On our latest episode of the GoWP Digital Agency Owners Podcast, we welcome Mike Killen, Founder of Sell Your Service. We talk about having the confidence to free yourself from outdated agency models, dealing with negativity, design that gets converts, pivotal moments in his career, and much more.

Read the transcript:

Morayo: [00:00:00] Welcome everyone to the GoWP, digital agency owner podcast, where we speak with leaders in our community, and we go behind the data to uncover their secrets to business and life success.

Joanne: [00:00:16]  Before we begin. I would just like to say a few words about GoWP in case anyone listening isn’t fully familiar with us. At GoWP we create happiness for digital agencies and help them become more profitable. Whether it’s joining in our incredibly valuable weekly happiness hour calls, or if you’re just looking to grow your team with a developer, a copywriter, a designer, or a virtual assistant, we got you covered.

We also have services like case study, blogging services, website, maintenance, content edits, page builds that you can completely outsource to our team. So Mariah, who do we have on the show today? Oh, I haven’t even introduced myself. I’m Joanne Torres.

Morayo: [00:00:58] I don’t feel bad. I never introduced myself. I’m Morayo I think I’m the director of creative services at GoWP. So to answer your question, Joanne, we have an amazing guest today. We’re joined today by Mr. Mike Killen. Now Mike is a man of many titles, he’s a lead generation expert, sales coach for funnel builders, published author agency guru, esteemed partner, and friend of GoWP.

And most importantly, the founder of Sell your Service. Seriously, Mike, I basically have pulled them everything except your birth sign. So.

Mike: [00:01:33] Yeah. And I’m like, you’re going through that. And I’m like, oh wow. That’s actually a lot of stuff. A lot of it’s sort of borderline, but yeah, it’s good. I’ll take that. That’s awesome. Thank you.

Morayo: [00:01:45] Thank you for receiving that. Yeah, I’m really excited to talk to you today. I was mentioning to Mike before we began that I have dropped his name without permission twice in previous

Mike: [00:01:58] I’m not like beetle juice. It’s not like, it’s not like Candyman where you say in front of the mirror, that all appear behind you trying to pitch you something you are allowed to talk

Morayo: [00:02:06] No, it worked though. I dropped your name and here you are. Now I’m saying I’m joking because it’s, you know, I’m like, I know I’ve heard great things about you, but I’d never spoken with you. And I’m like, I hope he’s okay with me. Just like dropping his name, but I’m really thrilled to have you here.

You are beloved by the team at GoWP. So yeah. Thanks so much.

Mike: [00:02:27] Like I said, kind of before coming to the call, this is one of the few podcasts, which I haven’t actively tried to get on because I was terrified of being rejected. So, because I listened to you guys and there’s so much kind of talking about the podcast and then we’ll get into the other stuff.

But these are the ones that I like to listen to, which had like conversations and the questions that you sent over are stuff I love talking about selling marketing fellows. I’m not invited to many dinner parties because it’s all I want to talk about is sales, but actually, there’s so much that agency owners want to be a part of.

And also at this time, you can’t just have those office conversations where people can get to know each other. So I’m, I’m pumped to be here. I’m really excited.

Morayo: [00:03:06] Oh, cool. Cool. Cool. Well, I’m glad that you are so open because I want to, I want to get something out of the way I want to address the elephant in the room for all of our listeners might kill him. You are an Englishman.

Mike: [00:03:21] I am

Morayo: [00:03:22] You are. Yeah. It’s been verified. So today, You’re going to be out accenting, Joanne and I, and you’re actually the first Englishman we’ve had on the show.

So you’re shattering feelings, you’re breaking barriers. And I think we should acknowledge that.

Mike: [00:03:37] Can you guys do an English accent? What’s your English accent.

Morayo: [00:03:40] Oh

Joanne: [00:03:41] More Morayo is the actress.

Morayo: [00:03:43] But I’m so bad at accents, but I’m so delighted that you asked, I’m going to try.

Mike: [00:03:49] Yeah, go for it. I definitely want to hear I a hundred percent want to hear

Morayo: [00:03:51] Well, you know, I’m horrible. I’m horrible though. That’s the funny and sad part of it.

So, actually that we do have a plan section in today’s questions where maybe I can show off my bad British accent skills, but you never know my, my cotton, they might just might just come out, mate seeds. Y’all horrible.

Mike: [00:04:09] That’s not terrible. It’s not terrible. It’s not terrible at all. I’ve heard a lot worse. Marvel and Disney seem to be on top of like, let’s do some bad British accents at the moment. And so that’s fine with me.

Morayo: [00:04:20] That was polite. British talk for my Lord woman, put, you know, tar in your mouth.

Mike: [00:04:26] That’s exactly it. This is good

Morayo: [00:04:29] I think we’re going to have fun, but, but no, I, you know, I bring this up to just touch on just how beautifully diverse the WordPress community is. And we’re talking to you today. You’re in England, we’re in the US and I was just curious as we start off. Could you tell us a little bit about your path?

You know, how did, how did you grow up as a young lad? And if you call it England and find WordPress in.

Mike: [00:04:55] And that’s written, by the way, guys word for word and the document. It was young lads. English. I, it took me like, I was like, yeah, I guess I was at one point. So we laugh, we laugh. So kind of going way back. I was born in London, but I’m the first in my family to have been born in the UK.

Like for a long time, maybe ever, I don’t know how it works, but my biological father is from New Zealand. So I’m half Maori, which are like the indigenous people in New Zealand. And my mother was born in East Africa. She’s white, but she was born in East Africa and they came over to, to the UK.

So I’d had a really interesting kind of childhood growing up in London, very multicultural parents, everything was kind of normal. And then I moved down to the Southwest of England people down this part of the world will know what that’s like. It’s very, very rural. And it was a big culture shock when I was a kid.

And also I am mixed race, but I’m not particularly dark. Like in London, I didn’t stand out in the states. I definitely don’t stand out. But down here I was like the most Mixed race kid in the world down here. And that was a big shock, to be honest, that was actually kind of a big I didn’t realize what the big deal was.

And I don’t know whether that impacted then the next 10 years of my education because I became a bit of a Halian skipped school, hated education. And didn’t really try very hard academically. So it’s really interesting to me that my business now is predominantly coaching, which I suppose would be considered teaching. So yeah, you know, it’s, it’s funny kind of how these things kind of weave around. But the way that I found WordPress was I was working in the marketing department for a large corporate company. And they fired me or made me redundant depending on who you ask.

But basic I moved back home. I had to call up my mum. I was like look, They’ve been paying me, you know, crazy money for the past two years, but I’ve saved nothing. So I need to get my old childhood room back and was like, right, I’m going to start an agency. I’m going to do something else. Cause I definitely don’t want to go back to work ever again. And I think a colleague of mine guy who still does all of my emails and still does all of my websites. I called Michael Merton’s just based down here. He just wants a small business. He introduced me to WordPress. I was like, huh, it doesn’t seem too bad. And the way I came on to you guys was I was working with at what is now agency Mavericks but was WP elevation. And he was like, you need to check out this company. And at the time, this is way back. You guys just did maintenance. But that to me was like, I can just outsource this. I can just sell it and put a profit margin on it. Like how awesome is that?

So it was like a lifesaver for me. And it was just kind of interesting seeing how all of this stuff everything’s become an app now, basically and people can start agencies from scratch. So it kind of weaved around a little bit, but I’m, I’m super stoked about where I landed and met some great people, as you mentioned, very, very multicultural.

And there’s a lot of different backgrounds, a lot of different people doing a lot of different things. So it’s a really, really diverse group of people to have some really good conversations with.

Morayo: [00:07:51] Absolutely. Absolutely. Joanne and I are sorts of new, new kids on the block in the WordPress space. So yeah, meeting wonderful people like yourself. I didn’t expect this space to be what it is, so it’s nice, it’s been a nice landing space.

Mike: [00:08:07] Yeah Yeah, that’s fair. And I think even there are definitely some similarities I’ve noticed that run from group to group. And there are definitely kind of like little micro tribes based around and kind of WordPress as a kind of business, I guess, constantly talks about community. And there’s some people who do it better than others, in my opinion.

But it’s been interesting seeing, I think as well, it’s kind of like being a chef, which is basically what I was before I decided to get a job with air conditioning was I trained to be a chef. And if that’s one of the few jobs and WordPress I think is similar way, it doesn’t matter where you’ve come from. You can still build a decent income, a decent lifestyle, maybe some interesting people without having to necessarily have access to the same, either educational privileges or whatever that some other careers just, it can happen for some people. So yeah, it’s kinda cool like that to see all the different backgrounds of divergences that come from it.

Morayo: [00:09:03] And I, I felt you know, I failed you yet again, I did read that you were previously a chef real quick before Joanne asks the next question. What’s your what’s your best dish that you can prepare?

Mike: [00:09:15] Yeah, I’m not fancy. I learned in France and it just could not keep up with those guys. They’re on another level. So like, I think my favorite dish might be making just pasta, I love lasagna a huge lasagna. Yeah. And I think that goes a long way. So I like comfort food, so I’m not very good at the fancy stuff.

Joanne: [00:09:34] Does it matter?

Morayo: [00:09:36] Well, you know, talk about privilege just saying lasagna with your accent makes it fancy

Mike: [00:09:41] Oh really? Is that true? Oh, because

Morayo: [00:09:44] Lasagna.

Mike: [00:09:44] Are like, oh my God. He’s absolutely butchering that word. It’s

Morayo: [00:09:47] Well, well, yeah, you know, I’m in Chicago and I can’t cook. So for someone’s lasagna,

Mike: [00:09:53] Yeah, you got away with a lot with this accent

Morayo: [00:09:56] I microwave my lasagna. So it’s frozen. So really.

Mike: [00:09:59] Excellent. Even better.

Joanne: [00:10:01] I love the analogy of, you know, working in a kitchen as someone who also has worked in a professional kitchen past getting like a lot of outcasts. I think it was Anthony Bourdain, who said that like the kitchen is a place for the outcasts who just want to come in and put their heads down and do the work and, be successful.

And I do think as well that there’s a lot of synergies in WordPress with that, you know, you just come in you do your work, you put your head down, you don’t make a big fuss about it, you know, and things will be shown depending on how much work you put into it. And which takes me to your book, the five-figure funnels, and how to sell marketing funnel services to your customers for five figures in any market, no matter your experience.

So you provide books and many other resources with the goal of giving agency owners, the confidence that will free them from the constraints of outdated agency models. So my question is what outdated practices do you most often see agencies holding on to?

Mike: [00:11:12] Yeah, and this is one of the questions they wrote. I was like, oh, they really want to go there. All right. We

Joanne: [00:11:16] Yes, because it can be controversial because you know, people like their formulas, people like what they know works and ensure why not, but how can that be outdated? And how can that, you know,

Mike: [00:11:31] Yeah. And that’s the funny thing. Yeah. And that’s the thing. I actually think agency owners don’t like formulas. I think the majority of them, first of all, believe that everything should be done for you. If they think the agency is synonymous with done for you. And the problem is most of them don’t charge enough for that.

I have a bit of a reputation, a miss reputation or. I think everything should cost 25k like if you going to do a landing page 25K, you going to do a maintenance $25,000, you should charge for it. And that’s not true. What I think is people should charge $25,000 for $25,000 worth of work. The problem is the majority of agencies are charging $5,000 to $25,000 worth of work.

There are so many parts of the agency model, which are broken and yet people insist on grinding away at them. I never fully understood that because I was like, I kind of enjoy my work and I enjoy my job, but I don’t do all of the work. And there’s a lot of things like, well, you can’t charge crazy high prices because no one else in my market is charging high prices.

So there’s a lot around agencies specifically around like experience. People say, well, I’ve been doing this 20 years. So what, what’s that got to do with it? For all, I know you’ve got one year’s experience 20 times saying you’ve got 20 years experience, she doesn’t count for anything. And the cold hard reality is that it doesn’t, it’s got nothing to do with your time on the market.

It’s got nothing to do with your experience. How much you charged should be up to you. It’s got nothing to do with the customers, got nothing to do with the market. People say all the market dictates the price in a commodities-based market. Sure. You’re not in a commodity-based market. You sell pure value.

That is all you sell. You know, people talk about ROI and what kind of results they generating. I have personally worked with people that they have got the results through ads, but I hated working with them and know there’s other people where I’ve had to kind of almost coach them along the process.

And we’ve got some results, but I’ve just enjoyed working with them more. So there’s a lot of overlaps. There’s a lot of mental blocks, a big part of it, I feel is people are worried about being disliked. And so they don’t want to be like, I’m going to charge crazy high prices. I didn’t have a problem being disliked.

For a bunch of reasons. But places like WordCamp, I’m ashamed to say, you know, I’m not asked to talk there anymore or give talks because I’m like, you guys should be charging more money and I can prove to you, you should be charging more money. But for some reason, there’s a significant portion of agency owners who don’t like making money and they think it’s because they either don’t have the experience or the skill.

And we know that that’s not true. So there’s a lot of parts of that model. I think, a broken you know, we can go into more detail about that, but it’s, it’s a real shame. Cause I see people working really hard frankly, aren’t being rewarded financially and with the security that they want, purely because someone else told them that they should be charging this much or other people are charging as much for them.

It doesn’t make any sense to me.

Joanne: [00:14:28] And do you think some of that comes from like a lack of confidence or some kind of imposter syndrome, like do you have an inkling of where that root cause is coming from?

Mike: [00:14:40] Yeah, I do. So it actually pretty much all fundamentally comes down to our fear of being disliked for a variety of reasons. That to me is the core reason why it drives most people to do most things. And then we invent, this is again controversial. And I understand that we don’t, there’s no way we can go into this and enough time, even if we had days to do this, but things like imposter syndrome.

Completely real. I have it. I constantly think this is it. This is the call where they’re fine. They’re going to realize he does not know what he’s talking about. And I’m like, well, I’m not funny. So I sure as hell haven’t got that to fall back on. So of course that fear is constantly there, but at the same time, our fear of being disliked is also very good at inventing things such as imposter syndrome. What a convenient thing for me to go all, I couldn’t possibly charge high prices or say that I’m the world’s number one expert in this area because dot dot dot I have imposter syndrome and actual facts. Most of the time it’s flipped round. You don’t want to raise your prices because you ultimately don’t want to be disliked.

So you invent this idea of having imposter syndrome. I know sounds a bit mixed up, but

Joanne: [00:15:51] No, no, I get it. I get it. It’s the whole, we can rationalize any kind of behavior choice, you know, in order not to not do something or to do something on the flip side. Yeah, we can talk about this, like all day. Yeah. This goes, this is definitely, of course, every specific situation.

I think it really boils down to like confidence and mindset. And Morayo you, can you have a really good segue into

Morayo: [00:16:20] Yeah. Yeah. And, and I just, it’s interesting. Mike said he was joking saying, you know, I, don’t do comedy. I don’t have that to fall back on if I’m discovered as an imposter, but I was laughing and smiling when you said that, because it was so vulnerable and real, and it actually, it struck me in a comedic way.

So I think that’s a lesson too. Like our truth is in vulnerability sometimes. And you know, every week we talk with agency owners during the happiness hour calls and they are very open with sharing vulnerabilities and struggles and wins. What I love about you, you’re the quality and the information of, and the honesty that you share in your videos that are available on my YouTube channel.

And it makes me think about, creating content like that, creating podcasts, which for us, I don’t know how many months ago we launched Joanne four months ago, something like that.

Joanne: [00:17:19] I’m going to try to keep this as topical as possible and not mention any dates. So

Mike: [00:17:25] Yeah.

Joanne: [00:17:25] For a couple of months ago. Yeah. We launched a couple of months ago

Morayo: [00:17:29] A few months it was like, it was yesterday, right.

Joanne: [00:17:30] Last week.

Morayo: [00:17:31] What last week, you know, live right now first time. But that really resonated, resonates with me because I know a lot of agency owners who, who attend the happiness hours have just launched a blog or just launched a podcast.

And they are very open about their trepidation about launching the podcasts for a variety of reasons sometimes it’s time. But also sometimes it’s the fear of, my voice doesn’t need to be added to this, We know this space. And for that resonated with me, because I remember for me, it’s not an issue.

Pardon me? It wasn’t an issue of imposter syndrome because I never tried to pretend that I was an expert in the WordPress space. I was very raw. This is me. This is what you get. But I was the fear of being disliked. Like you mentioned, I was worried about. Being called out in a public space, like on a YouTube comment, which is like the pit of hell YouTube comments.

Right. And Chris lemme said something to me. I shared this concern with him and he said, well, don’t you have a delete button? And I was like, yeah, I got a delete button, Chris. But he was like, he was like, no, no, no, you don’t have to give space and air to someone’s negativity. And I heard you speak about handling negative commenters and you don’t hit the lead.

You have a very unique way of dealing with them. Can you, could you care to elaborate on how you handle the negative Nancy’s and Ned’s?

Mike: [00:18:59] So that’s really interesting. So for example, I know you want to keep it topical. I was that last episode of Seinfeld crazy. Right. So

Morayo: [00:19:09] It was great hope. They got to do good

Mike: [00:19:10] Yeah, exactly. So my next book is going out and so we do like cover revisions and tests and blah, blah, blah. And the amount of I’m going to say because you guys only do audio right in air quotes, constructive feedback that I’ve had about the covers and the copy and the type sentence stuff.

It was fascinating to me that people can’t help themselves, but give feedback. It’s like something is boring into them like whatever video I’ve created or anyone, any what blog posts, tweets, whatever. And there’s a few like models that explain this. But ultimately my response is to agree with people and it freaks them out.

It freaks them out real bad. First of all. So typically, if someone was to say Michael, and you don’t know what you’re talking about, I don’t get that regularly. Like how could you possibly say that you obviously have no experience? You obviously don’t take your business very seriously and you don’t know what you’re talking about.

I go, I agree, man. You’re probably right. And they’re like, oh, okay. I’m like, great, cool. What else do you want to talk about buddy? Anything anyone ever says is a direct reflection of them. It’s got nothing to do with you. Just like other people’s opinions of you are none of your business. There’s nothing you can do about it.

We have all worked with people and we have been polite and courteous and helpful, and they’ve still taken a dislike to us. So what that shows is that how other people feel about us has got nothing to do with us. It’s a direct reflection of themselves and no matter people’s opinions again like I have people saying, Mike, I just want to protect you from this really bad potential decision you’re going to make.

I think this content you’re putting out with this cover or this video is, is really, really bad. Like awesome. Thanks so much. Yeah, probably will be what else? Oh no, that was it. It’s got nothing to do with me. It’s all about them. Typically, and the internet is a funny way of reflecting this.

And again, we’re kind of not always in the agency space when I’m talking about this stuff. Not at all of the agency space, a lot of people feel like they’re not in control of their own life. They have a real problem feeling that there’s a lot of outside influences and that makes people very angry and the way that they can express that anger is by taking control of someone else’s life, predominantly through negative comments, constructive feedback, even if it’s with love or whatever, it’s this way of being able to take control of other people’s tasks. So when you go, I agree with you. Yeah. It’s, it’s not very good. I don’t know what I’m talking about. I completely agree with you. Anything farther than that of becomes pretty obvious when they get like really anxious, like, well, why would you possibly stay around here?

But it never does get that far. What they want is they looking for conflict. They actually are looking for someone to argue with and therefore they can exert more control over you. That’s how that cycle works. So it’s not only for me to be able to be like, it’s a bit like forgiveness, forgiveness. Isn’t for the other person who has wronged you, forgiveness is for you to say this actually doesn’t have to impact me or my life anymore.

I can live. However, I want what you have done to me in the past. Doesn’t affect how I’m going to live in the future. So what you say now in this comment? Great. Okay, fantastic. What else have you gone? And it’s important to understand that if you are doing something that you truly truly believe is right, or even helpful, even helpful to one person.

You have to believe that. And if a hundred other people say this is nonsense and this is wrong. And it goes both ways, like even things that you don’t agree with, you have to accept that that’s, that person thinks they’re being helpful. You have to understand that yet. Naturally, you’re going to attract people who don’t want that, but it’s got nothing to do with you.

It’s all to do with them. And the internet is a very funny place of bringing it up. I would like to say over 99% of the people who communicate with me. Full of love and constructive and you know, great like that. So it’s very rare.

Morayo: [00:23:04] Yeah. Think, and thank you for pointing that out. And that’s my fault for diverging from my script, because I did want to point that out that is, especially for, you know, those agency owners who are just getting started out. Yeah. Most of the support is positive. It’s just that one voice out there that, Mike hasn’t crushed yet with his

Mike: [00:23:23] Yeah, but it happens right. Like where, you know, it’s so common for us all to be like, to have 50 constructive or positive comments. And again, it goes both ways. I think you shouldn’t pay as much attention to that positive feedback as well, because I think that also feeds into things badly. You should purely be and again, this is way deeper than the agency stuff, but you should genuinely purely be living under your own values and thinking, what do I need to contribute in order to feel like I’m doing good things, that one voice that comes across, of course, for some reason we can’t help ourselves to like, oh my God, what if they’re right?

Morayo: [00:24:00] Stereo.

Joanne: [00:24:01] Trolls know how to get to our insecurities. But how I like to think about it is that I just wouldn’t accept feedback because the thing is I see feedback as a gift. Feedback is a gift and you can take it or, you know, leave it in the box and never open that box. Never unwrap that present.

And I just, and this is me personally speaking from my experience. I wouldn’t take feedback, whether it’s constructive or helpful or whatever word that’s before it from someone who I wouldn’t change places.

Mike: [00:24:43] That’s such a good way of putting it.

Joanne: [00:24:45] If I wouldn’t change places with you, I, you know, or maybe that’s a little bit extreme or it’s just feedback is so tricky because it is such an important tool for growth and for advancing, whether it’s in your career or your personal life, or in a course you’re taking and people treat it as if it’s just so flimsy. So it’s so tricky for me.

Mike: [00:25:11] I think so because I think a lot of people get can cause I have, I’ve actively stated I don’t value feedback and partly to annoy people, but also because what people deem there’s two types of feedback, right? There is feedback based on opinion. That to me is worthless because there’s nothing I can do about it.

My mum loves me more than anyone. My wife loves me more than anyone. There are things that we don’t always agree on. Of course, there are, there are things that are like, Mike is doing something really, really stupid. We can’t always agree on everything opinion to me is. Basically meaningless in that respect, especially when you produce something, when you create something, whether it’s blog, content posts or whatever, and someone gives you feedback based on their opinion, it ultimately is meaningless.

If you are really clear about the goal that you have for that post, and you say, I want to create a bunch of engagement and I want to connect with 10 other business owners, or I want to create a hundred thousand dollars a week business, or I want to sell 50,000 books and all of the opinions tell you to go the other way.

But the actual feedback in the data says you haven’t reached this goal a hundred percent listen to that. Obviously, that’s the problem is I think people are really quick to listen to opinions without any kind of data behind it. It’s a tricky line. And I understand I really like your thing about being a gift.

The one I heard, if I wouldn’t take advice from you, why would I listen to your criticism. And I was like, that’s kind of interesting if I wouldn’t. Yeah. Not quite replaced myself, but if I don’t look up to you, maybe I wouldn’t want to change it. I understand opinion can come from experience, but.

Joanne: [00:26:52] Yeah.

Mike: [00:26:53] Not everyone’s right all the time. And this is the thing everyone thinks they’re right. So I’m like, do you know what I know what the goal is for this? I’m going to actually listen to what the data tells me about it. And if it pisses off my audience, then I know not to do something like that again, because that’s obviously not the goal.

That’s very, very different from listening to one or two people who feel that they need to offer you constructive feedback based on their own mindset.

Joanne: [00:27:16] Yeah. And you’ve challenged people in the past. For example, you have a very high convert. I have a very specific use case in terms of challenging people because you have a very high, highly conversion a very high conversion rate, and one of your landing pages it’s called a high converting squeeze page to collect email addresses, right?

And you have over 60% conversion rate, which is fantastic. For those who would like a free copy of this template. You can head over to Mike Killen, YouTube channel, but right now, We’ll talk a little bit more about this use case and how you’ve had designers approach you and say, man, you’re doing it all wrong.

They don’t look good. They don’t look good. So you’ve challenged them and said that you’re happy to work with them. If they can be your conversion rate with their design, has any designer accepted your challenge, and what are the specific, I want to get into the specific of the features as well, but first, have they accepted your challenge?

Mike: [00:28:22] I’ve had two accept and not get anywhere close. Right. I probably get one email a week. So let’s, let’s say up and getting them the past couple of years. It’s longer than that, but it’s easily a hundred, hundred, and 50 people. And now I don’t even bother responding to them, but occasionally someone will go to go into my DMS and they’ll want to have a conversation with me and say, look, man, you know, these pages really suck.

I’m like, great. Why do they suck? Tell me why. And they go well because you know, they don’t look professional. They’re ugly. They direct response, marketing style, you know, I think we could do more for the brand. And my first question is always, I don’t know how you can diagnose something without knowing the problem.

Tell me what the problem is with the website. What’s my goal with the website? I don’t really know what your goal is with the website. Well, then it’s really difficult for you to tell me that the design is bad because the goal is to do conversions so far and I’ll send them screenshots. It’s not even like I want a good day at 60%.

It’s 60% concurrently. We do 10 to 30 leads a day through that single page, which I give on my YouTube channel. Just that page, right? 10 to 30 leads a day, 60% plus something like a one to 1.5% sales conversion on the page afterward, and then a 30% sale conversion on the page after that, right. It basically that single page allows me to take nine months off last year because designers and I’m having to go at designers that it’s a case of a little learning as a dangerous thing.

And it’s the Dunning Kruger effect in full-blown example. The ones who have learned a little bit like, well, you could do the parallax and the scrolling, and you could tell them this and have the video. And it’s interesting because it’s never experienced designers who challenged me on it because they know that design is getting to the point.

A good design is something that does the job well, whether it looks right is irrelevant. Again, that’s opinion-based marketing. Opinion. Doesn’t have a place in marketing. If you are looking to execute a function and my goal is to generate as many leads from them, our traffic that visits this site if you can do better than that.

Great. And I’ve done the same with sales pages. Email campaigns is why we’ve hired a Youtube producer. Cause I’m like the YouTube channel isn’t anywhere close to where I want it to be. I want you to tell me what’s wrong. And so he’s like, there’s too much content. It’s all over the place. He’s ripping it to pieces.

If he can categorically prove that we can get higher views on more videos and get more subscribers. Of course, I’ll be wrong. I’m glad to be wrong. What a wonderful world to have everyone else tell me what I can do better in my business. That’s fantastic. But it has to be based around the data coming from the goals and way too often, people will start listening to, you know, these great ideas.

But they’re not based in anything. So if people can beat my conversion rate, I’m super, super happy to work with you. But so far, no one has, and they’ve been like miserably, nothing close like five to 10% conversion rates. So yeah, I think it’s a big lesson in that if you don’t know the goal to the person is aiming for you probably shouldn’t have a go at them.

You should probably diagnose it first. Yeah.

Joanne: [00:31:28] And what, sorry.

Morayo: [00:31:30] Go ahead.

Joanne: [00:31:30] What if you could just tell us a little bit of the specific features of the design that gets that conversion.

Mike: [00:31:37] Yeah, it’s one goal I’ve just want to get your email address, maybe your name, and maybe your phone number as well. I have a super compelling headline. That’s it? The headline makes the sale. So if you’re an agency owner and maybe you work with dentists, you want to say to your dentists, like I’m going to show you how to book 12 new dental clients every single month, like clockwork, without having to spend a ton of money on ads.

That’s a super-specific headline, click the button that opens up a pop-up and that’s where they put their email address in. We call that a click pop or a two-stage opt-in and then a couple of bullet points may be on-again, specifics, but their benefits. Don’t say it’s a PDF. Don’t say as an ebook, don’t say it’s a course.

Don’t say it’s whatever. It doesn’t matter what the content is. Just tell me how it makes my life better. And you could even say, like, we’ve got one case study of a dentist who did 21 leads, and here’s how to do it. And it only costs 500 bucks based on whatever your lead magnet is and then allow people to opt-in that way.

So hyper, hyper-specific. And yeah, if you go to the YouTube channel or like sellyourservice.co.uk forward-slash double, which I know sounds like I’m plugging it, but legitimately that’s the landing page and just rip that right off and miles back collab taught me how to do this type of page. So yeah, it’s been working well for us.

Morayo: [00:32:45] I think we should rename this podcast today. At least Mic drop with Mike Killen

Mike: [00:32:50] Oh, I like that. That’s good.

Morayo: [00:32:52] I love the information that you’re you’re sharing. And I also love your demonstration of being confident and in forward motion with everything that you do. And it’s not always about just having a thick skin and being able to say to a designer, okay, this is what I’ve done with my squeeze pages.

And if you can do better, you know, have at it and, and, and see that no one can, match that. For all of us, you know, there are moments that challenge us and we can either grow from them or crumble from them to be blunt about it. And there’s a podcast that I listened to and the, the host calls them pivotal moments that we have in our lives.

And he’ll do you know, he does it a couple of times a month. The guests will ask them, you know, what were their pivotal moments in life? Sometimes they’re leaders in the entertainment industry, sometimes their former mob bosses, you know, pivotal moments in their lives. And I know that you touched on it earlier in our discussion about losing your job because you were deemed redundant and that could have been a moment that you know, where you didn’t pivot and that, you, crumbled and we wouldn’t be having this conversation today.

And I’m wondering for such pivotal moments. We don’t always realize that we’re in them until sometimes we see them in reverse. But what kept you from, I think I’ve read that you said that after that experience, the same day, or soon after you wrote the business plan for what became your, your first agency.

So how did you pivot in that way?

Mike: [00:34:24] Yes, I wish I could break it down because what actually happened is I lost my job. And because I was a very sensible 20-something-year-old, man, I bought a ticket for me and my brothers and we went to Las Vegas bearing in mind, I had just lost my job and I was like, this is going to be. The best use of my time and money.

So I skipped out of the storm, like, yeah, I start up an agency. It’s not quite true. I went to Vegas and I had at the time, a pretty serious I wouldn’t say drinking problem, but I certainly wouldn’t say drinking solution. And I was heavily involved in drugs and my diet was terrible. I wouldn’t exercise ever.

And from what I remember, He says, I mean, you invest Vegas. So that’s kinda the point, I guess. I bet literally my last 1000 pounds or a thousand dollars, I guess they’re on roulette and I won and I was like, I almost immediately vomited from the shock. And I don’t know if it’s like a sensible gene that kicks in, especially in men where all of a sudden I was like this isn’t I need to stop going around basically.

And that night I basically rode out. I run an agency and it felt so kind of half cathartic and half comedic because I was like, I’m one guy I’m going to go home broke. I had just met at the time, my now wife, and I was like, I’m going to have to lie to her about why I can’t ever take her out on a date, but turns out she had just made redundant as well.

So we would just go to like bars and just drink water. So we had like nothing and we were living in this tiny one-room apartment with that had everything. But I was confident that the plan I had written would work and that actually became my first book from single to scale that’s that’s how that kind of transitioned out of it.

I was like, we can just do this. And slowly, slowly, it’s turned into still feels weird to say it’s an actual business, but I guess it is. But yeah, I suppose that was a pivotal moment.

But I don’t know what that switch was. I wish I knew because, you know, I would look back at myself in my early twenties now and be like, you are more, you are wasting your time and money and energy in life.

But I’m very glad to have found more discipline now, and there’s been a couple of things that have happened subsequently as well, which have forced me further into that. Whether they’re healthy or not is, is up for debate. But, yeah, I don’t know. I don’t know. I’m interested to know if it’s a male and a female thing as well.

Morayo: [00:36:44] I don’t know. I guess my gut reaction is it’s a timing thing maybe, you know, because there are things that I’m years old and there are, I think, I think I just lost a connection right

Mike: [00:36:58] Yeah. I heard 22. I had 22.

Morayo: [00:37:01] Yeah, that’s what I said. and there are people far, far younger than me that are making life realizations that I’m like that I don’t think I’ve made yet.

I’m like, man, what’s up with that. So, yeah. I don’t know. I don’t know what the switch is either, but you said something a moment ago about the discipline that got you there and you know, the fact that you even got the plan on paper is probably that’s the difference. I’ve heard you talk about that, you know, The way we think about motivation and success and failure, it’s kind of busted really.

You said that what distinguishes a success from a failure is not necessarily having high motivation, but having discipline. And I love that idea. Can you elaborate on that? Cause I, I have some agreement with

Mike: [00:37:45] Yeah. Cool. So, yeah, I’d love to hear your side of it because I think motivation is doing something when you want to do it. And discipline is doing something when you don’t want to do it.

Joanne: [00:37:53] Hmm.

Mike: [00:37:54] I equate this to climbing a mountain. That’s the analogy that I use in my book five-figure funnels. In a very sloppy, ham-fisted overly done metaphor.

We want to reach the top of the mountain. That’s the goal, right? And it’s really easy to stand there at the bottom of a mountain and go, I’m going to do it. Today’s the day. This is where I’m going to absolutely smash it. And you set up with a load of people and your energy is really high and you think this is great.

And then you get up however far, and you think this is actually much harder work than I thought it was. Maybe I don’t want to do it. And the problem with motivation is it’s a bit like a lot of emotions is that it’s fleeting. And so you see another mountain and you go, actually, maybe I could climb that one because I’m calm.

It looks a little bit easier. And then someone else comes down the mountain you’re on and they say, don’t bother going any further. You should definitely check out this other mountain. I’ve heard that’s where all the riches I’ve had a super easy and that’s the problem is we end up starting all the time, the amount of people I tell me who start a business.

It’s why, when I see on LinkedIn people like I’ve started five businesses and like, it’s like, I’ve been married five times.

Morayo: [00:39:00] Yeah.

Mike: [00:39:01] What the hell is wrong with you? Like it’s not that to me is, is a sign of motivation doing something when I want to do it. Great discipline is when you go, no, I’m going to stick on this mountain.

I’m going to carve another step into the side of it that will make tomorrow, just that little bit easier. And then I’m going to do the same and I’m going to do the same. And the problem is from the outside, it’s very, very boring. Social media is really good at capturing the people who have got to the top or who are right at the bottom.

Super pumped about getting there. Everything from food, exercise, relationships, relationships require discipline. You have to set aside time to invest with the people that you love. It’s not a case of just whether things work out. I think we’ve all seen that. And again, I know you want to keep it topical, but last couple of years, we’ve, we’ve seen just how far relationships can go and the strain that they can come under, even though in theory on paper, it makes more sense and it should be easier because you’re there in the same space.

So discipline to me. What I would rather look for. And I would rather know what habits people have and I’d rather know what they don’t like doing, but they still do every day. I don’t like waking up at five 30 every day. I’m not pumped to do it. I’m not like, come on. I never feel that. The first thing I think is man, that bed is soft and more.

But I’m like, you have to get up. You need to keep moving. yeah, it makes, makes, again, very boring party conversation. But I do think that that’s ultimately what leads to getting the things that you want is doing the things that you don’t want to do.

Morayo: [00:40:26] And there’s no way around that. Yeah.

Mike: [00:40:28] There isn’t no, there isn’t, there’s no elevator.

Right? So,

Morayo: [00:40:32] Many have tried

Joanne: [00:40:33] You got to do the work it’s it’s you have to just do the work and put your head down, do it, whether that discipline it’s you want to call it burning enthusiasm or rebrand it however you want. I agree so much with what you’re saying about the motivation piece, you know, some days motivation is zero, but those are the days that you have to show up for yourself the most because I think that’s when the magic happens because that is where you have the space to create happiness. Think of something new to do, find motivation, create motivation for yourself.

Because if you’re just cruising through life, then that’s definitely a choice. That is a choice.

Mike: [00:41:18] A hundred percent. And it was really funny cause I regularly get people messaging me saying, Hey Mike, someone else is teaching people how to sell marketing funnels. Or someone’s got a really similar course to you talking about how to do sales training. I’m like, awesome. Let’s see if they’re around in 18 months time, I’ve been doing this for 10 years now.

I know how hard it is. I know how hard the work is. I know how frustrating it is and sure enough, you can look back and we will consistently see people who have started up. And this is why competition is irrelevant. A lot of agencies are like, and you said as well, like with creating content people like, oh, should my voice get involved?

The world 99% of the world’s content is people who had loads of motivation for three weeks. All right. Great. What you have to do is just play the game longer than them. And by definition, you’ll be successful because you’ll have more things. And then because you’ve stuck it out longer. So it’s not just a case of does the world really need my voice?

Yeah. Because most people get super pumped up for three weeks and then nothing. Instagram is littered with accounts of people who are like, I’m going to create this amazing account and then six weeks later, it dies off because it’s hard work and they see another opportunity that you think is going to be easier.

So they start again. That’s why discipline ultimately wins the day.

Morayo: [00:42:28] Absolutely. That was one of those conversations that I heard too. The pivotal moment conversations one of the guests was asking, how did you make it? And he just said, I just outlasted. Everybody else says no more complex than that. I’ll tell you what is complex.

Well, it was complex was finding, you know, I think we’ve prided ourselves of being able to really shock our guests on this podcast with some obscure

Mike: [00:42:52] I’ve heard. Yeah

Morayo: [00:42:53] Right. And you, you stumped me, you stumped me. But that being said, our conversation has been so rich, but we thought we would have a little fun with you, Mike,

Mike: [00:43:05] Yeah.

Morayo: [00:43:05] And have a lightning round. And it’s just like, it sounds, we’re gonna just like about 60 seconds of just. You know, firing questions at you and you don’t have to think about it. There’s no right or wrong. It’s your gut, your heart, the window into your soul. So the theme for your lightning round is, you know, we have mentioned that you are an Englishman. I didn’t form up at all. That’s horrible. But anyway,

Joanne: [00:43:33] He’s an English Kiwi. Let’s get that straight.

Mike: [00:43:37] Kiwi. Yeah. Very good. Yeah.

Morayo: [00:43:38] English, Kiwi. And so the theme for you is you’re doing it wrong. You were surveyed what is that?. That, what was that?

Mike: [00:43:48] It was, it was, it was good. Good British accent. Yeah.

Morayo: [00:43:52] Mike It was

Mike: [00:43:53] No, I can’t. Well, I’m really sorry.

Morayo: [00:43:56] That was. I know

Mike: [00:43:56] What are you doing? What are you doing wrong, England?

Morayo: [00:44:00] Oh yeah. So that’s the theme.

Mike: [00:44:02] Yeah. All right. So,

Morayo: [00:44:03] So, all right, everybody ready for this lightning round? All right,

Mike: [00:44:06] Let’s do it.

Morayo: [00:44:07] Mike Killen, the clock has started. So essentially you’ll what resonates with you. What’s the right way to do it. All right. Taking afternoon break with tea or coffee,

Mike: [00:44:20] For me, it is actually coffee. Yeah. But I would still say, let’s go for afternoon tea, but I would order a coffee.

Morayo: [00:44:26] Setting your daily schedule or setting your daily schedule.

Mike: [00:44:30] Schedule, I think I would say schedule. Yeah. That’s what I would say. That’s interesting.

Morayo: [00:44:35] My bad accent ruined it for you. Sorry.

Mike: [00:44:37] I’ve got a third option. So I go on.

Morayo: [00:44:40] I warned you it’s bad. Movie night with Daniel Craig and the James Bond franchise or Tom cruise and the mission impossible franchise.

Mike: [00:44:58] I’m going to say Tom cruise, but my wife would probably say, Daniel Craig.

Morayo: [00:44:53] I kind of agree with your wife there. Adele or Beyonce.

Mike: [00:44:57] Beyonce? Oh, no, I’m getting kicked out this, right, right.

Morayo: [00:45:03] I know, right? You’re you sound, you know, dreadfully American

Mike: [00:45:07] I do don’t I God. So uncouth my

Morayo: [00:45:10] Talk about imposter syndrome. What?

Mike: [00:45:12] Yeah.

Morayo: [00:45:14] Small talk or dead silence.

Mike: [00:45:16] Again, I’m okay with dead silence, especially during a sales school, but I hate being on the bus with someone and not even if I don’t want to talk to them. Sorry, this is not a lightning round. Go for it.

Morayo: [00:45:28] No, no, no, no. I love the sides. Okay. And the final lightning round question, baked beans for breakfast or pass?

Mike: [00:45:37] Baked bean for breakfast with a fry up.

Morayo: [00:45:39] Ding, ding, ding, I love I can eat baked beans all day, any day, bring them and I’m tea, tea all the way for me. I can’t stand coffee,

Mike: [00:45:49] That’s interesting. Yeah. Balance. Do you have brands of baked beans?

Morayo: [00:45:54] What’s that?

Mike: [00:45:55] Brands of baked beans? Yes. You have Heinz. Do you have any? We have Branston.

Morayo: [00:45:59] I don’t know Branston brand, there’s the brand that I’m thinking of. It’s not Bush. I don’t, I can see it in my head. I

Mike: [00:46:06] Which means maybe,

Morayo: [00:46:07] Bush beans is that big in England.

Mike: [00:46:08] Yeah, no, I know all of them, but now we have, we

Morayo: [00:46:11] I know all the beans, but

Mike: [00:46:12] Yeah, I know the bean, love them yeah. Branston beans is the other big brand.

Morayo: [00:46:15] I could eat them straight from a can. Like I love the beans.

Mike: [00:46:19] Come on over. That’s like 90% from 95% of our menus out here. You’ll love it.

Morayo: [00:46:23] Yeah, I have a British family and

Mike: [00:46:26] Oh yeah. Whereabouts are they?

Morayo: [00:46:27] They live in Kent,

Mike: [00:46:29] Yeah

Morayo: [00:46:29] But they’re like Nigerian British. So see, that’s why my accent sucks because they’re Nigerian British. So I don’t get the full effect from them. You

Mike: [00:46:36] Yeah.

Morayo: [00:46:37] Kind of melded together and they don’t do a lot of beans smell.

Mike: [00:46:40] That’s funny. All right.

Morayo: [00:46:42] But you did fabulous at the lightning round.

Joanne: [00:46:44] And our last question for the day for you is how are you creating happiness for yourself or in general for your agency? However, you want to answer that question.

Mike: [00:46:58] Yeah, that’s good. I think happiness is to me defined as a sense of contribution. So as long as you feel like you’re contributing to something, be it small or large, which is why I don’t think it’s necessary. I don’t think you have to be. A huge company or a huge business or whatever, to be happy or successful with it, as long as you feel you’re contributing to people, ultimately that’s all it matters.

So I would say yeah, a sense of contribution. So that’s kind of all we really focus on, I guess.

Joanne: [00:47:27] What are you contributing to? We want to get to the specifics, Mike, you

Mike: [00:47:30] Yeah. Sorry. Okay, cool. Yeah. Fair enough. All right. Jeez. No.

Joanne: [00:47:35] Give me an example.

Mike: [00:47:36] There’s a lot of problems out there. And so what we’re trying to do is if anyone ever asks for help, I will work as hard as they do to help them out. That’s always been like, again, I said, I didn’t really go to school or turn up or whatever, and got kicked out a lot, but there were a couple of teachers and I always remember the number one thing that they stated was if you ask for help for me, I will work as hard at this problem as you will. And so if people do approach me and they want help, I will put in as many hours as they will. Often, the problem is again, what they want is a silver bullet. They don’t want to put in the hours, but I will gladly work as hard. And, and so that’s why I’m committed to constantly creating content almost to our detriment, frankly.

Because it kind of weeds out people who really, really, really want it. If you really, really want it, you’ll go for it. And I will do everything I can to, to help you out, whatever it is, if you are also willing to put into the work. And so that’s kind of a core thing of what we do and, and we help people be disliked as well, which sounds strange, but that’s a big part of confidence I think, is helping people understand that it’s okay to be disliked by a small fraction of people because a small fraction of people will absolutely adore you. And those are the ones that really really matter. When it boils down, that’s all that really matters, you know?

Joanne: [00:48:54] Yeah. Yeah. If you’re not being a little bit polarizing, if you’re just pleasing everyone doing, you’re not doing something right. There’s something you’re doing wrong.

Mike: [00:49:04] Yeah. Pretty much. And it’s, it’s unhealthy. Like I’ve never met anyone who tries to please anyone who’s ever happy.

Like, they’re always miserable because they’re constantly being pulled in so many different directions. So I’d rather accept this is what I, what makes me happy.

Some people aren’t going to like that. That is absolutely fine, but there is another significant portion of people who do like what I do, and I feel connected with them. And I want to continue contributing to them. So yeah, again, deeper than the agency stuff, but that’s why you guys write the good questions.

They’re good. I like them.

Morayo: [00:49:32] That’s what we’re here for the deeper than you know.

Joanne: [00:49:34] The agency.

Morayo: [00:49:35] Yeah. Yeah. That’s what we’re here for. I I’ve really enjoyed this conversation. I think it’s beautiful. I love what you said, Mike. Thank you so much for being our guests. And I want to thank you even further. I will send you some US beans from the US survey and a special exclusive recording of me doing a much better British accent. Cause I think I got shy today.

Mike: [00:49:56] Yeah,

Morayo: [00:49:56] I got intimidated. You’re like legit. And so, yeah. And it’s like, holidays are coming up my gifts to you.

Mike: [00:50:02] Thank you.

Morayo: [00:50:03] So your nightmares will be filled with

Mike: [00:50:05] Yeah, I’m going to turn that into my ringtone.

Morayo: [00:50:08] All right,

Mike: [00:50:08] Back and bite you.

Morayo: [00:50:09] Pick it up.

Mike: [00:50:10] And the can you’re opening as well. The problem is any other British guests, or I should say, British guests. You’ve got coming on. They’ll want to hear it as well. You might, you might be making,

Morayo: [00:50:19] They’re all banned from this point.

Mike: [00:50:21] I’ve made it.

Morayo: [00:50:22] Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Told you, you, you shattered the ceiling, and then we just, you know, go cover it

Joanne: [00:50:27] You can add it to your website. Only British person invented, invited only British Kiwi on GoWP agency, owner podcast.

Morayo: [00:50:35] With a can of beans in your hands.

Mike: [00:50:37] Yeah. I’m going to love that. That’s perfect,

Morayo: [00:50:40] So for our listeners, you can go and read more about Mike at sellyourservice.co.uk because he’s British and check out his library of videos on his YouTube channel. Thank you so much.

Mike: [00:50:56] Thank you for having me guys. It’s been a pleasure. Thank you.

Joanne: [00:50:58] Yeah, thank you so much. Everyone who has listened or watched over on YouTube, don’t forget to like and subscribe, and you can get this episode and other episodes of GoWP digital agency owner podcast, wherever you get your podcasts. And just a quick reminder, at GoWP we want to help you become more profitable.

Whether it’s by listening to our podcast, joining in our weekly happiness hours, viewing informative webinars, hosted by our friends, such as Mike Killen and other friends in the WordPress community. And of course, by growing your team with our super skilled developers, copywriters designers, or virtual assistants, go to gowp.com to read more about our services and to schedule a call.

Thank you.