Are You An Entrepreneur? Me Too!

and...I Understand The Excitement And The Pressure Of Owning Your Own Business!

When I was starting my first Agency, I made so many mistakes and wished so much I had someone to guide me and lead me in the right direction. Just help a fella out!

This Podcast is my way of giving you the tools and resources to make your life easier because I have been where you are and know what you are going through. Between the guest and myself on this podcast, we are going to make sure you have what you need - when you need it - so you can live the life you want to live.

I'm going to interview VIP guests and other agency owners. I will also jump on occasionally just to talk about relevant topics I feel like can help you to achieve your business dreams.

Lee Goff - Agency Coach and Author of Agency Success Roadmap

Welcome to the inaugural episode of The Agency Success GPS Podcast. My name is Lee Goff and I will be your humble host. I am the founder and CEO of Marketingagencycoach.com and the author of Agency Success Roadmap.

I'm going to explain who I am and what this podcast is all about. Let's start with my passion to become an entrepreneur. I started my first business when I was 12 years old; I literally was pushing an old rusty lawn mower around the neighborhood, asking neighbors if I could cut their grass.

At that time, I had no competition, but then came Matt Parker!! Matt was one of my friends in the neighborhood and he noticed that I was making good money at the age of 12. He was a driven young man like myself and decided to start his own mowing business! Funny enough, Matt grew up to be a very successful entrepreneur and actually married one of my cousins. He is a great guy and a good friend of mine, BUT....The competition was on! I had to step up my game; I started to expand to other neighborhoods, expand my service line and get more people who could pay me a little more for my services.

And That Is When The Entrepreneur Journey Began!

Not only was I driven, but I was also encouraged and inspired by my stepfather. He was an entrepreneur that owned a very successful and I think one of the largest insurance agencies on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. He had a restaurant, numerous rental properties and so on. He was a very entrepreneurial type of individual and great role model. So, with my passion and his pushing me to succeed, I could not fail (Boy was I wrong!)

“Certifiably Unemployable”or a“Crackhead Entrepreneur”

I went to college and like a lot of entrepreneurs, wound up floundering around in colleges,

floundering around getting jobs, going from one technical job or sales job to another. Basically, I would have classified myself as “Certifiably Unemployable” or a “Crackhead Entrepreneur”.

But, in 2001, I saw an opportunity to kind of bridge the gap between big businesses, small businesses utilizing digital, the web, right? I even have a really cool painting in my office that my mom painted for me around 13 or 14 years ago. If you go to my YouTube channel, you can check out some of my videos and you'll actually see that painting to this day in my office. That painting was created to convey the vision of me, bridging the gap utilizing digital between big business and small businesses.

Started My First Agency In My Upstairs Bedroom!

That vision that drove me to build, scale, retire from, and eventually exit my multi seven-figure digital agency in 2016, started in my upstairs bedroom, literally in my upstairs bedroom! I Founded my first agency, GetUWired in 2003 and it's still in existence today. By the time I decided to sell out of my agency, we had become Infusionsoft Number One app sales, Number One revenue producer, and Number One “done for you implementation services” on the planet to my knowledge. We won Entrepreneur Magazine’s Small Enterprise Top Company Culture in the US. If I remember correctly, in 2013, we ranked 13th out of 25 in the nation. Out of tens of thousands of companies that applied for that award we were picked. We were very proud of that! We won “Small Business Elite Finalists and we were a “Partner of the Year” for Infusionsoft for many many years.

Numerous of our clients won the icon or the ultimate marker of the year. It is kind of like winning the Oscar per se. And so needless to say, we had a ton of awards and accolades and accomplishments that I was very proud of but deep down, I wasn’t happy.

At What Cost? Entrepreneurs.

I had reached the point where I felt like it was time to move on. So, in 2016 I decided to - Move on - But, to be honest, I should have done it sooner. Building my agency cost me my marriage and my health. I was 43 years old, divorced, a single dad, doing the day in and day out again and again. Then at the age of 43, four years ago, I had a major heart attack.

The Widowmaker

People in the medical field call this type of heart attack, the Widowmaker. Three out of four people who have this heart attack are dead.By the grace of God, I am the number 4 and that is why I sold my shares and took time off to rebuild my health and kind of recalibrate my mindset. My passion and my drive basically my identity was caught up in being a small business owner. And that was not a healthy decision on my part. It was time to figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up. After doing a lot of soul searching, I figured out that I missed being in the trenches. I Missed working with small business owners. This is the fuel that feeds my soul. So after my health improved, I dove headfirst into making agency owners' lives easier.

Finding Mentors To Help Me Along The Way.

When I was building my agency, to my knowledge, there were no agency coaches. I had to come up with everything from scratch. I found mentors such as Clint Mask, Jay Conrad Levinson, and many more, but I had to figure out how to take what they were doing and apply it to the digital agency arena. It definitely was not easy! In reality, It is never simple to build a successful business but if you have the right tools, resources and the knowledge, it can be a thousand times easier. That's why I had to do it. I had some very serious limiting beliefs that kept me from asking for help. I felt like I had to do everything myself and no one could do it better than me. Like so many entrepreneurs, I wanted to make everything perfect! These limiting beliefs kept me from getting a mentor until about 10 years into it. Everyone has a story and their reason as to why they are who they are. We all have the roads that brought us here. Some people's roads are easier than others.

Feeding My Passion

The reason I'm sharing a little bit about me and my background is that I want you to know how I got here and why I am doing what I am doing. I grew up in Mississippi and without getting into all the details, it's not an understatement to say that I did not start with a silver spoon in my mouth. As a matter of fact, saying that started potentially with one foot in the grave would probably be a little more accurate.

The education system in Mississippi, at that time, was not the best to say the least. I came from a broken home and both of my biological parents were alcoholics. My mom has been sober for almost 40 years and sponsors other alcoholics now. God bless her; she is an amazing woman.

I use my childhood and situation as fuel to feed my passion. I am on a mission to not only raise my quality of life, but most importantly, raise the quality of life for the next generation. Decades ago, my sister and I made a pact to do everything in our power to give our children a better life. And to this day, we both still work diligently towards that family mission. All of this leads me to my “Why”. The main reason I created my coaching business is to give back to the digital marketing community that has served me and my family so well. It does not have to be as hard as it was when I did it. I will work hard every day to make your life easier.

What Do You Need To Know and What Do You Want To Talk About?

At the end of the day, I will talk about whatever and with whomever as long as it fulfills the purpose, and that is to make your life as easy as possible. So you can enjoy your version of the entrepreneurial or the American dream and spend more time doing whatever it is you want to do. Alright, enough about me. This is the end of episode zero. And I hope you've enjoyed getting to know me a little bit better. I look forward to the chance to get to know you better, and propel your agency forward and do it faster than you ever thought possible. If you have not already subscribed to my podcast, please click the subscribe button now. Also, make sure you check out the YouTube channel.

I'll put the videos over there and I'm doing about 100 and 150 videos a year over there. And of course, we have one of the most engaged and active Facebook groups you can find: the marketing agency success GPS group, everyone have a blessed day out there and go rock it out.