Speaker A
Hello, welcome to the SEO party. I am Timmy. Our co-host is Alex Alexis. We have Naveiv behind the camera. And joining us today, our guest is Paul Williamson with Pronto. Hello, Paul. How are you?
Paul Williamson shares agency growth secrets, focusing on niche marketing, building trust, and the power of saying no to scale effectively.
Key Takeaways
- Niche focus enables agencies to deliver more effective, tailored marketing solutions.
- PR should be integrated into a broader marketing strategy to build brand authority and trust.
- AI is becoming a vital tool in marketing but requires careful adaptation and experimentation.
- Saying no to clients or projects that don't align with your agency’s strengths helps maintain quality and growth.
- Long-term strategic planning and consistent delivery are key to sustainable agency growth.
Summary
- Paul Williamson discusses his transition from running a microbrewery to founding Pronto Marketing, a PR and digital marketing agency.
- The agency focuses on strategic, data-driven marketing campaigns aligned with business goals, primarily serving B2B and hospitality sectors.
- Paul emphasizes the importance of niche specialization to deliver tailored marketing and PR strategies.
- He explains how PR can position clients as thought leaders through organic media coverage and targeted outreach.
- The role of AI in marketing and PR is explored, highlighting its growing influence and integration in campaigns.
- Paul shares examples of successful campaigns, such as a water filtration client positioned as a thought leader in a niche market.
- The discussion covers challenges in tracking direct monetary results from PR but stresses its value in long-term brand positioning.
- The importance of trust, transparency, and saying no to unsuitable clients or projects to maintain quality and focus is highlighted.
- Alex Alexis shares his journey from hospitality design to marketing, illustrating diverse paths into the industry.
- The video includes practical advice on aligning marketing strategies with business goals and adapting to evolving digital landscapes.
Chapters
- 00:00Introduction and Guest Welcome
- 03:55Alex’s Journey from Design to Marketing
- 07:21PR Strategy for Niche Markets
- 11:25Long-term Content Planning and AI Integration
- 15:10Influencer Marketing and Consumer Behavior
- 18:41Business Growth and Client Management Challenges
- 24:40Trust, Transparency, and Saying No
- 29:00Closing Remarks and Call to Action
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
Speaker A
I'm really good. How are you doing? Thanks for having me.
Speaker A
Doing pretty well. Um, first burning question, uh, tell us a little bit about you. Who are you?
Speaker A
So, uh, yeah, I hadn't really thought about the question coming. Uh, I am Paul. So, I run a marketing agency in the UK. Um, we help businesses move from kind of random marketing activities to strategic data-driven campaigns that
Speaker A
align with their business goals. Um, outside of work, uh, I love wakeboarding, walking my dogs, um, generally trying to find whatever a work-life balance is these days.
Speaker A
So, yeah. Awesome. Well, Paul, Paul, um, you know, I understand that Pronto is quite new. I think you're like a year and a half into, um, into, into your inception. So, walk, walk us through how it's, how, how it's been
Speaker A
and what's, what's the growth been like. Yeah. So growth's been, um, growth's been really good to be fair. I mean it might be interesting for me to just take a step back in terms of how I got into the
Speaker A
role I'm in now. If that would be helpful just a very quick. Absolutely not.
Speaker A
Yeah. So I, um, I used to run a microbrewery and events company and I built that up over kind of seven and a bit years. So kind of good grounding in business knowledge and, um, it was a microbrewery
Speaker A
who did events, conferences, weddings, shop tours, all sorts. And then ultimately I love beer but it's not what I wanted to do long term. And after COVID there was kind of a great reset, wasn't there, of like where do I want to be in 5
Speaker A
years and is this it? So sold that company and then, um, ended up being like I love the marketing, I love the storytelling and I ended up getting headhunted into a PR and digital marketing agency who filmed me when I
Speaker A
was at the brewery. Um and I was like really enjoying this. It's kind of what I want to do. And then thought I missed being my own boss and making those decisions and strategic alignment. And so it was about, uh, December
Speaker A
Yeah. About 18 months ago, I set up Pronto Marketing. So, we're a PR and digital marketing agency. Uh, initially started with one client. Um, and it's grown really well since then. So, word of mouth recommendations.
Speaker A
Um, yeah. And now we kind of look after, um, industrial B2B, hospitality, kind of, um, tourism type businesses, but it's mainly kind of B2B and hospitality.
Speaker A
Interesting. Uh, Alex, you can probably, uh, relate a little bit, right? You, you went from a different background and and did, uh, kind of brought yourself into, uh, marketing stuff. Why don't you tell us, uh, tell us about that journey? I think
Speaker A
Paul would probably find that interesting. Yeah. So, yeah, my background was in, in design, you know, we did actually hospitality design. Uh, we did, uh, hotels and restaurants and you know with my Greek background you know like
Speaker A
restaurants halt me here you know like I even, even now we get restaurant clients and, uh, the more we try to stay away from them we get them but yeah we went from, uh, doing interior concepts, uh, for
Speaker A
restaurants to, uh, actually working as a designer back in the day for West Resorts internally and then, uh, moved into marketing because again you can do beautiful designs, you don't market them, you know, nothing happens.
Speaker A
Yeah. And then COVID was also for us a big, a big change where I went full on with my agency. Um but no, yeah, it's, uh, it's very interesting, you know, how, how, uh, things can change in life and you can
Speaker A
make decisions based on, on, on your backgrounds. For sure. So where, where are you located? I know I didn't, I don't think we mentioned that earlier on.
Speaker A
So we're based in Worcester, but we operate nationwide and internationally if you know anyone who's interested.
Speaker A
Sure. But yeah. Yeah. So Midlands kind of. Yeah. and and talk to me, you, you know, because right now with the AI and all that stuff that pops up, you know, I keep reading articles that, you know, like PR and
Speaker A
mentions and all that stuff and and link building, you know, and listicles and all that items, uh, like are super important nowadays.
Speaker A
Talk to me about the PR. I want to understand like as a PR firm like how do you, like do you consider these things like how do you, uh, if if I come as a client how would you approach all the
Speaker A
stuff to actually help to be maybe to, to find some coverage that will help be found into the AI, uh, you know, engines.
Speaker A
So AI is a really interesting one, isn't it? Because it's the hot topic now.
Speaker A
Everyone's talking about it. I imagine all of you are probably using AI every day. Are you in some way?
Speaker A
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I've been, I've been dabbling a lot recently. My reminded me I had a podcast today.
Speaker A
Otherwise, I would AI think I'm not really here. Yeah. It's in the, um, but it's one of those things, isn't it? everyone knows is there. Everyone's kind of still trying to find their feet with it and everyone's trying to figure
Speaker A
out how to do it. And I think marketing can sometimes be a little bit of a fluffy term. And I think, uh, with the rise of AI and citations and being having your brand represented in the best way and being seen by your
Speaker A
target audience, PR is one of the best ways. So the way I approach PR, it should be part of an overall marketing strategy. So, um, one thing I really focus on at the very beginning is what are your business
Speaker A
goals? What do you want to achieve? And then what are the marketing strategies and tactics that we employ to help you get, get you towards your, your marketing goals? And there's quick wins, long-term goals, but I think PR should definitely
Speaker A
be one of those, um, key elements of, uh, your marketing strategy and the way I approach it with some of our clients and I'll give you a great example. Um, one of our clients is in water filtration. So
Speaker A
massive industrial water filtration with, um, a lot of companies you would know. So kind of Britvic water, Heineken beer, um, Lucozade Ribena which is an energy drink in the UK. So some, some big companies and they
Speaker A
do water filtration on a mass scale and data centers for example is one there's a lot of people in that market and they wanted to be seen as a thought leader in that and not knowing how to approach it
Speaker A
or be seen in, in the areas they're being, um, or want to be seen and the kind of target audience because it's pretty niche isn't it? If you're looking for how to call a data center you're not mass market there. So when we
Speaker A
spoke to them, part of it was we're looking at blogs, we're looking at social, we're looking at all the other things you're doing. But PR, it's like we'll position you as a thought leader.
Speaker A
So you're we would approach, um, journalists, publications, we'd do a load of research behind the scenes of what is it that your business does, what's happening in the industry, what's of interest, and how do we link those two up? And we focus on organic
Speaker A
coverage. So it's not editorial. It's talking about a topic. It's talking about an issue. It's talking about something that's of interest to the readers. And then subtly within that will weave in what they do. Um so, um, I've forgotten the name of the data
Speaker A
center magazine now, but the data centers was one. It was really specific, but we got a 900-word feature where we positioned them as the thought leader and talking all around the topic. And if you're in that world, that's that's a
Speaker A
pretty, pretty big win. And so for them, they operate across six different markets. Um, and we've been specifically working through different ones for them as, as, as an example.
Speaker A
A quick question on that campaign that you did, what was the, I mean, were you able to track some sort of, uh, growth or monetary, um, result of that? Was, was that, was that feasible at all with that campaign?
Speaker A
It's, it's difficult. I mean one of the things for them in particular is that's part of a bigger picture that the tender process tends to be quite long on things like that because of the size of the companies they need to focus on
Speaker A
figuring ou
Speaker A
being seen by their target audience. We also track the level of users that are engaging with them, the seniority level. So in terms of that, it's been big wins. we've been seeing a lot of um AI citations in the
Speaker A
target the target um keywords that we've been aiming for. Um so there have seen really good growth in the areas we're we're striving for but in terms of monetary value I I can't put a monetary value on that as yet but hopefully soon.
Speaker A
It's really interesting, you know, because uh we, you know, I see that a lot a lot as well. You know, uh you know, you know, like you guys, I you know, I I have somewhat of a corporate background, right? So, we always um you
Speaker A
know, like the KPI like what's the what's the measure like how do you how do you assess uh spending money on something, right? And and it's it varies so much from industry to industry, but I think with these days just because
Speaker A
everything is, you know, so digital, right? everything, you know, data sets are so readily available. Uh, I'll be curious to see if if there's um there's a way to to tangibly have a deliverable besides the, you know, the actual article going live or,
Speaker A
you know, the the the the stir that comes out of it. So, it's uh it's it's it's always, you know, fascinates me how how that how that all works, right? So there there are new tools coming out all
Speaker A
the time, aren't they? We we use um I know we met at Moscon in London, but um we use SCM Rush and there's some fantastic tools on there, AI tracking.
Speaker A
And so we're we've produced for that particular client a whole content plan and target. So that's a long-term strategy and it's for example with the AI overviews and being cited on PEXT claw chat GBT which is the the dominant
Speaker A
AI search at the moment isn't it? That's part of kind of long-term plan. Um, and we're seeing citations go up and references a lot more. And it it's quite good in a niche market for them in particular because there's not a massive
Speaker A
amount of people writing about the things that we're trying to write about and in the unique ways and targeted topics that we're positioning them to be answering. Um, so they're pretty good case study for it, but we are actually tracking that
Speaker A
ongoing. But it's it's still kind of pretty fresh in terms of those those analytics and those KPIs and what are people interested in most.
Speaker A
Yeah, it'll be I mean great I I recommend making a case study out of it, you know, because it's it's it's that's you know, you want bragging rights, right? So that's that that I think uh calls for it. So interesting.
Speaker A
And before we we we go too far along like uh what I love what you said, you talked about that you did a PR campaign and then you took all that media and then repurpose it, right? Because I
Speaker A
think a lot of people are missing that a lot of times like um and I know like initially my beginning of my career would do one piece of content and and then that was it like without thinking through well now like uh like we run a
Speaker A
for example an e-commerce business we create an article like a long listical that's well researched with good information good images and that listical for example could become uh a like a Tik Tok videos uh Instagram video, a Facebook uh you know like
Speaker A
different post on Facebook uh YouTube video or YouTube shorts, right? So with one you know you kill like 10 birds with one cell, right? like type of thing and and I think nowadays and I know I keep saying AI because like
Speaker A
everything I read the past like week it's so AI driven that drives me crazy and I have like a list of all the notes where everybody says you know like put all these items there listical formats make it easy to digest feed everything
Speaker A
you know because uh different engines grab information from different uh uh sources so yeah it's It's I love that you mentioned the repurposing of the of the media. That's that's super super important.
Speaker A
I think it you you always always feel pressure though, don't you, to do so much. It's like what's next? What's the new thing? But actually for me, I think what we should be focusing is quality over quantity. But how do we make the
Speaker A
work that we're doing work harder without actually having to work a lot harder? So like you said, it's like you're doing one thing. How do you cut one 50-minute video into like six snippets that are really strong and then
Speaker A
how do you use that to create subsections and it is quality over quantity. It's making it work harder. So yeah, I massively resonate with that cuz it but there is always that especially if like you focusing on marketing, you
Speaker A
see the next thing it's like, oh that was really cool. We should try that. But it's actually taken a step back being like well how do we make this? We've put a lot of energy into this 900word thought leadership piece and there's
Speaker A
some real golden nuggets in here. How do we then snippet that up and make the most of that across multiplatform because search is changing isn't it? And generational thing as well. It's not just AI. It's it's social. I know people
Speaker A
who plan their whole holidays based on Tik Tok videos. My wife's constantly adding um videos to like a shared private album of holidays.
Speaker A
Okay. Yeah, it's it's crazy. Not uh I mean and and my wife also does that it's the Tik Tok and the Amazon influencers too. That's insane, right? Like because she told me she's like, "Oh, I bought it from I'm
Speaker A
like what the hell is an Amazon influencer?" Right? And I didn't like I didn't realize that such a big uh power behind that, right? Like I I just saw it, never thought that. But yeah, it's it's crazy.
Speaker A
Wait, what's an Amazon influencer? I'm I'm I'm in the dark. Yeah, I've seen them. So, it's like when you you go on Amazon and they'll have like videos where it's like they're going to do a review or they're going to
Speaker A
be talking about or they're promoting certain um uh products and it um I find it weird to be perfectly honest cuz it's it's like it's just very very produced.
Speaker A
They're very very excited about all these things you can get on Amazon and you're at Amazon. It just seems a little like I'm already here. I already know what I'm getting and I'm not terribly interested in what you're trying to
Speaker A
sell. But yeah, it's um it's kind of a big thing. There's uh there's a lot going on and um it's not uh your your typical sort of like I'm just a regular person and I'm in my house and let me talk
Speaker A
about the toothbrush I just bought. Uh they're in a studio and it all looks clean and professional and uh they're really trying to sell those toothbrushes.
Speaker A
You got to make that affiliate model, bro. They got to make Yeah. Make sure you click on the affiliate link.
Speaker A
They have that Amazon money. No, that's that that's that's crazy. It's, you know, um um so many different trends. I mean, I've I for context, guys, I have no social media. I've never had any Facebook. The only social media I have, I guess, would
Speaker A
be YouTube, you know, because I consume videos and stuff, but it's all and my feed's always watches, motorcycles, and you know, SEO stuff that that that I'm interested in. But it's changed so much like from back in the day. I mean like
Speaker A
when we had a uh you know I would buy books from Amazon that that was my thing you know uh like and and and now it's it's uh they they drive the narrative on how people shop you know it's it's crazy
Speaker A
how things have changed and it's it's scary how it learns as well isn't it because I had it um had it earlier this week I had to buy a new mouse and I found myself googling I was getting wrist pain just done a massive
Speaker A
website project I was getting wrist pain from having to do all the clips like that. It was like really long days and carpel tunnel or whatever it was and I was like I want an ergonomic and went down the the review um rabbit hole and
Speaker A
all the rest of it. Anyway, I found a mouse added to my basket and next time I logged on to Amazon it's like oh the docking station it's like actually I could do that. I find myself adding to
Speaker A
the basket and it's like I don't I don't need this like but I would like it. That would actually that would save me a bit of time and me having to unplug this cable to put that cable in. Um but it's
Speaker A
it almost make that's what Amazon's great at it because it makes you want to buy without you feel like you're being sold to but it's also scary because you it's almost like you've lost I feel like I've lost track of it. I'm not as aware
Speaker A
at times that I'm being sold to because it feels like it's the natural thing.
Speaker A
It's like, "Oh, well, I'm being shown it because I want to see it." Our studio is full of uh full of uh little trinkets that that Timmy finds.
Speaker A
Uh it's like, "Oh, I was I was buying a buying a light and then this crane looks really cool." Saw this thing.
Speaker A
This look pretty cool. Feel like we can use this. Yeah. Have you got trinket?
Speaker A
H Have you got a top trinket? You got a favorite trinket? Oh, um well, do I have a favorite trinket?
Speaker A
I think there there's there's so many. It's it it changes from day to day.
Speaker A
I mean, let me let me let me put it that this way. But no, we got some cool stuff. I mean, it's cool stuff.
Speaker A
Yeah. Yeah. So does does Amazon in where you're at does Amazon deliver like same day type of thing like here is like I can order something right now and it's in our house by like in three hours.
Speaker A
Yeah. That that's scary, right? Like it's it's the ease. You don't have to leave your house and it's here, right? Like so that's well good for them I guess you know.
Speaker A
Yeah. Or or it's like sometimes when it's like a very specific item that's kind of off the beaten path and then you order it and they're like, "Yeah, it'll be there in four hours." Like I feel like that's too fast.
Speaker A
It's too fast for, you know, this microphone. Like it's just on a chair or on a on a in a van just right driving around waiting for someone to order it and then print the label. Boom.
Speaker A
There you go. You got it. It's crazy. It's funny when you have Sorry. Go on.
Speaker A
Oh, go ahead. Go ahead. Sorry. Remember growing up and it was like shops were closed on Sunday and now it seems crazy to think that the shops would close on a day of the week. When I was growing up, that was just a normal
Speaker A
thing. It's like, oh no, you can't can't get anything on Sunday because it's Sunday. Everywhere is shut. And now you can get something like in 4 hours. Even if it's Sunday or if you're shopping at like 3:00 a.m. it'll be awake. It'll be
Speaker A
at your door when you wake up. Don't worry about it. You know, I think United States went backwards though after COVID like when I because I moved from Greece to here, right? So it was the same thing.
Speaker A
Specific times of the day closed, Sunday closed. Well, here you had like a Walmart uh 24 hours a day, right? Well, now they don't have that anymore, right?
Speaker A
I feel like Americans become more European as the time goes by, you know, like and I think the Europeans want to be American, you know, in culture uh and shopping.
Speaker A
So, yeah, we we've had a few like Walmarts that were 24 hours and I think they close now.
Speaker A
Yeah. 11 p.m. That's that's what they do. Even uh I remember, you know, Denny's were open 247 365.
Speaker A
Yeah. And then one time, I don't know what happened. I I think they had a labor strike or something and um they wanted to close for Christmas cuz they were open on Christmas. You know, they were open on Thanksgiving. And um it was
Speaker A
funny like, "Oh, does Denny's even have locks?" Cuz they're always open. They have locks on their front door.
Speaker A
Don't eat them. Yeah. No, but I I I see your point, though. I mean, I've had uh one time I was uh with my wife and we were watching something and we saw a video about Baruka nuts. Um and it we went from
Speaker A
watching the video and in two hours later eating them um um and thank you Amazon, you know, and it it happened.
Speaker A
So, uh, it's, uh, it's it's it's it's crazy, but um, yeah. So, you know, I I wanted to ask you, uh, Paul, because I think you're very uniquely positioned to answer this question just because, you know, your agency is so new, right? Um
Speaker A
I'm curious to um hear about your challenges because I I think our our viewers and listeners, you know, we have quite a few agencies that um that are, you know, our clients and obviously they're they're also listeners as well.
Speaker A
I think they'll be it'll be interesting to hear about how you know what kind of challenges have you faced um you know in your growth and how did you address them.
Speaker A
So I think the initial challenge or the one of the hardest things for me was um I think especially in the early days I would say yes to everything. So I was trying to grow the business which is was
Speaker A
kind of like a necessary evil at the time. You need to get more money in, you need to do more. Um but also you open yourself up or I open myself up to spreading myself thinly. Um, so that that was one of the biggest
Speaker A
challenges in terms of trying to get new clients in. When people say, "Oh, can you do this?" It's like, "Yeah, I can do that." Um, and then I'd have haven't missed any deadlines. I would always deliver. But it got to a point when
Speaker A
I'd grown the business. I'd got more clients and I needed to get to a point to then recruit someone to then help me grow more. So, I wasn't doing so much as to do. I could work on the business
Speaker A
instead of working out the business. And so I think that was one of the biggest challenges in terms of client management, doing the do planning, strategy, being all consuming. Also having a baby in the middle of that, which
Speaker A
and doesn't necessarily help with I always thought having a baby as well would be like, oh, you can just put them down and they'll sleep and it'll be okay.
Speaker A
Nope. Nope. Um, so I think that that was a real big challenge in terms of managing my time and then when I grew to a certain point I actually managed to or um it's still going through that and I
Speaker A
think that's for me that will always be an evolving process of what's going to move the needle the most for me and what's going to be the biggest thing for my clients because people will always ask for stuff and we always want stuff
Speaker A
but actually this is where I've really tried to hone in speaking with my clients and what are their business needs, what are their business goals and then how do we work back from that because we don't want to
Speaker A
scatter gun approach. We want to make their money work harder and I think having promoting business and micro brewery which margins are tight and you can buy grain and hops and you're not getting paid for them until you've
Speaker A
brewed the beer and that's conditioned and then it's available for sale. you might buy stuff and then you know I get paid from the two months. So having fundamentals of how is my money going to work harder for me and that was like a
Speaker A
core principle for me going into it as like an agency. Well, how how do we make our marketing work hard for you?
Speaker A
I think that's been really important. And so I think when growing my business and speaking with the clients about what they want and what they need, um, helping manage their expectations and what they want from me and an agency and
Speaker A
the results they're going to get, I think has been one of the challenges. Um, and I'm in a much better place with that now. I don't know if that's anything that that you've experienced or whether you kind of um
Speaker A
I mean I suppose you you've got a product, haven't you? Building links. So it's it's nice like you you know that's what you're you're doing. You're not selling multiple services. So it's concentrate in terms of your efforts.
Speaker A
Yeah. Our our you know our business is very one track, right? And we did that on purpose because we I mean I I can't go back to agency life anymore because I just think about it and just makes me
Speaker A
you know uh gives me the gives me the goosebumps um because it's um you know but again when I did it I I I had exactly the same challenges you know and I think when we learned to say no I
Speaker A
think that was when we knew that we've matured right like that the the the courage and being able to and you know obviously being financially stable, you know, you you need to be able to do that otherwise I mean Alex
Speaker A
you can probably speak to it better than you know uh I do but do you can you can you relate to that? Well, yeah, it's it's uh it's hard to niche, right? Like, and I think that's what the the problem
Speaker A
is with the low people and if you don't have a a good chance to say, okay, I want to just focus on this and I can actually make it out the x amount of months until I grow with that, it's very
Speaker A
difficult. I I still find myself in situations where we work on a lot of things because I love challenge, right?
Speaker A
like uh we've like so initially we used to offer like SEO services and all that stuff and now we're almost 100% of 99% of our focus just building the website which which has helped tremendously uh because now it's a product it's not
Speaker A
just a it's not just a service there's still difficult parts of it and I know that Navidid said about the agency you know you deal with people uh which is a very difficult thing You deal with design with very subjective, right?
Speaker A
Um, and you also deal with entrepreneurs where they have specific opinions and you have to understand the industry so you don't sound silly when you talk to them, right? Like you need to be confident. So like um so we created
Speaker A
process behind all that. But but it's very difficult uh for me it has been the most difficult part to say no, right?
Speaker A
Like and every knows that I call complain. Um and but a lot of times I take on projects because uh it gives something else right like there's something behind it. Uh and that's what I do. It's not a smart idea. And we're
Speaker A
actually also proactively doing the same thing. We're we're scaling to just become just focus on one thing. It's just so much easier, right? Like even think of that building a website for a restaurant is like 100% different than building a website for a plumber
Speaker A
that has like you know the service 300 locations, right? Like it's not the same thing at all.
Speaker A
So your people need to understand the locations, the content, the layouts, uh the purpose for your page. So So just the training and and explanation just takes hours and hours and hours, you know. Um yeah.
Speaker A
Yeah. Finding your niche is is is huge and and I mean you know what what helped uh me in and in and growing the company um u to where it is right now is is process. We worked a lot in making sure
Speaker A
that everything is dialed on like contingencies are put in place you know like what do we do when X happens you know um accountability is huge you know if you and and and the thing is that ownership also is is massive but then um
Speaker A
it it especially when you have a lot of people I mean you know we our team's 200 people right so just just and making sure everybody's working in sync without any delays and They're time bound, right? So our deliveries are very
Speaker A
specific, right? We have to get this done in 30 days, right? And how do we how do we do that, right? How do we we're creating thousands of pieces of content. I mean, you know, there there's there's been months where we had to
Speaker A
create 20,000 articles. I mean, just imagine the the volume, right? But but if we didn't have processes put in place and we didn't have, you know, um the the tech behind the support that that we built, you know, again um um and one
Speaker A
thing I think people um miss out on and I learned uh the hard way is controlling growth is very important. Um because when you grow too fast, the challenges um and being able to cope up with that and just trying to sustain that is is
Speaker A
such a um you know unpleasant thought you know it it's just not just doesn't work you know um and you can get lucky you know but but but if you can't sustain that you know the failure from that like coming
Speaker A
back from that is very very hard. So we were I was very adamant like dude, you know, to to me to my business partners and to everybody, hey, let's let's let's pick a pace. Let's go there, you know,
Speaker A
let's let's go step by step. Um, and being able to trust people. That that's another big thing. You know, you can't as a business owner do everything yourself. It's just practically impossible. And there's there comes a time where you need to have, you know,
Speaker A
people helping you out and you need to be able to trust. I remember Alex our conversation. I remember one time Alex was telling me about something. I was like, "Dude, you need a PA.
Speaker A
You need a best decision of my life." Like he changed my life, right? And Rose right now, Rose. And you know, I want to mention her because thanks to Navidid, I went and found uh it was the beginning
Speaker A
of the stage so money was an issue. So I went in the Philippines and I found this girl super smart and now Rose is my right hand, right? Like she business cannot operate without her, right? like she takes care of things and it has been
Speaker A
the one of the most important parts. Yeah. Because here I I was his then I was like man you know I have to train that person and I you know and I'm very picky on things you know like very
Speaker A
specific I work crazy hours who's going to follow me right like who's going to do that? No that was that was insane. Um and yeah, challenge on its own is being able like getting people to adapt, right? Is because you you can't you
Speaker A
can't expect you know 100% out of everybody, right? You can't you can't expect them to be on the same level as you or give you the same thing. But like how do you get there? cuz you can get
Speaker A
there. You know, uh you know, there there is a learning curve, there is compromise, there is a bit of understanding, and then you you you you lean on their strengths and make sure you're not you know um uh
Speaker A
pointing too much towards their weakness and that that generally ends up being successful. Uh I mean we've had we were doing uh uh reviews right now you know for uh uh uh with our HR to uh you know
Speaker A
um like a yearly review for you know for um u for salaries and stuff like that right so we we've had employees that that have been working with us for 12 years you know um and it just makes me
Speaker A
so happy it's like oh they're they're you know like being able to do that it's it's is I think is a is a feat But yeah, that's that's some that's some that that you know that's some good uh challenges.
Speaker A
Anything right now that you're stuck on, Paul, that um you know that that you think is something that that's a stone in your you know shoe and um I mean there was something you said before that really resonated with me
Speaker A
that reminds me of a challenge and something that I I felt conflicted in my decision. And that's what you mentioned some irons of when you say yes I mean can't say yes to everything but when you do say yes to one thing you're saying no
Speaker A
to an infinite amount of other things you've only got a set amount of capacity haven't haven't you got to plan out especially early days I've got to map out I've got a full week x amount of hours per day and I work stupid hours
Speaker A
anyway but how do I make the most from my time and there was a client that came to me Um, and there were some red flags, but at the at the time I ignored those red flags for a certain amount of time. And
Speaker A
I'm someone who a lot of agency models will sell based on time. I I very much focus on um strategy before tactics. So sell outcomes. So you start with business goals and then work back with the marketing kind of tactics. So, I'd
Speaker A
prefer to underdel. Sorry. Overpromise. Sorry. Underpromise and overd deliver than overpromise and underd deliver.
Speaker A
Make sure I get that right. Yeah. Right. Um and also being really clear with the expectations of this is what we're doing each month. And generally I always overd deliver just because that's that's generally what you end up
Speaker A
doing but or what I end up doing. And so one of the red flags, this client in particular, their business was early days. It was a few years old, but it was growing massively. Um, they'd re remortgaged their house to try and
Speaker A
support the growth. So there was like a big red flag. It was a husband and wife team, which was another red flag at the time just in terms of the the composition of the roles within that business. Um, and I massively overd
Speaker A
delivered because I knew that they were struggling on certain things and I wanted to go over and above to try and help them make it work. So, it was important to them and then took that on myself as well. Got to the point I was
Speaker A
like, I can't keep on doing this. Like the expectations keep getting more and more, but the financial side of it isn't isn't in balance. Um, and ended up at the point where I was like, I can't keep on doing this. So for me it's it's not
Speaker A
working out and I walked away from the contract but at the time I was thinking this is a big contract for me but actually I felt so much better having moved away from it because if I was working out the time that I was working
Speaker A
on it the time to energy was not in balance. Um in terms of current challenges though I think for me a current concentration is business growth element and making sure that we're consistently delivering on the things that are most important to the
Speaker A
clients and I think clients priorities change and different things come into focus and it's like um you mentioned before Alex it was uh Especially with design, it's so subjective. If you've probably got a really clear, structured brief, so what what do you want from
Speaker A
this website? What are the colors you like? What's your brand? And if it ticks the brief, but you don't like it, then that's subjective. So, in terms of what we're doing for clients, it's like, right, well, this is the plan, this is
Speaker A
the tactics, we're delivering on that. You're happy with that? Great. And if you want us to do other stuff, we can weave it in or we can reanalyze what we're focusing on. Um but yeah, just making sure that we're consistently
Speaker A
delivering and aligned and um yeah, the growth has been mainly through word of mouth and and reputation. So, it seems to be going the right direction, but I want to make sure that that doesn't fall by the wayside and
Speaker A
especially getting new people on that those standards are met across the board. And so far, they have been, which is fantastic. But it's when I start doing less of the overseeing and of the doing that I have been doing and let that be taken over by
Speaker A
the team making sure that those standards don't slip when I start trying to take on new clients.
Speaker A
So that that I think is going to be the biggest challenge in coming and sales take take a long time. I mean I I always as a designer before I started all of this I undervalued how much effort education and time
Speaker A
requires to gain somebody's trust right to know the right things to be able to sell something right like it's u it's it's very difficult and again if you want to do what you said where you want to overd deliver which I think most of
Speaker A
successful people want to do that uh you have to know your audience, right? So, it takes a lot of time to learn that. It doesn't happen overnight.
Speaker A
Um I want to ask something else for so what is your like do you because we said you don't take all the client like all you know you specific do is there a niche uh that you you target like what
Speaker A
is the niche that you go after for your um what type of clients for example let's break them down like what's your favorite client to work with or the audience that you actually want to work with I I really like kind of manufacturing,
Speaker A
industrial. Um, so I mean there's there's one client that's kind of site clearance, forestry, wood pellet production, like water filtration, things like that. Um, and the reason being is quite often they've got cool machinery that I just find
Speaker A
interesting. But another reason is generally a lot of those businesses or medium-siz businesses, they've grown and done really well because they're good at what they do. They have a good business, they've got good people, they've got good service, they've got good products,
Speaker A
and marketing has been something that is is just something that happens. And I think one of the reasons I like that is because it can really help elevate the marketing efforts in line with the services and products that they
Speaker A
offer. Um because marketing can be such a fluffy term, can't it? Like, oh, let's do some marketing or we need to we need to write a monthly blog, we need to do that. actually for the clients I do have, they really value the
Speaker A
um experience and expertise we we bring to the party for them. Um and and they see the the KPIs at the end of the month. Um I think building that trust like you mentioned before is is a something that I try and focus on
Speaker A
quite a lot. We say what we do and we do what we say and part of it is the monthly reporting. So I include all our uh statistic heavy reports if they do want to dive into the details but not
Speaker A
everyone loves details. So I'll then also give the highlights, give what's working, what isn't working, how we're responding to what's not working, um and kind of insights and and thoughts about those different things. And I hope that kind of resonates with the clients and
Speaker A
they can ask and challenge us on on our way of thinking on that. Yeah, I think the kind of industrial manufacturing um clients are really good for that. Don't get me wrong, I love hospitality, travel. Um, but I think they
Speaker A
tend to be a little bit more um they're either doing really well or they're struggling. And I think especially postco, it's been a rough time. I think a lot of businesses are really struggling still. And it's not even postco. I think there's a lot of
Speaker A
other economic pressures at the moment. energy costs, um, people's spending habits that are impacting those as well, but generally kind of that's another reason I like those industries is because they're a little more stable and secure for that.
Speaker A
Yeah. And also hospitality. I mean again, you know, I have friends that still work at Westgate where I used to work before and man the there has been so many changes with Google the search results how like you know the hotel
Speaker A
feature snippets and how that works and how that collects to your site. Uh there's lawsuits with different websites uh like killing uh you know smaller brands. I mean it's a it's a it's there's a lot of money in it and I think
Speaker A
there's a lot of people in it that try to to take money out which becomes a very stressful and harder place to be at for sure. M I mean I kind of like it as well because for example with hotels
Speaker A
there's a lot of it's fiercely competitive isn't it and a lot of the kind of technical website stuff goes into that but then also there's a lot of um off-web stuff that goes on how are you reenticing them in how are you
Speaker A
engaging with your audience how are you encouraging them to come back offers I don't know loyalty cards things like that and it's Um yeah, I think that's really tough market. I love it. It is an interesting market, but um
Speaker A
had an interesting uh what you call it interesting phrase that stuck with me from the other day. I was talking to a tourism client of mine and um we're making the plan for the next year about selling an area and a location.
Speaker A
It's a beautiful um area and it's like we need to sell the sizzle, not the sausage because people can go anywhere, can't they? But what is it about this area that they can't get anywhere else? Um I'm really trying to hone in on that.
Speaker A
But yeah, that really stuck with me. Sell a sizzle, not sausage. That's funnel. Um I I have one thing to add before we move on to the you know the next topic is you know you were talking about
Speaker A
growth Paul and you know what what I found and um um you know that that's helped and I that's my advice to everybody is um you know your USP right you should know what it is right um when
Speaker A
you're doing it over a certain amount of time I I think if you realize that and if that's the on the forefront of what you're trying to sell, right? Makes it a lot more easier, I believe, to focus on
Speaker A
the growth, right? Because then, you know, and then if it's attached to a problem statement, you know, that you that you do I for me that's been a that's been an eye openener like when I start thinking in in in those terms. Um,
Speaker A
and um, I I do so like my every time I spiel, you know, when I'm trying to talk to clients, whether they're agencies or enterprise or, you know, consultants and stuff, you know, that that's something that I always, you know, make sure that
Speaker A
it's in my in my presentation. Um, um, and how it, you know, it it it it it's married to their problem statement as well, right? I think that helps especially if you have a very narrow focus and you're t you know targeting a
Speaker A
specific uh industry and you know you you're able to do that right if uh so that I think has been uh uh very um um uh beneficial for me and that something I I would tell you to think about uh um
Speaker A
so that's definitely something I need to refine. I mean I focus on um datadriven campaigns that deliver business goals and having a background in having worked have my own business and then also worked in a PR and marketing agency I
Speaker A
think they they go quite well but I mean is that something what would you say if what can you explain what yours would be just as like an example?
Speaker A
Um sure. So I mean you know so our USP that I that I do is you know we we only do we only focus on link building right that that's my primary focus right and and my deliverables are attached to that
Speaker A
right I'm not promising anything else you know if everything else falls into place right I I can do that right but then I look at missed opportunities right here's where things that you have missed out on right so my USV is you
Speaker A
know a lot of customers you know I tell them hey you know my consultation is free of cost to you right I bank I bank on the fact that if I give you some good direction what you're doing missed
Speaker A
opportunities just just by looking at raw data that you have on your website I you know there's so many clients that uh you know I I met a pretty big enterprise client on on on a conference we're just
Speaker A
having a casual conversation and you know especially when people think link building you know they they they run away right away. But me and him were having a very, you know, um, uh, intelligent conversation about something and I pointed something very redundant
Speaker A
out to them about what is going on on their website, uh, within, you know, 5 minutes cuz I I did a little bit of homework, you know, um, and they were they didn't realize they're like, "Oh my god, that I never saw it this way and
Speaker A
thank you so much for pointing that out." And two months later, right, they I got an email saying, "Hey, you know, thank you for the advice that you did." And uh and I use the word free money. I said, "Hey, if you fix this,
Speaker A
it's free money. You're going to solve a lot of your problems, right?" And and uh so that just do that. That's it. Um and I didn't push I I didn't do a follow-up or anything and they they came to me,
Speaker A
right? So yeah, so I I you know it's tacid and and what the approach is but I know what it is right. I know that hey we do what we do and we do it really well and you know and we have very set
Speaker A
specific idea that we're doing and we can adapt to your process as opposed to you adapting to ours. Right? If you like things a certain way I'll make sure I'm doing it in that way. That's my USB.
Speaker A
Right? That's that's my that's my and I I do that. And you look, I we have 3,000 clients, right? 150 to 200 of them are active at any given time. I have zero contracts. I have no contracts with any
Speaker A
of them. And when I tell that to people, you know, it's like that's that's crazy.
Speaker A
Like why why would you do and we do millions of dollars of, you know, uh book of business with the with the with these people and don't have a contract and they're happy, right? Uh so that that makes a huge difference you know in
Speaker A
gaining that trust and and not being um you know uh pushing it pushing something on them that they don't need. Um and um you know there's a lot of times clients come and say hey we want to spend 50,000
Speaker A
and I was like you know what I I don't think you can spend 50. I think you can spend five. I think you can spend 10 and and get the result. I don't know what what the hell I'm going to do with the
Speaker A
40, right? So best keep it, right? or let's save it for a rainy day and then figure out something else that that you could do it on and then that's that that's that's it and I just leave it at
Speaker A
that, right? That I think helps a lot, you know, and and you know, as big as we are, I we don't have I don't have a sales team, you know, we don't have that. It's all it's all there. It just just just
Speaker A
happens organically which is why I love going to conferences um and you know having these conversations and I can't tell you so many times people just hand me their credit card. It's like hey let's just let's do it right now. Let's
Speaker A
put an order. Every single conference I go to it happens every single time and you know it's it's I'm you know I'm not I'm not bragging about it but I'm I'm just saying that you know my approach has been like that from the very
Speaker A
beginning. And I, you know, as much as I would love a sales person to come in and and bring in more business, um, it's not something I'm actively, you know, if I, yeah, if I curate a relationship with
Speaker A
somebody and it ends up happening and, you know, majority of my business is referrals, you know, that's all we get, right? And it's it's it's doing that.
Speaker A
Our content that we create, it's all education. It's all fun, you know, like when we're me and Tim are making videos.
Speaker A
Like the whole thing about this podcast is, hey, it's education. Maybe somebody's going to get to learn something from it and we're just going to have fun, you know. um if you can. So that's interesting.
Speaker A
That's my Yeah, I like that what you just said. Yeah, it's a casual approach. Yeah. But it's it it's for me it's work because I know what my strong strong things are and that that's what I that's I put my
Speaker A
strong foot forward that that's always I that's how I start off with and I don't know nothing else.
Speaker A
A couple of our clients have been hesitant to start because they've been burned by agencies in the past where they've gone to an agency. Oh, can you help with this? Yeah, we can do this, this, this, this, and this. And they've
Speaker A
got full service that they don't actually need. And really, they could have got away with two or three of the services out of six, but like, oh, we'll do it all for you. When actually and they've been burned by it and like,
Speaker A
I had a really bad experience with an agency, so I'm just a little bit hesitant.
Speaker A
Yeah. My approach to that is always give them a very specific deliverable. Say, "Hey, I'll work with you. Here's a contract or here's a campaign. Let's keep it campaign based." And and at the end of the campaign, something very
Speaker A
specific is going to happen. And I do that all the time. I said, "Hey, look, link building, here's how link building works. The best way that link building is working is if I build links, your keyword visibility is going to go up. If
Speaker A
you're ranking for 20 keywords, you're going to rank for 30." Right? This means something if nothing else is happening.
Speaker A
and and if I'm doing link building that's average. That's a very small deliverable and when people see that they're like, "Oh, okay. All right.
Speaker A
What's next? What what's the next deliverable? What's the next? What's what's the So, if you do it that way, I think that just simplifies uh and relieves the burden on on the person saying, "Hey, am I going to sign a
Speaker A
retainer with this person um um for one year, right? I don't know. That's just my my take. I'm sure Alex is that um um also uh um but he's doing a lot more websites." So, I don't know how do you
Speaker A
tackle that? That's my that's my approach typically. I don't know either. No, as you said process, man. I mean like everything is process and and as I mentioned, you know, my background is in art, right? Like so I
Speaker A
started illustration and when I went to school for illustration like we were taught uh the most important part is that when you're a commercial artist, the art is not yours. the art is for the person that actually pays you to create it for
Speaker A
it. Like number one lesson and then number two is like you know you start sketching and now again this is not your art this is art for somebody else where uh somebody else is trying to get their vision using your talents right and your
Speaker A
skills. So um that has been very important and I and that's why everything and and we're very data driven and very like like there's a purpose behind everything we do like if we look at the intent of keyword before
Speaker A
I design a page like I don't know many designers that do that right we break down intent but uh I want to say something for Paul though like I know um my friend's an engineer so he deals with
Speaker A
a lot of people within the industry and stuff like that uh a lot of the questions when I hang out with his friends are like, "Oh, how do I get my company to be on the AI on the AI?" And
Speaker A
I think for your business, for Toronto marketing, I mean, it's and I keep telling citations, mentions, and stuff like that. So, PR is right now one of the most important parts in my opinion from what I read and, you know, and I see and I hear from
Speaker A
colleagues and stuff like that, it's super important. So, I know, you know, you're in a good spot, you know, and and and you should definitely like, you know, there's a lot of stuff you can definitely do for that.
Speaker A
And it it helps warm people up as well. Like people are getting less clicks on the website, but if AI is covered, a lot of they've taken them down the funnel to a certain degree. So, by the time they
Speaker A
land on your website, they're probably in a much better position to buy anyway or send an inquiry or they already know a certain amount about what you do or what you sell or about your product.
Speaker A
I had it the other day um when I was buying a new weight boarding um what's it called? I had a buoyancy aid and I was buying an impact vest after I had a bad crash and I was walking my kid
Speaker A
chatting to um Chad GBT and I was asking all about the products. This is what my priorities are. This is what I want. I narrowed it down to two by the time we got home 40 minutes later and then that
Speaker A
evening I'd bought I'd bought one. So from going not knowing what the difference was between a buoyancy aid and an impact vest to then buying one an hour later. And actually, I'd been on two websites and that's just because I
Speaker A
was checking the price from one to the other. And if I'd have really wanted to be lazy or time efficient or what I want to call it, I could have probably I stayed to find the cheapest price and
Speaker A
done it anyway. But PR is if it's not in people's marketing mund I I agree 100%. And I'm um curious and and actually either of you could answer this.
Speaker A
Uh how do you go about delivering bad news to clients? That's that's a great question.
Speaker A
I want I want both of you to answer that. That that that's amazing. Yeah.
Speaker A
Do you want to go first or do you want me to? Yeah. Go Paul. You're the guest. Go first.
Speaker A
For me, I I always I'm really honest with clients and I I'll call a spade a spade. Um, and I'll just say it how it is. But I think if there's ever bad news, I'll always have thought about
Speaker A
what's a solution or a workaround or a potential remedy to what that bad news is because you can't change bad news, but you can change how you react or respond to it. So, I would always have made sure even if it's really timely,
Speaker A
especially crisis coms as well, they can come in quick and just making sure you're prepared with this really bad news. I'm just going to say it as it is, but here's a couple of options. How do you want to move forwards and try and be
Speaker A
part of the the solution is how I would approach it. Interesting. How about you, Alex? Well, um like it's it's depends because like we have so many like we deal with big sites and smaller sites. So like it truly
Speaker A
depends mo most of the bad news I have to bring in is mostly to to set limits to clients especially with design right because uh you know move move a dot five pixels to the right. Well dude I'm going
Speaker A
to develop it. I can do that in CSS, right? Like so so usually I mean I am very and you guys you know Timmy and and Navid you know me very well like I'm very upfront and and I say you know I
Speaker A
give the news as is or or whatever if it's a bad thing I will bring it up front but also I ensure that there's solutions and if we are at fault right I will ensure that myself and my whole
Speaker A
team will stay there to fix the issue on this result right uh no matter the hours no matter But and and again, you know, like it's the main reason we have clients like for I I don't even remember
Speaker A
since we started left. Um but yeah, I believe being upfront and and being very and and I mean listen, it's tech things happen, right? Like so you can't always know what what's going to happen. So you have to be upfront. You have to be
Speaker A
trusted and you have to have a solution. That's why you're there. You're here to provide a solution. So, um, but yeah, it's I don't like bringing buds, though.
Speaker A
No, no, nobody does. And I think that like the real important part of like both of what you said was having some sort of a solution. So, not just delivering bad news and then, oh, what are we going to do about it? You
Speaker A
have some sort of course um a course of action that you can do. That's the way to go about it.
Speaker A
It's like it's not bad news. It's a plot twist, right? then like here's what we have to do now.
Speaker A
I think it was nice what you said as well, the accountability because if if something goes wrong, not not shifting the blame. It's like if if I messed up, I'll say, "Yeah, there's my back. Let me fix it. Here's what I'm going to do."
Speaker A
Um, and I said, "Doesn't matter how long it's going to take." The accountability piece. And I think people are when when it's happened to me before, if I've messed up and I've just come clean like, "Look, I made this mistake. This is what
Speaker A
I'm going to do about it." It's a lot better received than Great. Yeah, that's that's there's no point trying to cover it up or get around it. Just Yeah, the accountability I think is is a a good one as well.
Speaker A
Awesome. Well, we're coming towards the hour, so I think uh we'll maybe a couple more questions and then we'll call it call it call it a day. So, Timmy, did you did you have anything?
Speaker A
Yeah. Yeah, I have I have one for Paul. Um, were you on Fear Factor?
Speaker A
The the live show in Florida. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Gotcha. Gotcha. Gotcha. Um, please pray. Do tell.
Speaker A
How was that? What What did they make you do? So, it was I can't believe you remembered that.
Speaker A
Nine. Talking about plot twists right there. Here we go. Yeah. flat twist. Paul Paul wanted it, by the way. So you guys, you know, you got to give credit, but but tell us about it, Paul. I think that was interesting.
Speaker A
It was It was a family holiday. And there was um my brother, his now wife, but back then was his girlfriend. My mom and dad, it was in Universal Studios. So you want to be on the show, you'd turn up 45 minutes
Speaker A
before the show, and they'd put you in these boxes and they go around and ask you questions and they're like, "What's your biggest fear?" And I was like, "My biggest fear is failure." And that exactly what I said. Um and so
Speaker A
ended up getting on it. There was six people. So the first task was you were 40 foot up in the air on a um a plank on a metal handle and the the floor dropped away and the first two people to drop
Speaker A
were out. And then the second round, um, I had I was raised on like a in a harness and my partner who'd won the first round had to put their hand in a tank of eels and grab a bean bag and
Speaker A
throw it. People are hung up and catch it in a bucket. And then we had an apron on and we were given rancid octopus depending on how many uh balls we'd caught raised two and a half stories high and dropped.
Speaker A
So we were like swinging on a pendulum. We had to throw the rancid octopus to them to cash.
Speaker A
And then there was me and this uh other contestant who went into the final and there's a big stage. All the Universal Studios are massive, aren't they? And it was like a big um shop frontage basically. It was
Speaker A
identical right and left and you had to climb up and get flags off the side. Um slide down a lampost, run to the front of the stage where there was like a classic Corvette, turn the engine on, it
Speaker A
went to the ceiling of um the massive Universal Studios um auditorium. had to lean over the bonnet, rip flags off the front where the headlights were, then um get a bazooka out the back back seat and shoot down
Speaker A
the front of the stage. That's awesome. It was a good experience. Is there a clip of it? Is there like I'm sure the YouTube it's it's somewhere on YouTube there. There probably is. Yeah, I could probably get an old uh camcorder.
Speaker A
There's a photo of me when I was like 18 afterwards with a mini afro like Yeah.
Speaker A
I'm sure I'm sure we'll hunt this hunt this down. But that was so interesting.
Speaker A
Yeah, they didn't make you eat anything. No, but there were people who had um like tarantulas on their face and there was there was different sections.
Speaker A
Yeah, cuz like one of one of them is always a creepy crawly kind of challenge.
Speaker A
I don't know. I couldn't the bug eating the bugs like they do. Um I'm a celebrity. get me out of here in the UK and they have like an eating challenge and it's there's always it's like eat a
Speaker A
lamb's eyeball and it's like couldn't anything like that is like cooked or uncooked be raw that yeah freshly plucked oh no why like that's crazy my biggest fear is being on fear factor that's what I what I would answer. But
Speaker A
um yeah, I wanted to um kind of close this off by Paula. I want and I asked this uh to everybody. Is there like a win that you've had in you know in your uh with Pronto that you're
Speaker A
like super proud of uh that you want to share? We love to hear that.
Speaker A
Yeah, I'd say there's a few I could probably call on, but one in particular that I was really happy with was um visiting Y. So, it's uh Forest Sadine in W Valley. It's a beautiful place. If you've never been um you should
Speaker A
definitely look it up. They were transferring over to a new website and that was all the content, all new pages, all new redirects.
Speaker A
It was a mammoth job. So this this website had been going for years and new platform and we had a really tight deadline to get it done which was as I'm sure you'll know like deadlines get passed along and
Speaker A
the website took longer in design. um which meant the editing time from getting the keys to the back end to then having the go live date had been really reduced. Um and we managed to get it done 14 days ahead of deadline day under
Speaker A
budget which is very rare and I think I lost count 588 pages something like that. Um, and in the middle of that, having a baby. So, that for me was like a massive win.
Speaker A
That's awesome. Ahead of time, under budget, had a baby. Um, and I'm really happy with the website as well.
Speaker A
That's awesome. We got to we got to we got to we got to check it out.
Speaker A
Google it. Alex, you got a win you want to share with us? Anything recent that you've done? You're like, man, this is awesome.
Speaker A
Yeah, actually. Um, so I worked on a So, you know, here in Orlando they have the mystery fun house. I don't know if you guys remember that.
Speaker A
Yeah. So, Westgate brought that up and they created a new uh uh a new like I guess section on any resort. They have this huge uh water park and they created this new arcade uh that's a partnership with
Speaker A
Chuck-E-Cheese. Um, and we actually built the whole site uh with a partnership with a design team from Whiskey Resorts. Uh, and I'm actually we launched the opening was like I think last Thursday and and what I loved about it, it was one of the
Speaker A
first projects where um and you know I want to give also you know my friend over there Alex Velasquez because he was able to connect for first time. I've never done this before where the all of the teams were on the same level, same
Speaker A
communication, and everything's consistent from the website all the way through the brand, right? Um, we built a site uh that's I mean, and it's a mystery funhouse.com.
Speaker A
Uh, all animations uh like super complex designs, little things that make noises, pop up, kind of fun, make it all fun.
Speaker A
and we built it like super fast and and I'm very proud of that. The design of it is is great and and I'm hoping you know like we're having some uh design contest that we most likely will submit this
Speaker A
year. But that was a one fun project and very technical like simple but but super technical with all the animations you know. So um and you know animations nowadays in mobile you know they don't go well. So you have to think like okay
Speaker A
it looks like this in desktop how does that convert on the mobile right? So we literally had to redesign everything to to switch without like having double styles, right? So which is, you know, we want the SEO and the content to be
Speaker A
exactly the same. So there was a lot of challenges on it. But yeah, that's one of my proudest moments at this point.
Speaker A
Okay, we got to check it out. Check check the boat both sites out and I'll we'll give you the award if you don't win it, Alex. We'll we'll we'll make a award.
Speaker A
Send Alex award. Yeah. Okay. Awesome. All right. Well, um Yeah Timmy. Nice. Yeah, Paul, thank you for doing this. Um but before we go, something that we do like to wrap everything up.
Speaker A
Um a shameless plug right at the end. Um how do people find you? Whatever you want to say. Go.
Speaker A
So check us out. prontomarketing.co.uk. UK. Um, we range of services, but as you know, PR, digital marketing, copywriting, website SEO, especially if you're interested in AI, citations, GEO, and making sure that you're being represented and found by your audience
Speaker A
where they're at, which I think is really key. Get in contact. I'm also on LinkedIn, Paul Williamson. I'd love to hear from them. And thank you very much for having me on.
Speaker A
Awesome. Thank you, Paul. Thank you. Thank you. And that is it. Thank you all out there for watching and listening.
Speaker A
Make sure you like, share, subscribe, all that good stuff. We'll see you next time.
Topics:agency growthniche marketingPR strategydigital marketingAI in marketingthought leadershipB2B marketinghospitality marketingtrust buildingmarketing agency tips
