#145 – 7 Timeless Lessons for Growing a Web Design Business in 2025 with Rich Brooks of Flyte New Media

Shannon Mattern (00:01.994)

Hello everyone and welcome back to the Profitable Web Designer podcast. Today I'm joined by Rich Brooks, founder and president of Flyte New Media, which is a digital agency in Portland, Maine that's been in business for over 28 years. Rich is a nationally recognized speaker on entrepreneurship and digital marketing and social media. You may have seen him on inc.com or at social media marketing world.

And he's an author. He's the founder of the Agents of Change, which is an annual conference and weekly podcast that focuses on search, social, and mobile marketing. So Rich, thank you so much for being here on the Profitable Web Designer podcast.

The Rich Brooks (00:40.3)

Shannon, it's an absolute pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Shannon Mattern (00:42.868)

Yeah. So you have been on my list of people that I've wanted to talk to for quite a while. And when our mutual friend, Paul Klein, who taught me everything I know about pricing strategy for service providers, when we were chit chatting and he was like, have you, have I introduced you to rich yet? You know, and he offered to connect us. I was like, yes, please do. So just to kick things off, can you take us back in your time machine?

to the beginning 28 years ago, what inspired you to start your agency back then?

The Rich Brooks (01:15.278)

Yeah.

The Rich Brooks (01:20.728)

Well, yeah, so the year was 1997. It was not an agency. It was me working out of my bedroom with an old Mac performer that could barely perform. know, it was just, those were the days. And I was working in medical sales and enjoyed it. In fact, to be honest, I would say that the most important job I ever had was in sales. That gave me the confidence to then go on and do other things. But basically,

Shannon Mattern (01:26.304)

You

The Rich Brooks (01:47.18)

I was starting to read articles in the Boston Globe. lived down in Boston at the time and these reporters talking about the internet and I had always felt computer savvy and suddenly I had no idea what they were talking about, which really pissed me off. So I basically, you know, got a computer and started teaching myself how to build web pages. first just to get on the internet was a challenge back then, but then figuring out how to start building things. And at one point I just decided like, this is something I really enjoy doing. And I was starting to get tired of my other job. And I basically said,

I'll give it two years. After two years, either programmers are going to learn how to design or designers will learn how to program. I'll be out of a job, but it'll be a fun two years. This shows how little I know knew about business at the time, because I didn't realize you could just hire people who are more talented than you. Which is ultimately how I ended up growing my business. But back then it was me and my old Mac Performa and basically just cranking out websites for, you know, if I was lucky $500 and I did everything and it was, it was fun, but

Over time, I started to add a lot more services to what now is called Flight New Media has to offer.

Shannon Mattern (02:52.864)

I love that story. And I know so many of our listeners can relate to the, you know, just that curiosity and the passion and the drive to want to just try something different. And even now in 2025, which sounds crazy to say that we're already in 2025, you know, there are people that are like, yeah, I'm starting this business in my office, in my bedroom, at my kitchen table.

and still starting the same way. So you had your sales background. I imagine that skill led you to getting your first clients, but how did you get your first clients back in the day?

The Rich Brooks (03:36.27)

so that's interesting. So basically I was working for this company at the time called ultra care services. were, we were medical supply company and more or less when my boss wasn't looking one day, I just, cause I can't just play around on the web. need to like have a goal. So when I'm learning anything, so I basically said, I'll, build a website for the company. I came in, I showed it to my boss. He immediately took me off the road, visiting nursing homes and selling to them and made me his in-house marketer.

which was not a good fit for me actually. I just didn't do well in the office environment that was there at the time. So that's part of the reason why I ended up quitting and going out on my own. But yeah, that was like my first website and I showed it to him and then I talked to a couple of other clients of ours and talked to them. I ended up getting a lot of business through my dad, which is probably not a story that's new to anybody. You you talk to friends and relatives first. My dad at the time.

was, is, a clinical psychologist in Boston. He was well known. He spoke a lot and I said, let me build a website for you. He had no idea what I was doing, but he's like, sure. I think it was mostly he didn't want me to fail and move back in the house. But whatever the case is, I think he let me redo his website like four times in that first year just to keep me, you know, in the ability to live on my own. And

he would speak to a bunch of other groups. And at the time, psychologists did not have websites. Like that was just not a thing that was happening. Most people, most businesses didn't have them. So he would, people would say, well, how'd you get a website? And he had a stack of my cards with him. He'd be like, you should talk to my son. And that's literally like probably 80 % of my first few years in business were doing websites for either psychologists or for the groups he was speaking to, which were a lot of ADHD and learning disabilities groups. They were looking for websites. And so that's kind of how I started to cut my teeth and all that.

And then over time, you start to build up a reputation.

Shannon Mattern (05:29.39)

Yeah, so here's the thing about you that I find really interesting in that you run a digital marketing agency, you help people with digital marketing strategies. And yet the juxtaposition of that is I see you speaking, building relationships, you know,

positioning yourself as like an industry leader, meeting a lot of people in a very analog kind of way, right? And so that's one of the challenges that I, or that's kind of one of my passions, I guess I would say is like teaching web designers and people who are in like those first five, you know, three to five years of business, like how to build a business.

in a way that like maybe seems in conflict with what they're doing for their clients, right? Like they're building these digital marketing machines for their clients and yet they don't need to necessarily market themselves the same way. So I'm curious like what your philosophy or thought is about that.

The Rich Brooks (06:24.579)

Yeah.

The Rich Brooks (06:38.338)

That's an excellent, excellent observation, Janet. And I would say that it reminds me of something that happened a few years ago. One of the ways that I continue to grow as a, I mean, I don't do web design anymore. I have a team that does the work for me. But one of the ways that I've kind of grown as a leader, as a business owner, is by starting an agency mastermind with three other agency owners who we don't compete with each other, but we have a lot of mutual respect. And so we.

talk about it. And one time I came to them and I said, listen, here's my issue. It's like, we're running Google Ads. We've run them successfully for our clients. We're not getting even a nibble on these. And two of the people in the group said, yeah, I stopped doing those years ago. They just don't work for us. And it was really an interesting reminder that everybody's business is different. And sometimes the way the channels, the messaging,

We just need to be very observant of what's working and what's not working because sometimes best practices are not actually going to result in best results. So for me, one of the things that I discovered early on, early on blogging, being on Twitter, those were huge generators of business. That just doesn't really work for us anymore. Yes, we still do get some business from people who find us when they do a Google search on Google ads or Facebook ads or web design, whatever it is. But most of it, and of course, this is

27, 28 years later has been built on our reputation. And one of the things that I enjoy doing is going out and doing public presentations. I do them virtually and I do them in person. enjoy both. actually enjoy in-person events more. And that's been great because there's, as you know, there's a lot of competition online. You know, there's competition in the news feeds, there's competition on social media, there's competition in Google, in SEO, in the inbox. But if you're up on stage,

Shannon Mattern (07:58.88)

you

The Rich Brooks (08:27.712)

And yes, there may be concurrent sessions with you, but you have that audience. You are physically higher than them. They have to look up to you. There's no other, hopefully distractions in the room and you can establish yourself as the expert in that room. The best events for me generally are when, it's not about digital marketing. It's usually an association meeting of, of some industry. And I'm like one of the only, if not the only person talking about digital marketing.

And that has been very beneficial to us. That kind of builds trust and then they're interested in working with us. So that's been probably one of the biggest ways that we've, that I've gotten business for the company. And I'm sure a lot of your audience would, would find similar things and you don't have to start. I mean, one of my biggest audiences ever was over 800 people at social media marketing world, but I started with 12 people at the chamber of commerce and I sold.

tickets, think they were all of $25, but I sold tickets to a presentation on SEO and that's how you get started. So I think that that's one of the ways that you can approach it for sure.

Shannon Mattern (09:31.391)

I couldn't agree with you more. mean, I've spoken to a room of like six women about, you know, building your web design business. And, you know, one of the reasons that I love podcasting and, you know, podcast guesting or speaking at virtual events or in-person events is, you know, same, same thing for me. I'm like, I've tried ads and different things and the format of what we do just hasn't seemed to like

the, I guess the time from someone to become a customer from the time they click on an ad for us, it's just not, it just doesn't work with our business model. And so, you know, I'm all about going out there and meeting people and building relationships and, you know, connecting and adding value in different ways. And I think one of the things that I'm trying to help our listeners understand is like, you don't have to market.

your business the same way you help your clients market theirs. if you just stop trying and, you know, go like people, people tell me all the time. My biggest problem is that all my business comes from word of mouth and referrals. And I'm like, that's your biggest opportunity. What are you talking about? That's not a problem.

The Rich Brooks (10:40.608)

Right. Yeah. Maybe you just need to start asking more people to recommend you rather than just waiting for those to roll in. But that's a fantastic stream. And even when I, cause of course I track all this stuff and I'm like, okay, here's all the people who have talked to me about business or all the proposals I sent out. How did they hear of us? And usually it's, you know, associate of rich or, or, you know, saw rich speak, or it's somebody referred me and the original referrer was somebody who saw me speak. So.

Shannon Mattern (10:47.86)

Yes.

The Rich Brooks (11:10.2)

There's always those kinds of interactions and no, you don't want to have just one channel for getting referrals, but word of mouth is probably one of the most, first of all, the most cost effective way of doing it. And also it's built in because if you enjoyed working with them and they enjoyed working with you, if they're going to recommend you to somebody, chances are you're going to like working with them as well. I've had clients who I don't necessarily like and weren't a great fit. They're like, you give me a discount because I can recommend you. And I'm thinking to myself, I don't want more of you as clients. Quite honestly, I don't say that.

I just say, yeah, no, you should pay for what you get.

Shannon Mattern (11:44.362)

Well, that's a great segue to my next question is like, what are some of those early challenges that you had in like really finding the right fit clients and, you know, working your way to like building the agency that you've built around those right fit clients?

The Rich Brooks (12:04.352)

Right. And you don't know that right out of the gate. I mean, you may have your own personal feelings. I like people who are straightforward or I like people who are kind, but you the bottom line is you start to understand who you're best suited to serve and who's a good fit for you. And, you know, for us, it's people who, you know, after all this time in business, our best clients are the owners or a director of marketing as somebody in that position who has the ear of the owner and can make their own decisions. Like for us, we get the best input.

We do our best work when there's an internal person who's passionate about marketing, who understands the benefit of marketing and is willing to work with us to really help them, like more of a partnership. But there are other people where you might feel like, listen, I don't need anything from you. I'm going to design your website. I'm going to write your copy. I'm going to do everything. I need you to stay out of it. So some of it is just experience. You start to see who are these people who you like working with, who are the people who you don't like working with. And then you start looking at the channels you got them from, like, oh, you know, I was

posting on Reddit or X or whatever it may be, and I'm getting really good or really bad leads. Those are the kinds of things, or I really like working with sustainable businesses. So let me go reach out to some organizations around sustainable businesses and see if they need somebody to come and do a presentation for them on marketing or web design or whatever it may be. So that's some of the ways, but it really just comes down to going through the experience. You are going to have.

some really crappy clients who you literally can't wait to fire. And by the way, I don't mean to be cruel, but one of the greatest feelings in the world is firing a bad client. I've done it actually on a zoom call when I didn't like the way he was talking to a coworker of mine. I, know, I was trying to save the business. I'm trying to explain to him why things are going the way that they are. And then he just snapped at her and I said, you know what? I think we're done here. I'll refund the rest of your money and you don't need to do anything else. And I closed the zoom call.

And I think my coworker was like impressed that I put her in front of the client paying client, because I'm like, nobody should be happy. Nobody should have to work with somebody like that. And so those are the kinds of things that also make a difference.

Shannon Mattern (14:13.025)

It is the most empowering feeling ever to stand your ground. you know, and it's like, we talk about this all the time in the Web Designer Academy too, because we work with people, we coach the business side of running a web design business. And we work with people who are coming out of corporate. They are coming out of a lifetime of conditioning that their boss is right. And

You know, they do what the client says and the customer is always right. And they're bend themselves over backwards and turn into a pretzel to please everyone. And my number one job is to like help them undo that and really step into a position of like leadership and authority in a mutually beneficial way, not in a like my way or the highway kind of way and really help them. Yeah, it's not, and it's not a you're above me or I'm above you. It's a,

The Rich Brooks (15:00.47)

Right, it's not a bullying situation.

Shannon Mattern (15:06.944)

partnership, but it does take a lot of undoing of some of that I call employee mindset that I totally brought into my web design business in the early days where I'm like, well, I have 10 clients and they're all my boss and I have to make them all happy and I get to be talked to this way because I guess that's just how it is. And if I fire them, they'll be upset and I won't have any more money. And I just learned all of that stuff the hard way to until I was like, wait,

The Rich Brooks (15:33.08)

Right.

Shannon Mattern (15:35.38)

This is my company. I get to run it how I want. And I needed help to figure that out. But yeah.

The Rich Brooks (15:41.134)

think sometimes those lessons happen through happenstance. I remember back when I was doing medical sales and I had one foot out the door already and I had to do this expo. We had all of our products lined up. I was doing it by myself. I was so not interested in being there and you know, we were selling to nursing staffs and stuff and one of the nurses comes by and she looks at my table and she kind of says, I don't think I need any of your stuff. And I'm like, I bet you you don't. And I literally turned away from her because I could, I could really give to and she's like, well,

Well, maybe I can. I watched her talk herself into, I don't remember if we got the business, but talk herself into wanting the products. And then she left and the guy next to me said, that was some amazing reverse psychology. And part of me was like, what's reverse psychology? Right. But I'm a son of a psychologist. So I kind of knew what it was, but I was like, huh, that's really interesting. And it's always about, it's never about manipulating people. I know that there are many people who are very successful at being manipulators, but it is about understanding human condition and also understanding where you're.

where your barriers are. And so I think when it comes to like, I'm also a people pleaser. I want everybody to like me. I'm the Michael Scott of the group. You know, it's like, everybody's got to like me. But I also realize that they're not going to like me or respect me in the long run. If I just keep on saying, yes, yes, yes, yes. So there are times and sometimes these are difficult, unhappy conversations where I just have to say, we can't do it that way. We can't make that deadline or just say, look, you're not giving me what I need. And we're to have to push this off.

Those are never great conversations or pleasant conversations. But when you start putting up those parameters, some people will be upset, but other people will really start to respect you. And one of the things I talked to my team about is you are the expert and the client is paying us good money because of your expertise. So if you're saying, well, I guess, or I, you know, I wonder, like there are times to say those kinds of things, but they want to feel confident.

that they've chosen the right company. So sometimes you just have to say things based on your experience with, and my favorite phrase is, if this were my company, this is what I would do. And then it's up to them. It is their decision, but I'm going to say like, if I were in your shoes, I would go with this tier website, or I would definitely do the SEO during the website build because it'll be more cost effective in the long run, whatever it may be.

Shannon Mattern (18:00.904)

Yeah, so good. So I, you know, we met through our mutual friend, Paul Klein, who used to have a podcast called Pricing is Positioning. And I'm so glad. Yeah. So he was on the, he was on the agents of change podcast and he came on my old podcast, pep talks for side hustlers. And, you know, he's, he, he really broke my brain wide open when it came to thinking about.

The Rich Brooks (18:11.19)

And he was a great guest on my podcast too.

Shannon Mattern (18:30.174)

the value of what I do, how to sell it, how to position it, how to talk to clients about it. I'm curious like what your early journey with pricing was and how it evolved over time in terms of like when you were just you versus growing the agency. Like, yeah, what's your pricing story?

The Rich Brooks (18:49.452)

Right. early on, did, I always was fascinated by psychology and marketing is really just psychology put into the business world as far as I'm concerned. And pricing is a, it's really all about psychology. I mean, yes, there is a, have to make more money than you spend part of it, but it really comes down to how you're positioning everything. And I remember from some of my early psychology college texts, the whole idea of like anchoring.

And basically having a price. So when we first started, when I first started, I had three price points for websites. It was like, and I'm embarrassed to even say these out loud now, but it was like 500, a thousand and 1500. And I knew no one would ever spend $1,500 on a website, but I put that price in there because I just basically wanted to make the other prices feel more reasonable. And, um, I think the third one was described as when you want to be the best in your industry.

you know, just like to make it. And somebody's like, I want to be the best in my industry. want that one. And I suddenly, I was completely scared because I'm like, my, now I actually have to deliver on this website. That's going to be the best in this industry. so there was a lot of that. There was a lot of like, a lot of times I was embarrassed to ask for money. I was embarrassed to charge. there used to be a, before constant contact, we use an email service company. I think they were called topic. I don't even remember.

Shannon Mattern (19:48.384)

you

The Rich Brooks (20:11.928)

But it was like $30 a month. like, I can't ask my clients to pay for that. So I'm to put all of their stuff under my account and that way they'll only have to pay terrible idea on about a hundred different levels. have no, you know, once I realized that all of them were basically locked into my account, they couldn't do what they want to do. I ultimately realized they just have to pay for what they're doing and I will design, build, send out their newsletters, whatever services they want to pay for. that took a long time. And then probably the most important lesson that I learned and I

I really, I really didn't learn this until like the last five to 10 years is that if you want to be successful, especially in this industry, you have to come up with, recurrable revenue. You have to find something that you can basically get a check from your clients every single month for delivering something. And that makes all the difference because

For the first 15 years of my business, it was hustle, hustle, hustle. And the only reason we survived the recession and everything else is because I refused to give up. Like I'm like, it would be too humiliating for me to fail and close this building business. So I will do whatever it takes to stay in business in terms of hustle. And while it worked, it was exhausting and it wasn't super profitable. These days, almost everything we offer is more of a recurring revenue play.

Shannon Mattern (21:12.483)

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

The Rich Brooks (21:32.352)

rather than a project. We still do websites. Those do tend to be projects, although we do have one lower end website that you can pay for monthly that we've experimented with. But my favorite things are to sell things like Google Ads, SEO, and social ads because I know that we have to manage those ads every single month. I know what the business is coming in. I know how long the contracts are. I know the churn rate on these. And it lets me sleep at night. And sure, it doesn't get rid of all of your concerns. We raised our rate.

Shannon Mattern (21:52.352)

Yeah.

The Rich Brooks (22:01.868)

recently and we found that the churn rate was higher than we expected. And so now I'm hustling a little bit to play catch up, but it's so smoothed out that feast and famine that used to drive our business. And when I talk to other agencies and other web developers who don't have that in place, I hear that story all the time. It's like either they're so busy, they've got no time to sleep or they're so dead, they can't fall asleep because they're freaking out.

Shannon Mattern (22:21.536)

I so appreciate you sharing that story because, you know, I think, you know, the early pricing struggles that you shared are ones that I hear all the time. We've all been there and, you know, just to see where you've gone.

It's like, there's hope for all of us yet. Right? Like we've all made those early mistakes and it is a journey. Sometimes you learn them through pain. Sometimes you learn them through education. and I can so relate to like just being unwilling to let something fail for lack of a better word, but just being so passionate about the thing that you're doing, that you're just willing to like hustle so hard to,

to keep it successful. And I've been through those ups and downs in my journey with this business. you learn so much from it, but we, you mentioned recurring revenue. We just hosted an entire online conference last week with 30 guest speakers, all talking about different ways to create recurring revenue in your design business, because I'm right there with you. is so important.

The Rich Brooks (23:33.622)

Mmm, nice.

Shannon Mattern (23:38.204)

And, you know, pricing that profitably and sustainably in a way that like doesn't take over your life and, you know, being able to serve multiple clients and structuring it, structuring it that way, especially when you're building a team. So I don't know, I'm curious to hear your experience, but when I added team members, I wasn't necessarily emotionally prepared for the level of commitment I felt to making sure that like.

they were taken care of. Like it caused me to hustle so much harder and it actually had a negative impact for a little while on the business that I was like too enrolled in like this, what I felt like was like a lifetime commitment to them and their family. like, tell me, tell me more about like your philosophy on hiring and maybe what some of those early experiences were like for you. You have a, you have a big team now.

The Rich Brooks (24:36.142)

Well, I mean, I have 10 people including myself, so I don't know if it's a big team. Right. Exactly. I know very successful companies that are either solopreneurs or two people. And then I know companies that are successful or not successful that have over a hundred people. I think you want it before AI.

Shannon Mattern (24:39.466)

That's, well, I mean, to me, that's 10 times more people than I have, or five times more people than I have.

Shannon Mattern (24:49.385)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (24:54.292)

Sure.

The Rich Brooks (24:58.594)

I, my goal was always to get to somewhere between 15 and 20 people. And the reason was because I wanted to be too deep in every position. So if somebody goes on vacation, there's somebody to fill in. If somebody leaves the company for whatever reason, there's somebody to fill in until we bring in the next person. Like we have been hurt by being so thin in certain positions where somebody left. it's like, all of a sudden I'm running Facebook ads and nobody wants me running their Facebook ads. mean, could I do it? Yes. I mean, but I'm like moved to tears at the end of it. Cause I hate it so much. I have people now who are.

Shannon Mattern (25:05.056)

Mm-hmm.

Shannon Mattern (25:15.22)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (25:21.12)

You

The Rich Brooks (25:27.904)

Amazing. So as far as like hiring people, you know, that's a decision for most people, like when you just get so busy and you know, there's more work coming for me. I had a client at the time that started demanding more of my time. And they basically said, we love working with you, but we need to give you more work. And if you can't take on that work, we're going to have to go elsewhere. We really think you need to hire another person.

And that was really kind of how I got started. And I made every possible bad decision when it came to hiring in the early days. I had no process or anything like that. I didn't know about a lot of these local organizations like the small business development centers or score, any of those organizations that are there to help small businesses grow. So I didn't know who to turn to. I lucked out with a couple of hires. I didn't luck out with other hires. Now we have a whole process and there's, but at the time you don't have a standard operating procedure when you're just starting out. So.

For me, was, it was just temp workers at the time. You know, they come in for a few hours a week or whatever. It was out of my apartment. That kind of got weird. It was actually having more regular people coming into my house. that caused me to get an office because I'm like, it's weird that like, if I go to the doctor, I have to basically close the office for the day so I can go to the doctor because I'm not leaving these people alone in my house. So, you know, that then caused me to go out and get in and start to become a legitimate business at that point, which led to other.

Shannon Mattern (26:42.321)

you

The Rich Brooks (26:54.22)

both positive and negative things, yeah, hiring people, feeling responsibility for them, not just financially for them and their families, you know, because you might be providing health insurance like we do, we contribute to their health insurance and some other things, but it's also to their professional growth. That wasn't a consideration when I first started hiring people. I'm like, I need you to build a website, like go build this website. Where now it's like, okay, what courses do we need to enroll you in? Like what's the training process for getting you up to speed?

Shannon Mattern (27:02.432)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (27:06.462)

Yep.

The Rich Brooks (27:23.746)

How do we show you not just to build a website, but to build it the flight new media way and things like that. So, at the, the bigger you get or the longer you being in business, think the more. SOPs you create, the more rules you create, which are both good and bad, because I definitely have seen companies that almost become calcified because they're so into their SOPs, that it hinders them from growth, but there does come this point where you've got all these different personalities and you start to have to make up rules. So everybody feels treated.

equally and equitably.

Shannon Mattern (27:55.296)

Yeah. I think about having team members and just the contractors and employees that we have. it's just, it is so rewarding though on the other side of like the responsibility and the pressure that I felt before. And then I like figured out like, okay, that's not healthy way to run this business. It is so rewarding to like mentor someone and watch them grow and help them.

build their confidence in their career and all of those things. I think that that's super rewarding and a really fun, fun reason to add to your team and not just be a solo partner if you have that drive to mentor and lead and help develop other people.

The Rich Brooks (28:40.558)

And you may not feel like you have it right now. Like that was definitely not one of the reasons why I did it initially. I needed people in the office, but, maybe it's because I'm in my fifties now, I've been around the block a couple of times that now kind of what I enjoy the most in my business has evolved. And one of the things I enjoy the most is watching the people on my team grow, grow in a manner of confidence, grow in their abilities, growing the number of things that they can do and take on additional responsibilities. And that is rewarding.

Shannon Mattern (28:46.376)

Yeah. Yeah.

The Rich Brooks (29:09.984)

It may be different for different people. That was not why I didn't get into web design to help other companies. just selfishly, I liked it. But now it's like, that's really what we do. We're like, our mission is to help these companies grow and help the little guys win. And so, I think you don't have to necessarily, if somebody's listening and they're like, I don't feel that way. Maybe there's something wrong with me or that's not my path. All I can tell you is sometimes you don't realize all that.

you're capable of and all that's in you until you actually start doing it. And then you're like, wow, I really enjoyed this aspect of business. I should do more of this, or I'm going to give up some of these roles and responsibilities because I see that mentoring people or whatever it is, is much more rewarding to me. So I'm going to focus on that parts of my business. And that's the other nice thing about having other people on your team is you can really start to niche down into the things where you bring the most value. Like I said, I don't ever want to have to run anybody's Facebook ads again, but

I love talking to people about their business. I love brainstorming on how we can drive more traffic to their website and convert that traffic. And I love just kind of talking to you right now about like what it's like to run a business. So very often I'll get on a call with a client and be like, look, owner and owner, need to share something with you. And that is some of my favorite parts of the job. Designing websites, it's certainly not my skill set anymore and also just not necessarily where I find my passion.

Shannon Mattern (30:33.214)

Yeah, same. mean, I love what web design allows, you know, entrepreneurs to create in terms of like business and creativity and technology and blending that all together. But I have evolved beyond loving that. I think what I love the most about that that I realize now is just like the problem solving aspect and the opportunity creation aspect and just like, my gosh, we can build anything.

I love that the most, I don't have to use that outlet anymore and I've definitely evolved beyond that because you don't want me touching your website. I'll put a typo and a link and that's just me.

The Rich Brooks (31:12.066)

Yeah. And I think it gives us the ability to create much greater works of art and commerce because you're not limited now by my design skills, my CSS skills, or even my marketing skills. so I, you become after, if you want to, mean, the bottom line is there is nothing wrong with being a one person shop for the rest of your life, cranking out websites and making people happy. And you never want to do it. You never want to have employees yet. You.

Shannon Mattern (31:17.034)

Yeah. Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (31:21.588)

Yes.

The Rich Brooks (31:39.608)

There's nothing wrong with that as long as it's satisfying to you and you're paying your bills. But I have found over time that my interests and desires and passions have changed and evolved. And the nice thing about having the company is like, you I used to be the project manager. I'm terrible at organization. I now have two great, well, is elevated to director of ops now, but two amazing women on my team who are so much more organized than I am.

And letting them basically run the projects and in one case run the company while I'm out there being the quote unquote visionary or talking head or thought leader, whatever we're all playing to our strengths. And through that, the company is able to accomplish so much more and we're able to do so much more for our clients.

Shannon Mattern (32:21.432)

So part of your thought leadership has been the agents of change, the podcast, the conference, and we were chatting a little bit before this about the conference and kind of the future, but tell me about the, the, start of agents of change and why you created that and, know, where, where it's where it's going.

The Rich Brooks (32:44.46)

Yeah. So Agents of Change was, I had two side hustles, not even hustles, two side projects for a while. One was called the Marketing Agents and that was the podcast. And the other was the Agents of Change, which was an annual conference I put on. Basically, I had started with two friends when social media became a thing. We said, let's put on a little event here in town in Portland, Maine. And we named it Social Media FTW. we

put it on for three years and it was a huge success, but the van broke up, no hard feelings. And I decided I still really like A, being in front of an audience and B, putting on a party that happens to be in the shape of a business conference, marketing conference. So I rebooted and at the time I wanted to do more than just talk about social media, which was all anybody wanted to talk about. I wanted to talk about search engine optimization. This is back in 2012.

SEO was kind of like people stop talking about it. And I'm like, it's still how most of my clients are getting their business. And then mobile marketing was the other piece of this. And nobody was really talking about that. But I'm like, I see the percentages of people who are coming to mobile websites on mobile devices. I think we need to be talking about it.

Shannon Mattern (33:38.783)

Yeah.

The Rich Brooks (33:52.396)

So those were the original agents of change. they were, cause I'm a comic book nerd, they were literally, I had an artist friend of mine draw these three characters, search social and mobile as kind of this like cross between like the X-Men and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, but you know, like for, marketing. and so after about a hundred episodes of the marketing agents, I realized it's the same thing. So I kind of just merged them in. I changed the name of the podcast and everything fell into this agents of change. Agents of change is about helping people become the

Shannon Mattern (34:05.042)

you

The Rich Brooks (34:22.136)

best digital marketers they can become. And Flight New Media is about, let us do this for you. So there's a lot of mutual, the Venn diagram, there's a lot of overlap here. And I discovered, although this wasn't the intent, that by putting on my own event, getting up there on stage, bringing in all these world-class speakers from across the US and really all across the globe to my little town of Portland, Maine, that we were suddenly being seen as much more

of a choice when it came to web design or marketing. And very often people will tell me, oh, you know, I'll say, how'd you hear of us? they're like, oh, I've been going to the agents change conference for years and I'm finally ready for a website or SEO, what have you. So it did become a lead generation tool for us, which is great, but I wouldn't recommend putting on events is a lot of work. Like only do it if you're really passionate about it would be the advice I have. And the podcast, I just love learning and I love having conversations with people about things I'm passionate about things they're passionate about.

Shannon Mattern (35:14.208)

Yeah.

The Rich Brooks (35:19.362)

We're up to, think I was just putting together the show notes for episode 577. So that's over 10 years of weekly podcasts that I've done. So it's something that is just part of what I do week in and week out. And what we were talking about before the show started is you were asking me about the conference this year. We just had our 10th annual one back in October. We're actually going to take a little hiatus. And the reason why we're taking this hiatus is because the conference is a lot of work.

people's needs have changed. for us internally, we decided that we needed to fully commit to integrating AI into our business. And so from my standpoint, when we looked at like all, I, you know, always, you know, not exactly mood board, but I got all my stuff that I want to accomplish in the following year in front of me. I'm like, something's got to give. And the conference just felt like it needed a break. It needed a pause. Maybe it needs to be reinvented. Maybe it doesn't come back. have no idea, but

Shannon Mattern (35:59.392)

you

The Rich Brooks (36:14.936)

that the focus needed to be on really figuring out how do we integrate AI into what we're offering clients in an ethical way and in a way that adds value. Like it's not just about like, we can do more and faster. We can churn out a bunch of content because of AI. That's the least worst form of it. But how do you integrate it into everything that you're doing? So you're creating a better output for yourself and for your clients. And we're literally right in the middle of that process.

today and my goal is by, we'll have a pretty good handle on it maybe by Q4 of this year.

Shannon Mattern (36:51.003)

That, you know, when you shared that, was like, I cannot wait to ask you about that because, you know, like does at first designers were like, I'm afraid copywriters were like, I'm afraid now they've embraced it as like, now I have a collaborator, but there is still a lot of questions about ethical, you know, just

being original, you know, all of those things. tell, when you say you want to make sure that you're doing it ethically, what does that mean to you?

The Rich Brooks (37:25.058)

Right, so some of the things that we talk about internally is, first of all, keeping sensitive data private. And a lot of times when you're working with an AI tool like ChatGPT or Cloud, you're uploading documents. And so the question is, what's OK to upload and what's not OK to upload? Now, if you look at creating custom GPTs, and I don't get too nerdy right now. I don't know if that's what your audience wants. But there does become a checkbox that says it's automatically checked. And it says,

Shannon Mattern (37:32.5)

Yeah. Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (37:49.14)

They do.

The Rich Brooks (37:54.156)

We can use your data, uploaded data, to train our models. And I immediately uncheck it. I'm hoping that they're actually honoring that, but I don't know. If I was uploading something like Google Analytics report or a P &L, I would anonymize the data first. I would get rid of all the client names. I might just put in a code that only I understand.

Shannon Mattern (38:02.73)

Yeah.

The Rich Brooks (38:15.392)

run it like that because if you're uploading something, you don't know that it's not being used to train. And then what happens if somebody on the other side of the world says, I want to do competitive research on these three companies and they list one of the companies. Well, all of a sudden they know their Google analytics information that shouldn't be made public or they know their bank statements that shouldn't be public. Those are the kind that's like one thing. We also have some conversations around the environmental impact, which I'm aware of, but it's not going to stop me right now. But I do have a couple of people on my team who

who raise that because they're very concerned about that. So we're talking about how do we minimize it? My personal feeling is the big tech companies are gonna figure that out and every new technology is probably not environmentally sound because that's just not the way people invent things. They invent things and then they make them better. But that's another thing. Bias is another issue. Copyright is another issue. So we're having discussions internally and then we share them with anybody who's listening with how do you...

do this when you know that AI can provide biased results or that it can provide hallucinations. So we're trying to figure out ethical ways, ways that we feel are ethical. Like I would never just say to chat GPT, write me an article on wood insulation and then hand it off to the client and charge them a thousand dollars for that. Like to me, that is, it breaks two cardinal rules. One is there's no value. There's no thousand dollar value to that product I just sold. But the other piece is I hate.

Shannon Mattern (39:28.338)

Peace.

The Rich Brooks (39:44.066)

the amount of signal to noise on the internet and AI is making it worse in an exponential way. So I'm not going to contribute to that. So I will use AI and I've written about this. I'll use it for SEO research. I'll use it for, giving me a framework. I'll do it for content gaps. Go, go research the top 20 results on for this keyword and then tell me what are things people are not talking about. I'll use it for brand, all these things, but I'm going to write the content myself. And then when I'm done.

Shannon Mattern (39:49.961)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (39:59.104)

Yeah.

The Rich Brooks (40:13.44)

I might run it through some other prompts and custom GPTs I've written to get a second opinion on that. And then I, as the expert, the human expert, then I'll decide if I want to make any changes based on what the AI is telling me. So in my mind, and it's going to vary for everybody, that is my ethical use of AI.

Shannon Mattern (40:27.36)

I think all of those things, you know, when I'm working on my own things and I'm like, what am I putting in here? This is my intellectual property. Like if I'm, if I am, you know, using AI to help me think through what I want to write in a presentation or a solo podcast episode or, you know, whatever and

you know, or maybe I take a transcript of something that I've done and put it in and ask it to like remix it for me. Yes, I'm unchecking that box. But also I'm like, I'm feeding you all of my IP that's not already out on the internet already to help ask you to help me come up with things like if I'm, you know, helping it asking it to help me do some internal things inside of our program, you know, so I'm always kind of thinking about the the weight.

of, you know, trusting that, I guess I would say the benefit is outweighing the risk to me right now. Like information is going to be freely available. The value in what we do is not necessarily, you know, what I think about me as a teacher, someone who's, who's a teacher and a mentor and a coach.

the value isn't going to be in the strategy that I teach. It's in the support of you implementing the strategy because that information is freely available out there always now, especially with AI. And I'm constantly thinking about, you know, how can I use this to help me help better help my students and not be so like, I don't trust it. I don't want to put this in here for my own personal use. Now when I'm thinking about somebody else, I'd be way more

you know, cautious, but you know, I'm just, things are changing. Whereas the information is not necessarily the thing of value anymore. It's how it's being interpreted or how you're being guided through it or, you know, and you can totally tell when it's just a bot and not a human. So yeah, sometimes you can.

The Rich Brooks (42:37.858)

Sometimes you can. Sometimes it's pretty sophisticated. But yeah, and I think most everything that I know, I share online. So it's probably already scraped everything I had to offer up until this point in time. But I find that, you know, find the ways that it makes sense for you. And for some of your audience, it might be like, give me a mock-up of a landing page as a starting point. So it might be about ideation or, you know, if they're designers, you know, give me a mock-up for a day spa that

Shannon Mattern (42:46.74)

Yeah. Yep. Exactly. Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (43:01.236)

Yep.

The Rich Brooks (43:07.31)

the theme is turtles, and it'll give you some ideas to kind of get you going. But I would never take that image and sell it to a client. That's ridiculous, right? But I could see using it to spur other ideas. Or you can create bots that would basically take a look at landing pages or work that you've already done and provide feedback. What's missing from this page? What would give a person a reason to hesitate and not move forward with us based on what this page is?

Shannon Mattern (43:13.808)

Right.

Yeah.

The Rich Brooks (43:33.314)

There are ways that you can kind of use it to get second opinions. And also some of the research tools, especially the deep research that some of these tools can do, usually at a premium price, but is incredibly helpful. And some of the research that you can do will take chat GPT or Gemini five to 20 minutes that would take us 10 hours. And it at least gives you that initial starting point. I never trust it entirely. We talked about hallucinations.

But there are definitely ways that you can automate some of your processes. And again, just get that second opinion on some of your work, especially if you're a solopreneur and you don't have somebody to talk to all the time. I mean, I remember that back in the day, and this was before there was so much connectivity online that you were kind of working in a silo. And so if you feel that way, sometimes having a tool like an LLM, like chat or Claude, that can be very helpful too, just to bounce ideas off people. Although I would definitely recommend that.

Probably one of the best things that I ever did for my career was forming a networking group, a mastermind, where I could talk to other people about what they were going through and share ideas as well. So humans, yeah, at the end of the day, humans are better, but chat GPT is cheaper. So there you go.

Shannon Mattern (44:44.48)

So good. could, I am so curious to hear how this goes for you. And I'm sure all of our listeners are too to hear more about your journey of integrating AI into your agency. So is that something that you'll be talking about on your podcasts and on your channels?

The Rich Brooks (45:00.942)

Yeah, actually, that's really interesting. So I did just do a presentation on practical AI, which was literally a breakdown of five things that I'm using AI for. I walk people through the process and include things like building a buyer persona, making, ensuring brand voice, doing deep research, a couple of other things as well. That's a webinar that's now available for free on our website, on demand that take flight, flyte.com.

but also I did end up converting that into a podcast episode, that'll be airing in the next few weeks, depending on when this is, might've already gone live, but, that'll be hap, that'll be going live on, on the agents of change podcast, I would say in early April, 2025. and then I'm just going to keep on updating it because I do think that there's a benefit to sharing how we're using it and kind of showing people an ethical way to do it, where you're not just generating more crap for the internet.

and really doing something that adds value to what you create as well as what your clients receive.

Shannon Mattern (46:06.716)

Amazing. Well, I'll definitely link all of that up in the show notes and share that podcast episode when it comes out. Cause I know all of our listeners will be really, really intrigued to hear from someone who's like leading, leading that charge. So I just have one more question to ask you before we wrap up. And it's one that I ask every guest that comes on the show. And that is, what's one belief about yourself that you had to change to get to where you are today?

The Rich Brooks (46:36.992)

One belief that I had to change.

I think basically, I don't know that I can put it into a pithy statement or anything like that, but I definitely had a lot of self-limiting beliefs when I got started. I was afraid of putting myself out there. was afraid of, I charging too much? I was just questioning everything I was doing. I didn't think I was smart enough or good enough. And basically at some point people were going to come along and steal all my business because I didn't know. And what I realized is you just got to put in the reps.

You know, basically you just got to get some real world experience. You've got to work with real clients. You, you have to do your best work. And after a while, people started coming to me thinking that I was some sort of expert. And I remember literally I had a, employee go to some sort of like marketing breakfast and they said, I was sitting next to somebody. didn't know who I was. And they turned to somebody else and they were discussing something. And then they finally said, what would Rich Brooks do? And I was like, I'm

terrified that they would actually think that I know what I'm doing. But it does go to show you that a lot of this is just like getting that experience and then you start to build confidence and then you feel better about the advice that you're giving and you realize that you're actually helping people. that was a very long way, but it was like just kind of developing that self confidence based on actual experience and competence. I tell my daughters this all the time.

Competence leads to confidence. So people are confident who can't do anything. Ignore those people. But I think really like if you aren't feeling comfortable about being able to go out and tell people why they should do a website with you or why they should do marketing with you or why your ideas are better than the ones they have right now. When you start to show that you can do the job, then you'll feel that confidence where you can say, look, I know you've been doing it this way for so long, but I really think that if you shift your mindset here and if we build out this page and do this campaign.

The Rich Brooks (48:32.994)

you're gonna be much more successful and you're gonna be a lot happier. And that's gonna come from just putting in the work.

Shannon Mattern (48:39.434)

So good. Rich, thank you so much for being here. Can you share with everyone where they can go to connect with you and just get in your world and learn from you?

The Rich Brooks (48:51.36)

Sure, but absolutely. think that we need to use ChatGPT to take the last three minutes of me babbling and turn it into one pithy statement. And we'll make that my quote for the day. Yeah, so all right. So if you like learning about marketing and digital stuff, and you obviously like podcasts because you're listening, I would check out the Agents of Change podcast. Like I said, it's about 577 episodes in. I interview some amazing digital marketers on all aspects of helping people.

Shannon Mattern (48:59.712)

I'll do it.

The Rich Brooks (49:19.5)

reach and engage their audience online. If you want to connect with me for anything, I am The Rich Brooks on just about every platform out there, although LinkedIn is my jam. I know that sounds so lame, but honestly, I really can't stand almost any other social platform at this point outside of Reddit. So find me, reach out to me, talk to me, and yeah, I'd love to have a conversation with you.

Shannon Mattern (49:39.816)

Amazing. Thank you so much for being here and no one will find me on social media either because I share the same sentiment as you. Well, thank you all so much for listening and we'll see you back here next week. Bye.

The Rich Brooks (49:48.707)

Sounds good.