610: (Solo) The Secret to Finding Agencies That Don’t Burn You

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0:39Just head to omnisend.com forward slash founder without the E to get started. All right, now let's jump back into the show. Hey, Founder fam, Nathan Chan here. Welcome back to another solo episode of the Founder to Founder podcast. These are short, bite-sized lessons, me sharing everything I'm learning as I'm building and growing founder over the past decade. So today, I want to share with you something that can really make or break your business growth. And it's something that I see asked a lot in our community. And I've been speaking about it and thinking about it with some of my founder friends lately.

1:16And that's around how do you find the right people to work with, especially in the early days of your journey, especially when you're looking to work with contractors, freelancers, and agencies. Hear the stories, learn the proven methods, and accelerate your growth and future through entrepreneurship. Welcome to the Founder Podcast with Nathan Chan.

1:42So whether you're hiring someone to run your ads, redesign your website, or even manage your customer support, it's not just about the skill set. It's not just about the output of the work. It's really about the person behind that skill set. And that's what today's episode is all about. It's how to find great third parties and how to filter out all the noise. Because I don't know about you guys, but I would get pitched probably, I kid you not, through my email, my LinkedIn, my Instagram DMs, even phone calls, probably at least 20 or 30 times a day, which is insane, right? The people are always trying to sell me something.

2:21I reckon even more, maybe 50 times. It's insane. People always try to sell me something. And some of these people are actually like, what they do is really, really good stuff. But here's the thing, right? I want to tell you a quick story. Right now, we are working with a agency and it's a small little shop. And this guy, he's really strong at conversion rate optimization, landing pages, just online marketing. Not a massive agency, but just a really smart dialed in team. But it's a, you know, it's a young kid, right? And I'll be honest, I didn't choose to work with him because of his flashy deck or website or portfolio.

2:57What sold me was the person that I was working with. Their mindset, their hunger, they didn't promise the world. They didn't try to oversell me. They listened. They were thoughtful. They cared about our outcomes. But most importantly, they really wanted to see me and founder win. And guess what? from just that one project, it's added tens and tens of thousands of dollars of revenue to the bottom line for our business per month. That's like serious ROI. But more than that, it's trust. That's a true partnership here, right? So I really want to talk about this because I've worked with a lot of agencies, guys.

3:37I've been burnt by a lot of agencies. I've been burnt by a lot of contractors. And I think this episode will really help you. So let's talk about this. What do you need to look for. When you're looking to work with a contract or agency, most people ask, you know, how much experience do you have? What's your rate? What's your cost? Can I haggle on price? Can I see your portfolio? And those questions are fine and are practical for when you're working on a project. But what it doesn't tell you is what that person's like to work with. Are they going to be a person that delivers on time? Are they going to be somebody that really goes above and beyond and really cares about you winning.

4:12It's what I said before, right? It's how do you find someone that truly wants to see you win? You know, I had a mentor share this with me. It was a conversation we had. And then I reflected on this idea. How do we find contractors or agencies that really want to see us win? Like genuinely, genuinely want to see us win. And I've reflected on this and I look back at all the best relationships with agencies and contractors, and that's always the case, right and so when I think about this what questions should you ask to really find this out right because expectations may not align you know life can happen but what is your process if something goes wrong asking a question like that like that can speak volumes or like why do you truly want to work with me is it just for the money like why do you care what you're looking for is not perfect answers.

5:04You're looking for honesty, self-awareness, ownership, because a contractor can have the best strategy in the world. But if they ghost you when things get tough, if they deliver crappy work, if they don't deliver on time, it's not meant to be. The values aren't aligned, right? There were some contractors that we were looking to team up with and partner with. And, you know, they were talking big numbers and a big game and they were dragging things on. And then eventually they ghosted us, right? And I've had this happen before. Like I went out for lunch with a guy. He seemed really talented and he pitched me the world and I paid for lunch.

5:39I paid for lunch. He come and met me. And then I never heard from him. Like it's a joke, right? Clearly not the person that I'd want to work with, not the person that I want to do business with. So I was thinking about this, like another friend of mine, he's really kicking goals with his business at the moment. and he's found somebody, an agency, small little shop once again. And this guy is just going above and beyond. He's really trying to make a name for himself and he just really wants to see my friend win and his business win. So if I had one piece of advice, it would be do whatever it takes to learn who the person is before you hire the company.

6:14Jump on a call, read between the lines, ask around, read reviews, ask if you can speak to other clients, look at how they communicate. Do they follow through? Are they responsive? If they're slow before you pay them, they'll be worse after. One of my rules is I trust the patterns I see before we ink the deal, before we agree, not just the pitches. And then the next thing you might be thinking, well, Nathan, where do I find these great agencies or contractors? Well, first and foremost, referrals are gold. Ask other founders who don't get a kickback for recommending them. That's why the Founder Plus community is incredible.

6:53we have so many incredible founders in our community these recommendations are vetted there's real skin in the game i think another great place to find these awesome awesome agencies or freelancers is do they put out content are you learning from them do you trust them and when you do outreach lead with clarity know your scope know your budget know what success looks like for your project, whatever that may be. And look for niche domain specific websites. So like if you're looking for a great designer, I really, really, really love Behance and Dribbble where people can share their work and you can reach out, have those conversations.

7:34If you're looking for perhaps let's just say a great web developer, how can you test them? As an example, I love doing test projects. So how can you test them? Like, you know, go on Upwork, speak to a few people, test them out, get them to prove themselves. Really, really, really key. But fundamentally, if you can also as well, speak to other people that have used their services and do it carefully. Spend a little bit more time upfront to find that right person or agency. And these agencies that promise the world, don't believe them. And if they want ridiculous amounts of money, do not pay them.

8:12Learn how to do it yourself. or the alternative is find somebody that truly wants to see you win genuinely and the values are aligned. So just to recap, guys, hiring the right kind of contractor or agency can change the game for your business, but it's not just about what they know. It's about who they are as an individual. Are your values aligned with them? Do they genuinely want to see you win? Do the work to find that out, have the conversation and look for signals because when you get it right, like I did with this small little CRO team and we're just starting this relationship, the upside isn't just extra revenue, it's peace of mind and that is priceless.

8:50If you found this episode really helpful, you wanna go deeper on things like hiring and building a team and scaling smart, Founder Plus is our all access membership for e-commerce founders where we go deep on it all. You can check out more details like this, link in the show notes, go to founder.com forward slash membership. Thanks for tuning in. If you are enjoying these episodes, let me know, shoot me a DM at Nathan Chan and I'll see you in another episode.