Building an agency with Mike Duerksen
“Nobody's ever gonna do it the way that you would do it, and that's okay. So you just have to find people who know 60% of what you know, you teach them 20% to 30% and you have to be okay with 80% to 90%. And it won't be 100% the way you would define 100%, but it'll be 80%, 90%. And for most people that you're gonna help, for most clients, that is already 200% better than they would do on their own. So don't get hung up on it.” - Mike Duerksen
Building an agency with Mike Duerksen
In this episode of The Confessions we sit down with Mike Duerksen, the mastermind behind the fundraising agency BuildGood. Mike takes us along his journey of going from solopreneur to head of a growing agency. With his in-depth insights and real-life experiences, Mike provides a glimpse into the challenges and rewards of transitioning into the role of an agency leader.
Highlights:
From solopreneur to agency owner
An inside look into the operation and pricing model of an agency
Insight to managing a team
How Mike uses a demand generation approach in marketing
The significance of a positive mindset towards investment and risk.
Creating a family mission and aligning it with your business goals
Connect with Mike Duerksen:
Linkedin: https://ca.linkedin.com/in/mikeduerksen
Website: http://mikeduerksen.com/
Find Us Online: https://www.confessionswithjessandcindy.com/
Connect with Cindy:
Cindy Wagman Coaching https://cindywagman.com/
The Good Partnership https://www.thegoodpartnership.com/
Connect with Jess:
Out In the Boons: https://www.outintheboons.me
Transcript:
00:00:00 Cindy: Welcome to the Confessions podcast. I'm Cindy Wagman.
00:00:03 Jess: And I'm Jess Campbell. We're two former in-house non-profit pros turned coaches and consultants to purpose-driven organizations.
00:00:11 Cindy: After years of building up our separate six figure businesses from scratch, we've thrown a lot of spaghetti at the wall and have lived to see what sticks.
00:00:20 Jess: We're on a mission to help other nonprofit coaches and consultants looking to start or scale their own businesses past the six-figure mark by pulling back the curtain.
00:00:30 Cindy: Whether you're still working inside a nonprofit and thinking of one day going out on your own, or you've been running your consulting business for years, you understand that working with nonprofits is just different. We're giving you access to the business leaders who serve nonprofits as their clients, you know, the people who truly get it.
00:00:52 Jess: No more gatekeeping, no more secrets. This podcast is going to give you an inside look at what running a successful nonprofit coaching and consulting business looks like. Basically, we're asking people how much money they make, how they get paid, and what has and hasn't worked in their businesses.
00:01:11 Cindy: Listen in as these leaders share their insights, their numbers, and the good, the bad, and the ugly when it comes to building a nonprofit coaching or consulting business, we're gonna empower you to make the power moves that give you the income and freedom you set out to create from day one.
00:01:28 Jess: You ready? Let's go.
00:01:31 Cindy: So, Mike, tell me about that moment when you knew that you were ready to go from solopreneur to building an agency.
00:01:41 Mike: So I was going for a walk in Ocean City, New Jersey, where my in-laws have a place and there were so many people in the house. I was like, I gotta go for a walk. I went for a walk and I was listening to an old podcast by Seth Godin called Startup School. He had done his webinar, not webinar, like a conference a long time ago, like years and years and years ago. And somebody recorded it and asked his permission and they put it up. And in there, he talked about, you need to make a decision if you want to have a practice or if you want to have a business. A doctor has a practice, like a little doctor's office. They go to work. Yeah, it's a business, but it's like, it's all dependent on that person. When you're sick, the business is sick.
00:02:22 Mike: And Seth Godin talked about how he wanted to practice. He didn't wanna manage people. He's [got] a tiny, tiny team. It's mostly just Seth Godin doing Seth Godin stuff. And then I was like, yeah, I need to make that decision. And there's a few things that I really wanted out of the business and why I chose one of them was, I wanted to have freedom to pursue our family values. Like I wanted this business to give freedom to our family values, which means spending a lot more time with the kids, being able to take more time off, being able to invest in them a lot. And I was like, if I have a practice, I can't really do, I'm always going to be the bottleneck. And so I was like, I'm gonna build a business. I'm gonna hire people, I'm gonna build systems and processes, and I'm gonna try to build something that isn't entirely dependent on me.
00:03:10 Mike: I'm also diabetic. And so I'm very aware of the fact that, hey, a lot of diabetics get health complications as they grow older. And I don't wanna wake up one day when I'm 50 and not be able to work anymore and not be able to support my family anymore. And like the moment I get sick, everything stops. And so that was how I made that decision, which is no, I want to build this thing and eventually get it to a point where there's more stability and security without me doing all the inputs day in day out.
00:03:42 Cindy: Hmm. That's so, so interesting and relatable. We are joined today on The Confessions with Jess and Cindy podcast by Mike Duerksen, who is the founder of BuildGood. And I think this is one of the first times we're really talking about, we're deep diving into this idea of an agency. I think we've had people with agencies on the podcast before, but we're gonna get really intentional in this conversation because we need to, it's a very interesting and exciting opportunity. And as you said, this is an opportunity for people to think of what is their business beyond them. So welcome, Mike.
00:04:24 Mike: Thanks. Thanks for having me. I'm stoked to be here. I've been… Here's why I'm stoked. Two reasons. Number one, I didn't know Jess before, but mutual friend Rachel Bearbower was like, you gotta follow her. So I've been following, I've been watching you do The Make It Happen Conference. I've watched it happen for two years now, just like you share everything. Cindy, the Fractional Fundraiser Academy, like I'm a student of the game and I've been watching you and I just love everything you're doing. So I feel honored to be here.
00:04:55 Jess: You're too, too kind. We're so excited to dive in. Can I just jump? Okay, cool. So I think what you just said, like talk about setting intentions, Cindy, for this episode. I think you just laid such a great groundwork with that example of, like hearing, do I wanna have a practice or do I wanna have a business? I'm curious, like, did you just jump or did you do some self-reflection on do I enjoy managing people, do I not enjoy managing people? Because I can speak personally. That sounds like a ton of work and like the control freak in me is already getting hive on like, how do you hire the right people? And like, you know, there's a whole process. So I'm just curious, like what are some of the steps you took initially for that transition from being like the one man show to now having this team that operates under, but also reflects you and your reputation?
00:05:58 Mike: So when I was doing sort of the solopreneur freelance stuff, I still had first a full-time job and then a part-time job. So I gradually moved into being a freelancer. And at that point, A, I'd been managing some people in previous roles. So it wasn't entirely unknown to me. But I also talked to other agency owners and to other folks who've made the move. And one of them told me, listen, nobody's ever gonna do it the way that you would do it, and that's okay. So you just have to find people who know 60% of what you know, you teach them 20% to 30% and you have to be okay with 80% to 90%. And it won't be 100% the way you would define 100%, but it'll be 80%, 90%. And for most people that you're gonna help, for most clients, that is already 200% better than they would do on their own. So don't get hung up on it.
00:07:00 Cindy: I love it. And I think that is also a great exercise in letting go, which I feel like we'll come back to. But before we go into the nitty gritty, obviously, actually before we get into those details, let's get into the nitty gritty. You run an agency, what kind of services do you provide and how do you get paid?
00:07:23 Mike: Okay, good question. So here's what we provide. I just think if you are working for a nonprofit, the greatest value of your time is connecting with donors one-on-one in a very meaningful way, or one too few, or even one to many, but in a very meaningful way. So your highest use of time is, like getting to know your donors. You gotta be a relationship player. And oftentimes what happens is we try to hire technical players, people who are good at email, who are good at ads, who are good at direct mail, and they spend all their time in-house creating these things. And nobody's picking up the phone and telling a donor, can we go out for lunch and grab coffee? So what we do is we come in, we help you grow your individual giving program from first time giver to Legacy Lever, that whole journey, that whole pipeline. So we come in and we install our system called the Fundraising Flywheel. Right now, we're using appeals, newsletters, emails, and digital. And that gives you back the time to then, as we're creating this pipeline of donors, gives you back the time to actually steward them, build meaningful relationships, you know, do human to human stuff, and we'll help you do the one to many stuff, oftentimes for less than it would cost you to try to build that out in-house.
00:08:48 Cindy: And are they project based or is it more of a subscription model where you're
working with an organization to run that program over time? What does that look like?
00:09:00 Mike: Yeah, we work on one year contracts. We don't do project work, so when we start working with you, it's at the minimum 12 months. And we always say, listen, this is probably a three year program, it just takes time to build up this Flywheel. But yeah, it's a minimum of 12 months. We no longer do project based work cuz we can't actually do our best work when we just go project for project.
00:09:26 Jess: And so we can set some context. I know I see Cindy's, like head has like those hard emoji eyes with like a 12 year contract. I know that's what she teaches people in the academy she runs as well. But for context, give us some examples like, are you working with six clients a year? Are you working with 60? How big is your team? Like, you said 12 months of those people who work with you, what percentage of them are kind of coming back for a year, two or a year, three contract? I think that might be helpful. And then yeah, I would love to know how you price this stuff.
00:10:02 Mike: Yeah, so right now, we are working with 10 to 13 clients at a time in a done for you agency model. And we'd like to get that up to 15. We have six people who are on staff. In the US, [it's] called W2 employees. In Canada, we just say payroll, that are on payroll here in Canada, two in the Philippines on top of that. So it's a team of eight. Every strategist can handle three to six clients depending on how involved the client is. Currently, the clients we're working with, because it's kind of early days, like we're in year three or four and in the first two years, we just took on anybody we could help, right? And so we ended up with clients who are paying us 3000 per month to clients who are paying us 12,000 per month. And we are now at the point where we're realizing, ah, the client who's paying 3000 a month takes up just as much time as the client paying us 12,000 per month. And so we're getting a little bit more intentional in the ideal clients that we want as our agency clients. And at the same time, we've launched a more affordable offer, which is a group training offer for those clients who can't really afford our fees. But the average client pays about 7,000 per month.
00:11:23 Cindy: All right.
00:11:24 Jess: That's really helpful. Thank you.
00:11:25 Cindy: Both Jess and I are bursting with questions. I would… so one of the considerations obviously that people think about as they go into the agency model is, you know, what am I getting paid, right? Because you're probably going from solopreneur where you sort of just take the money from the business, put aside your taxes and call it a day, to putting yourself on payroll. I'm curious about your ownership structure, but also, you know, obviously as an agency you're making more money, there's more revenue. But I'd love to talk about where you get paid in the profit and how that's changed for you over. So that's like a lot of questions in one, but let's talk a little bit about the structure and the how, like–
00:12:13 Mike: Yep.
00:12:14 Cindy: Revenue and profit and all those good things.
00:12:16 Mike: Yeah, absolutely. All right. So the business is structured the following way. My wife owns 50% and I own 50%. So my wife helps out with some of the finances, but mostly we've decided to divvy our jobs. She's the CEO of the house and I'm the CEO of BuildGood. And we both sort of stay in our lanes and we've agreed that for the next few years, you know, we have a job description for ourselves, and we agree that that's how we're gonna run things. We have a strap plan on the personal side and we have a strategic plan on the business side. We have goals on the personal side, but that's kind of like, we run the family like a business that sounds really like, I mean it in a good way, not that we run it like a business as in like, it's gotta be profitable, but like, we have goals for the family, we have a strategic plan, we have things we wanna achieve. So that's how we've divvied it up.
00:13:10 Mike: So for me to be able to run the business though, she takes care of so many things around the house, which is a bigger job than I do. So. But that's 50-50 is the business. I would pay myself more if I was a solopreneur. And it's just the reality, it won't always be that way, but for me at this point, it's long game. I just need to build this thing. And so I'm willing to make sacrifices in the short term for the long term, for this thing to be, you know, successful and profitable. I am not always the highest paid employee in the business. I pay myself anywhere between 50,000 a year to 100,000 a year. And I kind of fluctuate that a little bit depending on how things are going. I can't disclose the salaries of our folks, but I'll just say that–
00:14:00 Cindy: Of course, not. Yeah.
00:14:00 Mike: In that range, I am not always the highest paid employee in the business.
00:14:04 Cindy: Yeah.
00:14:04 Mike: We aim for a 20% to 30% profit margin. However, as I'm learning the agency game, it's tough. Like there's so many variables. So I'm still getting better at, sort of, figuring that out. But in terms of revenue, year one $50,000, year two $300,000, year three $600,000, and we are in year four, we're on track for 800,000 to 900,000 this year. We'll see how things go.
00:14:34 Jess: And I know we're not gonna say specifics on your staff, but are they on salary or are they on like a, if you have two clients, you get paid a certain percentage or if you have five or how does that part work?
00:14:47 Mike: They are all on salary. So including the two in the Philippines, they're a full-time, considered a full-time employee for legal reasons. They're not on a Canadian payroll. So they get paid like a contractor, but they're full-time. So they're on salary. And that's the other tricky thing is staffing an agency is very, very tough because you're never staffed the appropriate amount. Either you don't have enough staff or you have staff that don't have quite enough work until you get new clients to join. And so you get new clients to join and then one more client joins, and now all of a sudden you need to hire another person to service that client. But then you need three more clients to fully utilize their salary. So it's always fluctuating, and that's probably the toughest part of it, to be honest.
00:15:35 Jess: That is tough. And that leads into the second question I had for you, which is, how has your day-to-day shifted now that you are the agency business owner? I'm imagining that perhaps your direct client work is few and far between and you're in more of the business development space. But as I say that out loud, I know people who don't sing in the business development sales space and they actually bring on someone to do that work so that they can do what their strengths are. So how does it work for you?
00:16:11 Mike: So that's shifted a lot over the last three years where if possible, I no longer try to solve problems for clients. I try to solve problems for the business. It's not… it doesn't always work that way. So there's two clients where I'm still, I show up to the strategy calls every two weeks. I'm still fairly involved, sometimes I still write copy for some clients. If things get really busy, I will still write, copy sometimes and be reviewing copy. But, as Becky, who is, who was employee number two, as she's just grown a ton over the last two and a half years, she's leading our team really, really well where it's become easier for me and my days are now filled up with business development, marketing, trying to create a lot of trainings and SOPs for the team, trying to create a lot of trainings for this new offer we have called the BuildGood Academy, and coach, so coaching team, coaching people in the academy and marketing and business development.
00:17:17 Cindy: Awesome. So as someone who has had faced that same, I call it like these sort of steps in growth and they feel very significant, as you said, you get that one more client and it triggers, you need a whole new staff person and then, you know, your staff people get sick or, you know, something comes up. So I'd love to hear from you how you balance that and also keep that endgame in mind. Like, do you ever have to sit down with yourself and just be like, I'm building a business, not a practice, you know, because it's hard sometimes. It's hard to make sure that you are taking care of your staff and giving them the time and space that they need to be successful. And sometimes that means taking breaks and also keeping that vision or focusing on that growth. And actually, I'd love to know what your long-term growth plan looks like.
00:18:12 Mike: Yeah, that's… so you've just identified, like–
00:18:14 Cindy: I have, like lots of questions in one.
00:18:17 Mike: It's like, I mean, this is the biggest thing though that keeps me up at night is that thing. So our staff are awesome. I don't know how I got so lucky, but they're all awesome people. And it's not that I live in fear of them leaving or burning out, but kind of, I'm like, how can I just like preserve this amazing thing that is happening right now without pushing too much while at the same time still being like, you know, we've got… we're all sort of eight players who like to get stuff done and we wanna maintain that culture. So I don't know how to answer that question. It does keep me up at night. But I try to take Fridays off. In my calendar, Fridays, it just says future value, it's blocked off the entire day. So I try to use that day to think about how to prepare the business for the future and have contingencies in place for suppliers, for pipeline, for staff. But it's, yeah, we've grown fairly quickly and I'm just trying to keep up to be honest. So I don't have a good answer.
00:19:29 Jess: That's okay. And okay, let's talk more about that because I think, you know, it's a delicate dance of growing too quickly, not having enough work, not having enough, like all the things, right? And so what… you said, you spend a majority of your time on business development and marketing. What are you doing to get out there and attain new business so that the staff that you have hired has plenty of work to keep them busy and things running smoothly?
00:19:59 Mike: So we don't run ads at the moment. I don't know if we will in the future. From everything I can tell, it might just not work very well for us. I could be wrong. If there's an ad guru out there, and I know I've–
00:20:17 Jess: We’re on the hunt, trust me.
00:20:18 Mike: Right.
00:20:19 Jess: When we've cracked the code, we're letting everyone know.
00:20:21 Mike: Right. Like I said, student of the game, I've looked at all the DTC brands, I've looked at what coaching programs and agencies are doing in the for-profit sector, and I know that when I'm in a sales cycle for getting a new client, it doesn't happen that quickly. Nobody clicks an ad and the next day convinces their board to bring on an agency. So as far as I can tell, this is not scientific. It's just anecdotal. As far as I can tell, maybe every three to four years, somebody makes a decision on whether to bring on an agency like ours or not. And so you just gotta be in front of them for three years so that when that time comes, they want to talk to you. So all of our marketing ad, it's all what some people call demand generation.
00:21:09 Mike: So just like trying to be helpful. We've got two podcasts to BuildGood fundraising podcast and a donor growth podcast. We use that to create, so one of the positions in the Philippines, that's all they do is their podcast and media producers. So they take those podcasts, turn 'em into videos for YouTube and for LinkedIn. LinkedIn has been, yeah, kind of a game changer in the last three years for us. It seems like it's maybe not working so well anymore, but that could just be me. So try to be very helpful on LinkedIn. I do DM people every now and again, not as a cold outreach, just to start a relationship. And then we've just… I just saw [Jesse] posted AFP Icon, the booth you guys created, and [Jesse] posted a breakdown of how much it costs and how much you invested, which I don't know, was like close to 10 K, something like that, all in.
00:22:01 Mike: So we just now created our own conference called the BuildGood Summit, happening in two days and investing a lot of money in that to just gather people together. And so we'll see how that works. Another Seth Godin thing, I was listening to his podcast and somebody wrote to him and was like, hey, I'm like a theater person and there's nothing good happening in my town. And he was just like, well, create your own, just show up, like put on a play and who cares if nobody comes, you showed up. So I was like, okay, we'll just make our own conference. We'll just do the BuildGood summit. We'll just… and if nobody shows up, it's okay. But we put on the BuildGood Summit, so we've got 90 people coming in two days, gathering at the Canadian museum.
00:22:47 Jess: That's incredible.
00:22:49 Mike: Thanks. We'll see, we're losing money on it, so we're losing about $10,000 to $15,000 on it, which, in the short term I should say.
00:23:00 Cindy: But that's what you would pay to be at someone else's conference. And now you have those people and you are the star of the show, so to speak. I mean, that sounds like a reasonable investment
00:23:13 Jess: And I hope you'll sell something on the back end when people are in front of you, and you [won’t make that bad] gap. Oh, I'm so excited for you.
00:23:21 Mike: Yeah. So that's our hope, right? Like we get one or two new academy members out of it, if we would have recouped that cost and for sure, one done for you client. We're more than good. But, yeah. So that's the marketing–
00:23:33 Jess: I love that mindset though, Mike. I really think that that's… for anyone listening, that mindset, 90% of people who are listening would hear, I'm gonna lose $10,000 to $15,000. And that would be enough for them to not even start, to not even take the chance, to not even take the risk. And I just love that mindset that you are setting for yourself and for your team, that this is an investment that you will recoup at some way, in some way shape or form, if nothing more than just lessons learned, right?
00:24:10 Mike: Right.
00:24:10 Jess: About doing in-person conferences, which is, you know, people spend that much money to go learn how to do them versus just trying it out, you know? And so I'm pumped for you.
00:24:22 Mike: Cool. Yeah, thanks. So it's like this MBA program years ago, and on the first day, I asked the program coordinator, I was like, why is there no class in entrepreneurship? He's like, oh, entrepreneurs would've just taken the 40 K and started a business. They would… I was like, oh, man. Like almost immediate regret. I didn't end up regretting it. It was awesome. But like, just like, okay, yeah, no, we do spend tens of thousands all the time to learn something. So, yeah.
00:24:55 Jess: Okay. Mike, it's time to play another round of our rapid fire questions. You, ready?
00:25:00 Mike: I'm ready.
00:25:01 Jess: Okay, great. As a fellow podcaster, what is one of your favorite podcasts to listen to?
00:25:10 Mike: The name sounds douchey, but I love My First Million.
00:25:15 Jess: Okay. Who? I don't, I've never heard of it. Who runs that one? Do you remember?
00:25:18 Mike: It's these two tech bros, and again, it sounds douchey, but every podcast, they go through like different business ideas.
00:25:26 Jess: Oh, cool.
00:25:26 Mike: And just by listening to that, I've been able to be like, huh, I wonder if that would work, like applied in our sector.
00:25:31 Jess: Oh, love it. Okay. I have to check it out. You talked a lot about the intentionality you spend with your family and time off from work. How are the Duerksen spending their summer?
00:25:45 Mike: So last summer, we took three weeks off and we did a big road trip to the mountains. And this summer, we're on a mission to get baby sisters, so we are staying put and just waiting for that call. But as part of that, we have plans to spend two weeks in Namibia on the front end. So once we get that call, we are going to the desert for two weeks and then going to South Africa.
00:26:10 Jess: Amazing. Okay. That sounds like it'll be a good time no matter what. And then my last question is, you said several times how amazing your team is, and I'm curious, where do you find these people?
00:26:24 Mike: They were all somehow connected through LinkedIn, through clients, through former clients, and we've rarely actually posted for a job. So I think we've posted for a job once. All the other times, it was just kind of like we knew about people, they knew about us, they asked if we had an opening, I said, not right now, maybe in a few months. And so it worked out that way and I couldn't even tell you what degrees they have. Like that was… I have no idea. It was just based on sort of values, who they are, what kind of person they are, and some of their skill.
00:26:56 Jess: Okay. Great. And then last question, you're about to host your first event for nonprofits. What is one element that you're doing to make the event unique, special, one of a kind?
00:27:10 Mike: So this is credit to Hannah on our team. She's doing human bingo. So people have to… people can get all these prizes for networking essentially. And it makes networking less awkward. I hate networking so much. So this is one way to just get people to not necessarily shake hands and be like, where do you work and what do you do? But like, hey, I need to find somebody who loves pizza. Do you love pizza? I need to, like, can you name one Taylor Swift song? Do you volunteer anywhere? So there's all these things that people can get to know each other by. So that's one thing to just make it a little bit more, break the ice a little bit, I guess.
00:27:50 Jess: I love that. It's gonna be so good. Thanks for playing, Mike.
00:27:56 Cindy: Let's talk about that business development cycle or that long term, because as you said, it is a long game, right? They're making these decisions maybe every three years around working with an agency or changing up their agency. But even if they weren't, even if you had an organization that was like, yes, I need that, let's go. Chances are, still gonna take three to six months to actually get them to like go through all the red tape in the organization and say yes and get onboarded. So, you know, and as someone who I know is very aware of all the business trends and specifically, you know, with marketing and things like that, we always wanna track, okay, you know, we spend this on, I know you don't spend on ads, but what we're taught is when you invest in something, you track how many people are clicking, what is the conversion rate, what are all these things?
00:28:49 Cindy: And it doesn't quite work that way in our sector. So I'd love to know how you do evaluate efficacy of these kinds of efforts. I mean, obviously just the learning and growth that you're going through, but you know, when you speak at an event, even with your podcast, and I certainly don't have good answers on this myself, but how do you evaluate, is this working for us? Do we do it again? Do we keep doing it versus, you know what, that was a really good learning experience. Time to move on to the next thing.
00:29:25 Mike: Yeah, I don't really.
00:29:27 Cindy: Fair enough. I'm saying–
00:29:30 Mike: So, yeah.
00:29:31 Cindy: It’s like a lot of gut, just like how does it feel? But–
00:29:35 Mike: Yeah, it's a lot of… if there's enough signal, like the signal versus noise thing, if there's enough signal that we're getting that it seems to be helpful. The podcast, I've thought many times in the first year or two, like, why are we doing this? There's not that many people listening to it. And then I was just like, okay, yeah, but I get free consulting out of it. Like I'm asking people like Charity Water came on twice already, like I'm just asking all these people to come on and learn from them and they say yes. So that's enough for me to keep going as long as I'm learning something. And now, it's turned into something else where, yeah, still not that many people listen to it, but the people who listen to it are pretty bought in and we've gotten clients out of it.
00:30:14 Mike: And I can't exactly attribute, like attribution. I don't really try to attribute anything. When somebody schedules a call, we ask them, how did you hear about us? And it self-reported, who knows if it's accurate? That's kind of what I go by. And most of them have been linked in and you can't say it was this post, it was that post. So as long as the podcast and some of this other stuff is contributing to us showing up on LinkedIn frequently, we'll keep doing it. And yeah, that might not be the savviest answer, but at this point, it's just all good.
00:30:49 Cindy: Yeah. And I think that that's realistic. Again, in our sector, we don't always see the immediate payoff. There's not a cause-effect close relationship sometimes. So I think that that's… sometimes it's how it is.
00:31:05 Mike: So the interesting thing is sometimes when we jump on a discovery call, somebody's like, oh yeah, I know you already, like, I've been listening to your podcast for a while, I've seen your videos. I feel like I know you already, so I don't have a hard data point on this, but I think it also shortens the sales cycle in terms of when somebody shows up, they've done enough research on you because you have enough stuff out there that sometimes their mind is already kind of made up that they want to go with you as long as there's some boxes they can check.
00:31:33 Jess: Yeah. Like they already trust you because you've been in their ears for, you know, months, if not years. And so I bet your close rate is actually really high, which is a data point that you could track.
00:31:46 Mike: Yeah.
00:31:47 Jess: I don't know if you know that, Cindy tracks that. She's like 100%. She's so freaking good. We all aspire to be Cindy out there. Okay, that's really, really helpful. Do you have another question about, like money, Cindy? Cuz I have a different direction to take this conversation.
00:32:04 Cindy: Mine's a different direction too. So you go first.
00:32:06 Jes: Oh, okay. One of the things that I always ask consultants, and I'm frequently surprised that their answer is like the end game a little bit. Like you talked a bit about, you know, having a real reason and need, where you wanna spend your time, your health, all these things for the motivation for creating an agency. But like, I don't know, in 20 or 30 years, do you wanna be hosting events for nonprofits and speaking on podcasts and operating at like the level and speed that you are? Or, you know, is your plan to build this to a certain thing that maybe a staff member wants to buy it out from you and take it over? Like have you thought that far down the road?
00:32:55 Mike: Not 20 or 30 years, I've thought 10 years down the road. And what I'm not so attracted to is, people spend their 40s building this thing so they can sell it or so they can retire when they're 55. But the thing is, I've done the math, it's very easy math. I've got 10 summers left before my daughter is 18, that's like 10 Canada days or 10 July 4th whatever, like that's not a lot. And so if I get to that point and now I'm good to take it slower, it's gonna be like me and my wife. So I would rather spend the next 10 years being at a place where I can invest more in the kids. So I really have this goal of, it was the first time I said out loud, in the next year or two, I kind of wanna take the summer off with the kids, like the full two months just–
00:33:52 Jess: Love it.
00:33:53 Cindy: Yes.
00:33:54 Mike: Yeah, that's the goal, but–
00:33:57 Jess: I think it's doable.
00:33:58 Mike: Yeah.
00:33:59 Jess: I think it's doable. In fact, I saw on LinkedIn yesterday a guest we've had on the show, her name's [Camila Martin], she was giving a list of advice for things she would've told her, like younger consultant self or when she was just getting started. And one of the things she said is to map her revenue in a nine month cycle, not a 12 month cycle, so that if she wants to take the summer off, she can and she's good. And I was like, yeah, we can all do that.
00:34:27 Mike: Yeah. Yeah.
00:34:29 Cindy: I love it.
00:34:29 Mike: Well, maybe I will now you've given me encouragement.
00:34:33 Cindy: So that's one of the things I'm experimenting with this summer. So I'll let you know how it goes.
00:34:39 Mike: Okay.
00:34:40 Cindy: Yeah. I will not take it fully off, but I'm hoping that I will have two to three hours of client work a week max, and the rest is time that I can work on my business and also be with my family, which is funny. Jess's question is actually similar to what I was gonna ask, but I wanna still ask it because you mentioned you have your business strat plan and your personal strat plan or a family strat plan. I'd love to know, you know, in the short term you talked about next summer not working, what other business goals do you have and what are your personal or life goals that you have with your family? And, you know, then we can talk about where they intersect.
00:35:23 Mike: Yeah. Okay. So we've got a mission as a family. We review it every quarter. Like every quarter sometimes has a different mission. But right now so both of our kids are adopted from South Africa and we're actually adopting a third. So right now, our mission as a family is get baby sister home, right? So there's a few things that need to happen for that to happen. We're waiting on a bunch of paperwork, but that's fall-ish, is when we're told that will happen, in which case we have to fly to South Africa, live there for two to three months. So that is our current mission as a family is get our financials in order, get a lot of things in order for that to happen. And our kids have to contribute to that as well. So we talk about it at the dinner table with them all the time.
00:36:10 Mike: Like currently, that's our mission as a family. We have a second mission, which is we need to get a different house. When we bought the current house we have, we just had our oldest and now we're gonna have three. And our oldest has been putting in a lot of effort. She had to do a bunch of things in order to get a puppy. So she's been putting in a lot of effort to do all those things. She's been going to school nicely. She's been going to the therapist. Some challenges she's working through in life and she's been putting in the work and I'm so proud of her, but she's like, hey, I'm doing all these things. I'm going to therapist every week. I'm going to school. Okay. I'm doing my best. You know, I learned to ice skate by myself. I'm doing my homework. So, like, the last thing on that list is get a different house so I can get a puppy.
00:37:03 Mike: So that's sort of the mission we're on right now. We gotta get baby sister home and the house thing will either happen before or after. But that's, we're laser focused on that is just, that's what we're on a mission to do. In the business, we're trying to get to 15 clients in the agency. So that's three more. And then we're trying to grow our new offering the academy from eight clients to 20 clients.
00:37:32 Jess: Okay. I just love what you said so much. I'm going to voice memo my husband right after this to be like, how do we… where did you learn this? Or was this just intuitive to you to have just like this intention and thought planning process of the family because that's so vital to being an entrepreneur and running your own business.
00:37:56 Mike: Right.
00:37:56 Jess: It's like, if that doesn't work, forget it. The business is gonna fall apart.
00:38:00 Mike: So part of that just came from like, when we start a business, we need to organize a business and what our value is gonna be. And then part of it like, wait, like we should have values as a family. So like our kids all know that, like our three core values as a family, right? Which is like, Duerksen’s do the right thing. They help other people and they never give up. And so like, you can spot check them and like, hey, what do Duerksen’s do? And they'll be like, Duerksen’s do the right thing. They help other people and they never give up. And so–
00:38:31 Jess: Like a football team.
00:38:32 Mike: Right.
00:38:33 Cindy: I love this so much.
00:38:37 Jess: Cindy's crying over here. Aw, we say–
00:38:40 Cindy: It's so nice.
00:38:41 Jess: It's so nice. We say in my family, well we only have one, but now I'm motivated to have three. I say to live, be a leader. So I don't say, I love you on the way to school. I say, who's a leader, lives a leader, be a leader. And that's our thing. So Cindy, next podcast.
00:38:57 Cindy: Next time I'm gonna report back with our family values. I gotta–
00:39:01 Jess: I love that.
00:39:01 Cindy: All my kids and defining them, but–
00:39:04 Mike: That's cool.
00:39:05 Cindy: Yeah.
00:39:05 Mike: When we did that, somebody was like, you should read this book by Pat Lencioni. And it's called, what it's called. It's about this, it's about a family though. It's like a business fable. Like he writes, I don't know if you know him, but he writes these business fables.
00:39:18 Jess: I have to look it up.
00:39:20 Mike: And so I read that and I was like, done. We're doing that and–
00:39:22 Cindy: Awesome.
00:39:23 Mike: And, yeah, it's been very helpful. It gives me peace of mind.
00:39:27 Cindy: One of the–
00:39:28 Jess: Oh, go ahead.
00:39:28 Cindy: Mike and I both share a love of Donald Miller and StoryBrand. He also has a whole thing about your personal mission. What does he call it? Hero on a Mission or something like that.
00:39:39 Mike: Right, right.
00:39:41 Cindy: And he talks often. He'll talk about his family's mission and values. So you're in good company. Oh, just bought.
00:39:48 Mike: I just got that book too.
00:39:49 Cindy: I just [unclear] book. I'm so proud of you, Jess.
00:39:54 Jess: I was laughing cause I tease Cindy all the time for her love of Donald Miller, who I like, don't love, but I did buy his book.
00:40:03 Cindy: Like, I will put a caveat, I don't love him. I think he's very smart and I love what he's doing.
00:40:10 Jess: Wait, okay. I wanna… so okay, sorry, we're going off track. I know that you are gonna get your next cluster of clients to get to your 15 by the end of your conference, but just in case, I wanna talk about just really quickly, like how do you collaborate or work with other nonprofit consultants or businesses? Is that a strategy that you use to path work to or get clients for? Like, I'm just… I think that there could be a lot more collaboration in our space. And so I'm wondering if you lean on that, or if you just kind of stay in your lane and do the things like the podcast, the marketing, the conference, things like that.
00:40:58 Mike: So it hasn't worked out as a business strategy, so to speak. But that is just because of having put in the time to create referral sort of agreements, refer to other people all the time and they refer to us, but there's nothing formal in place for like, I send you this, you know, I get 10% or whatever. So that just hasn't worked out yet. However, I talk to other consultants all the time and I just ask them how they run things and I always talk to people who are like steps ahead of me. And I just always ask them like, hey, what should I be looking out for next? And how to do this and how to, and everybody's so generous and helpful. So, you know, I do that for sure as often as I can. I like to talk to other agency folks.
00:41:47 Mike: I will say I've, making more of an effort to talk to consultants and agencies who are like a step before us or a step after us in terms of the value chain. So like legacy planners, for example, who help nonprofits with legacy planning, they might start working with a nonprofit and say, you actually don't have enough pipeline for legacy giving. You need to work on growing individual giving so that we can, and then I want those folks to say, work with BuildGood for a year or two so we have more pipeline. So I'm trying to think more like who comes before us and who comes after us. That's just something I'm thinking of, but yeah.
00:42:27 Cindy: That's awesome. All right. I just looked at the time and we don't have a lot of time left for this conversation, which is so sad, because it's always a pleasure chatting with you, but we have to ask for your confession. So what is one thing about your business that you feel like you could do better or you wanna confess about? Not, you know, that you're working towards. Any confession, something you haven't shared with anyone yet?
00:42:59 Mike: Yeah, so client work is challenging and tough and even clients where there's alignment that is challenging and tough. And I feel like on the technical end, we've empowered our team, but on the consulting, just like how you deal with people and I need to do a better job of just coaching and being like, hey, here's how you are a good Sherpa. Here's how you are a good guide. You know?
00:43:24 Cindy: Yeah.
00:43:25 Mike: I know you can write really well, I know you've got this strategy down pat, but when a client says this, this is how a good Sherpa, you know, we always talk about helping clients, like climb this mountain. You're the Sherpa, you're helping them get up the mountain and they're gonna be like, hey, can we stop over here? And then you have to look at the… you, as the Sherpa, you have to look at the weather. You have to see if you're gonna make it on time, you know, whether that's a dangerous road or not. And then you have to tell the client, no, that's not a good idea. Here's why. Or yeah, I guess we can do it, but only for a few minutes.
00:43:57 Mike: Or like, you gotta make all these decisions, which is just like how you treat people. And that relationship, that part, I just need to find a way to get that outta my brain onto some sort of methodology or framework or something. I need to help my team be, and they're all great Sherpas, but I just need to help them handle some of those situations better, which are not fun to be in. Like those situations are never fun to be in. Yeah.
00:44:25 Cindy: Yeah. I think, especially hard in our sector. But I… what you said rings so true to my experience as well. So.
00:44:34 Jess: Thank you.
00:44:34 Cindy: Mike, thank you.
00:44:37 Jess: It was so fun.
00:44:37 Mike: You're [unclear] me on. This was so cool.
00:44:39 Cindy: Yeah. If our listeners wanna connect with you, where can they find you?
00:44:44 Mike: They can find me on LinkedIn, Mike Duerksen, if they are entrepreneurs and consultants and just have more questions about the business side of things. Just mike@buildgood.com.
00:44:57 Cindy: Awesome. Thank you so much.
00:44:59 Jess: We appreciate you. Thank you.
00:45:01 Mike: [Thanks] for having me on.
00:45:05 Cindy: Thank you again for listening to the Confessions podcast for nonprofit coaches and consultants. If you enjoyed today's episode, which I sure hope you did, you can show your support in one of three ways.
00:45:16 Jess: Number one, post the screenshot of this episode to your Instagram stories or LinkedIn profile and tag Cindy and I so we can repost you.
00:45:24 Cindy: Number two, share this podcast with a fellow nonprofit coach or consultant.
00:45:29 Jess: And number three, leave a positive review on Apple Podcast so we can continue to grow and reach new listeners.
00:45:35 Cindy: And of course, make sure you subscribe so you can get the latest and greatest interviews as they drop every Thursday.
00:45:42 Jess: And to our fellow nonprofit coaching and consulting friends, remember, we’re an open book and here to answer your burning biz questions.
00:45:49 Cindy: See you next time.