From 0 SEO experience to an agency
How Zack Powell made it work with grit and enthusiam
Sometimes I feel defeated and I need to remind myself it’s always onward and upward no matter what happens and how bad it gets. There’s always the temptation to give up and throw down the towel in the face of stupidly hard situations. But there’s always light at the end of the tunnel.
Zack Powell is one of those people who’s a living reminder of this. I love his honesty, willingness to help others and persistence.
Let’s check his answers to my questions!
Going all out
A common pattern I see among successful businesses is a long history of practice. Usually, people who make it work have been at it for years. They train themselves to acquire those skills, and it’s not surprising they manage to figure it out. They already have. It looks like your parents had a bunch of businesses you were involved in when you grew up.
What did you learn from them and what lessons do you take with you daily?
Zack Powell: Awesome question. My parents taught me how to hustle and think like an owner. They wouldn’t just pay me hourly. They would pay me a percentage of the profits. When I was selling kettle corn at farmer’s markets, I would bring my most outgoing friends to give samples to everyone so we could sell more kettle corn. I made way more money that way. Instead of just showing up, they taught me how to go all out. Life is way more fun that way.
They also taught me the importance of caring about people. My dad would talk and laugh with every carpet-cleaning client he had. He would be interested in what they were interested in. He would create connections with everyone. We would walk through Costco, and everyone would say hi to him because he brought a great experience to each home he entered. He truly cares about people and enjoys his work each day. I try to do the same daily.
Keeping momentum
I believe most people want to be all-in and live a fulfilling life, embodying their best selves at all times. I think it’s fine to give yourself some grace here and there. But sometimes, it can slip for too long and too many times, and we feel disengaged.
When was the last memorable time you were not going all out? What happened? How did you get back on track?
Zack: As recently as last week. I went on a vacation to San Diego and didn’t stick to my 5 Daily Non-Negotiables:
Review goals
Workout for 45 minutes
Read 10 pages
Share work with social posts
Five outbound messages
My body didn’t feel as powerful and alive as usual. My mind felt stagnant. I had a fun trip, but the fire and excitement weren’t there like it usually is. I got back on track by re-committing to my routine and doing my non-negotiables again.
Commitment can ebb and flow but it is important to never miss twice. Never miss two days in a row. If you can do that, you will keep momentum. And momentum takes ordinary people and makes them appear to be superhuman. Ed Mylett taught me that. Decide what your daily non-negotiables are and stick to them. Never miss twice. You will accomplish everything you want to over time.
Trade-offs
I’m always very intrigued by people’s story. I love reading about their successes, but I also love understanding the trade-offs and sacrifices they had to make to get there. In your case, it took you 4-5 months of grinding to learn SEO before getting your first client. It took another year to get enough traction to quit your job.
With a job, a family, and a burgeoning agency, what trade-offs allowed you to make it work? Was your job flexible? Did you have a strong support system with friends and family to help with the kids? Can you tell me a bit more about it?
Zack: Great question. I was able to work from home with my job. Each day I would hustle to get my W2 work done quickly so I could make significant progress on my agency.
I also traded my money for time. I quickly hired Filipino website builders, content writers and appointment setters so I could buy back my time and focus on sales. I tried to keep all my time and efforts focused on selling. If I were spending too much time on something else, I would hire another team member to focus more of my valuable time on sales again.
I also have an amazing wife. She does an amazing job taking care of our kids and is way more productive than me. She helps me lift my sights of what can actually be accomplished in one day. When you have a wife and kids relying on you, it helps you step up and become a man. I am very grateful for my wife’s support, care and insights. A lot of the best ideas for the agency have come from her. She quickly sees things that are in my blind spots.
Becoming better at sales
Everybody knows being a better communicator is key in relationships, whether in business or with friends and family. But it’s such a broad concept. It needs to be broken down in order to be properly executed and to get a chance at truly becoming better at communicating. I mention this because you talk about consultative sales, which relies on asking questions and listening.
For each, what are two core tactical elements that help you become a better listener and become better at asking questions?
Zack: Planning, curiosity, and truly caring are essential here. I created a written-out sales demo flow for my agency. Right at the start, it has 15 unique questions listed that I pull from and ask business owners to get them to start opening up. These questions help me become curious and actually care about each business owner, their story, their business, their goals and dreams.
One or two good questions get someone to open up, and then the conversation becomes fun, and it’s easy to listen. You start truly caring about people and their exact situations that you now know. Then sales become easy. You just help them meet their goals and dreams through what you have to offer.
I will often start brainstorming questions and things I want to know about other people before we have plans to talk or meet up. This planning makes the questions you ask sincere, so you listen better and engage in more heartfelt conversation as well. Being curious, truly caring about others, and planning help me be a better listener and ask better questions. We can get huge golden nuggets from anyone at any time, so listening and asking great questions is vital.
What inspired you in Zack’s story? Let me know!
3 juicy links of the week
I’ve heard the same story from many people. “I struggled for many years, tried everything under the sun, everything was an uphill battle. Until I started X new idea and it was smooth sailings from there.” Those people had to pay their dues and flex their muscles before everything clicked in a flash of luck.
Overview of growing an agency by Nat Eliason
I love those stories to understand how people do it but also to see the general strategies they use. There are so many different ways to build an agency, you’d be surprised.
Steps to building a consulting business
As there are many ways to tackle the agency route, you can sell your services as an independent in so many different ways based on your industry and offer. I like to absorb as many of those stories because they are an awesome source of inspiration.
Great post, I see some overarching themes between the main article and the three links:
The first theme I see is focusing on sales, customers, and things that drive sales and customer relationships forward, and try to do less of everything else.
The second theme I see is that the ability to do this well is a skill that's developed over time, so sometimes things eventually work because you improved at doing it.
Very inspiring and motivating as always!
Regarding the questions part. I used to work for a consulting company, specialized in sales training. We had a framework of 4 levels of questions that opened up conversations with prospects. level 1 was to ask about what results they wanted to accomplish 2 was asking about concrete tactics they were trying level 3 was about problems they were encountering and level 4 was about asking simple transactional questions. As you progressed through the levels you would first open up the prospect and by level 4 you could usually get them to commit to next steps (e.g. a proposal). It was pretty good and it has applications beyond sales (e.g. job seeking)