getting to like 10, 15, 20, $30,000 a month if you use this system.

You have to put in the work and if you follow all the steps, it's going to work, right? So we get, we get down to it. I'm like, what is the cost? you know, the cost is around $6,000 for this thing. So one, one time fee and you go through the self guided course, but they break it into phases. So after phase one, you, you give them.

Ryan Blake (10:32.418)
Yeah. Yeah.

Ryan Blake (10:41.867)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (10:54.604)
what your offer is, what your value prop is, what the fee would be for this thing. And then we approve it or not. And you don't go to phase two until it's kind of approved. And so it's like, all right, that's kind of interesting. You you do that for each phase essentially. And then you come out of that and within 90 days, they have a ROI guarantee. So.

Ryan Blake (11:14.803)
Mm-hmm.

Kevin Mooney (11:22.402)
They will continue to work with you past the 90 days if you haven't hit an ROI. And it's not a specific ROI. is any number past that, that number past their fee, right?

Ryan Blake (11:36.278)
Yeah. Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (11:39.258)
And, and I don't, I don't know. I certainly want to hear your thoughts on this, but I am very tempted to do it because of the same reason that I bought that $200 package from Adley. It's like, I want to see what is inside that. Do I want to be the internet guru who sells coaching and memberships and masterminds? Like, I don't know if I can actually do that.

stuff. You know what I mean? But at the same time, like, it seems like these things are very formulaic and there's a million people out there doing this bullshit. So if I follow their steps and I do it the way that I want to do it, can I just like turn on some side money? And, that's one step to not doing another client. Like what if I did do $5,000 a month in recurring revenue?

Ryan Blake (12:09.291)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (12:38.766)
through this kind of cheesy, debatably gross way of doing business, but it is the way that everyone does business now. That's 5,000 that I don't have to take from a client and deal with all the client stuff. Like, what do you think about this? Am I fucking crazy for even considering it?

Ryan Blake (12:53.772)
Yeah.

Ryan Blake (12:57.935)
I mean, I don't think that you're crazy for considering it. But I think knowing you already those keywords of like, it's debatably gross. I mean, the thing is, like, when I've talked to people that do this stuff, and they're okay with doing it, like you have to have the personality that you're gonna get some crazies, it's, it's actually not going to work for everybody. And

Kevin Mooney (13:08.043)
You

Ryan Blake (13:25.175)
likely, you know, one out of 20 is actually going to work. Um, and I think if you're okay with that from a personality standpoint, yeah, like do it. If you have the cheese factor and you have like the salesperson mentality, the salesperson charisma, machismo, I mean, I think it's great, but I couldn't do it. I couldn't do it because I just know it's like people, people come in that.

Kevin Mooney (13:47.768)
Give it.

Ryan Blake (13:55.337)
I'm just like, I don't want to deal with you. I don't know if I can.

Kevin Mooney (14:00.504)
Sure. So you're saying you start this whole thing. You start this community, you're producing content and you have cheese balls come in and you don't want to deal with them. That's what you're talking about?

Ryan Blake (14:11.317)
Yeah, like, I was talking to I mean, granted, it's a totally different situation, right? In the product itself. But this couple, they do, like marriage counseling seminars, and it all started with, like talking head content, right? It was just the husband talking about his story and his path through marriage and

etc, etc, and rebuilding his marriage relationship. And he ended up with like, I don't know, like he's close to a million followers at this point. So we started doing this men's community where 50 guys sign up. It's a live session where he talks for a while and then there's a q &a.

etc, etc. And then it grew into now he's doing it with his wife, and they're going and doing these live things. And some of the stories about the people that come in and talk to them, I'm just like, God, I could not deal with that. Like, the just the absolute nut, but they're like, they paid for it. They paid for it. So we'll like entertain it. But you know, one

Kevin Mooney (15:19.822)
Do you think it's just that industry though? It's marriage counseling, so you got weirdos bitching that my wife made some sloppy runny eggs and I don't like it. That's super weird.

Ryan Blake (15:26.293)
Yeah, I mean...

Ryan Blake (15:33.877)
Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, like what the example that they last told me was like, okay, well, someone came to, they came to the, the conference. And they're like, Yeah, well, my husband won't stop cheating on me. And he's told me that he won't. But we're still gonna try this. So they were like, Well, that kind of falls outside of what we're working on here, right? Like what we're like, if someone's not

going to change the thing that you're, you know, so they end up dealing with these people that it's like, honestly, like I, this won't work for you. And they know internally, this won't work for you, but you paid the money. So I have to just go through the process with you until you realize that it doesn't work or it's not working for you. I like, right. Like I think that concept, just the, the idea of, you paid me money.

Kevin Mooney (16:23.842)
Right.

Ryan Blake (16:36.777)
And whether or not I know some process is or isn't going to work for you. Now I have to walk through the storm with you because you paid money for it. Even though I know, but at the same time, you know, we deal with that anyways, actually. Like as I'm, as I'm talking through this, like, we, yeah, like we do that anyways, all the time.

Kevin Mooney (16:53.108)
just going to say that dude, like it as you're talking, this is literally what we do for clients. We sit there, we evaluate their, their ask their needs, their goals, and then they, they, they give us whatever their answer is. We tell them what we believe the next steps are. And then they go, well, I don't think I want to do that. I want a website or

Ryan Blake (17:03.329)
Yeah, yeah.

Kevin Mooney (17:23.15)
Can you just give me some social media posts or something like that? And then we have to go through that fucking process and we already know it's not gonna work. So it is exact same thing. It's just in our space. So is it better to do client work or is it better to have a community and try to coach a community doing the same exact thing? And I guess...

Ryan Blake (17:33.439)
Yeah, it's the same.

Kevin Mooney (17:49.814)
I guess for me and my exploration of this idea is when you have an agency-client relationship, while you're not legally on the hook, you're like emotionally on the hook for the success of this whole thing.

Ryan Blake (18:06.967)
Especially if you care, right? Like if you're the type of person that cares, which honestly is like everybody, not everyone does care deeply and truly, right?

Kevin Mooney (18:11.224)
Sure.

Kevin Mooney (18:17.571)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (18:21.612)
Yeah, I mean, I think the majority of people in this industry don't care because there's another one in line right behind that person. And it becomes super weird when you start caring. Maybe it's when you, you hit this like,

Ryan Blake (18:28.758)
Mm-hmm.

Kevin Mooney (18:42.186)
not level of knowledge in the industry, right? When you've become like a seasoned veteran of the, of the space, you're like, now I only want to do certain type of work. Now I only want to do work with clients who care as much as I care about, I don't know, everything. And so maybe, maybe it's that, that threshold, but the point is there's a lot of unseasoned folks in the industry.

Ryan Blake (19:03.083)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (19:12.014)
who are just turning out things. And I get that that's how you have to start. You have to start at that place. So yeah, I don't know where I was going with that, but I guess the point is like.

You're on the hook at some level with a client right to perform and there's a lot of project management and there's a lot of hand holding and there's a lot of convincing and a lot of selling. Whereas if you build a community and it doesn't have to be a large community, you don't have to have millions in your community. At least that's how these guys are positioning it like monetize 1000 people don't.

Don't try to get a million. And I'm like, I actually like that. I really appreciate that. But the point is get a following, bring that following into a community, offer coaching. Then there's the membership itself to be a part of the community. I guess it sounds easier because your coaching packages don't have these deliverables.

Ryan Blake (19:57.034)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (20:24.662)
like the agency would. I don't have to do brand strategy and then spit out a strategy guide and then translate that into a website and then have them be unsure of that translation to that website. And then same with the marketing and the advertising that you do. And you're kind of butting heads along the way. In a community, it's like, no, no, you're going to pay for this $200 coaching program. And this is the

Ryan Blake (20:27.806)
Yeah, yeah.

Kevin Mooney (20:54.668)
thing that we're going to do together. So the barrier of entries lower, the risk seems lower.

Ryan Blake (20:56.8)
Yeah, and I feel like that. Yeah. Well, and the differences too, is is that in a client relationship, right? The

the success of whatever you're talking about and whatever they've engaged you to do falls on your shoulders, right? Like ultimately, we have to prove on a client level, like, hey, now I'm actually making you money. But from a coach standpoint, I mean, if you even thought about it from from a sports metaphorical way, right, like, okay, the coach is there to coach, but it's up to the player to go actually score the goal.

And it's similar here where it takes the responsibility of actually going and making that revenue or making that thing happen off of your shoulders or our shoulders, right? Like it's like, well, I'm coaching you. I'm telling, I mean, it's the same thing that they told you, right? Like you have to follow these steps in order to make it work. And it's like, okay, well, you're going to turn around and tell them the same thing. Here's the formula.

Kevin Mooney (21:52.024)
Right. To do the work, yeah.

Ryan Blake (22:01.418)
but you have to do the formula. So I mean, that's.

Kevin Mooney (22:05.142)
It just feels like a, it feels like a pyramid scheme, right? Cause they're going to teach me the ways. And then they're basically going to say, now take our ways and make it yours and, resell that to other people, right? And get them into your program. So it feels very pyramid scheme, like minus the money going to the top. and so that sounds

Ryan Blake (22:09.275)
Yeah, yeah.

Ryan Blake (22:19.04)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Ryan Blake (22:26.964)
As long as they don't offer you a pink Mary Kay, you know, Cadillac or whatever.

Kevin Mooney (22:35.202)
Yeah, I mean, I don't know why I'm a sucker for these things. I think it's, it's being jaded for being in this space for so long and, and just being like, I want to, I want to make money a different way. I don't need to make a lot of money. I just need to kind of offset that, that client load a little bit. so it's a, it's a pipe dream, but I kind of want to know what the exact

Ryan Blake (22:46.44)
Mm-hmm.

Ryan Blake (22:57.259)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (23:04.865)
details are inside of that, right? That's the thing. Because I, yeah, I have no idea what they are. And it's like, they're supposed to teach you what the hook is and what the gap is. And then, you know, what a really good offer looks like. And I'm like, sure, I guess I don't know what all that looks like. I can tell you that most of the offers that I see out there are like 200 bucks. That's why everybody buys them.

Ryan Blake (23:07.806)
Yeah, yeah. What are the steps? What are the things? Right? Yeah.

Ryan Blake (23:18.385)
Mm-hmm.

Ryan Blake (23:31.638)
Mm-hmm. It's that threshold. Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (23:33.014)
Right. 200 bucks. Fine. I'll pay 200 bucks. Right. but it's like, do I pay for this so that I can learn and understand it, whether I do it or not, it's something that I can bring into the agency and, say, like, this is how people are making money. So maybe this applies to, you know, your, your rock climbing gear company, like not in the way of.

Ryan Blake (23:52.223)
Mm-hmm.

Kevin Mooney (24:03.542)
You have to subscribe to our community, but the type of content and then the flow in the funnel. So I don't know. I really don't want to spend the money on it, but it's just got me thinking a whole bunch about.

Ryan Blake (24:19.893)
Yeah. I mean, you know, if it lands on a and I think that's the thing that everyone is trying to give anyone is like if it helps us land on a way to better offer your over helps you land on a better way to offer your clients anything right like a guided path like I mean, because what they're giving you is there are steps and they will land you at

a destination. And I think tightening that up for anybody, right, like us talking to clients or us even offering it to a community is like, people just want a guided program anymore. These days, they want to not do the work, right? They want to do less work. mean, God, it's like, I just signed up for a workout program, because it's literally a guided workout program.

Because realistically, could I go do a workout program? I've done the moves before I've done the things, but it's like, there's a coach and he tells you stuff and you know, we're gonna do this and we're gonna do that. And if you follow the program exactly, you're gonna be unrecognizable by the end of summer. And it's like, that's, that's the hook. That's the thing. It's like, well, hell yeah, I want to be unrecognizable by the end of summer, whatever that means. But

Kevin Mooney (25:26.648)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (25:34.36)
Sure.

Kevin Mooney (25:40.28)
Yeah.

Ryan Blake (25:41.32)
If if it's like, if that stuff gives us the ability to tighten those things up, right, like, you will do this. And the funny thing is, in the same light, it still takes the weight off of our shoulders, because that coach still said, if you do this, you will end up this way. But that puts it on me, like the workouts are all there. The

You know, the programs are all there, but if I start skipping days or skipping weeks, it's not going to work. And I have no way to blame, but myself, I can't blame that coach that it didn't work. You know what I mean? Like I can't blame them. So in that same way as like being able to say, if you listen to this X, Y, and Z, and it will equal the results, you will get there. And that's how much it's going to cost.

Kevin Mooney (26:19.651)
Right.

Ryan Blake (26:35.433)
but you, right? The word you, you have to do it is in there. And now that, you know, I think that may be the missing piece of what so many of us in this industry try to do is we're like, well, what do you want to do? Where do you, where do you want to go? Okay. Well, this is what I would suggest. And instead that authority to say, you need to do X, Y, and Z, right? So let's flip that, flip that workout.

Kevin Mooney (26:35.533)
Yeah.

Ryan Blake (27:05.293)
Workout metaphor and be like, okay, if you were to tell a client Yeah, you will get 15 leads per week But you need to listen to me and you need to do a strategy you need to You know do your due diligence you need to do X Y and Z That's how we'll get there and it's going to cost you this much

Kevin Mooney (27:29.869)
Yeah.

Ryan Blake (27:30.101)
Right. So it takes it off. And then if they're like, well, it's not working, we'd be like, you didn't do it. Which honestly is the truth. Like if you think about that narrative with so many of the clients that we've worked with in the past, they always turn it around. They're like, well, this isn't working. we're like, well, I did tell you in the offset that telling the spending $200 on ads a month.

Kevin Mooney (27:35.224)
Right.

Ryan Blake (27:58.034)
isn't going to get you there. And you were like, well, that's all I want to spend. And they forget that you said that in the beginning. like, I told you, you're going to need to do this. Your landing pages suck. Your funnel sucks. Your website user experience sucks. But you were like, man, I don't know. Let's try the other thing. That'd be like in the workout scenario, like, you want to run a marathon, but all

Kevin Mooney (28:02.275)
Right.

Ryan Blake (28:26.759)
All you're willing to do every day is 10 pushups. I don't think you're going to win that marathon if you just do 10 pushups, right? Like, so I think flipping that narrative in that same way, like what we can learn from this even before you spend the money on it and find out is like offering, offering the formula and saying, you need to do the formula. The formula is worth this much. It will get you there.

Kevin Mooney (28:30.243)
Right.

Kevin Mooney (28:34.904)
Right.

Ryan Blake (28:56.229)
if you do it might be the secret sauce.

Kevin Mooney (29:01.486)
Yeah, I mean, I think that is, I think that's actually really solid.

Kevin Mooney (29:11.032)
Yeah, because I think we deal with a different clientele than some of these other guru type folks out there in the world that I follow. You know, and they're kind of preaching this idea of a

of being more stern with your leads and saying right out of the gates.

My clients typically spend X amount with me. Is that something that you feel comfortable investing? And if they say no, you're like, cool, conversation's done right now. And I think that is really cool, but it's a little bit, it's just a little hard. It's a little harsh, right? Like you kind of have to open up your filtration system.

Ryan Blake (29:50.373)
Mm-hmm.

Ryan Blake (30:00.061)
Yeah, yeah.

Kevin Mooney (30:06.806)
a little bit more, allow more people to come in so that you can say that. But then you're dealing with sales calls all the time where I kind of put that filter up front. So very few people call me so that we have a little bit more of an intimate conversation and.

Ryan Blake (30:14.712)
Mm-hmm.

Kevin Mooney (30:24.042)
What you just said lends itself a little bit more to to my style because I do say to them like, what are you trying to do? And then I'll figure out what services kind of fit that for you and we can have a rational discussion about. Why I think that is the thing for you and. How I see the path for that getting us to do to the end, right? And and that.

Ryan Blake (30:33.458)
Mm-hmm.

Ryan Blake (30:52.955)
Mm-hmm.

Kevin Mooney (30:54.894)
I'm not going to say that it works. And if I talked to Chris Do he'd be like, you're an idiot. Why are you having that conversation with these people? you know, it's just, it is really a balance between the services that you offer and the goals that people have. And how do you bridge that? Like, is there anything that I do that can help in that situation as opposed to the thing that you just told me that you think you want? Right.

Ryan Blake (31:01.04)
Yeah.

Ryan Blake (31:23.645)
Mm-hmm.

Kevin Mooney (31:24.502)
and it blows up, it blows up a lot, right? That, that one lead that I had that talked about brand awareness, used all the right words. I don't have brand awareness in my industry and I need more of that. I'm saying, I'm thinking to myself, this is a good, this is a good lead right here. He's using the right language. And then as you know, the thing, the thing blew up. Well, I don't understand why you need to do this.

Ryan Blake (31:44.989)
Mm-hmm.

Ryan Blake (31:50.942)
just disappeared.

Kevin Mooney (31:54.24)
strategy stuff ahead of time. Like, all right, then go to somebody else or buy strategy online. I don't know what to tell you. But maybe in that situation saying, well, now that we're armed with a little bit better case studies and outcomes from our recent clients being like, hey, do you want a thousand percent ROI? Well, I'm not going to guarantee that, but the steps that we took to get that

Ryan Blake (32:04.402)
Mm-hmm.

Kevin Mooney (32:24.142)
for other client were these steps. So if you want something like that, that's what you have to do. And you have to listen to what I say and you have to be open to the paths that we take. And so maybe that is a little bit better of a sales technique. And if they're not open to it, fine. Like that's okay. You can go to somebody else and say, give me this, give me that.

Ryan Blake (32:27.752)
Mm-hmm.

Ryan Blake (32:37.448)
Yep.

Ryan Blake (32:44.734)
That's fine. Yeah.

Ryan Blake (32:51.284)
Mm-hmm.

Kevin Mooney (32:51.306)
Or you can go and say the same thing that you said to me to somebody else that'll that'll work. But I do really, I think that's a smart idea. And that's something that you pulled out of the conversation that I had with that other person, which I knew that was a deflection that was to put the risk and responsibility on me. I knew that in the moment when she was saying it. but I think it's a good, good technique.

Ryan Blake (33:05.97)
Mm-hmm.

Ryan Blake (33:15.656)
Mm-hmm.

Ryan Blake (33:20.136)
Yeah, yeah, I know. I'm drawing all these conclusions to it. Yeah, like exactly. Degros it. But I mean, I'm thinking about all these ways I'm like, why, why that approach works? Because anything right, like, your your doctor can prescribe you a medication plan or

Kevin Mooney (33:21.078)
I might want to like de-gross it.

Ryan Blake (33:44.039)
something that you have to do and it still falls on your shoulders to do it, right? Like you bought the medication, you bought the supplements, whatever it is, but you can take them home, let it sit on your shelf, only do it for four days and like you won't get the results that way, but you paid for it, but you still could never go back and people still try if you think about it. Like that is just the world we live in today, but like...

Kevin Mooney (34:06.926)
Sure.

Ryan Blake (34:09.451)
this didn't work for me. Well, then you're like, why? well, I mean, I kind of did it for days, and they said it would take three months, but it didn't work soon enough. You know, like, there always will be a infallible rebuff when you're like, Hey, well, you didn't do it. Like I told you, this is what you need to do. I told you this is what we're going to need to do to follow these steps. And you didn't do it.

Kevin Mooney (34:19.182)
Yeah.

Ryan Blake (34:38.266)
Okay, like that that's the end of that conversation. You didn't do it. Like I gave you what you need to do. I told you I'd be here to lead you through it and execute the things that you couldn't do that you don't know how to do. Whether it's it is building a website and making the UX UI a good thing. A solid funnel, whatever it happens to be. It's like, okay, I know how to do those things. But if you're not willing to feed it, it's not going to work. And

Kevin Mooney (34:42.221)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (35:06.691)
Right.

Ryan Blake (35:08.306)
Looking back, mean, God, that's the same thing that happened with air kawaii in the get go was like, Hey, they're like, I don't know how to do this. And we were like, this needs to happen. I don't know how fast you can make it happen, but this is what needs to happen. They're like, all right, sure. Shoot. Let's do it. And eventually it got to the point where they were like, I don't even care what you're doing really, like just do it because it's working. And it's like,

Kevin Mooney (35:33.549)
Red.

Ryan Blake (35:36.136)
Think about that in the same way of like, you gain that trust with a coach or a doctor. Same thing. Eventually you're going to be like, yeah, whatever. Like you tell me, just do it. Let's do it. And I know it's going to work. Being able to tell potential clients that with confidence, like you're saying like, Hey, we know we made 20 billion ROI here.

you know, 20 X row ass or whatever it happened to be. Um, and this is how you get there. This is how you get there. I don't know what your exact numbers are going to be, but this is how you get there. So follow the steps. If not, guess what? Someone out there is always going to be willing to run your Google ads for $300 a month. You'll find them. You'll find them. You can hire them and they'll do it happily, but

Kevin Mooney (36:09.485)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (36:14.702)
Right.

Kevin Mooney (36:26.467)
Yeah.

Ryan Blake (36:30.994)
You're not going to know what's going on. I guarantee they don't know what's going on. So your choice, right? Every time, every scenario, you're like your choice, your choice. And it's like,

Kevin Mooney (36:37.134)
For sure.

Kevin Mooney (36:41.792)
Right. And that's, that's the hard part, right? And we've been toying with that with what we're doing is what is the entry point that can help establish that trust so that we can eventually get into the things that we know we should have been doing in the first place. And that's a different thing than what we used to do at Hound. We used to only sell what we did.

Ryan Blake (36:49.085)
Mm-hmm.

Ryan Blake (37:01.586)
Mm-hmm.

Kevin Mooney (37:12.224)
And when people would come in and they would ask for a website, we'd be like, well, we're a, we're a brand agency, right? We, we transform brands. We, we build brands, we create brands. That's, that's what we do. So we can get to your website if we start over there. And I found that that was always a very, very hard sell. I think it would have worked really great if we had another conversation with.

Ryan Blake (37:36.616)
Mm-hmm.

Kevin Mooney (37:42.124)
the potential client outside of that initial meeting. And so I've been reading this book by Blair Enns it's called The Four Conversations. And the first conversation is the one that is happening outside of the place that you do business in, meaning social media, LinkedIn, YouTube, whatever, the thing that we're doing right now, where we're having these conversations

Ryan Blake (38:02.888)
Mm-hmm.

Kevin Mooney (38:11.66)
And people listen to this and that is what they're using to get to know us to begin to trust us. And I don't know if people are going to listen to this and trust anything that we have to say, cause we're fucking yahoo's and we know nothing. We've just been doing this for a long time. but I really liked that idea. Like, okay, if you're telling me that content is no longer just posting daily of a picture of my office saying,

Ryan Blake (38:19.195)
Mm-hmm.

Kevin Mooney (38:41.432)
who I'm working today. If you're telling me that that content replaces the first conversation, I can start to wrap my head around it. So I've been anti content for a very long time. I don't want to play this fucking content game. I don't want to Snapchat and Twitter, Twitter talk and tap tap and you know, IG people. I didn't want to do all of that. I know it makes

Ryan Blake (39:00.305)
Mm-hmm.

Kevin Mooney (39:10.22)
That makes me sound super old, but that's all right. Now I'm starting to realize in probably 10 years too fucking late that the first conversation that we're having out on the internet is really getting people to know you like you and trust you. And then when they come to you, they already have a sense of who you are, what you do, why you do it. And now it's like,

Ryan Blake (39:27.901)
Yep.

Kevin Mooney (39:36.46)
Hey, can we actually get to the conversation that I wanted to have originally, which was a business conversation? What what's going on? Like what's not working? Where are you now? Where do you want to be? And then I can help you get to that destination. and so I guess it's going to take me making content and podcasting is the first step in, that content, but it's, it's kind of, it's full circle to me because it's just,

Ryan Blake (39:49.085)
Mm-hmm.

Ryan Blake (40:02.163)
Yeah, yeah.

Kevin Mooney (40:06.412)
The content has not been a thing. I have not been interested in

Ryan Blake (40:10.952)
Yeah. When I think it's like you see people doing a million different things and a million different styles out there, putting all sorts of types of content out, like whether it's just a viral trend or something. And, know, like I'm in the same boat of like, don't really care about that because I truly believe that if you go viral, it's like, why people, people never ask why about this all

incredible going viral thing. Like, yeah, but if it was for a dance or some stupid thing that you did on the internet, you're going viral. Because of that stupid thing. No one cares about you or who you are, or anything. They're just laughing at this thing. And it's like, is that the kind of attention that you want to get? You know, it's like, so do you really want to put that strategy whether it's like

Kevin Mooney (41:02.445)
Yeah.

Ryan Blake (41:06.703)
Okay, like maybe everybody's hopping on the ice bucket challenge way back when, you know, but it's like, and maybe that will help you go viral. But is it is it going to lead ultimately to your goal? Probably not. Like, you know what I mean? Like, it's, I think people don't understand the why. And we always run into that we always say that we always massage that into the conversation is like, everyone's focused on the what

Kevin Mooney (41:23.992)
Yeah.

Ryan Blake (41:36.017)
and that what is I make content, maybe I'll go viral. You know, let's say, right, like say a window washing company comes to us and is like, Hey, I think I want to be on Instagram, I'm gonna make a viral video. And then they're like, my video did go viral. Okay, but who watched it is, are any of the million people that saw your viral video, someone that needs their windows washed?

You know, it's like, that's the ultimate question behind that. And it's like, so you're sure you're making content, but are you actually selling the thing that you want to be selling the service or the product? Like, are any of those people like, are they all 14 year olds on TikTok? Because they don't care if their windows are washed. Okay, well, maybe they have parents who need windows, but they're not going to tell their parents that you're a window washer. They don't care about that. Like, you know, so

Kevin Mooney (42:03.787)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (42:24.312)
Right.

Kevin Mooney (42:32.493)
Yeah.

Ryan Blake (42:33.635)
So much of it is like, it's not how many people have seen it. It's who's seeing it and why they're watching it in the first place. Cause it was just to be entertained without a direction or a call to action where you want them to go. Well, you're just an entertainer now and you better figure out how to monetize that instead of your window washing business. So like these people without a goal, you know,

Kevin Mooney (42:48.994)
Right.

Yeah.

Sure. Right. And there's this other idea and there's this other like, there's this other thing that kind of ties into that. There's a guy named Dane Walker on, he's got a bunch of stuff on all the platforms. I see him on Instagram and he's got this personal brand pyramid. And at the bottom, the bottom rung is you're unknown.

The rung above that is your local hero. The next tier is national hero. The next tier is micro celebrity. And then at the top is icon. And you kind of have to go through that entire progression to, not only build a solid personal brand, but to like consistently sell things. So your credibility goes up as you

move up the, up the ladder, right? But if you jump to the top, let's say maybe not icon status, but like micro celeb, your credibility actually goes down. So you have to build that credibility as you go up, up the rung. Right. And so, he was, he was in the example of the Island boys, right? Like the Island boys went bananas.

Ryan Blake (44:09.05)
Mm-hmm.

Ryan Blake (44:18.962)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (44:22.39)
And they, they became this micro celeb overnight and they probably made some good money and now nobody gives a shit about these people. but if you go from unknown to local, to national, to micro celeb, and then icon, like you've got staying power. And so that is an interesting idea, right? And it's the, it's the same ideas as.

Ryan Blake (44:32.311)
Mm-hmm.

Ryan Blake (44:42.958)
Mm-hmm.

Kevin Mooney (44:48.8)
owning your own backyard that we tell clients here locally all the time. Hey, there's no reason to set a new coffee shop up in Alabama. They don't know who you are. Why would they want your coffee from the Pacific Northwest? They think that you're a liberal hippie, right? That's like, that's not going to work. So just own your backyard and, move out, you know, relatively locally, regionally, if anything, we kind of talked about this with Ben for a while too.

Ryan Blake (45:04.122)
Mm-hmm. Yup.

Ryan Blake (45:12.282)
Mm-hmm.

Kevin Mooney (45:16.92)
Like here's how we grow and break into these new markets is we kind of grow into those areas as opposed to just showing up in those areas. so yeah, I really, I really like how Dane kind of laid that out and it made a lot of sense. Okay, cool. Be the voice of your local area and then, and then try to step up from there. I don't think you can go from local to national that quick, maybe on in like maybe on the social channels, but,

Ryan Blake (45:26.118)
Yeah.

Ryan Blake (45:39.814)
Mm-hmm.

Kevin Mooney (45:46.796)
Yeah, for the most part, it's kind of like start here and grow out before you become that national brand.

Ryan Blake (45:55.237)
And it's funny too, because thinking about that, it I think it directly correlates with the big fish size of the pond, or let's just say the size of the fish size of the pond, and those relationships to each other, because I'm thinking about there's a there's a band, I don't even know if they're around, you know, bend anymore. But like, I grew up with these guys, and they just because they were a band in band.

Kevin Mooney (46:08.898)
Yeah.

Ryan Blake (46:25.048)
Everybody loved them, right? Everybody loved them. Yeah. man

Kevin Mooney (46:26.402)
Yeah, they were the Scott band, right? What were they called?

can see Wes did a video for them.

Ryan Blake (46:37.604)
I remember they did the the cover band, something bird. God is gonna be bad. Anyway, precious bird, precious bird. Yeah. Yeah. And, and it's like they, everybody loved them because they were they were the rock stars of Bend, right? And then they made this decision to move to Nashville. And it just didn't work.

Kevin Mooney (46:46.188)
Yeah. Precious bird. Interesting. I don't know these guys. I was thinking of somebody else.

Ryan Blake (47:07.248)
It just didn't work, but it's like, yeah, okay. So when you were in Bend, you were pretty good. There's a direct correlation to skill level, right? I mean, it's like, you could apply this to so many things, but like, okay, you were good and you were willing to get on a stage, play instruments, sing for people. Yeah, you're gonna be the talent at the Summerfest. But you go to Nashville, there are...

Kevin Mooney (47:07.534)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (47:18.412)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (47:31.308)
sure.

Ryan Blake (47:34.798)
now 500,000 people that are actually better than you. So you're this little thing and yeah, that's where your credibility starts to go down because the size of the pond has increased the amount of the fish and the size of the fish in the pond has increased. And there's the same thing like say you did get good at that level. You got really good. You got known. Okay. But you're still not known say in Los Angeles, right?

Kevin Mooney (47:46.894)
Mm-hmm.

Kevin Mooney (48:02.658)
huh.

Ryan Blake (48:03.291)
And you move there and you're like, we haven't heard of you. Like, so as you're growing, there's these growing pains directly correlated to your, your skill level and just your willingness to be there, the competition that's around you, you know? And so it's like, okay, at that point, you either have to choose to like really dedicate yourself to leveling up, figuring out what your niche is going to be or how to, how to level up or

go back to that smaller pond and be happy with that because you know you're going to be successful there. Which neither there's nothing wrong with either of those. It's just a choice that you have to make and the knowledge that that concept is there. Because if you're willing to yeah like you could make a good living playing shows in Bend you know doing being that local celebrity like someone's going to pay you to be on a commercial someone's going to pay you to do this.

Kevin Mooney (48:41.634)
Sure.

Kevin Mooney (48:59.886)
For sure.

Ryan Blake (49:02.098)
You make a good living, but it's like, are you willing to be happy with that instead of trying to go out there and grow? It's like, okay. And I think that that concept follows us around. Like my point is it's the same thing here. And, know, it was like, okay, like where are you going to fit in that space? And how does the credibility follow you in that space?

Kevin Mooney (49:03.725)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (49:11.34)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (49:28.62)
Yeah, yeah, definitely. It's something I have not at all worked on or tried to work on in the 20 something years that I've been here in Bend. Like just not at all even wanted to be a part of it. When I was in college at OSU, I would go and do the, the events, cause you had to volunteer as a college student and I would do the Bend Venture Conference and I would go to the pub talks and things like that.

Ryan Blake (49:40.338)
Mm-hmm.

Kevin Mooney (49:58.69)
and at the time I thought, gosh, these guys are so much further ahead of me in life and business. You know, they're doing things that I don't even understand yet. And in my journey to figure things out and grow and become better, I maybe got to a point where I was like, well, shit, now I know as much, if not more than these people, I don't need to go to the stupid pub talks anymore. Why would I need to do that? And

And also again, it's probably because I don't, I don't enjoy a lot of people's perspectives. I mean, I'm going to say that lightly. I, I enjoy perspectives, but there's just a lot in this area that are all the same, you know, and I don't want to do the same. So, so it's more of a, a different level of ego that comes into play. Like I'll listen to your perspective, but if you start down the path that everybody else does, I'm like tune out, I'm out, I'm done.

Ryan Blake (50:36.049)
you

Ryan Blake (50:44.559)
Yeah. Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (50:58.646)
I can't do this anymore. I'll just start shaking my head. huh. huh. huh.

Ryan Blake (50:58.96)
Yeah.

huh. If it's just the jargon, like the popular jargon, and you know, that that's always a telltale sign for me is that if people start using like a word, multiple time or a phrase multiple times, within a five minute paragraph of dialogue, I'm like, okay, this is a cool new word in the space. And

It's a way to show that you're like aware of that cool new word. I mean, like I've talked about how many times like it just drives me nuts when people call themselves wizard or guru or whatever. And I'm like, dude, you're you are none of those things. And it just makes it just it's just your selling point. It just makes people think you're fancy. Oh, well, he's just he's a web guru.

Kevin Mooney (51:32.487)
huh.

Kevin Mooney (51:54.52)
Yeah.

Ryan Blake (51:57.103)
What the hell does that even mean? He's a web guru? Like, okay. Does he build websites? Does he? Yeah, I like.

Kevin Mooney (51:59.522)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (52:03.704)
You know, right. I'm, I'm guilty at some level cause I know that I've done some of these things. I know that I've said it to people. It's something that I try to avoid, but I don't know. It comes down to some of these like personality types things. When I am talking to somebody and I can clearly see that we're, we're not connecting the words that I'm saying.

Ryan Blake (52:10.69)
we are! Yeah.

Uh-huh.

Ryan Blake (52:31.249)
Mm-hmm.

Kevin Mooney (52:32.672)
are not landing with that person, I default to this stupid thing where I kind of throw the buzzwords out. Like, you didn't understand what I'm saying. I meant brand awareness or something like that, you know?

Ryan Blake (52:48.047)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (52:55.842)
And you're like, no, it's, it is brand and it's branding and it's all of the same. And it's like, no, those words are completely different. They mean two different things, but like, I realize who I'm talking to and they don't understand this thing. So I start to kind of like muddy it up by saying a bunch of words. It's really, it's really a challenge.

Ryan Blake (53:02.225)
Hmm.

Ryan Blake (53:12.881)
Yeah. You're like, dude, the ROI is so high today. I checked the ROI charts. It's crazy. Like you should. Yeah, like you should see what they're doing in Florida. Their ROI, it's like 98 degrees. 98 degrees of ROI.

Kevin Mooney (53:23.918)
It's through the roof, man. It's through the roof.

Kevin Mooney (53:34.478)
Hahaha!

Kevin Mooney (53:39.046)
man, it's a problem. It's a real, real problem. I think that's, you know, I like the idea that that my buddy Brian has for his podcast. Let's define these words. But then you get into the definition of these words and you realize it just makes it even more muddy. You know, like I told you the definition of marketing. It's like this

This long, right? It's it's broken into like three phases and then there's three sections within each three phases. And so you're like there's nine things inside of this. Sure, I get the big picture that marketing is more than just what goes out in the world. Marketing is your internal process and how you deal with people and all that stuff. But. Mike, this is way more confusing. No wonder nobody wants to learn what these things are and no no wonder when they come in.

Ryan Blake (54:10.713)
Mm-hmm.

Ryan Blake (54:26.277)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (54:38.466)
to you as an agency and they say I need marketing, they're like, I don't know, but I need marketing. Like I get it now.

Ryan Blake (54:43.569)
Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's the same thing as like going into a doctor and being like, I need doctoring. Like, I don't want I don't want the people in the lab explaining to me what, I don't even know it, you know, like what mononucocloserosis even is. I don't care. I just want, you know, like I have a goal. Maybe it's feel better. Maybe my knee hurts.

Kevin Mooney (54:51.214)
Hahaha

Kevin Mooney (55:03.224)
Right.

Ryan Blake (55:11.225)
I don't know how the ligaments and the kneecap or whatever, I don't know how they all go together and I kind of don't care truly, like I don't care at all. And so like, if I went in and the doctor was like, I'm gonna define what a kneecap is actually, and also like where the kneecap came from, right? I'm like, what? Like.

Kevin Mooney (55:19.245)
Right.

Kevin Mooney (55:28.962)
Hahaha

Ryan Blake (55:38.225)
I didn't know it just hurts. Like get it. Can you make it better? And so right like I think in our sense, like, yeah, I mean, I don't I don't want to spend the time educating a client on, you know, maybe that's our maybe that's something that we've done wrong, too, is that like, maybe we're trying to tell them what brand awareness is. And honestly, sometimes they do it like, they do want to know things they want to say, they want to know, okay, well, what are you doing here?

Kevin Mooney (55:43.778)
Right.

Ryan Blake (56:08.323)
And I think the issue could be that I say things like, well, this is brand awareness. Instead, maybe the way to go is like, well, this is getting people to know you, be comfortable with you and trust you. Maybe like you use these external terms that are easily defined and definable, right? Instead of like, well, it's brand awareness and it's, we're going to gauge it.

Kevin Mooney (56:14.872)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (56:23.32)
Yeah.

Ryan Blake (56:34.86)
off reach and I want you to know what reach and frequency and ad recall lift is. And maybe, you know, that's what we do. That's what we've been doing, but instead it's like, trust. What's your trust level? Okay. We've built this much trust. Now we're going to ask them to do so, you know, maybe there's a way to not define those words. It's like the trust phase instead of, cause we call it the brand awareness phase, and then we call it the engagement phase and we call it the traffic phase.

Kevin Mooney (56:41.08)
Sure. Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (56:52.92)
Yeah, I like it.

Ryan Blake (57:03.982)
And I don't think people understand what that is, even when we describe it to them. but what if it was the trust phase, the conversation phase and the ask or something like that, right? Like, they're like, I get it. It's not marketing words. It's, it's these natural progressions of what a human being needs in order to do something. Right.

Kevin Mooney (57:08.716)
No. Right.

Kevin Mooney (57:32.694)
Yeah, no, I think it's really good and it makes sense. I think the reason that we use the industry terms is. For a couple of different reasons, the first being so that we're all saying the same thing, right? So if you go to somebody else and you hear brand awareness, you understand what that is or OK, this is a thing in this industry, right? So it gives you some credibility. The other thing or the other reason why we do it is.

Ryan Blake (57:48.368)
Mm-hmm.

Kevin Mooney (58:02.51)
to sort of mitigate risk on our side. Like if we tell somebody we're just focusing on brand awareness, that doesn't mean that sales are going to roll in. And then...

Ryan Blake (58:06.65)
Mm-hmm.

Ryan Blake (58:15.496)
huh.

Kevin Mooney (58:18.302)
that thing right there, what that does is it tells them that we're not on the hook for additional sales or less sales, right? We're just sharing awareness. We're just out there doing the introduction saying, we exist. So it prevents that scope creep a little bit. It sets expectations. But to your point though, think we can,

Ryan Blake (58:29.351)
Mm-hmm.

Ryan Blake (58:40.269)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (58:47.288)
dumb that down a little bit and say that we do it in three phases, right? We're getting people to know us and then we're having a conversation with them and then we're gonna ask them to do something. But each of those are a phase and we have to stay in the phase for six months, right? It's the only appropriate way to ask somebody and then we can go into the reference of you don't go on a Tinder date and ask somebody to marry you. You go on a series of dates.

Ryan Blake (58:49.678)
Yeah. Yeah.

Ryan Blake (58:58.468)
Mm-hmm.

Ryan Blake (59:14.18)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (59:16.396)
Right. And it gets better and better and you have more and more conversation and then it gets to the point where you're like, I think I could spend my life with this person. I want to ask them to marry me. So, you know, I think we've done a good job of explaining that, but the reality is that maybe they don't even want to hear that because they came in with the mindset of I need a thing. And that thing is.

Ryan Blake (59:28.364)
Mm-hmm.

Ryan Blake (59:44.974)
Mm-hmm.

Kevin Mooney (59:46.35)
social media. So we're unpacking that one thing of social media and we're telling them how social media actually works and how people actually work, how people actually use it as consumers. So maybe the judo switch in that situation is great, you want social media. Yeah, we can do that. We have seen X ROI, 98 degrees ROI.

Ryan Blake (01:00:00.161)
Mm-hmm.

Kevin Mooney (01:00:16.504)
for a lot of our people, how we get to that ROI is through getting people to know us. We have conversations with them and then we finally ask them for it, right? So we kind of do switch the details of social media into social media advertising. And that's the problem because when someone says social, what are we talking about? Are we talking about organic social?

Ryan Blake (01:00:39.583)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, yep.

Kevin Mooney (01:00:46.168)
Are we talking about paid social? And then, you know, we have to pair that with your goal. So if your goal is, have to grow revenue by 32 % by next year or I'm fired. Well, we're probably going to suggest that paid social is the way to do that. Then within paid social, we're going to do these three things. And that's typically how we get to that ROI. But that's the problem is you have to know the goal.

Ryan Blake (01:00:46.586)
Mm-hmm.

Ryan Blake (01:01:05.153)
Mm-hmm.

Kevin Mooney (01:01:14.05)
And then we have to know where you think the effort should be put. And then we can tell you, A, that's not the right thing to do, or here's how we would approach that one thing. Right? And so now you're, you're four or five, six layers deep and it is a real challenge. Otherwise just go to the social media agency that you like the best. And then they're just going to make the stuff. And I don't know if.

Ryan Blake (01:01:19.342)
Yeah.

Ryan Blake (01:01:38.016)
Mm-hmm.

Kevin Mooney (01:01:42.88)
A lot of these places actually give a shit about ROI or what this does for your business or your bottom line, or if they're just going to take the money and do what they're told. I personally just don't want to be told what to do. It's the reason that I'm not employed by any company because I want to go to lunch at 1215. I don't want to be told I can't go to lunch. I'm going to go to fucking lunch. Same, same thing here in this space. I don't want to be told that I have to do something.

Ryan Blake (01:01:56.447)
Mm-hmm.

Yep. Yep.

Ryan Blake (01:02:05.077)
Mm-hmm.

Kevin Mooney (01:02:11.246)
Now I don't want to make it sound like I don't listen to my clients. I, I just think through the problem and if it doesn't, if the alignment isn't there, if I don't see a path, I'm going to at least challenge. If you can present the path to me, I'm happy to go do the thing that I was told to do in that situation. But I really think that people should come to me, come to us for, um,

Ryan Blake (01:02:20.175)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:02:40.216)
for our ability to think through these problems. And that is the key thing that I want everybody to understand. I don't know if it's ever gonna come across, but you should pay people to think through problems and then apply creative solutions to it. It's not creative and then figure out what a problem is afterwards. So yeah, I don't know, that's my fucking rant.

Ryan Blake (01:02:43.085)
Yeah.

Ryan Blake (01:02:57.412)
Yep.

Ryan Blake (01:03:05.173)
Yeah. Well, dude, I mean, I agree because so many of these guys I've even seen. I see it all the time with the social media specific agencies and what they sell, what they say is like, we got these guys views up and we got, you know, whatever these metrics are, their following is this much bigger and they got these many views. But no one's asking or saying who that following is.

who those views came from and what those views are even accomplishing. Even circling back to like, okay, well, okay, you got this doctor. You're like, hey, if you do jumping jacks with your team, you're gonna get so many views that it's gonna be, well, yeah, okay, awesome. Now they're gonna be like, dude, these doctors are doing jumping jacks. That's wild. I gotta send this to somebody. But are they, yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:04:00.334)
Look these fucking weirdos.

Ryan Blake (01:04:02.532)
But are they the people that are gonna actually, they need a doctor? I don't know, probably not. So then you're even like, okay, you came because you know you need social media. You think you need social media. What platforms are you supposed to be on? Like, because ultimately, yeah, we do go to TikTok and we go to Instagram first and foremost to be entertained.

Kevin Mooney (01:04:19.574)
Right.

Ryan Blake (01:04:28.365)
That's it. We're not always in a shopping mindset when we go to Instagram. So I think the misconception there might be or is if people go to entertain, well, I have to entertain them. Maybe you have to entertain them, but like, still you want to lead them to the ultimate goal. Like if I'm selling anything, I want a person that's interested in

Kevin Mooney (01:04:47.502)
Sure.

Ryan Blake (01:04:57.283)
buying that thing to be the person that is watching it. And I think that even circling back to your point earlier on in the episode was if you have a thousand engaged people that are the correct thousand engaged people, that's ultimately way more valuable than a million people that might look at your stuff or listen to your stuff, but really aren't going to do anything about it. Right? Like

Kevin Mooney (01:05:02.243)
Right.

Ryan Blake (01:05:25.591)
And I think that's where going to these social media places, like too many of them misunderstand these glamour stats, like views and followers and whatever as virality. Yeah, they misunderstand that as success. And that's all they're going to do is they're like, we're going to like, you need to be posting X amount of times.

Kevin Mooney (01:05:37.208)
and virality.

Kevin Mooney (01:05:42.252)
Right.

Ryan Blake (01:05:49.133)
Do you though? Like if you don't have anything important to say, then why don't even do it. You don't have anything that's important to say or anything that's important to show. I don't want to, I certainly don't want to see you do three posts on your feed a day. I'm just going to unfollow you. Cause to me that's spammy just cause you think the more you put out, you know, it's like, they don't know that's there. And then ultimately when someone comes into, need social media.

Kevin Mooney (01:05:50.51)
Right.

Ryan Blake (01:06:17.848)
Even these social media agencies, they don't know anything about the paid side. Like, it's amazing to me how many don't know about the paid side. They're like, boosted posts, we do boosted posts, and they just do it from the app, the little boost button that gives you nothing. That's like to me. Yeah, if I could have invented the boost button, I'd be psyched because it's literally just a way for Zuckerberg to make money.

Kevin Mooney (01:06:29.197)
Right.

Kevin Mooney (01:06:37.166)
Spent a bunch of money on nothing.

Ryan Blake (01:06:46.499)
but I've never, yeah, yeah, let's get $10 a day from all hundred thousand businesses that are out there. A million businesses that are on their business accounts. Perfect. But it does, it never does anything. They give you the options of like, I don't know, have more people see your content. Like that's literally the description. They have more people see your, okay, who though? So these social media agencies, I've seen so many that are like,

Kevin Mooney (01:06:46.614)
Right. He's like, need a new car. Let's put that boost button out.

Kevin Mooney (01:07:07.202)
Yeah. Right.

Ryan Blake (01:07:16.311)
yeah, we can boost your, we'll boost your posts. And that's what they do. They don't know how to get into business manager and ads manager and events manager. it's like, but they're out there just slinging these promises that are stupid. It's stupid. They're like, how am I going to get so many views?

Kevin Mooney (01:07:32.738)
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think it's a fine line in the content space for entertainment, right? There people are using these things for entertainment. They're there to doom scroll a hundred, a hundred percent, but they're also there to like discover new things, right? Find.

Ryan Blake (01:07:45.421)
Mm-hmm.

Ryan Blake (01:07:50.905)
Yep.

Ryan Blake (01:07:59.439)
Mm-hmm.

Kevin Mooney (01:07:59.862)
New things. That's the whole point of that Explorer feed. All it does is show me AI Bigfoot and you know, things like things like that, which I love at the moment. But I guess there's just this fine line of like entertaining people and educating people and and having a conversation with people on there. And I think more people are.

Ryan Blake (01:08:07.727)
Same. Yup.

Kevin Mooney (01:08:28.408)
putting their efforts into the entertainment factor and not realizing how that can be monetized. think the good people know how that works. I don't know that I have the best grasp on it. I think I do, but I'm not sure exactly what the content looks like. I would need somebody that deals with that all the time. I can input the creative ideas to make the

Ryan Blake (01:08:34.775)
Yes.

Ryan Blake (01:08:54.511)
Mm-hmm.

Kevin Mooney (01:08:57.57)
the video more catchy and hooky and and have a little bit of flair to it. But it's like, what is the premise of that? I need somebody that's really good there. But yeah, I mean.

Ryan Blake (01:09:08.271)
Yeah. Yeah. And like, where are you going to lead them? Right? Like if you Yeah, it's great to entertain them. But what's the next step? Like, there's definitely value in that entertainment piece. Because like with with

Kevin Mooney (01:09:18.029)
Sure.

Right, that's what I saying is if you can take that entertainment piece and show them something that is a problem in an entertaining way, like you've done your job as a company, right? Then you hit them with some traffic ads down the line and they go, well, I remember that video that they showed me, you know, for, you know, how to hit a golf ball longer and, you know, they did it in a funny way. Like I remember them, okay, I'll buy from them next.

Ryan Blake (01:09:33.775)
Mm-hmm.

Kevin Mooney (01:09:50.54)
Right. That's that's that stuff. But I know I totally interrupted you. I just wanted to get that thought out of if you can do entertainment from a problem solving standpoint, you're you're going to do pretty all right.

Ryan Blake (01:09:50.959)
Yeah.

Ryan Blake (01:09:56.76)
No.

Ryan Blake (01:10:05.049)
Well, and even, mean, I think that we do it so often that it's something that we, it's a no brainer to us, but you mentioned you entertain them and then you ask them to buy later on down the road. Well, too many social media agencies are focused on just the entertainment piece and they don't know how to do that. Buy ask later on down the road, right? Like, you can put a, you can put a book now button on a

Kevin Mooney (01:10:33.514)
Right.

Ryan Blake (01:10:34.266)
What? Like I've literally talked to social media, social media managers. They're like, I didn't know you could do that. I, I didn't know how you could do that. So it's like, they're putting all the stock into the entertainment, but no, what's next. No next step, right? Like, okay, great. We entertain, but then you hit them with, okay, bye now.

Here's your call to action. So it's like, they don't know how to employ the call to action with it. Great to entertain the correct audience, have your defined correct audiences, entertain them, and then have a next step. I think you and I just, we take for granted, why wouldn't you have a next step? Why wouldn't you call that entertained group to action? But that's what's missing in so many approaches is

Kevin Mooney (01:11:03.33)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:11:15.97)
Yeah.

Ryan Blake (01:11:27.052)
Well, we entertained shouldn't like in their mind, like shouldn't that just organically drive more sales or more leads or more bookings? But it doesn't. I mean, it will inevitably maybe, but at such a low percentage, right? Like you're leaving money on the table by just entertaining, entertaining 500,000 people, hoping 2 % of those people will somehow find their way to your website and do something.

Kevin Mooney (01:11:32.238)
Sir.

Ryan Blake (01:11:57.088)
You don't even know what it is because you know, what's the definition, right? Like if you offer. Yeah, here we are back at the definition. Yeah. So yeah, I think that that's such a missing piece is it's you got to have the steps. It's not just one thing, you know, when people say I need social media and it's the same with any of these concepts. Like I need social media. I need Google ads. I need SEO. That's

Kevin Mooney (01:12:01.282)
Right. Here we are back at the definition.

Ryan Blake (01:12:26.383)
back talk about a definition there. I need SEO. Right? Like, I don't even know that is. I know I need it.

Kevin Mooney (01:12:29.193)
man. Yeah.

Blanket statement of the last 15 years. SEO it, please.

Ryan Blake (01:12:38.454)
Mm hmm. Yes, yeah, I need the CEOs. I need the CEOs. Yeah, it's like, okay, well, but what are you going to go do? Google ads? It's more than just the ad. Where are you pointing them? Do they know what they're supposed to do when they're getting there? And is it easy for them to do what they what you want them to do? People need to know they're not just going to like land somewhere and find out like, huh?

Kevin Mooney (01:12:42.702)
Hahaha

Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:12:56.536)
Yeah.

Ryan Blake (01:13:06.06)
I saw this ad, now I'm on this page and it's cool looking, but am I supposed to fill out this form? Or am I supposed to buy this t-shirt? Maybe I'll do both, maybe I'll do neither. I don't think it really matches what I was seeing in that ad. The ad was like someone running with shoes. I don't even see those shoes. There's so much more than the one thing.

Kevin Mooney (01:13:15.158)
Right. Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:13:28.428)
I literally just got, I got hit with something just like that. I got an ad on Instagram and it was, these guys were giving away this free brand assessment. And it's like, click here to get access to it. And then it's like, give me your name and your phone number and then we'll send you an email with the download link. And then I get the email and it's like, please confirm your email. And then I confirm the email and it takes me back to a separate landing page that is like opt in to your free,

initial consult with us, right. An onboarding call, a sales call, a fit check, whatever. And I was like, where's the download? I didn't get the download. I never got it. It's like, I don't know. Are they just tricking people to, like, get them there? Are you just trying to put so much shit in the way that they're confused at what they did and then they sign up and then you have them now on a fit check call? it's like, no, I wanted the assessment.

Ryan Blake (01:14:02.488)
Yeah, yeah.

Ryan Blake (01:14:08.556)
Yeah.

Ryan Blake (01:14:25.698)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:14:27.692)
document that you had, not because I thought I was good, I just wanted to see what people are putting out in the world. And then I was lost in some weird conversion funnel somewhere. So there is a lot in this space that...

Ryan Blake (01:14:34.156)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:14:43.734)
It's just overcomplicated and overdone. And I think the idea is how can we simplify that? And that's one of the things that I really like about, that program that they want me to buy into is they, they do talk about like, Hey, this is actually a really simple thing. It's very, very simple. You don't need a million people. You need a thousand people. And then you need to just do like three things to these thousand people. And then you're going to make.

Ryan Blake (01:14:50.264)
Mm-hmm.

Ryan Blake (01:15:07.031)
Mm-hmm.

Kevin Mooney (01:15:13.526)
a bunch of money and I'm like, really like how you're simplifying it and I agree with you that we should all simplify things. I just don't know if I'm going to buy from you or not though.

Ryan Blake (01:15:25.582)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, cuz 6000 bucks. Yeah, at 6000 bucks is is an ask. It's a great ask. I wish I could ask for that for something like that. But you know what that means? They're confident. Hopefully that means they're confident in what they're doing. But man.

Kevin Mooney (01:15:27.842)
And there's all the trust and credibility there.

Kevin Mooney (01:15:42.392)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:15:45.71)
I mean, it's crazy. I told the gal on the call, I was like, $6,000. Okay. You know, I didn't get nervous. I wasn't like, oh, they asked for a lot of money. I thought to myself, well, shit, when people call me and we have a meeting, I'm asking for $60,000. So what does that feel like? And I can understand from the lead or the client perspective.

Ryan Blake (01:15:56.958)
Mm-hmm.

Ryan Blake (01:16:06.178)
Yeah. Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:16:15.566)
I'm hey, I don't know you and I've never talked to you and we're having this great conversation now, but you're still asking me for a lot of money, five, $6,000 every single month. And so it does help me empathize and figure out another way to warm some people up. I guess it just comes down to this. Ultimately, I want to work with people who have done

Ryan Blake (01:16:40.477)
Mm-hmm.

Kevin Mooney (01:16:45.196)
this type of thing before in the past and it didn't work for them, but they're not done with the agency experience, right? They're like, the product wasn't good, so the company ultimately failed. It wasn't the agency. Cause that's the big thing. And you and I both know that we've worked with good and bad companies, meaning their product, their offering.

Ryan Blake (01:16:56.055)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:17:14.722)
Right? It's not my fault that your shitty company did not win. We still did good work. Maybe we could have done better work. Maybe we could have pushed harder. Maybe we could have. I don't know, lead a little bit more, whatever. I'm I'm not taking the blame off of us, but I am saying that often times in that relationship, the reason that it fails is because nobody wanted the product. Well, that's absolutely not our fault.

Ryan Blake (01:17:15.199)
Yeah.

Ryan Blake (01:17:41.494)
Mm-hmm.

Kevin Mooney (01:17:43.51)
It's gotta be in demand, right? People have to wanna want it. So I think about that for me, for the agency, for us working together, of like, how do we...

Ryan Blake (01:17:47.959)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:17:58.488)
how do we soften the conversation and how many times do we have to have this conversation out in the world before the people coming to us are a little bit more prepared? And I'm not blaming them for not knowing the definition or not being more prepared. They don't know what they don't know and that's all right.

Ryan Blake (01:18:11.563)
Mm-hmm.

Ryan Blake (01:18:20.492)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:18:22.412)
I just, want to try to figure out how that goes. Cause I've stated this before that the client agency relationship is just broken. They, that relationship is treated like a commodity. I need this, give me this. And we just happen to be the type of people who are like, I hear you wanted this, but it seems like this over here is the actual problem.

Ryan Blake (01:18:30.87)
Mm-hmm.

Kevin Mooney (01:18:51.02)
Why don't we explore that? Or if you're open to it, why don't you start working with us and we'll kind of figure it out as we go? Know that you're getting experts to solve these problems together. It's just, it's a hard thing, man. I don't know how else to describe it. I would not hire an agency right now.

Ryan Blake (01:19:12.929)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:19:18.498)
Right? I want to, I wish I could hire somebody to just fix all my shit for me and clean up my digital presence or my social and my whatever, but I don't have that money and I can't finance it right now. So I get it. I can empathize.

Ryan Blake (01:19:19.719)
Yeah.

Ryan Blake (01:19:24.406)
Mm-hmm.

Ryan Blake (01:19:36.245)
Yeah. Well, I mean, I think it's a problem in so many industries because like, I was talking to a buddy of mine about this liver detox that I started doing. And it's so interesting, too, because it this was a whole light bulb moment for me and what we do also that I was like, Okay, like, yes, I got these drops, and they have herbs, and they do these things.

However, I also know that I it's not just that I've got to like start eating clean cut out alcohol drink more water All of those things right And my buddy was looking at it he was like well, dude, here's the thing Like I just can't even afford to buy something that snake oil, you know, and you use that term like a snake oil, right? I was like, well, yeah, I know for sure. Like I don't think these drops

are like the silver bullet for fatigue or brain fog or any of those things, right? Like you got to do other stuff, right? And I think that that's the, the, the issue is that too many people sell the silver bullet, like taking it back to the agency side of things as they sell a product, social media,

Kevin Mooney (01:20:41.336)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:20:53.454)
Mm-hmm.

Ryan Blake (01:21:00.829)
web design, whatever as that silver bullet that's going to make it happen, not knowing that it's truly a holistic approach, right? I mean, think about that apparel company that came to us and they were like, we want a new Shopify theme and we're willing to spend $20,000 on this Shopify theme. And the second that we asked why they were like mind blown, shocked. were like, why are you even asking that?

Kevin Mooney (01:21:28.18)
What? Why are you?

Ryan Blake (01:21:30.091)
Why? Because we're looking at their current Shopify theme and we're like, I mean, like there's nothing functionally wrong with your Shopify theme, but there's definitely a lot of questions that we have about what you're even offering. Like, what are you doing? What are you talking about? And somebody, that means that somebody sold them the silver bullet. Like, your Shopify theme needs to be updated. That's gonna fix your problem.

Kevin Mooney (01:21:45.304)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:21:59.692)
Yeah, it's so true. Yeah.

Ryan Blake (01:22:00.531)
and not understanding there's more to it. Yeah. So I think people, people need to resonate with the fact that it's going to be, it's always a holistic problem, no matter what. It's always a holistic problem. Like thinking about the health metaphor, there's always something to it. You know, maybe it's not just that

Kevin Mooney (01:22:15.662)
Yeah.

Ryan Blake (01:22:24.843)
you're feeling fatigued, it's that you need to work on your sleep habits, work on your hydration, work on your diet. But instead, right, we've thrown, they're like, just give me a sleeping pill. Like that's, that's gonna, but there's more to it. Yeah, that'll help you sleep a little bit, but it won't fix all of the other issues that are there. And it's the same approach with, with this is that there's too much of that silver bullet, shiny object.

Kevin Mooney (01:22:38.454)
Right. For sure.

Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:22:53.528)
Yeah.

Ryan Blake (01:22:54.316)
mentality out there and it will work for some people is the problem. You know, and though the people that it does work for the one out of 100 that it does work for are the only ones that that agency is going to talk about. It worked for this one. It's going to work for you too.

Kevin Mooney (01:23:11.426)
Yeah, for sure.

And I think the, I think the constant battle is the silver bullet method versus the holistic method. And we live in the holistic method, but the reality is who has the money to pay for the holistic method, right? Or the time, right? Cause it takes longer, right? And it's like, I just want to speak to those people who realize that they've gone through this before they've

Ryan Blake (01:23:25.792)
Mm-hmm.

Ryan Blake (01:23:32.244)
the time, right? Because it takes longer. just does.

Kevin Mooney (01:23:43.896)
piece their business together through seven freelancers over the years. And they don't like that they have to talk to seven different people and then one person says one thing and the other person says the other thing. And like, I want to work with a seasoned business person who's kind of gone through those pain points. And they've arrived at this conclusion of, yeah, there are people

Ryan Blake (01:23:50.4)
Hmm hmm.

Ryan Blake (01:24:06.966)
Mm-hmm.

Kevin Mooney (01:24:13.314)
that are experts in all of these areas. They still might have to hire out in some way, or form, but they know how the puzzle pieces go together. I want to work with that person. And I just want to be the person over here going, hi, I'm ready for you. I got it. Like I'm here for you. And so yeah, I've been working on my own ICP profiles.

Ryan Blake (01:24:25.078)
Mm-hmm.

Ryan Blake (01:24:29.629)
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:24:44.182)
And it kind of lives right in that department where you have to have, you have to have had some failures in your business career. You don't have to be a serial failure entrepreneur, but you have to have some failures. And honestly, in my business career, I've got more failures than successes. And it's the reason that I'm so

set on the things that I do because these are the areas that I were the worst at in my early businesses and these areas lacked. And I realized now that if I had done these things, those things would have been successes. So.

Ryan Blake (01:25:30.524)
Mm hmm. But that only comes with time too is something that I've realized is like, you can learn, you can learn how to use a couple of the tools and become pretty dangerous with those tools. But until you've been doing it for a long time, I mean, like, you know, we're, we're both coming up on multiple couple decades of doing this. And it's like,

Kevin Mooney (01:25:34.764)
It only comes with time.

Ryan Blake (01:25:57.74)
The only way to really learn all of the things is through those failures and translate them to successes, right? Like how, okay, well, I've seen this before. I've seen that before. And I think about, you know, when I was younger, hearing my dad's buddies, you know, and they're just, they're talking, they're talking story, talking about things that, and it's like, you know, back then I was like, man, these are, these are

pretty, pretty boring stories. And now I'm like, I'm becoming that. But only because I've learned those things, right? Like, I'm like, like, now I'm like, yeah, you know, I mean, this one time in Europe, I like got off on the wrong train station. And it was this and that. And the ultimate thing with this long drawn out story is it's like, well, I learned, you know, stay awake on the train.

Kevin Mooney (01:26:34.573)
Yeah.

Ryan Blake (01:26:52.744)
and get the right ticket and maybe learn a couple phrases before you get on the train. Whereas, know, 20 years ago, you're like, just know the train is what you need. Just get on the train. There's nuances that only time are gonna teach you and only experience are gonna teach you. And it's like, that's the thing. That's why.

That's the difference between a $350 a month ad agency and someone that wants to think about it. You want someone, I would want someone that wants to think about it with me, but also tell me, right? Like think about it with me, but tell me these are the steps with confidence.

Kevin Mooney (01:27:24.308)
sure. Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:27:32.216)
Yeah, 100%.

Ryan Blake (01:27:35.638)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:27:36.888)
Yeah, I mean, there are people out there like that. We work with some of them. So I'm thankful for the clients that we have that do trust us with our work. I don't know if I told you this.

My other client right now, one of my other clients, the doctor's office, I just finished up doing brand strategy and I got through visual identity with them and I did the presentation last week. And I didn't think that the presentation was super great or anything. It was built out, it was very full, but I presented it and it was to the owner.

Ryan Blake (01:28:03.325)
sweet.

Ryan Blake (01:28:09.64)
Mm-hmm.

Kevin Mooney (01:28:22.45)
and her executive assistant who handles most of the admin stuff there. And by the end of it, the assistant was full blown tears and the owner was doing this. I was shocked and they loved it so much and they couldn't wrap their head around.

Ryan Blake (01:28:29.108)
Mm-hmm.

Ryan Blake (01:28:39.967)
Uh-huh.

Kevin Mooney (01:28:48.334)
like what they were actually looking at. They were, they knew what they knew was an identity. They knew it was a logo and the shapes and the patterns and the colors and the fonts and all that other shit, but they couldn't really wrap their heads around the story that I came up with to bring it from what they told me their company was all about to the identity assets. And it was, it was really cool and really rewarding.

Ryan Blake (01:28:51.188)
Mm-hmm.

Ryan Blake (01:29:13.47)
Mm-hmm.

Kevin Mooney (01:29:18.252)
Like I left that on a super high, like just text messages afterwards, like who crushed it? Like, we're so stoked, we love it. And I was just thinking to myself like that, that's what I want. And I've had other experiences where I do even better story and they look at me like I'm crazy. Like, it's not a logo or you're like, no, man, this is going in the wrong direction.

Ryan Blake (01:29:31.051)
That's the thing. Yeah.

Ryan Blake (01:29:41.609)
Yeah. Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:29:47.402)
I just wanted to say that like that that is why I do what I do. It's so awesome when somebody gives you the space and the time to produce that and you do and then they just they see it and instantly it it resonates with them. They identify with it. They're like we could have never gotten to this this place. Without this process and of course in the early stages of the process they're like why are you asking me about?

this and why are you asking me about money and how much we have and our disposable income and all of that sort of stuff? And I'm like, it just, it's a part of the process. I have to know what I'm playing with. You know, I have to know that when it comes time to put the new signage up, that you have the money to put this thing up, right? but it was really cool and I just, I'm so happy for, for people like that.

Ryan Blake (01:30:31.839)
Yeah.

Ryan Blake (01:30:40.297)
Mm-hmm.

Kevin Mooney (01:30:47.438)
happy to have them as clients.

Ryan Blake (01:30:49.833)
Yeah. Well, and the thing that's interesting is like not once in that, not once in that story, did you talk about how much money you're making from them or building in your portfolio. And that's definitely a different set of scenes. Like the reason that, the reason that we do this this way is because the, the gratification is to actually see a really cool

Kevin Mooney (01:31:01.543)
yeah.

Ryan Blake (01:31:15.955)
person, product, brand, story, get the recognition and the wins that they deserve. Like at the end of the day, when I step out of my office and it's the same with you, that's what gives us that, that purpose. And it's like why we do what we do. Obviously we need to make money. Everybody does, right? It's not an NPO, but that's not

Kevin Mooney (01:31:35.768)
percent.

Ryan Blake (01:31:42.923)
what we're psyched about at the end of the day when we step out of the office, we're not like, dude, I, I am making money off all these clients, baby. I'm making money off of it. We're like, dude, we made something that we're proud of. Like we help these guys tell their story and reach people that they will resonate with. And ultimately like with the doctor ultimately can help more people as well. Like, so you're like,

Kevin Mooney (01:31:57.912)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:32:11.053)
Yeah.

Ryan Blake (01:32:13.17)
That's the driving force for me. And I know it is for you is that's why we care about it so much. And that is a big difference is so many. So many people out there are truly and I'm not bagging it per se because we all do need to make money. But the goal of many others is to just build their financial portfolio. Like I have 500 clients, our revenue grew.

as an agency this much, you know, they're, they're looking at their own internal stats like that. How much did we grow? need to grow more, not how much of a difference can we make for our clients? And I think that's a, that's a big significant driver that would be more helpful out there is if there were more people that just truly cared about putting people's message out there like that, like getting the, the tears.

Kevin Mooney (01:32:45.048)
Sure.

Kevin Mooney (01:33:05.134)
Yeah.

Ryan Blake (01:33:10.213)
and getting the like, just we're psyched about this, like, that's the food that keeps us going.

Kevin Mooney (01:33:15.406)
Oh yeah. Yeah. I mean, I, I've never considered myself a purpose driven agency owner. I don't really care for that. Woo woo type stuff, but I have to tell you, I have to tell you, this was the very first client that has ever gotten teary eyed over an identity that I created and it was really fucking cool. Like maybe I am a purpose driven guy, but you are right though.

Ryan Blake (01:33:27.656)
Yeah.

Ryan Blake (01:33:36.329)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:33:44.782)
You are right though, maybe.

Ryan Blake (01:33:44.928)
Bye!

Kevin Mooney (01:33:50.286)
What was I gonna say?

You know, if I wanted to make money, I would do something different. If it was just about the money, I wouldn't do this because I've said this before. I'm one client away from being a millionaire and one client away from closing the doors forever. And it's like that every week of every month of every year. And while some of the cycles are, you know, pretty regular, you're going to get some in December. It always happens. OK.

Ryan Blake (01:33:58.036)
Mm-hmm.

Kevin Mooney (01:34:21.166)
we're trying to gear up for Christmas. Well, you're a little bit late for this Christmas. January slow February kind of picks up a little bit, you know, the cycles happen. but the long story is I would do something different if I was just in it for the money. Hence the reason I'm considering doing that, content community play. Cause I'm like, what does it look like to just do something and make money? I don't.

Ryan Blake (01:34:26.618)
Mm-hmm.

Ryan Blake (01:34:33.663)
Yeah.

Ryan Blake (01:34:49.45)
Mm-hmm.

Kevin Mooney (01:34:50.21)
I've never done that, or at least I haven't done that for the last 15 years. I've been doing this purpose-driven, meaningful work. yeah, I don't do this for the money. It would be nice if I made more money though. That would be nice.

Ryan Blake (01:35:00.744)
Mm-hmm.

Ryan Blake (01:35:08.49)
Yeah

No kidding. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'd be fine. Yeah, I don't want to get rich off of it. I would be fine if I got rich off of it. But.

Kevin Mooney (01:35:23.234)
Yeah, but the only way to get rich off of it is to do the bullshit that other people do. Right. And you just go do a bunch of social media ads and you just get a bunch of people in and you hire a bunch of yahoos to do a bunch of stupid fucking work for you. And you just turn and burn social media websites, campaigns, stupid logos. You know, you just turn that shit out because they're the reality is there's a huge market for that. And there are a ton of people.

Ryan Blake (01:35:27.571)
Mm-hmm.

Ryan Blake (01:35:44.906)
Mm-hmm.

Kevin Mooney (01:35:51.8)
who just want the $500 logo and that's it. And we've all done $500 logos and we've done a quick things. mean, I, I did two websites this year, just quick websites, just knock them out, get them out of the way that kept the lights on for the next month. it just, it grosses me out and I hate it. I don't want to do it. So it's like, how could I justify being the agency that pumps 500 of those things through?

Ryan Blake (01:35:54.314)
Mm-hmm.

Ryan Blake (01:36:08.793)
Mm-hmm. Yep.

Ryan Blake (01:36:15.474)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:36:21.004)
this machine and just sits back and calls myself a creative. I'm a creative everybody, super creative. There's not 500 versions of a logo. Well, right.

Ryan Blake (01:36:22.511)
Mm-hmm.

Yep.

Yeah, yeah. Well, and that's what you end up showcasing. Yeah, that's what you end up showcasing is that they like, well, I've got 500 clients. But they never showcase, you don't showcase the work. You're noticed that like, it's never the work. It's just, I have 500 clients. But it's because it's not work you're proud of.

Kevin Mooney (01:36:44.909)
Right.

Kevin Mooney (01:36:48.782)
Yeah, or you see the work and you're like, sure, or you see the work, maybe it takes a creative or somebody in our industry to see it, but you see their work and you're like, yeah, but you must charge $500 for that website because that is shitty work.

Ryan Blake (01:37:04.834)
Yeah, yeah, that's an AI website from GoDaddy.

Kevin Mooney (01:37:09.942)
Yeah, right. Yeah, it's it's a mess of a thing, man. It really is. And there's some local people here that that do the same thing. And then there's some local people here that are just like a step above that. They still do. They still do some cheap stuff. They mix in some expensive stuff. The work is it's OK.

Ryan Blake (01:37:17.193)
Yeah.

Ryan Blake (01:37:28.498)
Mm-hmm.

Kevin Mooney (01:37:37.954)
but it doesn't seem like there's really much like gusto behind it. It's just kind of the like, yeah, a designer worked on that and they did a pretty all right job, but it doesn't look different. It doesn't have any meaning. It doesn't do anything, but they still got $25,000 for that website or something. I still just don't want to be those guys either. So this is all to say, dude, like.

Ryan Blake (01:37:56.104)
Mm-hmm.

Ryan Blake (01:38:01.032)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:38:05.718)
I am looking for a way to get out of the industry because it's worn me down for years. You get these little high moments with this doctor and you're like, this will keep me going for a while. This is why I do wanna stay in. I wanna keep doing what I'm doing for you and others like you, but I don't know.

Ryan Blake (01:38:09.661)
Hahaha

Yep.

Ryan Blake (01:38:18.25)
Mm-hmm. This is why. Yeah. Yep.

Mm-hmm.

Kevin Mooney (01:38:30.572)
And it just comes down to the people in the world. Do they value what you do? Maybe they do, maybe they don't. Maybe they think they do, but then they don't want to go through the amount of work that it takes to get there. Or they just can't justify spending how much we charge. And that's okay. It really is.

Ryan Blake (01:38:42.442)
Mm-hmm.

Ryan Blake (01:38:49.096)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, it's like no hard feelings. I get it. That's fine. But getting to a place where you're like, I'm not going to lower my standards because you can't afford it. Because I know we'll both end up doing something that we're not proud of. So what will be?

Kevin Mooney (01:39:13.208)
Yeah, for sure, man.

Ryan Blake (01:39:16.372)
We'll be, we'll be buds, but, you know, Hey, go, go spend that 350 somewhere else. Yeah. Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:39:22.134)
Right. Hound sand. man. Well, what do you think, man? What do you got going on after this? You got to get going.

Ryan Blake (01:39:27.27)
Ugh.

Ryan Blake (01:39:32.22)
Yeah, I got that cruise line call at 11.

Kevin Mooney (01:39:36.846)
Okay, well let's do it here. If.

Ryan Blake (01:39:38.154)
Yeah, good stuff though. Hey, I think the internet actually worked this time.

Kevin Mooney (01:39:45.048)
I think it worked really well, Do you want to shamelessly plug yourself and tell all of our millions of listeners that you do X, and Z?

Ryan Blake (01:39:47.038)
Yeah.

Ryan Blake (01:39:59.562)
Nah, let's just call it good. I'm like, if you like what we've said, find us.

Kevin Mooney (01:40:00.983)
Hahaha

Cool. All right. Well.

Kevin Mooney (01:40:10.373)
There you go, right. Should be relatively easy at this point. All right, well we'll tell everybody bye then.

Ryan Blake (01:40:15.976)
Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you for joining us, everyone.

Kevin Mooney (01:40:20.334)
Bye, everybody.

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