E004: Nathan Lomax

Richard Hill [00:00:07]: Welcome to episode 4 of Agency Intensive. I'm Richard Hill, your host. Now in this episode, I speak with Nathan Lomax, director and cofounder of Quickfire Digital. Nathan and his cofounders have built an incredible agency with a laser focus on design and building ecommerce. From running literally dozens and dozens of ecomm specific events, Nathan's agency has become 1 of the most respected in the ecommerce and Shopify space in a very, very short period of time. His almost legendary event schedule would make most season event organizers wince. We talk about securing sponsorship and getting those partners and prospects to events, Nathan's weekly routine and what keeps him up at night, and so much more in this 1. Now do me 1 favor.

Richard Hill [00:00:49]: Hit the subscribe follow button wherever you are listening to this podcast. You're always the first to know when a new episode is released. Now, let's head over to this fantastic episode. Right. I think we are recording, Nathan. Well, thanks for coming on the Agency Intensive Podcast. Great to have you on the show. I think before we get into the nitty gritty and the ups and downs of agency life, introduce yourself to our listeners, please.

Nathan Lomax [00:01:13]: Thank you. Good morning or good afternoon, everyone. My name is Nathan, cofounder of Quickfire Digital. Quickfire is a Shopify Plus agency, 1 of about 32 in the UK. Now We work with clients of all shapes and sizes, Hunter Boots, Juicy Couture, Thala, Beavertown, 4thlade. The list goes on. We've been incredibly blessed with the client list. There's about 29 people in the team.

Nathan Lomax [00:01:34]: We're based here in Norwich. Spent most of my life in London. We have an events program of 45 events, and I'm sure something that come out of today's conversation is our borderline obsession with community, and empowering brands and ecom managers and ecom directors in terms of growing themselves and also their brands. So, yeah, that's a little whistle stop tour of Quickfire, and, been going 6 and a half years now. So plenty of ups and downs along the way. And the thing is if you follow me on LinkedIn, Nathan Lomax over on LinkedIn, you see I post most days as you and I were joking about when before it came on, but I share a lot of the good stuff, Ryan. I often take these opportunities on a podcast to share the other side, or maybe more of a balanced side that says, well, this is the the bit that perhaps you don't see every day and kind of the roses of agency.

Richard Hill [00:02:24]: Society. The ups and downs, hey, because that is the reality, isn't it? But I think before we go into the, some of those step changes over the years, you know, it'd be good for you to step through how you got into agency world and sort of maybe that, you know, from that first client and then stepping through the the last few years?

Nathan Lomax [00:02:43]: Yeah. So I, I started by 18. So, it was more of a freelancer career to start with, to be honest. So left school, didn't wanna go to university, which has kind of continued. It's kinda been my bonnet ever since. It says there's other paths to to life than just going down the traditional university route. So didn't go. I think much to the dismay of the school and and people around me, etcetera.

Nathan Lomax [00:03:08]: Set up a business building websites. My first ever website was £400, for my friend's parents. I know at 1 stage, I remember saying to my cofounder now that we'd never sell a website over 5 grand. I was like, well, looking back, I'm just like, oh, how times have changed. But, yeah.

Richard Hill [00:03:26]: But £400 when you're 18, that's a good thing.

Nathan Lomax [00:03:28]: Tell you what. £400. I was 18. The thing is is I I didn't build the sites. Right? So I'm not the guy on the tools building the sites. I'm out there building relationships with clients and selling and building community and and that kind of thing. And so I I built a team originally out in India, way back when using Upwork. Again, if people are familiar, like, freelancing tool.

Nathan Lomax [00:03:47]: And and, yeah, I built a lovely team out there, and we used those guys for a long time until it's about 22, 23. And whenever you work with any remote team, to be honest, 1 of the first learnings was you get this kinda honeymoon period where to start with, you can they do no wrong. Right? They are just so so, like, attentive and brilliant, etcetera, and then they get comfortable and and borderline lazy. And the thing is I found with the Indian culture is amazing, amazing people. I wonder they've even invited me to the wedding, and that's 1 of my biggest regrets to this day is I couldn't go and I was gonna set my mom. And anyway, I just they often said yes, even if they couldn't. And that was a bit of a life. I mean, at, like, 19, 20.

Nathan Lomax [00:04:29]: Right? You because it didn't have the development skills, you're kind of taking their word for it. And so you're like, oh, okay. Yeah. You can do that. Fine. I'll go and tell the client we do it. Yes, mister or missus Clark. We can do this.

Nathan Lomax [00:04:40]: And then you're getting closer to the deadline. You're like, how's it going? And they're like, oh, we've had a couple of issues. Maid issue is that we don't know what we're doing. It's like, oh, you could've taught me this, and I could've just said no. Yeah. So, anyway, that in 2016 ish, Met I was, with all these sites, you'll need hosting. It was WordPress at the time. I was spending a fortune in hosting.

Nathan Lomax [00:05:04]: Met my other cofounder, Martin, at the time, who was doing his own kind of IT thing. And he said, oh, we should do something together. And so, yeah, that that'd be great. And then, then we started working together on a Sunday, and then it was like, cool. You're working all week for yourself. And then you're working in this other joint venture on a Sunday, and you you not really got any time for yourself. Time to play cricket or football on Saturday, etcetera. And so I, yeah, we decided to kinda roll in together, in 1st June 2017, and he was already in business with a guy called Fred.

Nathan Lomax [00:05:30]: So the 3 of us came together, and never did I expect the kind of economies of scale or power that 3 people with very defined swim lanes could have. So for me, new business, sales, growth, marketing, that side of things. And and importantly, to differentiate, not marketing for our clients, so we don't do SEO, PBC, social, etcetera. Yeah. All we do is migrations into the Shopify platform and, CRO on the Shopify to make your store sweat as hard as possible. And the 1 thing I would say that I'm sure will come to this is around finding your positioning and your niche, and that took us a little time. To start with, we were doing everything for everybody. Yeah.

Nathan Lomax [00:06:04]: 3 of us came together, 1st June 2017 and then just scaled and scaled and scaled. And now it's around a couple of 1, 000, 000, 29 people. Like, it's it's getting to a a nice size, but it's now how do we kick on. Right? And that's the Mhmm. The big focus for us as founders is maybe the agency being less reliant on the founders, and that's a challenge that many agency face is how do they extract themselves when especially when they enjoy it. Yeah. But also building that leadership team, and then looking to to kick on and scale towards whatever next looks like. Is that merging with something bigger? Is that being bought? Is that buying? Like, what happens now? Is it

Richard Hill [00:06:41]: taking investment? Yeah.

Nathan Lomax [00:06:43]: Yeah. Options. Exactly. That's what I say. We're Which is great. To get options or choices.

Richard Hill [00:06:48]: So we've gone from about £400 site to the 2, 000, 000 plus, in sort of 6 and a half years. Now I'm sure that was, with a few or the odd sleepers night or the odd early morning. The odd the odd the odd early train to London, maybe, I I would imagine. So hitting that, I mean, the £1, 000, 000 turnover is sort of a, I think, quite an aspirational number. You know, that or I think it's 83, 000 84, 000

Nathan Lomax [00:07:12]: pound a month. 80 first. I was adding green in my I've literally I've been hitting the session for years. 2.

Richard Hill [00:07:17]: Yep. I guess, 2 fold question then. Has it been easier to hit 2, 000, 000 than 1, 000, 000?

Nathan Lomax [00:07:25]: You know what? In hindsight, probably yes, because things have compounded. Confidence has increased. We now know our positioning. And I think from naught to 1, we were trying to find out what the heck it was we did, and how we did it, and what we did well. Now it's just about repeating it and scaling it. So, yes, I would say our reflection, it's been easier. Yeah. Has it been easy? No.

Nathan Lomax [00:07:48]: But easier, maybe. And I think also that you as a character and as a leader and as a entrepreneur, you develop as well in that time. And, therefore, if you kinda said take the 1 to 2 mil journey and do that straight off the bat, like, no chance. The thing is it's all relative. Right? So you I never forget our first £1, 000 deal, my first 2 grand deal in London where I just thought I was, like, the next Bill Gates. I was like, oh, that's amazing. Like, sold a grand 2 2 grand. Can you believe it? But when you when you first purchased 400 quid, like, that's a big change.

Nathan Lomax [00:08:20]: And I remember our first 20 grand deal. No 1 would have lost. I was carrying a box of biscuits across the across the office, and I booted this box of biscuits. Biscuits everywhere. Like, oh, ecstatic. I just remember it like it was yesterday. And then, and then when I first $50 there, then we a $100 there, like, yeah. Just I mean, our sweet spot really is 30 to 60 k.

Nathan Lomax [00:08:43]: There are there are brands. Right? In the Shopify platform, I wanna be the very best in mid market. And I I like the parts of what's going to enterprise. I wanna support brands on that journey, but for us, we wanna be excellent at something. And as I touched upon earlier, it's when we were going naught to 1, certainly naught to 250, it was, okay, we'll be doing PPC, we'll be doing social, we'll be doing this, we'll be doing this, etcetera, whereas now it's like Yep. Then we were just doing web from 2.50 to maybe 7.50. The step change from 1 to 2 has been recurring revenue, which in a project based business is traditionally quite Yeah. Yeah.

Nathan Lomax [00:09:17]: And so for us, it becomes easier when you know that $50 of your 84 k or now your 168 k target is banked. Yeah. I'm good to go. And you just gonna keep servicing that. Obviously, you don't churn them at the bottom, but you're you're going at it from a standing not from a standing start. So, yeah, I definitely think on reflection, 1 to 2 easier than 0 to 1.

Richard Hill [00:09:39]: Yeah. I guess a couple of bits come from that. So, obviously, layering in retainer business into development agencies. I think for the smaller agencies that might be listening or the sub million, that's that's quite a turning point, I think, you're saying there where you're obviously building in rather than selling, you know, the 20 grand, 20 grand. Oh, we need to sell over 20 grand, 20 grand. Of course, you wanna continue to do that and scale that and increase that, but, obviously, they're layering in those retainers. You know, what what would you say to the guys that are maybe struggling to add in those retainers to their development agencies?

Nathan Lomax [00:10:15]: Yeah. I mean, the first thing is you're certainly not alone. Like, adding the Yeah. Retainer, is tough and depending on the platform. Like, I think, traditionally, if you look at our Magento as a platform, a lot of it was patches and updates, etcetera, etcetera. And therefore, there was there was absolute justification for, for that. But now it's, it's tough. It's it's tough.

Nathan Lomax [00:10:36]: But I would say I would say you need to find where you can add value and how you can add proactivity. So if you can do that, then you can really start to carve a point of difference, and you can start to say, actually, I can justify a recurring amount beyond just maintenance. If you look at something like Shopify is self hosted, and therefore, realistically, how much there's not, like, patches or bug updates, etcetera, etcetera. So, really, where are you adding your value? And if you can find that, is it in improving conversion rate? Is it improving average order value? Is it in making the getting the most out of the platform? Does it have to be Shopify? It could be Squarespace. It could be Wix. It could be WordPress. It could be Yep. Anything.

Nathan Lomax [00:11:14]: Like, if you can do that, then I think you build a path for recurring revenue.

Richard Hill [00:11:18]: Yeah. No. That sounds great. So, potentially, there's maybe a little tip there, guys. You know, if you're you're a CRO in terms of you got those devs, you got those devs sat there, I think, maybe, you know, that know a little bit about building websites and improving things and building on that, building on those retainer or starting to build. There's nothing better than waking up to those direct debits every day, is there?

Nathan Lomax [00:11:37]: No. Well, exactly right. And I think the the only thing is it's it's it's sometimes easy to see people getting complacent. Right? And you're just saying, oh, okay. Well, yeah, we're here. And and 1 thing I'll never forget last year when we're mapping out growth plans, and we were just, kinda mapped it out. It was just like adding 2 or 3 k every single month. And you look back and you don't account for churn.

Nathan Lomax [00:11:56]: Right? And naturally, you're gonna get churn. Now you gotta be careful with churn, and and naturally, everyone sees it as negative. And then not for 1 moment saying you want high churn, but at at the same time, some kind of churn is probably natural over a 3, 4 year life cycle. People are gonna move on. People are gonna change. People are gonna move on hold. People are gonna come into post and wanna bring existing agency, agency, etcetera, or or preexisting relationship. And therefore, that's something you gotta be realistic about.

Nathan Lomax [00:12:20]: But at the same time, if you're gonna focus on anything, it will be reducing slash minimizing churn because that you want that retainer pool to to grow over time.

Richard Hill [00:12:29]: So, yeah, I think that's brilliant. So shifting from, you know, sub 1 to 2 and moving past that, you know, obviously, you are very much you're very clear on your proposition. You know, Shopify Plus for x, y, zed. You know? Was that a quite a turning point, and would that be sort of what would your advice be to people that are maybe doing a bit of this and a bit of that? You know? And, obviously, you're very much, I think, very focused on your ICP. You know, talk to us about that.

Nathan Lomax [00:12:56]: Yeah. So I think, that took time. Initially, it was, okay. We were doing WordPress development primarily. And so when we first decided we were gonna make this transition, and in transparency, it was ecommerce or hospitality was the pass we're gonna go. And, eventually, thank goodness we took ecomm. Right? Because then COVID, etcetera, etcetera, and how different life could have been. But Yeah.

Nathan Lomax [00:13:17]: I think looking back, the the pipeline transitioned from 95% WordPress, 5% Shopify to maybe 80 20, and then 7030, and then 6040, and then you've got the flip. And then suddenly, now I look at the pipeline, I've got nothing in there for for anything other than Shopify, but that's not an overnight transition. That's a probably 6, 12, 18 month transition. Because while all this is going on, you're still trying to maintain and grow an agency and the overhead and keep lines on, etcetera. So it's a very fine line, and saying no more than you say yes is is difficult. Particularly when you're chasing growth targets and you're wanting to do new things and experiment with stuff, that's hard. But, well, the 1 thing I would say is as soon as we did do that and became known for something, that I feel like now I know I'm fishing in a smaller pond. I now know exactly who my type of customer is.

Nathan Lomax [00:14:11]: I can be far more intentional with my activity. And if people take anything from today's session together and and the notes I'm sharing, it's really that intentionality. How can you make sure that what you do, you do with intention? So if you're gonna be, a WordPress developer, how can you be the very best? And how maybe can you focus on a sector rather than a service? Okay. If you're gonna do WordPress as a platform, well, it's incredibly competitive as a landscape. So then how do you carve that niche? And how do you carve that niche outside of price point? Well, is it sector? Is it something within where there's a particular website? Is it client type of a certain size? Like, okay. So for us, Shopify, realistically, Brad's doing 2 to 30 mil. You occasionally get some a little less. You're scheduling it some a little more, but we're seeing more and more people looking for this kind of commerce everywhere approach.

Nathan Lomax [00:14:59]: We're looking for Shopify POS for the retail offering, Shopify store, Shopify, Shopify Plus. And then you might look at, okay, what are the other ancillary products? Is it Shopify b to b, the latest focus there, or is it Shopify payments, or is it something else?

Richard Hill [00:15:13]: Yeah. So very focused, I think, is the message, but it takes time to figure that out. You've got the bills to pay while you get there, so you figure that out. And, obviously, ideally, it's something that pays quite well. There's a there's a market that you're you're gonna get in front of people with that that are in that market. And that probably brings me on to a couple of, options now. I think, you know, you're very well known. I think we can say for events in the ecommerce space, you've kind of you spent the last few years, you know, ecom.

Richard Hill [00:15:40]: We're going ecom. We're going to Shopify ecom. We're going 2 to 30 mil ecom, maybe a bit more brand focused. So now you've gotta get in front of those people. So you know who they are, but you gotta go and find them. You know?

Nathan Lomax [00:15:51]: Yeah.

Richard Hill [00:15:51]: Maybe talk to our listeners about how some of the things you've been doing, around events to sort of get those ICPs at events or

Nathan Lomax [00:15:59]: the people that have the ICPs potentially as well. So that if I'm honest, that started with with that approach, which is the people that have the ICP. So we were doing 50 meaningful conversations a month, which is taken out of the book agent, and I I kind of followed that as a kind of viable if you like. And and 1 of the things there was around that level of conversation. Then we had lockdown. So then I was having 400 conversations a month to meet an awful lot of people, and that was just Well, hang on. Hang on. 400.

Nathan Lomax [00:16:24]: 400. So 20 calls a day for 30 minutes a day, 10 hours back to back, nonstop. 400 calls a month. And the best bit about it was, Richard, the the magic ingredient was 5 introductions after every call. Uh-huh. So every call so the the model is basically based around reciprocity. And now I've been doing a little time. I now know it, but at the time, it was like genuinely, blissfully, and I had no idea what the hell reciprocity was.

Nathan Lomax [00:16:50]: But it was basically the concept of get on a call, listen for 25 minutes, speak for 5, try and make 5 intros that are gonna better that person's life, and then go on to the next 1. And the trouble is, yeah, after you're doing that for 6, 7, 8 months, whatever it was, yes, we met an awful lot of people, but my god, I was up till about 3 in the morning churning out intros to people. I was trying to read through notes, and I was like, what the hell have I written here, etcetera. So that was, but that was that. But what I did is then I was like, okay. Well, I need to start. I need to continue those relationships with people, but the trouble is is that's in multiple 400. Let's say I did it for 6 months, like, nearly 2 and a half 1000 calls, but I can't just keep having those or coffees, etcetera.

Nathan Lomax [00:17:30]: So what about if I ran an agency lunch where I could get 40 or 50 of those people in a room at the same time? And then over 2 hours, I can achieve what I was achieving in,

Richard Hill [00:17:41]: like Yeah.

Nathan Lomax [00:17:41]: 100 hours or 25 hours. So that was the concept initially. And then we were doing those, and I felt comfortable doing those. I got more confidence doing those. And I was thinking, actually, this is great, but we're always we're always, like, not talking directly to brands. We're going through a person to talk to brands. And how do we go directly to brands? So it's like, okay. Well, what about if we ran a retail dinner where we could talk directly to brand lift and shift exactly the same concept, but talking to brand direct.

Nathan Lomax [00:18:10]: And we did 1, and we did 2. And I'm a character of excess at the best of times. So I was like, well, we're not gonna do last year. It was really when we decided we're gonna double down events. We went from probably 2 events a year in 2022 to 45 in 2023. Right? So just like 45 events, Horan Events Manager. Let's go. Let's do it properly.

Nathan Lomax [00:18:31]: Spending 3 nights a week in London. Like, yeah. All in. All in. And that's another thing is that if you want growth, in my opinion, you don't play with it. You go all in. So it's being intentional and like, okay. You want events? Here's 45 of them.

Nathan Lomax [00:18:44]: And what that did is interestingly, that helped us learn what worked and what didn't. So you've got 45 sounds a lot, but when you break it down into event types, it's 5 or 6 repetitive event types. So retail dinners, let's say there's 8 of those. Agency lunches, 4 of those. Ecom partner events, 4 of those. Retail breakfast, 3 of those. Thought leadership events, 4 of those. Like, you just group them.

Nathan Lomax [00:19:08]: So then, you know, like, same venue, same format, same structure. You get consistency. You come. Yeah. Comes easy to scale. But what you also get is the learning. So we ran some amazing events last year. We had over a 1000 brands come through the doors, which is great.

Nathan Lomax [00:19:22]: And now the question is, what's next? And so I would like to grow this community because, naturally, you get these people. They enjoy it. They wanna stay in touch. They ask you questions, etcetera. The question is now how do we turn that to something, again, more intentional? So let's build an actual community, and let's translate that to 5, 000. And if we get 5, 000 brands in a community, then there it's a safe space where they can talk about challenges, wins, frustrations. I wanna know an agency for this. Does anyone know a recommendation for this? Not even John Fi related.

Nathan Lomax [00:19:51]: I'd I'd like to speak. Does anyone know an ops person? I had someone reach out to me the other day that came to our venue. She's lovely. Running a lovely business. She said, yeah, This patient or anyone that does ops, Recon brands? That's, oh, funny. You say that. I do. And and hooked her up, and that was great.

Nathan Lomax [00:20:04]: And and now people come to you with I had someone the other day reach out. Got a quote from an agency. And I don't even know if they're looking for our agency to quote you, but I just wanted a second opinion. And the thing is you're you're moving that dial from being sales to more consultative Mhmm. Kind of Like

Richard Hill [00:20:22]: a trusted adviser.

Nathan Lomax [00:20:23]: Yeah. Right. And that's a transition I encourage anyone to go on is how can they shift to that kind of trusted adviser where genuinely you are looking to do what's best for that brand. And that Yeah. Sometimes means you have to walk away. And you can only do that when you're in a position of strength. And what I mean by that is if you're chasing revenue, if you're trying to plug gaps, etcetera, we're all guilty of it, have been guilty of it. You will onboard the wrong type of brands that you know you're not right for.

Nathan Lomax [00:20:50]: But at the same time, you're like, but I need it to hit certain number, etcetera. And on reflection, getting to that 84, 000 I was saying earlier, that was kind of I was kind of made such a thing of it in my head and what it was gonna be and how life would be so different. And if I'm honest, it it I don't wanna take the magic away for anyone chasing it because it's important to have goals and numbers. And when you write them down, you're far more likely to achieve them when you don't. But, the problems magnify. I never forget 1. So I went to a kind of mentor slash friend, runs an agency in London. I was like, I don't know what I'm gonna do.

Nathan Lomax [00:21:24]: I've I've got, like, 2 weeks, so I've gotta find $10 to pay the wage bill, etcetera. It's about, I don't know, 4 or 5 years ago. And he was like, $10. I got foot like that amount of time to find a $100. And he just realized that it was just relative relative to to that size. And so Yeah. Really, like and I all of a sudden, I was like, oh, 0, in that case, I haven't really got a problem, have I? And, that's the in that in that moment, that, like, that seems like the biggest thing in the world. Right? And so Yeah.

Nathan Lomax [00:21:49]: Yeah. The thing I would say is that whatever journey you're on, there are certain things such as this being intentional, such as this going all in, that it doesn't matter if you're trying to get to 250 this year or you're trying to get to 50, 000, 000 this year. Those principles still apply.

Richard Hill [00:22:04]: Yeah. No. I agree. So events, I think we'll we'll we'll a couple more questions on events. I think, you know, I'm a I'm a I'm a big yep. Events, fantastic. You know? So maybe some of those agencies that are listed in that are like, yeah. But, you know, we're getting people to the event and paying for the venues and, you know, any sort of, strategies for those that are sort of looking to start there.

Richard Hill [00:22:26]: Maybe there there still a couple of events, but they're trying to scale that event that event piece in their business, you know, and, you know, trying to get those people, I think is, I think is possibly the the harder piece where, you know, running event, nice venue, great. You know, get your credit card out, done. You've got your nice venue. You've got your nice food, But getting those people to turn up, you know, and then maybe a sponsor that can help, take some of the paid away. What what would you say on those 2 points? Sponsorship and, getting good bums on seats.

Nathan Lomax [00:23:00]: To to me, it's a mindset shift in terms of as you're not you're not selling something. You're gifting something. You Yep. You are carrying the value. Right? So to the sponsor, okay, we would like £2, 000. You're not selling £2, 000. You're selling the opportunity to speak to 12, 14 brands. So that's the the way to tackle that 1.

Nathan Lomax [00:23:18]: In terms of the brand, it's like you're educating, you're nurturing, you're helping. Like, I don't it's not about working together. It's not about, okay, if you come, you have to be a client. It's about how can I offer as much value to you, and it's a real top of funnel activity? Right? Like, okay. I'd like you to come to an event. I'd like you to see what it's all about. I'd like you to learn from it. I'd like you to meet some great people.

Nathan Lomax [00:23:39]: I'd like to have some great food. I'd like you to leave it feeling like you've learned a lot. I'd then like you to come to another event, or I'd like you to start to talk to me as if you if you have a problem. I always reference my phone as the bat phone, and I'm like, if you have a problem, you call this bad boy, and I will, I'll try and out whether it's not an Android or not. Is there an Android store? Yeah. Exactly. Let let them just find it. It was funny, actually.

Nathan Lomax [00:24:01]: Someone, a lovely lady called Charlotte, she, came to 1 of our dinners. Didn't work together. She was on Shopify, but didn't work together. And she was saying that she was happy with her existing agency, when I got chatting with her, etcetera, and that was great. And because you weren't doing the hard sell, I just said to her, look. Yeah. If ever you have a problem, you just have to shout. It's my personal number.

Nathan Lomax [00:24:20]: If ever you get stuck, shout. Anyway, Black Friday, the day of Black Friday, who calls the bat phone? Charlotte. She's like, hey. No. Leave it. Yeah, this has gone wrong. I've got a massive problem. I don't know what to do.

Nathan Lomax [00:24:34]: I'm losing sales every minute. So I logged in, got access, just reverted back, and and helped to solve it. And then, and then, of course, you build that deep, deep reciprocity, right, where

Richard Hill [00:24:45]: Yep.

Nathan Lomax [00:24:46]: She then decides actually, again, she doesn't then need to decide, oh, I must I'll go work with them. But what she does decide is that she owes you in some way or another. Yeah. So she goes on to to a community she's part of, women that's women in e commerce community, and she posts about this experience where I've just stopped what I was doing, and I just got home from a long week in London. Had a bought the kids a Chinese, and then I was like, really sorry, Gidds, but I'm not gonna be able to enjoy this with you. I've gotta go and help Charlotte out and did all that. And, yeah, the kids and Nikki are very understanding, but at the same time, I think they'll be like, oh, for god's sake. You know, just give us

Richard Hill [00:25:16]: Here we are.

Nathan Lomax [00:25:17]: Here we are again. Yeah. And so, and so I did this. And, anyway, so she did this post. I'd say about 5 or 6 inquiries. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Nathan Lomax [00:25:24]: Where people are like Just Just just Oh,

Richard Hill [00:25:26]: just just Just really genuinely coming from a place of helping and bringing people together and connecting people. And yeah. Yeah. I can relate very much to that. I I we did we did an event at the IRX, the IRX at Birmingham probably 8 years ago. And I met a guy and I I actually can't genuinely, I can't remember meeting this guy. But I spoke to him last week, and he said, he said, you might not remember. He said, but we were just starting out.

Richard Hill [00:25:50]: And, it was clear that we were just starting out, but we you we came over to your stand, and you were really busy, but you made a point of giving us 20 minutes of your time, which just seems normal to me. Yeah. And you thought, why why would I give him 20 minutes of my time? Because he's just started out. You know, literally just started out. I bought his first sort of batch of stuff. Yeah. And he's thinking that I would think that I was too we were too he was too small. And at that time, maybe he was.

Richard Hill [00:26:12]: You know, he was probably, you know, to be a client. And then he rang me last week, and we had an hour call. And, it's well, the guy at the team are working on, but it's looking like he's gonna be quite a client. He's now got an inkjet that

Nathan Lomax [00:26:24]: Yeah. Yeah.

Richard Hill [00:26:25]: He's like he's now he's got an 80, 000 plus square foot warehouse. You know, he's he's had a you know, he's done brilliantly in the last 8 years, and he's sort of, you know, sort of remembered our our conversation from 8 years ago. So yeah. Okay. So That

Nathan Lomax [00:26:38]: is beauty. That that that is exactly what I'm encouraging any agency to do, right, is pay it forwards, build reciprocity, educate, nurture, don't go in with the hard sell. And trust me, it comes back. And sometimes for inch if you look at the short term pipeline, it it can be demoralizing where you're like, bloody hell, there's only so much for me I can give, and I need the return. But, honestly, it compounds over time.

Richard Hill [00:27:01]: Yeah. No. I love that, Nathan. Thank you for sharing. So typical day. I know you're at you know, I think you've taken 9 phone calls since we've been talking, but

Nathan Lomax [00:27:11]: Yeah. Exactly. Not now. Yeah. I've only I've not really texted anybody. So

Richard Hill [00:27:20]: talk step us through a typical day. You know, I think people will be listening in, you know, thinking, oh, they're quite busy, but, you know, there's levels, isn't there, of, like, getting stuff done? But what's a what's a day look like for you, Dave? You know?

Nathan Lomax [00:27:30]: Like, I when I'm at home, I love to do the school run. I think that was really important. Admittedly, I'm in London now 3 days a week, and so I don't get to do as much as I'd like to, but I like having that moment with, my stepdaughter and and spend time with her. Yeah. Then I I I'm absolutely crap in the morning, so I don't get up till fairly late. Like, sort of 6:45, 6:50 is a real struggle. Yeah. Essentially, do the school.

Nathan Lomax [00:27:57]: I'm heading to work. Let's say it's a Monday. Monday or Friday isn't in the office, so they're probably easier once engaged. Then it normally stems around catching up with the team internally, seeing how 1 is. Like, Mondays and Fridays are my chance to to be present in the office and to make sure everyone's alright and also just to hear what's going on. And then you're on calls, basically, back to back. And so I try to long term think, okay. I'm gonna keep white space.

Nathan Lomax [00:28:22]: I'm gonna keep it nice and free, etcetera. And now when someone cancels, they feel really bad. They feel really bad, but I'm like, it's actually a real gift because it gives me half an hour back in the day. Yeah. I can have a gap. Right? And I can it sounds crazy, but I should. And whenever I'm mentoring and talking to agencies or or brands, etcetera, I'm like, make sure you're blocking lunch, and I need to take some of my own medicine. Right? Because, when I'm in London, you you're constantly back to back call, coffee, conversation, etcetera.

Nathan Lomax [00:28:46]: You get to 6 o'clock, and you're like, I should probably have some lunch about now, or breakfast. And then you Yeah. And you manage to eat something, which isn't jelly beans from the, Tod group, which is my little office I I work from. And and then you go straight to an event, which is most nights is an event 2 or 3 nights a week. Try and set that kind of boundary of of 2 or 3 nights where I think that's a fair amount to be out and then the restaurant be home. The the only thing I would say is if you're gonna be home, the challenge is trying to be present when you're home because you Yeah. You are there, but

Richard Hill [00:29:16]: you might

Nathan Lomax [00:29:16]: as well not be there. Yeah. Because you're not thinking about being there. You're not thinking about what's going on or or something to tell you, etcetera. You think you're gonna

Richard Hill [00:29:22]: put You gotta put the bad phone down.

Nathan Lomax [00:29:24]: Yeah. The bad phone down. And that's the trouble. Like, people talk about personal phone and work phone, etcetera. And, you know what? I just I love it, and I wouldn't change it for the world. And I just wanna do more of it. But at the same time, I'd my challenge over the next 12 months is how do I build that separation that there is more to Nathan than just QuickFi. K? That's, that's something that your identity as a person gets locked into the agency, and they think Nathan, they think Quickfire, they think Quickfire, they think Nathan.

Nathan Lomax [00:29:52]: And that's lovely on on many accounts. You know what? Scaling from naught to 2 months is probably exactly what you might want. But when you're looking to kick on from there, that's probably not what you want. And you're now building teams and and senior leadership teams, and you want other people to be the voice of the brand, etcetera, etcetera. And so, yeah, I think that's a that's a challenge for us this year is how do we how do we make it less than Nathan Show, especially when I kinda like it being the Nathan Show. Yeah. Yeah. So, I'm kind of going against what I like in turn of what's right for the agency versus what's right for me.

Richard Hill [00:30:26]: Yeah. No. That makes perfect sense. So I guess that hiring and getting the right people in the right seats, you know, what would you say? Obviously, you say you're 29 people.

Nathan Lomax [00:30:37]: Yeah. 29 now. So some

Richard Hill [00:30:40]: of the learnings that you can impart on our listeners around that sort of because I I think there's, like, a couple of key milestones, like, 10 people getting those

Nathan Lomax [00:30:49]: back. 13. 13 was our first 1. Yeah. Yeah. I'm lucky for some.

Richard Hill [00:30:53]: Yeah. So 13 was, like, a sticking point for you, and then you boom. But then eventually, it went past it, you mean?

Nathan Lomax [00:30:58]: Or Yeah. 13 and then 20 Yeah. Or 21. And now we're probably there or thereabouts again where you essentially get I never forget a 13. You get you start getting relationships between team members. You start getting, HR every day. I wanna say HR every day. I know bad stuff, but can't

Richard Hill [00:31:15]: come in.

Nathan Lomax [00:31:16]: I'm sick. Dogs ill. Whatever. Whatever. Like, you get

Richard Hill [00:31:18]: Every day almost.

Nathan Lomax [00:31:19]: Yeah. Just just noise. And then at 20, you then start getting more and more around hierarchy and career progression. And, actually, that's less about everyone being scrappy and and getting to where you wanna get to. And now it's like it's a more corporate structure, and you've got, there were levels and reporting and and the chance for promotion and that kind of thing. And now at 30, you've got this senior leadership team level, and how do people get on there? And if they're not right for there, then how do you have that conversation? They can still grow without being on it. And, yeah, I think the best thing we did most recently is hired a head of people to try and just take their noise away from the founders. And so at 13, I would say, naught to 13, it's very much a family feel.

Nathan Lomax [00:32:01]: Right? And you are I mean, we used to have people back to my house and, yeah, like, it was very much kind of, like, very intimate. And then 13 to 20 was a little bit more distancing myself and making sure I wasn't always the last 1 out or night out, and and you were just kind of, like, just Yeah. Getting those boundaries. Yeah. Then 20 30 has really been around trying to empower people more and and letting go with that kind of accidental micromanagement where you're like, you'd see someone send an email or reply to a car, and you go, 0II wouldn't have done it like that. But at the end of day, that's where we hire people. Right?

Richard Hill [00:32:36]: Like, you can't change

Nathan Lomax [00:32:38]: where I want that. You can you can try and educate them. I still got work to do on that, personally, to be honest, in terms of Mhmm. Just because I wouldn't have done it that way, it doesn't mean that can't be done. And I actually got to a point, actually, not that long ago, where you when you're in the office, you can't help but overhear conversations. And you overhear something, and then you wanna jump in and solve it. And, actually, you take away the opportunity for, them to solve it, and they can solve it. Right? Then what you need to do is more hold up the mirror, less give the solution.

Nathan Lomax [00:33:07]: And that's something I'm trying to read about and learn about is I need to be like, okay. You've come to me with this problem. What do you think is the solution? What do you think? Gonna solve it? Yeah. How how are you gonna

Richard Hill [00:33:18]: solve it?

Nathan Lomax [00:33:18]: Rather than, I see this is a problem, and I think you should do this, and this is who would do it. And there's a script I've written for you to send and everything else, like no. No. No. Your problem. Yep. How are you gonna solve it? I'm here. No.

Richard Hill [00:33:29]: No. No. No. No.

Nathan Lomax [00:33:30]: Yeah. I'm the stabilizers. I'm not the bike.

Richard Hill [00:33:32]: Yeah. No. I love that. I love that. So you're senior leadership team. Yeah. I think those that are, I'm I'm I'm in I'm personally interested as well. Sort of how that's made up and how have you sort of, promoted so many people within the business, brought people in for specific roles within our leadership?

Nathan Lomax [00:33:52]: Yes. It's a small team at the moment, so there's 3. There's, Eva who, kinda heads up projects at the moment. There's Matt who heads up development, and there's Kat who looks after people, who's that recent hire I talked about. And, and, yeah, I'd like to have, we tried an ops role last year, and for whatever reason, that didn't work out. And so we're kind of that will be another role eventually that joins the SLT. There's someone probably to manage growth. Finances the finance team don't join the the SLT sessions, but at the same time, they probably would have a voice there.

Nathan Lomax [00:34:27]: So you'd probably have finance ops, growth slash revenue, project retainers, dev, something in and around that, as a structure, and then you've got the founders, of course. So us founders are are there offering input. And I think the next thing for us is that we've never done this before. We've never been this size. We've never had these structures, etcetera. So you kind of are sometimes learning a bit on the go, and therefore, the 1 criticism I would have or or bit of feedback that we need to improve on is the structure of those sessions. They can very easily turn to, like, daily stand ups just on steroids. Right? So they're just like, oh, okay.

Nathan Lomax [00:35:08]: Well, I'm gonna, yeah, I'm gonna talk about this client over here. And I said, no. No. That's what the daily operational meeting's for. Right? This is Yeah.

Richard Hill [00:35:16]: That's not for this. Yeah.

Nathan Lomax [00:35:17]: More more strategic. The best thing we did recently is we did a, with the marketing team. We did an off-site, and I took them to a totally different location, and I sat down with the whole day, and we spreadsheet down. I just said, alright. Top level, I want you to forget any kind of cash restraint, any kind of time restraint. How do we 10 x this activity? Like, I wanna know big picture. How am I gonna 10 x it? And, okay, you can introduce new markets. You can do this.

Nathan Lomax [00:35:43]: You can put more spend behind it, etcetera, etcetera. I was like, great. This is the kind of thinking where we need to get to. So the challenge for team leadership team is how do we do the same? Like, don't spend our time thinking how we're gonna, go from today to tomorrow, but how we're gonna go from 2024 to 2027.

Richard Hill [00:36:01]: Yeah. Yeah. Big thinking rather than trying to,

Nathan Lomax [00:36:05]: Big thinking. And that's a we don't have much time as much time for it as we'd like, and those are the sessions, I think, where we should focus on that. And also just getting the guys to to report, in any war and peace, but at the same time, giving us some accountability. Right? Like, this is your area. Like, tell us what's working well, what's not. We we often use a rag system like red, amber, green. What's going well? What what could be improved? What actually need needs to to stop and start something totally different. And that is something that the the the art of all of these sessions and meetings and time is to follow-up and the actions.

Nathan Lomax [00:36:38]: And, again, this is 1 thing. If you're listening and you're thinking, oh, I'd love to see the leadership team. I'd love a few more internal meetings, etcetera. Don't forget the opportunity cost of the the meeting. So the opportunity cost of 6 people in a room, 150 hour hourly rate times that, okay, over 2 hours, like, suddenly, it's a cost of the business or an opportunity cost to the business. And then if you're not taking actions and following up on the actions and following through on the actions was the point of the meeting in the 1st place. Yeah. And so just being overly critical of yourself to say, if we're gonna do it, we're gonna do it properly, or we're not gonna do it at all.

Richard Hill [00:37:11]: Do you, have a specific sort of, model that you follow? I know a lot of agencies talk about traction and EOS. Do you have, like, you know, their sort of meeting structure is like an L10, for example, where there's sort of they have an IDS section, and that's really what the meeting's about is identify, discuss, and solve, and solve it quick as you can, and it's nice and snappy.

Nathan Lomax [00:37:31]: No. We, as, again, it's a gap for us. We have we have a traffic light system or a rag system, and we, we try and follow that as best we can. But at the same time, I'd say, again, bit of feedback team is that it's so easy to get distracted. Right? So you someone talks about a topic and perhaps they don't have all the context of it, or perhaps they are emotionally charged by a situation that came around it. And suddenly, you've gone into a rabbit hole for 55 minutes about a topic, which is not a not even a, you know, interesting topic, let alone a 55 minute topic. Yeah. So having someone to go and, again, when when emotions running high, etcetera, as they often are in those kind of things, you just wanna make sure that, if you're trying to shut it down, like, you've gotta be conscious of the person that raised it in the 1st place, that they've still their mother got a voice.

Nathan Lomax [00:38:20]: So just being like, oh, this is a It's tricky, isn't it? Leadership team. They're like, I didn't know that. And to me, that is. That's the most important thing in their world. And so giving them the time to understand it is really there's a guy called Trenton Moss, that if you come across him, he's written a really cool book that I was reading the other day about this. I'm just trying to think what it was called. It's called Human Powered, by Trenton Moss. It's a really nice book around that and meetings, etcetera.

Nathan Lomax [00:38:48]: I really enjoyed that. So that might be 1 to have a look at. But it's, yeah. If you can do meetings, do them properly or don't do them at all.

Richard Hill [00:38:56]: Yeah. I think that's brilliant. That may have out. If you're, tracking your time like you should be, I think,

Nathan Lomax [00:39:02]: then you got another hour. Yeah.

Richard Hill [00:39:05]: And then you realize you just spent whatever it is, 4 grand a week on meetings that could have easily been, 1 grand a week maybe. And then he times that by 52, we just found a 150 k in the business. We We didn't need that higher after all. We just needed to get on with it.

Nathan Lomax [00:39:18]: Yeah. Yeah.

Richard Hill [00:39:20]: So last couple of questions, Nathan. What keeps you

Nathan Lomax [00:39:23]: up at night? Right now, Richard, I want this is fear of loss. So as it gets bigger, we get towards our destination, whatever that may be. That conversation around the start of this around options. And is that to buy something else? Is that to be bought, etcetera? And what keeps me up is the fear of losing all. All my eggs are in this basket. My identity is strapped to this entity. And, you know, the McDonald's guys that have the the badges? I see, like, if you grow and sell an agency or buy an agency, you get 1 of these, like, gold stars. And I feel like I am on my path to a gold star, and I'm super worried that something might happen.

Nathan Lomax [00:40:02]: I might not get my gold star. So I'd say that's what that's what keeps me up at night, from a personal level. From the business, it's just the same old challenges of win more work, service more work, look after more client, when will work. So so at any point in time, it can be pipeline. It can be operations and delivery. It can be client satisfaction.

Richard Hill [00:40:22]: It can then loop back. It can be all 3.

Nathan Lomax [00:40:22]: It can be done. Satisfaction. It can then loop back. It can be all 3. It can be done. Yeah. It really depends on what minute of the day you are. I'd say as granular as that.

Nathan Lomax [00:40:30]: Like, what minute of the day you are. Yeah. Yeah. But right now, to be fair, like, touch words, problem's strong. Clients seem to be happy. Operations and process seems to be solid. So k. Well, that's all good.

Nathan Lomax [00:40:43]: I always joke about this. Normally, home life is crazy and work life is, like, stable, or home life is amazing and work life is crazy. And wishing for that day of utopia where both are beautiful, and then you're like, cool. Okay. But who knows what happens then? That's probably the day that we do something else. But, yeah, that's, that's what keeps me up at night.

Richard Hill [00:41:03]: No. I love it, Nathan. Well, thank you so much for coming on the show. I'd like to end every episode with a book recommendation. Now you did mention 1. Have you got a favorite 1?

Nathan Lomax [00:41:11]: Yeah. You know what? Like, that that book was interesting, but, there's a guy called Matt Sykes, that does some search. And I mean, my my job is around new business, sales growth, etcetera. And so he's got a training company, I think, called Sales Cadence, and he has a book called Sales Glue. And I really enjoyed that book most recently. I read that. I've got another, which is Smash the Funnel, which I've just stopped reading. I finished that.

Nathan Lomax [00:41:36]: I quite enjoyed that. And I mean, thing with these books, right, is there's there's certain bits in there you know, and it's good, like, reminders. There's certain stuff that you pick up. But, yeah, my habit this year is 10 pages a day of reading, and I'm really enjoying that. And so the Jake Humphreys and Damien Hughes book, there's a gold it's a gold cover. I'm just trying to think what it's called. That's also a really enjoyable read. That was my first book I read this this side of the year.

Nathan Lomax [00:42:04]: So, yeah, those those 3 or 4 is the books I've read this year, and I've really enjoyed them. I like books with practical tips. Yeah. III go on holiday. I don't wanna read fiction. That's not my thing. I just wanna be like, how can I grow this thing? How can I get better? How can I be a better leader, a better person, a better partner, etcetera, etcetera? So anything around self help, etcetera, I'm I'm all listening.

Richard Hill [00:42:30]: Well, thank you, Nathan. It's been an absolute blast having a listen to, the journey and where you're headed. Looking forward to I think maybe in 12 months, we'll get you back on to see how see how things are going, see if you get enough earlier or later.

Nathan Lomax [00:42:45]: I'll be smiling or crying, but either way, it's a it's a real pleasure. What yourself and Carriead and the team are are doing, is awesome, and I really appreciate all all your help and support. So thank you. Thank you for having me, and, I look forward to to keeping in touch.

Richard Hill [00:42:59]: Yeah. So for for those that wanna find out more about you, Nathan, and more about Quickfire, what's the best way to do that?

Nathan Lomax [00:43:04]: Yeah. Just LinkedIn is is probably the best way to find out by myself about Quickfire. To be honest, it's probably probably LinkedIn again. We are doing horrible events and webinars and things like that, but, actually, my launch has has been on that platform. So

Richard Hill [00:43:17]: I can thoroughly recommend following Nathan on LinkedIn. I wake up to the most days to Nathan's, updates around Ecom and his and his adventures. So I would thoroughly recommend following Nathan on LinkedIn. Well, thanks, Nathan. Yeah. No. It's absolute blast.

Nathan Lomax [00:43:29]: Thanks for your time. Take care.

Richard Hill [00:43:31]: Cheers. If you enjoyed this episode, hit the subscribe or follow button wherever you are listening to this podcast. You're always the first to know when a new episode is released. Have a fantastic day, and I'll see you on the next 1.