The link to the podcast can be accessed at the top of the page. A full transcript of the podcast can be accessed below. Thank you for listening, and happy marketing!
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Speaker 1:
Welcome to the Agency Founder Podcast. Are you ready to grow your marketing agency? We pull back the curtain to show you how real marketing agency founders struggled, built, and scaled their agencies. Practical advice, lessons learned, wins, and losses. We hold nothing back. Now, your host, Jeremy Sunny.
Jeromy Sonne:
Welcome to the Agency Founder Podcast by Moonshine Marketing. Every single week, we interview successful founders of marketing agencies at different points in their journey to pass on their victories, defeats, challenges and lessons learned to help you take your agency to new heights. This week we’re speaking with Jeff Minnickbach of No Limit Creatives, a subscription based design service. Jeff, thank you so much for being here.
Jeff Minnickbach:
Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
Jeremy Sonne:
So, a subscription based design service, how did you come up with that concept originally?
Jeff Minnickbach:
I’d been a freelancer for many, many years before that, a freelance designer. The one thing I always ran into was my smaller budget clients could never afford to keep going with projects. It just always became an issue with their budget. So I was trying to figure out a way that I could keep them on longer with me and still meet the needs of their companies creatively. I tried this model out, with this kind of like a retainer model, a monthly subscription. And I found that it had just worked really well once I started testing it. So the main goal for me was just to retain customers longer.
Jeremy Sonne:
That’s really interesting. How did you get into design in general? Has that always been a passion for you? Did you kind of discover it later on? Tell me about your journey as a designer before you started No Limit Creatives.
Jeff Minnickbach:
Yeah. I’ve always been a creative and into art and design, even as a kid. From elementary school on through high school, I had always taken art classes. I took extracurricular classes in art and design. I was building websites when I was 11. I had built a Star Wars themed, a website with music and just stuff that was totally off the wall crazy at a young age.
Jeff Minnickbach:
I had always had a really, really strong interest in design in general. So after high school, I kind of didn’t know what I wanted to do or what I wanted to be in life. I messed around with some affiliate marketing stuff and started getting into making ad creatives for Craigslist businesses. Businesses actually ran advertisements on local Craigslist pages-
Jeromy Sonne:
No, that’s legit. That’s super legit. A lot of people make quite a bit. I don’t know if they still do, but they made quite a bit of coin flipping before Gary V was telling everybody to flip. You know what I mean? But that’s legit.
Jeff Minnickbach:
Craigslist was a huge moneymaker for me. That really is what opened up the door to all of this. That was where I really got into the graphic design stuff on a computer, and not just drawing, and art, and things like that. That’s kind of where it all blossomed.
Jeromy Sonne:
Oh, that’s really fascinating. So, that sort of Craigslist hustle is what got you there. So you’re doing that, and you’re kind of working your way up in the design world. You said that you’ve done a lot of freelance. I assume you just keep evolving, keep moving to larger clients, like a lot of people do, and stuff like that. Then eventually you say “I don’t want to keep losing these small clients.” Right? And that’s kind of the motivation for starting No Limits Creatives? Tell me about that.
Jeff Minnickbach:
Yeah. I kind of went from Craigslist to, at the time it was Elance and oDesk, which was the previous name for Upwork. I started bidding on design jobs on there. I was really starting to get a lot of feedback, and great reviews, and starting to build a real reputation. That’s where I transitioned into.
Jeff Minnickbach:
Then, after a while, I had built up so many clients I just couldn’t handle it myself anymore. So I’m thinking, “What can I do to maybe slim some of that down?” But also needing help, it was one of those things where I really needed to transition into more of a company or a business and not doing everything myself anymore.
Jeff Minnickbach:
But the small budget customer has always been who I have wanted to work with, and I’d rather have smaller budget customers and a volume of those, than try to rely on just a handful of larger customers. So that’s where I’ve always been motivated to succeed is with those smaller budget clients, startups, small business and things like that.
Jeromy Sonne:
Actually, that’s really interesting. And I want to dig into that for a second, because a lot of the people that I have on, and I’m not really making a judgment here either way… A lot of the people I have on though, they only want $2 to $20 million e-commerce clients and things that. Right. They only want the big ones. They don’t want to waste their time, as they view it, with smaller clients. But you kind of take the opposite route. Why do you do that?
Jeff Minnickbach:
I think it comes from the freelancer gig I had. It was so up and down financially. It was very inconsistent. Once I got engaged and got married and had my first child, it was really more about financial stability for me than getting rich quick.
Jeff Minnickbach:
The stability came from those smaller budget clients. I was able to bring a lot more on and be financially stable, and if I lost a couple, it was no big deal. But if I was focused on these huge companies, it would only take one or two of those to leave to really devastate me financially. So I was always after that stability.
Jeromy Sonne:
No, that makes a lot of sense. That’s a very real thing. I know with very large agencies, even publicly held ones, they lose one or two key clients and they lay off half their staff. That’s a very real thing that happens. So that’s interesting that the stability… And do you think that longterm that will end up actually leading to more profits anyways? Right. If you can have a wider base, rather than fighting over the top 0.01% of clients? What’s your kind of longterm vision there?
Jeff Minnickbach:
Yeah, I do. I think we’ve always, or I have always, wanted to work with those smaller customers. So for me through marketing, referrals, and things like that, we’re just looking to keep going in that direction. I don’t think we’ll ever get to the point where we say, “You know what, forget about you guys. We just want these big companies, and we don’t want to mess with small startups, and things that.”
Jeff Minnickbach:
Because I’ve personally seen so many people on social media, that I’m connected with, and networks, and groups struggling, especially during this time. And it’s just really devastating to see these people, that I work with a lot, be so affected by the pandemic going on. And having to lose their businesses overnight. So I’m really all about supporting the small business. Don’t get me wrong, we work with companies of all sizes, from all over the world. But that’s definitely where I think I’m going to keep continuing to aim towards is just the small businesses and startups, small budgets.
Jeromy Sonne:
No, I love that. That’s really interesting. Let’s shift gears a little bit. Tell me about… It’s a subscription design service. Why don’t you tell folks a little bit more about what exactly No Limit Creatives is and what you typically do, and who your customer is as well?
Jeff Minnickbach:
Yeah, so we kind of started out making primarily social media ads. Then we realized, very quickly and early on, that our customers had a lot more demand for other kinds of graphics and videos. So our company specializes in all areas of graphic design and video ads, video intros, simple animations, things like that.
Jeff Minnickbach:
We work with all kinds of industries. There’s not any one in particular that we’re after or catering to. We primarily work with a lot of ad agencies, and we crank out thousands of social media ads every month. Then we have a lot of e-commerce based customers as well. But there’s definitely a lot of local businesses, restaurants and different brick and mortar places. We have some bigger corporations we work with like Fighter Cup and [Keratin 00:00:08:17], and we’ve worked with True Car and McAfee. So we’ve got a very diverse client base and this kind of service really works for anybody.
Jeromy Sonne:
No, absolutely. I mean, I’ve been a customer in the past, full disclosure. I really love the work that you all put out and I’ve had everything from social media ads to, I think that the most ambitious was an infographic, which you all did a fantastic job on. So definitely can attest to that.
Jeromy Sonne:
Let’s talk about that kind of inflection point, right, where you’re like, “Okay, I’m too busy. I have to get a team together.” How do you actually make that transition from freelancer to agency owner, business owner? You know what I mean?
Jeff Minnickbach:
Yeah. That was really difficult for me. I think it probably took almost a year for me to get out of that freelancer mindset and trying to control everything myself. I learned that I had to delegate. But I ended up using the freelance sites that I had worked on for many years to source other designers around the globe.
Jeff Minnickbach:
Once I got a few of those on board with me, I started to be able to kind of step back a little bit, take a deep breath and really watch this thing come together. And watch the employees do what I was looking for them to do. Then I can be more of a delegator, and more of an owner, and focus on the business, not be in the business. If that makes sense.
Jeromy Sonne:
It’s interesting. It’s something I’ve actually struggled with myself. I’m growing and got a team and stuff now, and I’m training right now, and that’s been really interesting. But one of the things that I always… I don’t know. I’m learning to delegate better. It’s definitely a huge struggle. And I think that’s one that’s not talked about enough. Because the worry that always comes up is, “How do I make sure that it reaches the quality? It’s got my name on it. Right. And I want to make sure that it’s the highest quality possible, and I’m doing this great job for clients. But at the same time, I can’t micromanage everything, because then what’s the point of having a team.” You know what I mean?
Jeromy Sonne:
So can you talk about kind of your thoughts about that? And how you learn to balance those things and stuff. I’m really genuinely curious, selfishly. Right. And I think that a lot of people listening too, are also probably going through that.
Jeff Minnickbach:
Yeah. I’m just you, and you’re probably me, a perfectionist. You want things done a certain way and you’ve built a reputation like I have for the quality work and the service that you provide. So you’re after those people to help you do the same thing. But I tried micro-managing at the beginning. I was really, really involved in the day to day processes. And I just had to let the people do what they did best.
Jeff Minnickbach:
Over time I was able to kind of feel better about the quality they were doing, because I was seeing customer compliments and they were getting a lot of praise. But it took me a long time to get to the level I needed to be with quality. I think it really came down to putting in those processes and procedures, and having a bit of a chain of command.
Jeff Minnickbach:
So you can rely on somebody under you. They can take care of everybody under them. The chain of command really is what gave me a sigh of relief was just to have somebody under me kind of taking care of the day to day stuff. But we have quality assurance reps now in every single design team in our business. They are the ones now that are making it more consistent. They’re checking our standards checklist every day, on every project. So there’s a lot of changes I think, since you and I have worked together before, from that to now.
Jeromy Sonne:
Oh, wow. Yeah, no, that’s really comprehensive. And I’m happy to hear that. That is that you’re essentially making an argument, and I don’t want to put words in your mouth, so please correct me if I’m wrong. But making an argument for middle-management essentially, right? Which a lot of startups and stuff say, “Nah, no. Middle management bad.” But you kind of seem to be taking the opposite approach, where having a very clear kind of hierarchy is actually really, really helpful. Is that a fair way of saying it?
Jeff Minnickbach:
Yeah, because we met a guy in Florida who works for us, his name is Anthony. He was the director of operations last year, and I promoted him to COO, and we have a new operations manager. We need those people in place. We’ve broken our entire company down into teams versus just having one person overseeing everybody. So we have team leaders on every team. We have quality assurance reps on every team. Everybody reports to different people.
Jeff Minnickbach:
So we’ve really broken this business down into microscopic pieces. There’re really chopped up pieces of the day to day operation and that’s really a game changer. It was a game changer for me in the business and moving forward. So we definitely needed that, the different chain of command, and the teams, and things like that.
Jeromy Sonne:
Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense. That’s kind of the route that I’ve personally been going on, which is two things. Number one, be really intense with the training and make sure that everybody’s trained correctly. And then two is just have basically checklist processes, which I’m calling cookbooks. When we work with this sort of client, and we do this sort of campaign, do it this way.
Jeromy Sonne:
Is that sort of the way that you’ve approached setting up those processes for design? I know media buying and design isn’t a one to one comparison. But yeah, I’m curious about what those processes actually look like?
Jeff Minnickbach:
Yeah. It’s still the same kind of thing that you guys do on your end. I didn’t have any kind of formal training set up when we began. So it was a mess. Our first year, it was a lot of just learning as you go. A lot of trial and error. A ton of mistakes. Then we finally started to get training in place, processes.
Jeff Minnickbach:
We have, just like you, daily checklists that the designers go through. They have to do certain things when they get in, when they leave. They have to know how to tag jobs and how to communicate with customers. So there’s a lot more than just design. They also have to be personable, and outgoing, and communicate with customers on a daily basis.
Jeff Minnickbach:
So when we hire and interview people, we check for stuff that all the time. We’re always trying to see where they might stand out or what weaknesses they may have with communication. A lot of designers, especially working from home, they don’t always have that outgoing personality that we’re after in the business. So it’s definitely part of the process, communication.
Jeromy Sonne:
For sure. Yeah, no, it’s an interesting thing. One of the things that I’ve struggled with too is detail orientation, right? So I put up a job posting and I got hundreds and hundreds of applications. Right. Mostly because I was like, “Work from home and blah, blah, blah.” Halfway through I just said, “Make the subject line of the email pickle.” Right. Maybe 10% of people, maybe 10% did it. It’s interesting kind of finding that right fit.
Jeromy Sonne:
How do you go about finding talent? I’m not necessarily saying application gotchas, and that wasn’t actually my intention. I was just really looking for detail oriented people. Right. It wasn’t some trick or anything. But how do you go about finding those designers? I know you mentioned that you kind of turn to those platforms that you used to work on, but is that still how you’re finding it as you’re scaling? Is it referrals? How are you sourcing talent? Because I know that that’s a hot button issue.
Jeff Minnickbach:
Yeah. It’s a little bit of everything. We’re just under 120 employees now in our first two years. And it started out hiring through freelance sites, which we still do now. But we’re also a part of different Facebook groups that are in the countries we’re aiming to employ from, that only specialize in design. So these groups are specifically for graphic and video designers.
Jeff Minnickbach:
We also offer bonuses for our employees to refer friends and family, people they know that would be a really good fit for our company. So that in itself was a really great way to find talent. We had a ton of referrals. I would think maybe half our team is based on referrals from designers, or support reps, that know other people that they thought would be a good fit.
Jeromy Sonne:
That’s fantastic. I’m glad to hear that. I guess, as you mentioned a little bit earlier, you said that you’re spending more time in the owner role versus kind of the doer role, now that you’ve got these processes in place, and you’re scaling, and you have this great chain of accountability and everything. What is the difference? What does owner role feel versus doer role? If that makes sense.
Jeff Minnickbach:
In the dower and the day to day stuff, I was always finding myself designing for people, even though I had designers. I was always helping with revisions or communicating back and forth with different customers, if there was complaints, or concerns, or questions. So I was involved in literally every part of the business.
Jeff Minnickbach:
And now I’ve been able to step back and focus more on the brand, and our messaging, and our visions, and where we want to go in the future. And letting somebody else take care of the day to day stuff and processes. So I’ve really flipped a switch and just been able to focus on the bigger picture things now, and not necessarily on the finer details, and day to day.
Jeromy Sonne:
No, I love that. That’s really interesting. And thinking about those things, in kind of like a larger 40,000 foot view. I’m sure that you think that you’re learning more, seeing more opportunities. What kind of have the advantage has been so far you see?
Jeff Minnickbach:
Well, we’ve never advertised until just this year. We started dabbling in Google ads and Facebook a little bit. But we’ve always been fortunate enough to grow through referrals and happy customers. But that’s one area that I’ve been really focused on is trying to see how do we sustain this business 10 years from now? It can’t always grow by referrals. Maybe to some degree, but if you want to scale it quickly, that’s just not the answer for us.
Jeff Minnickbach:
So advertising has been something we’re kind of testing and trialing right now. That’s been my focus for the business is what we want to say in our messaging, and who are after, and different things like that. So I still deal with customers every week, no matter how much I try to get out of that. I think my name is just associated with the business, and a lot of groups, and a lot of people say, “Talk to Jeff.” So it’s always that people messaging me. But I love to deal with people, so that’s not a problem.
Jeff Minnickbach:
But I’ve definitely been able to focus more on marketing, and how we want to hire, and train, and different packages we want to launch. So improvements to our service, how we can make things better, increased value. Those are all things I’m focused on now.
Jeromy Sonne:
Absolutely. I love that. I guess, as I’m thinking about all of this stuff that you’ve done, and it’s incredibly impressive, how many… Do you mind if I… How many employees do you have right now? Or team members?
Jeff Minnickbach:
We have 116 right now.
Jeromy Sonne:
Holy crap. That’s huge. That’s quite the growth curve.
Jeff Minnickbach:
Yeah. We went from… I think two years ago, we had 20 in January. And this January we had over a hundred. So in a couple of years we’ve just had to scale really quickly in our staffing, and keep up with the demand.
Jeff Minnickbach:
Because I said, we were not prepared or ready for the growth, and we didn’t have any processes or training. So we were always a step behind until just the last year. We finally got everything in place that we needed to, to run efficiently. And kind of back to what you said about having people right, I think you said, pickle or something in the subject when they apply. We went through that same issue where people were just applying for jobs and they didn’t even know what they were applying for.
Jeff Minnickbach:
So we actually send people to a link now and make them go through a sample or a dummy project, where they design a quick ad. We got rid of tons and tons of those tire kickers, the time-wasters and only got applications from people who truly understood what we were looking for. So that may be something for other business owners that they could implement to weed out the people that are just wasting time.
Jeromy Sonne:
For sure. No, I love that. That’s really interesting. So yeah. Thinking about everything, what’s your kind of biggest lessons learned in regards to number one, what is something that if you had to do it over, you would not do? You would run away, you would go the opposite direction. You would watch out, do anything but that again. Then also, what is something that you wish you would have done earlier? You wish you would have started off with, rather than waiting until down the road? What are those sorts of two lessons?
Jeff Minnickbach:
I think starting with what we would have done sooner, it would have definitely been some kind of quality control. Because we were so focused on just pleasing as many people as we could, no matter what it took. But at the end of the day, we were always so rushed to just crank out volume that the quality was always secondary. That was not where I was ever wanting to be in, in the direction of the business, and quality is super important to me.
Jeff Minnickbach:
So I wish we would have had a quality team in place sooner. I think that would have gotten rid of a lot of other issues in that first year of business. And I think that really goes for any kind of business, having some kind of quality control so everything’s consistent across the board.
Jeff Minnickbach:
Something that I would have run away from and not done. I don’t know. There was a lot of mistakes and things we learned. But the one thing I would have to say that I’m still kicking myself about today is that I decided to use Asana as our platform for our customers. Asana was great small scale, but big scale, larger scale, it lacks tons of automation and things that we needed to run and operate efficiently. So here I am two years later now just getting a custom portal built. It’s a hundred percent custom made. And I wish I would have had that right at the beginning, and not gone with Asana, because that was something that now I’m really… We have hundreds of customers we’re going to have to transition out of that. So I would have preferred not to use that at the beginning if I knew what I know now.
Jeff Minnickbach:
Sure, absolutely. I think that makes sense. Well, Jeff, I really appreciate this. This has been incredibly enlightening. I learned a ton myself. A lot of lessons that I’m going to implement in my own business. Really appreciate your time today. I always give folks at the end here one or two minutes to pitch whatever they want. So I’ll give you that time now.
Jeff Minnickbach:
Yeah. It’s pretty straightforward. Our processes and our business is very simple to use. You can check out nolimitcreatives.com. We do all kinds of graphics, videos. We now do some product photography services we’re dabbling, some copywriting support, and ad creative ideas. So we’re doing a lot of different things. But just check out the website. We have a lot of different pricing, and packages that cater to all kinds of budgets, and businesses of all shapes and sizes. So check us out and we’d be happy to help you guys.
Jeromy Sonne:
And I can highly recommend them as well, as a past customer. So thank you so much again for your time. For everybody out there listening learn from this, look at your processes, look at how Jeff has approached things. If you want to skip to the front of the line of the hard lessons about scaling, just listen to this incredible, incredible advice from Jeff. And thank you all again for listening and happy marketing everybody.
