Improve Your Workflow Episode 02 with David Pagotto
matthew.barlocker
31 July 2019David Pagotto is the Managing Director of SIXGUN Agency.
Learn more about SIXGUN:
- SIXGUN: https://sixgun.com.au/
- SIXGUN LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/sixgun/
- SIXGUN Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sixgunagency/
- SIXGUN: Twitter: https://twitter.com/sixgunagency
Products and software mentioned in the show:
- AutopilotHQ: https://www.autopilothq.com/
- Pipedrive: https://www.pipedrive.com/
- Lead feeder: https://www.leadfeeder.com/
Books mentioned in the show:
Non profit Organisations:
- Edgar's Mission: https://www.edgarsmission.org.au/
- Habitat for Humanity: https://habitat.org.au/
Transcript of Improve Your Workflow podcast with David Pagotto of SIXGUN Agency
Voiceover:
Welcome to the "Improve Your Workflow" podcast brought to you by Digital Pigeon. Learn from other creative and media businesses about attracting more work, delivering projects efficiently, getting paid on time and everything in between.
Paul Evans:
Hi there and welcome to the second episode of Improve Your Workflow. My name is Paul Evans and I'm your host. The format for this show is really simple. I interview owners and managers of media, marketing and creative businesses about their productivity and operations hacks as a way where we can all learn from each other and hopefully make our lives that little bit easier. The episodes are designed to be quick and something that you can listen to on your commute or whilst you're at the gym. So with that in mind, let's start the show. Our guest today is David Pagotto of SIXGUN. Welcome to the show, David.
David Pagotto:
Thanks for having me on, Paul.
Paul Evans:
No worries. All right. So, could you tell the listeners what you do and who you do it for?
David Pagotto:
SIXGUN is a digital marketing agency. We specialize in SEO Google ads and Facebook ads. Our clients are generally mid-sized companies that have a marketing manager or small marketing team, but don't have the expertise to handle the kind of technical work themselves.
Paul Evans:
Okay. Cool. So, what would you say is your number one productivity hack? Whether that be selling your services or how you deliver the work or maybe it's something that helps on the business side of things.
David Pagotto:
So, I think there's two parts to this question. There's the mindset part and the technical part. I think getting the mindset part right first is critical. There's a fantastic book called Eat That Frog by Brian Tracy. I'm not sure if you're familiar with that.
Paul Evans:
Yep, familiar with that.
David Pagotto:
But the basic premise is to attack the most difficult and important tasks in the day first. Every agency owner out there is ridiculously busy, so something that I do myself is, I get into the office early and I've kind of got this one hour window where I try to just get like a full day's work done in one hour, basically. Because you know what it's like, the phone starts ringing, people start coming in, what you scheduled for that day doesn't really exist, it just goes out the window. So, I think getting into the mindset of productivity in the sense of attacking the most difficult things first, the most important task first, blocking out ... Getting to the office early works really, really well for me to kind of have that time because as soon as people start coming in, it starts getting very difficult to kind of have that productive deep work time.
So, I'd say in terms of mindset and in terms of how to attack your day to be as productive as possible, the mindset of Eat That Frog and blocking out some time in the day ... morning works for me ... is a really good way to do that. And jumping over to the technical side, I would say automate everything that you can. Automate absolutely every single thing that you can. We're in the middle of this process right now. So for example, we're setting up AutopilotHQ that has various email sequences that update when a prospect is moved to a different stage from the sales pipeline using Pipedrive. And that's something that's just ... We're in the middle of playing around with it, we're super excited by it. It's obviously something that we're working on the marketing and sales side rather than the operations and delivery.
But it's something that's ... Productivity wise, think of the things that you can do once that you never have to do again, and that's what automation does for you. Right? So, I think as a business owner, you really need to be attacking those a thousand dollar an hour tasks and automation is one of those tasks. Like absolutely 100%, if you can automate some key parts of your business, whether it be marketing and sales, whether it be delivery declines, in the right kind of ways, it's extremely valuable. So productivity wise, get the right mindset and work on automation would be my two big things.
Paul Evans:
Yeah. Cracking advice. So, you've kind of touched on this already, but could you tell us a bit about the tech stack that you used to help with those automations or to get your job done?
David Pagotto:
Yes, sure. I mean, if you look at the sales side of things, we've just embraced Pipedrive and are in the middle of kind of working through that process and we're finding it to be a fantastic tool for managing deals and leads and things like that.
Paul Evans:
So Pipedrive's the CRM? Is that correct?
David Pagotto:
Yep. Yep. As a bolt on to that, we're using AutopilotHQ where you can basically automate email sequences based on all sorts of conditions. For example, if someone comes through our live chat and they book an appointment, we can set them through one sequence. If they don't book an appointment but come through live chat, we can put them through another sequence. If they move to one or loss, we can put them through another sequence. So it just helps to ultimately build out all of those communication channels, make sure people are getting the relevant messages.
We just started playing with a great marketing tech tool called Leadfeeder. I know we've talked about this before.
Paul Evans:
Yeah, Leadfeeder. Okay, yeah.
David Pagotto:
And that's a tool that helps ... For B to B businesses, I think it's absolutely fantastic. It basically connects with your Google analytics and tells you what companies are visiting your website. So, obviously for marketing agencies that's such critical information, to know that a particular company is visiting your website and what they're doing on your website-
We just started playing with a great marketing tech tool called Leadfeeder. I know we've talked about this before.
Paul Evans:
Yeah, what pages they're looking at, how long they spend on the site, that sort of information?
David Pagotto:
That's right. And then you can reach out to them strategically. We've even got it set up so that if a particular company visits our website, Leadfeeder picks it up and puts that into the lead in section in Pipedrive.
Paul Evans:
Got you.
David Pagotto:
And then one of us can be notified and we can potentially follow up if we see it's a good fit and things like that.
Paul Evans:
Fantastic. Sounds like a great tool to implement for marketing agencies.
David Pagotto:
Yeah, yeah. I mean, there's other ones out there of course, but it's one that we've been using and we're finding it to be really quite good.
Paul Evans:
Awesome. All right, we're just going to take a few seconds now to hear from our sponsor.
Voiceover:
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Paul Evans:
All right, David, if you could work with one brand that you don't already work with, what would that be and why?
David Pagotto:
I mean, that's such a hard question to answer, I think.
Paul Evans:
That's why it's in there.
David Pagotto:
We do a bit of gratis work with charities like Edgar's Mission and Habitat for Humanity, and it's really awesome to give back. We'd love to be doing more of that kind of not-for-profit work. So, if I had to pick one specifically that we're not already working with, I'd probably say WWF, not the wrestling, but the World Wide Fund for Nature because I've got a bit of a soft spot for animals and nature and that side of things. They would be a fantastic client to work with.
Paul Evans:
Yeah, for sure. All right. How do you go about solving problems that you don't know the answer to? You can't say Google because that's the obvious one, but is there specific blogs or do you use mentors or anything like that to ...?
David Pagotto:
Well, look, I was definitely going to say Google before you gave me that little bit of an intro there, being a tech guy and all. When Google fails us, as it often does when we want an answer to a question that we can't find the answer to on Google, having a strong team around you is mission critical. Absolutely mission critical. And I think people often need to put a little bit more time and energy into building their own networks and building partners around them that can really support them through any questions that they have.
Paul Evans:
So not necessarily your own internal team, although that's obviously important, but sort of your extended team.
David Pagotto:
Well, that's usually your first go-to depending on what the question is. For example, I've got a mentor that helps me with the financial side of business, for example. And that's really something that probably most agency owners need a hand with. I mean, we're not financial experts, otherwise-
Paul Evans:
Correct.
David Pagotto:
... we'd be accountants. You kind of need someone in that space, for example. So having a strong network is mission critical. I've been a big fan of a book called Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi, and he talks a lot about ... The book's essentially about building networks, and by the title, Never Eat Alone, it's kind of like get out there and make sure that you're cultivating the right kind of relationships that are providing win-win value to both parties and that side of things. So, I would say if Google can't help you then make sure you've got a strong network around you to kind of support you with that.
Paul Evans:
Great advice. I'll check out that book. I haven't heard of that one before. So, last question. Finally, where can our listeners connect with you?
David Pagotto:
They can always check out our website, sixgun.com.au or find us on all the social channels out there ultimately.
Paul Evans:
Yep. Fantastic. Thanks for being on the show, David.
David Pagotto:
Paul, thanks so much for having me, mate.
Paul Evans:
Pleasure.
David Pagotto:
Bye.
Paul Evans:
Well, there were some great pearls of wisdom from Dave today. Personally, my favorite take away was when Dave spoke about automating everything you possibly can, which really starts with the mindset. The owner should focus on high value tasks. Thanks again for listening and until next time, keep on delivering.
Voiceover:
Thanks for listening to the Improve Your Workflow podcast. If you enjoyed the podcast, please leave us a review on iTunes. Go to www.digitalpigeon.com/reviewpodcast/ for more info, and we'll add you into our monthly draw to win a Digital Pigeon T-shirt. Bye for now.
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