So, you know, kind of talking about like a lot of us kind of repeat entrepreneur until we find something that works or move on to the next until something. Hearing the story of how someone has adapted and evolved, especially as they’ve grown their company and dealt with increasing complexity, I think will be really interesting because I tend to learn by just failing and then redoing a little bit better the next time. So someone who’s actually not had a big failure in that process will be great to learn from. But then also, one of the things that I find really interesting is they implemented EOS into their agency structure. And I talk a lot about with other guests about having that kind of cadence structure, what works, what doesn’t, and where to bring it in. So we may get a little bit inside baseball around agency life and building an agency, but I think it’ll really all come together when we get to it. Really more important, let’s welcome Steve Maly.
Steve Maly:
There you go.
A.J. Lawrence:
Even though I asked you. Steve Maly of Maly Marketing. Steve, thank you so much for coming on the show. This is really cool to have you here.
Steve Maly:
I appreciate it, A.J. I’m definitely looking forward to this.
A.J. Lawrence:
I find it fascinating because like a lot of entrepreneurs, you started something out of university. I did too, and I actually did sell that one, but that was kind of a crazy. It didn’t do anything. Yours is still going 20 years, as you said, 20 years this past January. Congratulations.
Steve Maly:
Thank you.
A.J. Lawrence:
First, where are you as an entrepreneur? And sort of how has your entrepreneurism evolved from those early days?
Steve Maly:
Yeah, it’s a good place to start. So I didn’t realize this until I was a little bit older. I didn’t fully put two-two together. So my entire family, out of mom, dad, grandpa, grandpa, grandma, uncle, and all that, there was about ten of us. Eight out of the ten were entrepreneurs growing up. And so around the dinner table, around holidays, around just regular conversations, that’s all I ever heard about was owning your own business. And I literally remember being a junior in high school and talking with somebody, one of my classmates, her name is Haley. Haley was talking about where she wanted to go to college and she wanted to get a degree in business or something and go work for a Fortune 500 company.
I’m like, that’s weird. It was the very first time in my life that I realized not everybody wanted to be an entrepreneur. I’m like, this is what your path is. This is what everybody wants to do. Everybody wants to be the boss. And so, in hindsight, it was just that path. And actually, I always wanted to be on, I was this influence to be on. And so when I went into the University of Nebraska, my original goal was to graduate, work for an agency for 5, 6, 7, 8 years, whatever, to gain experience and then break off on my own. Well, the degree in marketing, my opportunities initially were largely like sales-based and very like cubicle-based. And I didn’t want to be in a cube. And I didn’t want to be in sales, which is ironic, because that’s what I’ve been doing literally for 20 years at this point in time. And I was doing some freelance stuff on the sides and video production, virtual tours on the side.
And I’m like, you know, the most money I ever made in college was 12,000. If I make more money next year, it’s more money I’ve ever made in my life. And so the very first year I started the agency, top line revenue was 15,000. First year on an agency, I couldn’t even tell you what top line revenue meant. Horrific.
But, you know, again, it’s where I kind of jumped off on and my expenses were super low. And like you said at the very beginning, you kind of learn through failures and learn a lot of stuff kind of through failures. But it was one of those things I always wanted to be an entrepreneur. And I’ve been able to sustain that, like I said, for 20 years as of this past January. So it’s been a hell of a ride.
A.J. Lawrence:
Hell of a ride. I mean, it’s funny because I looked back and when I talk to it, I think sometimes it’s more of just, yes, some of us have these big goals and there are people who are planning to take over the country, world, whatever. I speak English, but some of us are just like, oh, I just want to keep doing this. Yes, I would like to be super successful but my first thing is how do I get to the end of the month? How do I make sure I pay everyone or how do I pay my own rent, depending on where you are in your journey there. But, yeah, I remember a lot of the early part was just, okay, I got to rub these sticks faster and faster and faster so I can get to x, and then at some point it changes. So for you, about how long did it take before all of a sudden it went from ramen to like, oh, there’s a business here.
Steve Maly:
It was probably about four years in because largely it was surviving gig to gig to gig, and there was no reoccurring gigs at that point in time. Everything was just a one off and hoping they might kind of come back down the line. I remember about four years in, I was struggling with the whole time balance with everything and just working on crazy hours. I was debating and thinking about getting an intern to help out. I remember driving one day, I’m like, you know what? You deserve to have an intern to come in. And this puts in perspective. So she was an intern for me during the summer that year. And the deal was, at the end of that internship, I paid her $500. And I was nervous and like, how the heck am I gonna do this? Save up the 500 bucks to pay her at the end?
A.J. Lawrence:
How many couches do I have to-
Steve Maly:
Yeah, exactly. And she was a godsend because she allowed me to really kind of focus that much more on just what I do best, which is, meet up with prospects and account management and truly sales and that type of stuff. And ironically, she left us. She went to go work for BBDO up in New York. And so I always made the joke, we have 100% placement in one of the world’s largest agencies if you intern for us first. She also taught me a lot going through that. And then from that experience, I’m like, okay, I can afford part time people. And eventually, that kind of built into full time people and stuff we got today.
A.J. Lawrence:
All right, so I’m going to push into this because I know my kind of journey was like, oh, yeah, I’ll throw my time and then it’ll be like, all right, a little bit of this and a little bit of freelancers and this. But there were jumps a lot of times on sort of the type of client I would bring in, or more importantly, my ability to understand how to position work that clients wanted. I always joke, we used to do the same thing at the beginning as we did at the end, but we were able to position in such a way that we got deeper into the client environments and we got into better type of clients over the years as we were able to do that. You had this intern, you could survive with paying someone 500 for a summer. And then like, all right, some freelancers. And then eventually, when did it kind of become, from lack of a better term, an agency where you had full time people, you had this presence, this capability.
Steve Maly:
Yeah. So I would say there’s kind of two parts to it. One is that I realized that I was getting into the right rooms, if you will. You know, we’re a mastermind together. I’ve seen some smaller masterminds and I’m kind of back in the day, if you will, and just having those conversations and truth be told, I’m like, oh yeah, I think I can do this. And you’re in the right room, like, all right, cool. I’ll hire you, prove it.
And so I’d spend literally 48 hours over a weekend trying to figure out how the hell they do what I just told them that I could do. But I also realized because in college they would talk about all the time, it’s not what you know, it’s who you know. It’s networking, networking, networking, networking. It drove me nuts. Like, whatever, sure. And then I know pretty quick, it truly is. So that was one of the turning points is when I fully realized I needed to get into higher level rooms to a certain extent, to have these type of conversations with people that are just better client fits. The other component, big turning point for us too, was just hiring on full time talent.
So I had a good friend who I actually worked for when I was in college. He owned a software company and he sold out for eight figures. Did really well for himself. And I was at that tipping point where I had three part time people that were talented but wanted to have full time work. And I don’t know if I can fully afford you guys. And so I chat with them, and he made an investment in the company early on to allow us to basically bring them on full time. And that truly was that turning point. Once we’re able to turn them on full time, now things became much more of a must, if you will. Became a lot more serious, because it’s not just me and the ebbs and flows of me or an intern or part time people. You really sort of have payroll and responsibilities that go along with it.
And that was kind of really the turning point as well. Because then once we were able to get some more talent on the team, then it wasn’t so much like, crap, I just sold this, how the hell am I gonna deal with it? It’s like, no. Like, I can sell this, I know. They know how to do it and kind of remove that worry from my shoulders. Allowed us to really kind of move a lot more freely through the market.
A.J. Lawrence:
All right, so you kind of took that step up. Let’s just jump because I talked about you using EOS. When did you think the company was either complex enough or too complex? How did you come to the point of bringing EOS into your agency?
Steve Maly:
It was in 2017, is that we were always blessed with double digit growth. Obviously, these are small double digits, it’s easy to hit and then you just grow story.
A.J. Lawrence:
But it feels great anyway.
Steve Maly:
It does. It sounds sexy at times. So we were doing 60%, 40%, 20% growth year over year, and all of a sudden, one year, we were like 5%. And like, this is strange. This is weird. We’re definitely not like leveling out. And I was in Vistage at the time and most people I knew in Vistage were on EOS.
And honestly, I’m sitting there in the room at the beginning, and I’m like, these people are drinkin
