[77] Justin McGill on the Importance of Visibility as a Founder
This is Bootstrap Web episode 77. It's the podcast for you, the founder who learns by doing as you bootstrap your business online. Today, Jordan is on the road once again. But, that's alright. I I invited my friend Justin McGill here, to join me today.
Brian Casel:Justin, welcome to the show.
Speaker 2:Thanks for having me, Brian. I'm a I'm a huge fan, so this should be fun.
Brian Casel:Cool. So you and I are actually in a mastermind group together, and that's been awesome for the last couple of months. But, you know, Justin, you you launched, I don't know, not not too long ago, a site called LeadFuse, which does kind of a done for you cold email outreach, which is has been doing awesome. You know, it's been great to see your your progress on that. And, of course, you're cohosting the Zero to Scale podcast with our mutual friend, Greg Hickman.
Brian Casel:You know, I thought it'd be cool to kinda, you know, invite you on here today and, you know, hear more about the things that you're working on and some of the things that you've worked on before lead fuse. And, yeah, just kinda get the get the whole story here. So why why don't you tell us, like, what what's going on these days? Like, what are you working on right now?
Speaker 2:Right now, it's LeadFuse, like you mentioned. I launched that, towards the end of last year, actually just before Christmas, which is not an ideal time to launch a new product, come to find out. But a couple of weeks after that, it's the start of the year, you know, it really started to take off. I kinda set a goal for myself just to see if it could reach a thousand dollars a month in MRR. And if it did, then I would kinda focus on that more, full time just to see where it could go.
Speaker 2:Didn't really have any expectations when I launched it. It was done over a twenty four hour period and I just kinda looked at what I had available, which kinda goes back to my my agency days, with some software that I kinda pieced together and and I decided, you know, I think I could probably do something with that. So yeah, so LeadFuse is kind of a B2B lead generation service. We find the leads and email them on your behalf and, follow-up with them and then, you know, once the lead's interested, we forward that on. So it's been received really well and and it's growing steadily.
Speaker 2:So it's it's fun.
Brian Casel:When I kinda first saw your your stuff and and kinda came across what you're doing, you're like one of these guys that just seems like like seemingly came out of nowhere. And that's that's kinda actually like the reason why I wanted to have you on here today is like how how fast did it take to get to that, you know, one k MRR goal?
Speaker 2:Yeah. A couple weeks. I mean, just now, we we just hit over 18. We're about six months in. So we're 18,000 a month in MRR.
Brian Casel:That's awesome.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So it's moving along, man. We've got some good things in the works and kinda to what you said as far as like coming out of nowhere, think, I started as an entrepreneur in 2008 with a digital marketing agency and that was my first foray. And it took a while, you know, there weren't at the time like podcasts to listen to and there weren't really blogs about, you know, to grow a business from nothing. And I kinda scaled that up over the years into a 7 figure business and, stepped away last summer and let the team that I, put in place run it.
Speaker 2:And I decided I wanted to pursue other things at that point. During that time, obviously I learned a lot about digital marketing, growing a business and I wanted to apply those lessons into a new venture. One of the inspirations to like basically kind of opening the kimono if you will was the Groove blog. And if you're familiar with that, Alex Turnbull really kind of documented, you know, his whole journey up to $100,000 a month in MRR with Groove. And when he started that, it was already at like $28,000 a month in revenue.
Speaker 2:And so I just felt like you already kinda knew you were on the path to success at that point, you know? And so I decided I kinda wanted to do something from that zero to 20 ks range where, you know, there's just so many lessons to be shared and, no, the risk in that is obviously if your product doesn't make it, you can kinda go down in flames and look pretty foolish. But, you know, I felt like it was something, I wanted to do And I felt like even if it did fail, there were still going to be a lot of lessons that could be learned there.
Brian Casel:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So yeah, when you introduced me to Greg, we just hit it off. We were kind of at the same place with our businesses and had some of the same, I guess, goals. And so we teamed forces and started up the Zero to Scale podcast to document everything.
Brian Casel:Yeah, that's been awesome. I've been tuning into that. But you know, I think you make a good point about, you know, using the the blog and and and having some sort of, like, visible public goal to kinda motivate yourself, but also, you know, make something that's that's interesting for other people to kinda kinda like latch onto and follow along in the story. I think that that's kinda part of the big draw of a lot of these kinda things. I kinda wanna like hop back real quick, you know, before we really get into that, because I I think it's interesting that that more recently you made that decision to start being more public about what what you're doing, but it wasn't always that way.
Brian Casel:Right? Like, I mean, you you started building businesses in in o eight. I mean, what were you doing before that? Were
Speaker 2:'9 to five, man. I was a, I was actually a doc supervisor at a, trucking company. And I'd worked my way up into management when I was young. I mean, I was 20, I think, when I became a supervisor and was, managing people, you know, three times my age. And actually had a guy tell me, he's So I have to take orders from you and I have a son that's older than you.
Speaker 2:And I said, Hey, life's not fair, buddy. So I kinda learned some management experience there and I felt like I had it in me and and had the drive and work ethic to succeed. And I just, you know, needed to kinda get started. Right? And so, kind of the theme of your your podcast, which I really resonate with, which is learn by doing.
Speaker 2:And so, that's kind of, I guess my whole motto there. Now I didn't start off being transparent. It just never really occurred to me. Quite frankly, I had no idea what the hell I was doing. You know?
Speaker 2:So it was just kind of, you know, learning as I go. Now I think that I've had that experience and I've talked to a lot of other founders, and just kind of realized, I guess, how much I can help other people. You know, that was all part of the inspiration behind just kind of opening things up, being transparent with what I had going on. Now, you know, transparency certainly has its drawbacks. I mean, you know, I actually had somebody just like completely rip off our model, the same website, I mean, right?
Speaker 2:So those things are gonna happen, but, you know, I still feel it's worth it and I still feel that, you know, I just I feel good about being able to kinda help some other people like that, so.
Brian Casel:Yeah, definitely. And so you were working on the digital marketing agency. Right? And then what was like the the the turning point for you as as you're starting to get toward the end of that chapter? Like, what was what was changing in that business?
Brian Casel:Why not just keep growing that?
Speaker 2:Yeah. I mean, for me, it just boiled down to feeling like I learned everything I was going to learn. I wasn't being challenged. I was constantly trying to think of other things. I just, you know, I I kinda wanted out.
Speaker 2:And so I my first project outside of my agency was actually a software product called Workadoo and it's like just for marketing agencies to manage their projects. It was something that we had to build internally for us and for our agency because most project management systems were project based. And so I decided I was going to not only blog more about like just entrepreneurship in general, but I was going to launch this this product and then I was going to write a book about how to grow an agency and scale it and remove yourself.
Brian Casel:And What year was did you start working on on Workadoo?
Speaker 2:So it was actually I started work on it at the 2013 and it took ten months before we actually launched it. And all kinds of mistakes there. I didn't really do any customer development, didn't talk to potential customers about how they operated, what they were looking for. And so I just set out to kind of rebuild the product that we were using. And you know, as time was going on, we, you know, I constantly added more features and then somehow it needed this and it needed that.
Speaker 2:So, you know, it just got, just overwhelming. Three developers later and like $55,000 later, you know, I finally had a product. And so got that launched, had these aspirations of millions of dollars annually with my little SaaS product. And I started to realize pretty quick that that probably wasn't going to happen. Still may, you know, over time, but for me, it's just kind of a it's on maintenance mode.
Speaker 2:I don't really do a whole lot with it. You know, periodically, we we roll out some new features and and updates and whatnot, but it's very, low key. It's not something I really spend any time on. So but for that to go somewhere, also know, you know, I'm I'm going to have to, do some sort of a marketing push. Yeah.
Brian Casel:You gotta give give it some sort of focus and that and that focus comes at a cost of whatever you're taking it away from.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So, you know, I wrote a book and it's 95% complete. Just haven't been able to, you know, just drum up the inspiration to finish it, because Lead Fuse has taken off and so I'm excited about that and I'm just fully focused on LeafFuse and kind of the trajectory there and where it's heading. I kinda regret like even having these other platforms, you know, because they're just all being neglected, I guess, at this point.
Brian Casel:I could definitely relate to that. I mean, I could point to a number of different businesses that I've worked on over the years that just got neglected because my focus turned. And I kinda feel like that right now where audience ops, same deal, is taken off pretty quickly in this first month. And it's everything else that I'm working on, it's like, I don't even wanna look at it.
Speaker 2:Right. So for me, it's like, you know, and I tell other entrepreneurs this all the time because, you know, the whole lean startup thing is awesome, except it doesn't really tell you when to stop. I talked to entrepreneurs who are six, nine, twelve months into their project and it's making a couple $100 a month. And it's like, I mean, at some point, something should have went off that said, this probably isn't what I should be focused on.
Brian Casel:That that is a challenge that not too many people talk about or document or whatever. Agreed. This thing where you launch something, and it's not a complete flop, but it's not a success. It's that it's in that, like, like, deadly middle zone, where it's like, oh, well, it's it's it's not it made some sales, and it's and it's like some people like this, but it's not like a a killer hit. So you just kinda keep pushing it.
Brian Casel:Like, you keep, like, forcing it. Like, there's gotta be something here, but but there's really not. Like, you you could just kinda, you know, get out and and start something new.
Speaker 2:So what I tell people in that scenario is to have what you identify as a success metric. Right? So for me, when I launched Workadoo, even though I put all of this money into it, like I expected to have like a thousand dollars MRR within two months and that didn't happen. And so I said, okay, this is gonna be a really long climb. I'm going to move on to another idea.
Speaker 2:And so that's how I ended up launching LeadFuse. And when I launched LeadFuse, I told my wife and I put on my whiteboard $1,000 MRR thirty days. And if it didn't hit that, I was going to move on to another concept, right? So it hit that and I was able to remain focused. But I feel like people need to have some sort of a goal to try and attain.
Speaker 2:And I think that's also where just being public with what you're doing kind of keeps you accountable to that. Because if I didn't speak that goal and I didn't tell people that that was my plan, it would have been easy for me to say, well, I got halfway there. I can maybe keep going, right? You don't have to shoot for the moon with that goal, but whatever success means to you out of the gate, set that goal so that you know if you're on the right path or not.
Brian Casel:Yeah. That a lot and I like the time boxing of it. Right? Like, giving giving yourself a a real deadline, not just a a revenue number, but by when. And, you know, because it's it's easy to hit a thousand MRR, 10 k MRR, but if it takes you, you know, two, three years, then that's not exactly the
Speaker 2:that's not success.
Brian Casel:Yeah. One of my first digital products, you know, that that like wasn't client work was this WordPress theme called WP bids, which is like a a WordPress theme designed for project proposals. And I actually still have it, and it actually still makes sales now. You know, it just all the after, like, five five or six years since it's been out now oh, I guess it's maybe, like, four or five years, something like that. But that's just one of those things that, like, it made sales early on, and it continues to like trickle in a few every month, but it was never something that like, okay, I'm gonna double or triple down on this now.
Brian Casel:It's like just kinda sitting there, but I don't wanna kill it, but I don't wanna focus on it. Know?
Speaker 2:That's nice That's a nice thing with products too like that because you can just leave them up. Right? I mean, leave work to do up. I get free trials all the time coming through. So it's no added work for me.
Speaker 2:I put in a lot of marketing efforts early on with guest blogging and everything else, had guest blogs on HubSpot and Buffer. And I have probably 95% of our trials are just from search engine rankings. You know, it's nice if you're able to kind of have a product that's really not taking any more of your focus yet still able to generate some revenue for you. Now, if you have several service companies doing that, obviously you could get overwhelmed real quick, right? You'd probably wanna go ahead and shut those down.
Speaker 2:But you know, if you have product sites, there's no reason to really shut it down. You know, let those deals come through. You know, I have very minimal customer support requests. And ultimately, if if that was picked up, I could hire a VA for that. You know, it's not, it's not too cumbersome.
Speaker 2:So Yep. It's easy easy money.
Brian Casel:Yeah. Right. I definitely wanna get back into the whole, you know, working in public and teaching and sharing what you what you're learning along the way. But I wanna get a little bit more of the story getting into LeadFuse. So you you launched it around Christmas of last year.
Brian Casel:What was going on before that? Like what actually led you to the decision that it's time to start something new and you're looking at this idea for LeadFuse?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So it was a couple of months since I had launched Workadoo. It did not hit what I was, you know, what I set out to hit, which was a thousand MRR, in the first two months. And so, you know, I was kind of antsy, you know, I wanted to do something different. You know, I still collected a paycheck from my agency.
Speaker 2:I mean, that was kind of my and I still do. Right? And I haven't worked on it in in a year now, but that's kind of my, I guess my my sale almost in a way.
Brian Casel:Like how many people are are at that agency? Is that operating at at full steam right now?
Speaker 2:Yeah. There's there's there's five people and it's, you know, it's in full operation still.
Brian Casel:That's awesome. So you're just completely stepped out of that?
Speaker 2:100%. Yep. That's awesome. Yeah. It's it's it's really nice to, have put in the years of work to build that up and then to be able to kinda just leave that and still reap those rewards I guess.
Speaker 2:But it really helped me to self fund LeadFuse because I didn't need to draw from the revenue it was making. I could reinvest that back into the company. And so I was able to hire, a copywriter and pay him well. You know, found a CTO early on that helped kinda build our platform and merge my existing systems. And when I decided to launch it, I got actually inspired by Nathan Barry who was having a twenty four hour product challenge and he wrote an e book in twenty four hours and announced that Amy Hoy joined soon thereafter.
Speaker 2:And then I'd kinda decided that I wanted to do something like that.
Brian Casel:I remember that twenty four hour challenge that that Nathan did. At that point, like, was it him announcing that that made you think like, I'm gonna quickly come up with an idea? Or were you already thinking about the idea for lead fees before that?
Speaker 2:Yeah. I was not thinking about it at all. In fact, so that post came out, and I saw Nathan and Amy do their ebooks and I decided, okay, I wanna do something. I wanna launch a business. I don't wanna launch an eBook.
Speaker 2:And so when I decided to launch a new business at that point, I just started to look at my Evernote which I had some ideas there. In fact, I actually had the whole concept of LeadFuse in my Evernote, but it wasn't as a service. It was what I called like a startup system. It was gonna be for me, whatever business I used, I would apply my cold email and my lead finding solution to that business. When because I had these products built over the years from my marketing agency.
Speaker 2:I was spending man, was spending probably six hours a day, you know, just doing prospecting and I realized that that was not gonna scale very well. And so I built out some some more automation into that just over the years at my agency. Then they were two different systems. And so, I decided, you know, instead of trying to come up with an idea to use this system for, why don't I try to make that the business? This was on Saturday and I remember kinda talking to my wife about it and letting her know I was going to not be available Sunday because I think I was gonna try to launch a website and do all of this in twenty four hours.
Speaker 2:So out of the next twenty four hours, I worked about seventeen and a half, eighteen hours on launching LeadFuse, the website, getting the messaging down, set my you know, it was just the deadline that really helped. And so by 01:00 that that next Monday, it was live. I mean, took me to the very last minute, but got it live. It was plugged into Stripe and and, you know, people could literally just sign up and I could take orders and get the So ball
Brian Casel:So when was the first order?
Speaker 2:First order was two weeks later. I had a lot of interest from people. I was posting it in different entrepreneur groups I was in. But everyone wanted to start after Christmas.
Brian Casel:Yeah. So
Speaker 2:this was like literally the week before Christmas that, I had launched it. And so I was like, well, probably probably could have, you know, spread out that that twenty four hours, but then it wouldn't have been a twenty four hour challenge, I guess. So got it live, know, that let me kinda, you know, have some initial conversations and figure out what the questions were gonna be, what the objections were. You know, I set a goal and that was tough because I did set the goal for a thousand MRR in thirty days and two weeks went by with nothing. Right?
Speaker 2:So I'm like, I don't know. But luckily, you know, kinda had a some deals just fall right after another, you know, once the New Year's New Year hit. So
Brennan Dunn:Nice.
Speaker 2:It all worked out, guess.
Brian Casel:Yeah. It's it's been really exciting to watch the whole launch and and now, know, you're you guys are growing like crazy. So it's been pretty awesome.
Speaker 2:I have this poster on my wall that I got from Startup Vitamins and it says start where you are, use what you have, do what you can. And so, that was kind of like, okay, let me let me evaluate everything that I have, you know, that I could actually turn into a business, without needing to, you know, spend a month developing something or I didn't wanna get back into marketing or anything. I wanted to apply what I knew from a marketing perspective on my own business.
Brian Casel:Yeah. You and I mean, what you're offering is it's just one of those things. It's it's done for you, but it's combined with software. I mean, I love that combination of of starting with with a software tool and then adding a done for you service on top of it. So it it literally, there's no way you can't get the value from from this.
Brian Casel:Right?
Speaker 2:Because we're gonna do it for you. Right? We're gonna make sure. So that so that certainly is a key angle that I learned from the marketing days. People, they didn't wanna have to create the content.
Speaker 2:They didn't wanna have to update their website. They didn't wanna It had to be done for them or else they wouldn't have moved forward. And so I wanted to apply that same concept you know, from the I guess just a whole productized consulting, angle. That said, know, now we're at a point where we're going to be rolling out tools you know, because, we want to you know, have something that's even a down sell you know, because our our prices now start at $500 a month. The plan is to actually increase that when more of our tools become available.
Speaker 2:But you know, people will be able to do it themselves, know. So we're gonna be kinda opening up our back end and turning that into different SaaS products. And so, you know, excited for that. Definitely a a different step.
Brian Casel:I really like that that approach as well. It's like starting with the productized service and maybe the beginnings of some software, but you're really just using it to power your own internal service, which, you know, it can be a higher price point done for you solution. That that brings monthly recurring revenue in the door and then that can fund a SaaS. You know?
Speaker 2:Yeah. And it you know, that this this whole last six months, you know, was spent really validating it. Right? And and trying to grow it and seeing where it could go. And now that, you know, it's validated and, we started talking to people about the tools that we were gonna be launching.
Speaker 2:Again, this just, you know, is applying everything I learned from when I was building Workadoo where I talked to nobody for ten months while it was being developed. You know, I really was able to kinda take those lessons and say, okay, what is the MVP of this? You know, what's the absolute minimum that I can build to launch something that's gonna help somebody? And then, you know, wanted to start talking to people about it. So applying those things now, now, you know, we have a product that'll be launching next month that you know, will have only taken a month and a half to build.
Speaker 2:Definitely some lessons learned.
Brian Casel:Cool. So you know, that that kind of, you know, takes us into, like, 2015, and and that's when I think you and I met in in early earlier this year, and, you know, we hung out at MicroConf together. You know, we're we're in the mastermind group together. I I wanna get into this whole idea of of working in public because, like, now you're you're you've got this kind of startup that that's really growing and and you're doing a lot of interesting things. Like, it's just interesting to to watch people who are actually doing things and and making progress.
Brian Casel:Right? So what has kinda changed for you in these last couple months as you start to get a little bit more visible and, you know, doing the podcast and and and and I I mean, I also see you, like, probably one of the most active people on Facebook and and Twitter and, like, all these networking groups, you know, forums and whatnot. I don't know how you find the time to, like, drop into all these different groups and and network every day.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I actually have it on my task list, twice a week to spend an hour going through my entrepreneurship communities. In the the Micropreneur Academy, which I I think now that's Founder Cafe. I'm in your productized consulting group. I'm in, the Dynamite Circle.
Speaker 2:I've obviously got the Zero to Scale Facebook group. But yeah, I'm I'm in a few. I I just joined, James Shrimpko, it's a super fast business, know. So I go through those and
Brian Casel:And you just make the rounds.
Speaker 2:Yeah. You know? Yeah. I mean,
Brian Casel:I'm I'm in a lot of them, and I'm in a bunch of Slack groups and everything, but I'm I'm the guy who just doesn't show up for, six, seven, eight weeks at a time. And then and then I'll just, drop it and be like, yep. That that's cool. Alright. See you later for another two months.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Slack's hard. You you get into too many there and it gets a little overwhelming. So I just pop in periodically. I don't pay too close attention. I usually have Slack shut off, it just gets a little distracting.
Speaker 2:But the other groups I try to actually just reserve time and go through those. And you know it's fun because you're in groups with people that think similar to you. It's different for me, because I built my agency without the help of anybody. I just had to learn lessons as I went along. I didn't really know about business related podcasting, didn't know there were entrepreneur groups online really with people that thought like I did.
Speaker 2:So when I came across that last year, summer of last year when I I started by listening to Startups for the Rest of Us and then Bootstrapped Web was my second podcast, know? And I was realizing that there was this whole other world of entrepreneurs that that thought like I did, you know? And that was exciting and so for me, it was like I wanted to kinda share and be a part of that, you know? Be a part of that whole movement of people teaching other entrepreneurs, the lessons that they're learning. I just feel like, you know, it's fun, it's a way to give back and and I get something out of that myself.
Brian Casel:Know, I mean think it's so valuable to just get involved in these in person, groups. I mean, obviously, they all start online whether it's forums or podcasts or, you know, subscribing to blogs and things. But if you can then take the next step of taking it offline and actually meet and and form these relationships I mean, this Monday, you know, two days from now, I'm I'm actually meeting up in NYC with a couple of guys from the from the discuss.bootstrappedfm forum. So meeting up with, like, Ian Ian Landsman and a couple other guys, you know, in the New York area. Like, things like that.
Brian Casel:Like, just coming off of an online forum and I mean, I I've met Ian before, but, the you know, just having these these conversations with like minded people working on similar types of projects, it's so valuable.
Speaker 2:I agree. I actually joined the Dynamite Circle, which is the membership community by the Tropical MBA guys. And I joined that and I saw a post from Tim Connelly and who you just had on in the last episode and I was always a fan of Tim. I came across his podcast, I think his was the third podcast I came across. It was marketing for founders.
Speaker 2:And so I really got a lot of value out of that and when I saw him in there, was like, Oh wow, that's cool. You know, I was going to send him a message and I saw that he lived like twenty minutes from me. I had no idea. So I reached out to him, I'm like, Hey man, let me buy you lunch, you know? And we got together and then once a month, him and I always go get together and and have lunch.
Speaker 2:Sweet. I completely agree. It's it's just it's a cool thing when you're able to connect like that.
Brian Casel:So what has, like, really changed for you in these last couple months as you start to get involved in these communities? Like, how does that actually impact what you're working on or kinda your whole outlook on doing business? So this year, 2015, compared to, let's say, 2008, 2009.
Speaker 2:Yeah, man. So different. You know, I wasn't I I you know, highway, I wasn't really looked up to or I wasn't really, I didn't have friends that were entrepreneurs. My family did not have an entrepreneur background. I mean, how I got into it, have no idea.
Speaker 2:But, once I did, it was like instant. I just instantly knew that this was for me, right? But I never really met other people that were like me. And so fast forward seven years now to this year where I'm just constantly surrounded by people that are just like me. My service with LeadFuse really kinda caters to small startups and and small teams.
Speaker 2:And so I get to talk to them every day just Yeah. On sales calls and and
Brian Casel:That's awesome too. Like that's probably my favorite thing right now about audience ops is so as of today, we have eight clients on board. It it's actually funny. Six of them, I'm a customer of theirs. Right.
Brian Casel:You know, like it's it's crazy. Like, you just get, you know, just working with people that I'm talking to anyway, or using their products actually.
Speaker 2:It's awesome. I mean, so, yeah, I mean, that's been, I guess the biggest difference for me, you know, I'm kind of asked, you know, I get sent emails, pretty regularly, hey, you know, what are your thoughts on this website? And, you know, I always try to respond to those as quickly as I can and just give some feedback and you know, because I know how helpful that is, you know, when you get that third party perspective and I'm somebody that's not afraid to say it like it is, like I don't sugarcoat things. If you want honest feedback, I'll give it to you. Sometimes that rubs people wrong, you know?
Speaker 2:But to me, I I would rather be honest because I think I'm doing them more of a favor than, you know, trying to sugarcoat something.
Brian Casel:It's the way to be. That's why that's why our mastermind group has been working out so well. I I think all of us are that way, and and it's been awesome.
Speaker 2:I completely agree.
Brian Casel:So, I mean, are there any examples of of actual opportunities that came out of your efforts of just being more visible and and networking more online?
Speaker 2:Right now.
Brian Casel:Oh, well.
Speaker 2:You know, I mean, I was a huge fan of this podcast.
Brian Casel:For the couple 100 listeners out there. This is not one of the But big I
Speaker 2:definitely one of them though. Was a big fan and so it was interesting when you came to me to join the mastermind group. I was like, wow, man. I've I've listened to this guy just in my car by myself, you know, listening to some of the lessons you've shared. Right?
Speaker 2:So, you know, this is like
Brian Casel:How about like leads and and customers for lead feeds? Like, are you getting guys who just like kinda heard about you through your podcast and things like that?
Speaker 2:Yeah. That's starting to happen a little more. I actually we just closed a deal and I was doing a Skype call with him and his, I believe it's his co founder. And he says, right as he gets on, goes, Wow, man, this sounds just like you do on the podcast. I was like, Oh, okay.
Speaker 2:You know, so it's always interesting when, you know, I'll hop on a call and they'll be like, Oh, is your baby here yet? You know, to get an update because I talk, my wife's due here any day. So I talk about that on the podcast. And so, you know, I know, you know, people are listening, you know, which makes it kind of interesting, I guess. But you know, typically for as far as like lead fees is concerned, you know, we end up talking with a lot of solo founders, and we do have solo founders that are that are customers, but it's not necessarily ideal because we need them to to be able to really focus on sales and want to grow the business.
Speaker 2:Whereas if you're doing it all by yourself, you it's easy for you to get overwhelmed, close some deals, but then now you have to go back and say, okay, now I've gotta figure out how to fulfill all of this. Know? And so we've had customers, you know, pause for a month, you know, pause for two months to get caught up and and then come back. But it's like, that's not ideal. That doesn't really help us at all, right?
Speaker 2:So if you have a salesperson, then what that tells me is you're ready to go. You're not gonna tell your salesperson, okay, stop closing deals, right? So if that salesperson's outgrowing your business, you're going to add more people to fulfill that. So what I've kind of found is that's more the sweet spot I think for LeapFuse, but nonetheless, we certainly have some great customers that have come from the podcast. And I think just the trust and the credibility you're able to build.
Speaker 2:There's something about hearing somebody's voice. And when you're doing cold email, because I just did not wanna do cold calling. That was not something I was a fan of. I despised it and there was just no way I was ever gonna do that. And so I've always grown the businesses through cold email, which you know inherently doesn't have trust and credibility built in.
Speaker 2:So you have to kinda manufacture that in other ways and the podcast is a part of that. Know in my signature, on all my emails, I actually say, I'm the cohost of the podcast, go behind the scenes of Lead Fuse as I work on scaling the business. And so it really lends a lot of credibility when they can listen in and and understand what's going on.
Brian Casel:Yeah. Mean, like, doing content, like, whether it's a podcast or or blogging or or some sort of thing to to help support your sales process always helps for sure. You know? The the interesting thing, you know, kind of part of the reason I wanted to kinda have you on here is that is that I know that there are business owners listening to this podcast who are doing really well and and working on, you know, pretty serious businesses, but they're doing it in private. You know, they're they're just don't not that they're against sharing what they're working on or whatever.
Brian Casel:They just don't see the need. They don't see the the reason to start a blog or to start a podcast or to put it in the calendar an hour a day to get in into forums and and doing things like that. I mean, what what can you say to to those to those people who are you know, they're not beginners. They're they're they're seasoned business owners.
Speaker 2:No. It takes time. You know? I mean, it really does
Brian Casel:take time. Why because I I feel like Jordan was kind of in this group as well, you know, before before he started being a little bit more visible about what he's doing. Same with me for, you know, to a certain extent. I was just kinda doing, like, web design work for a couple years before I started really being more public. You know, like, what what is that change, that that mindset change where it's like, you know, this this may not result in a direct dollar for dollar ROI today, but the more I kinda water this this plant of, like, putting myself out there, teaching what I'm learning, you know, there's there's value to that and it and it does come back.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I mean, for me, it's really not even I mean, dollar for dollar was never really part of the reasoning or inspiration behind it. In fact, when we started the Zero to Scale podcast, when I talked to Greg, said, honestly, Greg, I'm totally fine if we have one listener. Like I just enjoy talking about this stuff, you know? And so if you and I can get on the phone or get on Skype once a week and talk business for an hour, that's fun.
Speaker 2:You know, like I'll get a lot out of that. And so I never went into it with any expectation. Like our Facebook group has over 800 members now, is crazy to me. I never really had any thoughts of trying to grow this audience and have this community or anything like that. It was just purely to, I think more than anything, connect with other people that thought like I did.
Speaker 2:You know, and that was truly the inspiration I guess behind why I blog, about entrepreneurship, why why I have the podcast, you know, why I do everything out in the open. I think it's fun. I think ultimately, the people that I wanna connect with and talk to are going to find that valuable too. It serves as a great discussion point. It's it's easy to reference, you know, and people, when I talk to them, feel like they already know me, you know, because they've listened to me for months talking talking on the podcast or blogging or whatever.
Speaker 2:The conversations are different, I guess.
Brian Casel:Yep. Well, I couldn't agree more with all of that. So, you know, I think we'll wrap it up here. Justin, thank you so much for coming on today. You know, great to talk to you again.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Was fun, man.
Brian Casel:So where can folks kind
Speaker 2:of reach out to you? Yeah. I guess email at justin@leadfuze,leadfuze.com. I'm on justin mcgill dot net. And then I guess on Twitter, j u s one zero mcgill, m c g I l l.
Speaker 2:Justin McGill.
Brian Casel:Yeah. And definitely check out Justin and Greg on the Zero to Scale podcast. It's it's definitely a good one. It's in my queue for sure.
Speaker 2:Nice.
Brian Casel:Cool. Talk to you soon. Cheers.
![[77] Justin McGill on the Importance of Visibility as a Founder](https://img.transistorcdn.com/LDB_Cv9bHAA2vtoSPkZCpkdHPF6fAqfl7PL-PG7_c-M/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:800/h:800/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS9jMjkw/MDYxZDQ0MWIxYTUw/NTMzMGI2NTExZWMx/MWQ1Yi5qcGc.webp)