30 Videos In A Day: Jake Thompson, Outwork | Ep: 009

Connor: Hello and welcome to Exit Ready, the podcast for agency owners who want to build a successful agency, because a successful agency and one that’s ready for sale are parallel journeys. I’m Connor McAuley and today I’m talking to Jake Thompson, founder of Outwork, a video content and performance marketing agency based in Holywood, County Down. Jake, welcome to the show.

Jake: Thanks for having us, Connor. It’s been great seeing all your stuff on social and now being here, it’s very cool. Full circle.

Connor: I’ll get into it later, but I’ve followed your videos and your ads from the very start. Maybe 24 months ago or thereabouts, I started to come across you guys. Over the last couple of months we’ve been chatting. From my perspective, it’s great to see the evolution in your business. Tell me about Outwork. A lot of people watching won’t know you. What do you do as an agency and where are you right this second?

Jake: We are primarily a video ad production agency, but all the residual stuff has spawned off that in the last couple of months. I was primarily a videographer. I’ve been a videographer for nine years. A couple of years ago, after getting into the whole offer structure, sales psychology, advertising, Meta ads world purely for my own benefit, because I’d come back from living in London (the fourth or fifth time I moved country), I had no clients again. I was like, okay, I need to understand all the extra stuff. I can’t just be “I am a videographer, what do you need”. It’s all grown out from that. The business kind of split into two halves. One half would be larger brand awareness campaigns for the likes of Henderson’s, a big client, and we do a lot of stuff for SPAR, which is great fun. The other side is Meta lead generation type services. Our whole thing is 30 pieces of video content or video ad creative from a day. And then as of a couple of months ago, we’ll now manage all the backend stuff for you as well. So it’s a whole full circle thing again.

Connor: Excellent. I love that you’re keeping people in your ecosystem. You’re doing the video content, showing the value, and showing how the ads can work off the back of that great creative. Ultimately you’re looking at the data and seeing how that return on ad spend actually works for the customer. If you can quantify that, you’re in a far stronger position to go, this is working, let’s do more of it.

Jake: Absolutely, 100%. It’s been an interesting switch. The 30 video thing was the core of the whole thing from the start, which is probably what you saw a couple of years ago. That was offer V1, my first step into that world. Videos are a very linear transaction. If I say you’re going to get 30 videos, you’re going to get 30 videos. Whereas getting people who haven’t done it before to buy into paid advertising, especially digital, is a new hump we’ve had to start trying to get over. Get rid of any hesitation around the concept itself. Then obviously you can get into the results and the ROI.

Connor: A big part of it I’ve seen recently from you is that you’re starting to publish your case studies, showing your working as you go along. That overcomes that objection people have: will this work for me? When you start to show other people it’s worked for, and where possible show the results, that barrier becomes null and void.

Jake: Yeah, absolutely. Showing a whole plethora of different clients and the different problem/solution scenarios. We end up doing such a variety of stuff. It puts people at ease when you can show “you’re in this industry, we did something similar six months ago, here are the videos, here are the results, we can probably do something similar for you”. People aren’t very good at visualising things a lot of the time. Showing them what’s possible right in front of them, undeniable evidence, is a big part of that.

Connor: Before we came on air we were just talking about my history in Kaizen. Everything back in 2009 was print. It was offline because there was no social. You can see businesses like that here, those incumbents or older businesses that are slowly changing their marketing efforts, and they’re seeing new and agile businesses coming in and taking a little bit of their market share. I would count you guys in that space because you’re agile, hungry for it. I see your socials. How have socials been a big part of your own growth?

Jake: If it wasn’t for video content, Meta ads, Instagram and Facebook (mainly Instagram), we wouldn’t exist. That literally was the scenario when I got back. Freelance videography, relying on referrals. I’d done a lot of cool stuff, worked through some agencies when I was in London. But it was getting back and then doing the offer creation thing and understanding what the market actually needs. It was the Meta ads. I had years’ worth of work on Instagram, the main platform for me being so visual. But if it wasn’t for the ads, I don’t know what I’d be doing now. Honestly, it runs our whole business.

Connor: A lot of those businesses, even agencies you compete against and agencies I work with, running their own ads doesn’t work until it does work. They go slowly, slowly towards ads. Then when they see the results and refine those ads to make them work better, it becomes a much easier conversation.

Jake: We kind of stumbled into it. When the 30 video thing started to exist, it was purely born out of the fact that I’d been on loads of shoots like, this whole thing’s really inefficient, this is so not well organised with the output actually in mind. It was pure organic at the start. Just social content, time-saving service essentially. You’ve got the production value, but it was mainly for the time-saving. Then we were using ads to get the sales for ourselves. A bit down the line I was like, I could probably do this for other people as well. That’s kind of where that came from.

Connor: From your perspective, what does a normal day in Outwork actually look like when it comes to splitting your time between business development, running the company, and working with clients? How do you manage all of that with your team?

Jake: There’s three of us in-house now. Me obviously doing the founder things. Then Jack, one of our best friends for the last 10 years. We’ve been working in tandem or off doing separate things, nearly working together over that whole timespan. It’s really nice to finally come together. I massively trust him to actually deliver. Hiring has been a huge difficulty, to be honest. It’s not easy to find good creative people you can trust. Then we have Polly, our genius editor as well. He’s absolutely brilliant. I mainly focus on growth and sales calls. I have two or three hours blocked out in the morning to do internal affairs stuff. Afternoons is usually sales calls or management meetings with clients. Just had a call there a minute ago which was refining a client’s backend process after the ads themselves. Jack has taken over a lot of the pre-production and scripting. He does a lot of the operational stuff. He was on a shoot with SPAR this morning on his own. So it’s nice to have that support. And Polly’s taking over in the background, handling all the edits. It’s good to have people on the team who are better than you at things that you don’t do.

Connor: Like Marty and I. We were very different in our skill sets. He was great at customer service, I was great at strategy. While the two of us were working really hard side by side, we were easily dovetailing in the projects we had to dovetail in, but confident the other was doing what they needed to do. That’s really nice in a business.

Jake: 100%. Having people around that you trust is so important. Team is everything with this sort of thing, as I’m finding out over the last couple of years.

Connor: Across the board, hiring good people is hard, and it’s becoming more expensive. They’re not staying as long as you would hope. You have to just kiss a few frogs before you get the right people. Having that constant lookout for them is a key goal at the minute.

Jake: Yeah, absolutely. We’re sort of keeping our eyes peeled for another videographer in the next few months. That’s contingent on we’re hoping to move office. We’ve got somewhere we’re hoping to move into. It’s the dream space. A warehouse, couple of floors of potential office and then open studio. We want to build some custom studio stuff, which will then open up possibility for on-location stuff actually in the office. As a result, bringing on a new videographer. I find it really interesting, because with creative skill sets, if you go to school to be a dental nurse for example, the one route to doing that is working in a dental practice. Whereas if you’re learning a creative skill set, the primary thing people do is usually be self-employed. So the market’s so split between people who want to work for themselves and people who don’t, whereas in a lot of other industries there’s only one way to do it. That’s been a real realisation. But the great people do exist, it’s just finding them.

Connor: What is the next growth opportunity for Outwork? Where do you see that natural pivot, evolution of service, or just continuation of more, but doing more?

Jake: There’s a couple of things. The office, which would open up a whole lot of capabilities. Fingers crossed we get the space we’re looking for. There’s so much more room for custom studio because we want to put a podcast studio in there, some other stuff which isn’t confirmed so I don’t want to say it yet. Big infinity wall type things. It opens up the opportunity for a lot of custom studio builds. Good locations seem to be quite hard to find. Around Belfast they do exist, but having it literally outside your door in your office would be really good. It means we can facilitate more, because there’s less travel involved. And if there is another videographer on the team, they can host people in the studio. That opens up the possibility to help smaller businesses who aren’t in the position to go for the full package.

Aside from that, I’m learning a lot of media buying stuff. I’ve been doing it for myself for a couple of years, but trying to get to the next level with the knowledge base. And hopefully some web design and funnel design stuff, because that’s such a key part of the whole lead generation thing. We are using tools like Perspective, a really good one I like a lot for funnel building for quiz funnels. It would be really nice to open up that opportunity for web design and proper custom-built funnels.

Connor: Big fan of funnels. That’s the way to turn qualified leads into better qualified leads. What is the hardest part of running a business today versus when you were starting out?

Jake: Probably a few things. One is delegating. I was a videographer doing everything myself, very precious about how things look. Letting go of parts of it was difficult. Obviously a huge necessary step. I’m glad I did, and the team are class. But that was a big step initially. And the volume of work to support the team is at a whole different level to where it was when it was just me. Building out the systems and the workflows, and just starting to finally work on SOPs for ourselves. That was a whole new thing to me a couple of months ago. Transitioning from solo operator doing everything to trying to grow the team has been interesting, but I’m loving it.

Connor: What’s your favourite part of running an agency?

Jake: That’s difficult. The variety of clients we get to work with is a lot of fun. Having a team around us and being able to choose what work we do is major as well. And just having a good culture in-house. The last thing I want is for people to come and work here and have a stuffy work environment. I want everyone to be happy, nice, relaxed sort of vibe. As long as stuff’s getting done and getting done on time, then amazing. Creating that culture and having that group of people is a really fun part of it.

Connor: You’ve identified this break or change where you’ve become the owner-operator rather than the founder who’s doing everything. What was the point when you realised that had to happen?

Jake: Probably first dipping the toes in there a couple of years ago, tweaking the offer, changing the pricing slightly, putting more spend behind the ads. I got up to a point where I was so full on, doing all the sales, all the pre-planning, all the editing, literally everything from front to back for all the clients. It got to a point where I couldn’t physically handle it anymore. To be honest, I was falling out of love with editing because of how long it takes and how drained I was from trying to do all the other stuff. You need to give the edit proper care and attention. I was like, right, step one needs to be finding somebody really good to do this. It was Christmas, the one before last. After a busy November (December quietens down a bit, which was nice), I decided it’s probably time to do this. So then I started looking at commercial property and then at hiring. We ended up finding the office in Holywood, which was a big, scary leap to take on, the expenses and the additional work glue to support it. But that was it. I was at capacity and I wanted to grow a team.

Connor: When you do that, you take all of this profit you have and add two bodies into the team, and the profit dwindles. You then have to create this cycle or flywheel of new business just to feed the beast you’ve created. I know what that looks like and what it feels like. It is a scary leap, and every new employee you bring brings a new floor that you have to hit to break even. As long as you can see the runway of new business coming through, which you guys do very well, it does make it a considered decision.

Jake: Yeah, 100%. That’s the mean sort of shift we’ve made at the start of this year. The 30 video thing being very linear, it was a lot of one-off projects. If I wasn’t selling or if the market didn’t want to buy because it was December, for example, the cashflow stuff was really quite scary, especially with a couple of guys and all the overheads. That’s where the ad stuff came from and all the backend management, because that lends itself more to higher LTV and longer-term relationships with the clients. The more embedded you get in somebody’s business, the better you work together, the better the relationship gets, and the more relaxed I can be not having to be in sales mode all the time. That’s started to shift recently.

Connor: Gold medal position for any agency that does retainer work is to have all of your costs covered by your retainer business. At that point you can scale as quickly or as slowly as getting the right team around you will allow.

Jake: Yeah, that’s the number one priority for this year. Get to that stage so you can relax a bit and not have to be salesman all the time.

Connor: What are you doing to approach the right people, to attract the right people? We focused for years on being that employer of choice. I’m talking 10 years ago when that wasn’t really a thing, because we wanted to make ourselves the most attractive agency for people leaving university to come to us. Today it’s got even harder. Different agencies do different activities. What’s your plan for recruitment?

Jake: It’s an interesting one. We’ve been trying to figure all that stuff out. Our next hire probably won’t be for a few months. If you take Polly for example, our absolute genius editor. Before he came here he was doing some freelance stuff, but he was working at Nando’s, which is mind-blowing considering how good his work is. That was like finding a unicorn. I think it’s culture and the variety of work and the fact that we are a bit younger. It’s the whole vibe I want to have. It’s very free flow, very trust-based. That’s always what I say to people. My ultimate thing, the thing I care probably the most about, is my own peace of mind. I want to be able to trust you to do what you’re doing to the best of your ability and in a timely manner. If that’s the case, then everybody’s happy.

Connor: I really like that ethos. As owners and operators we move at a very fast pace and we need everybody to do their job so we can continue to do what we have to do. What does Outwork look like three years from now? What are your ambitions?

Jake: Hopefully our own premises, which we can be in for the next five to 10 years. I want to do the full custom studio build, be able to do a lot more in-house. Hiring-wise, probably bring on another videographer, potentially a creative strategist, hopefully a media buyer, and then potentially into web design. That seems to be a real gap with a lot of the clients we’re working with. We’re working on the advertising and front-end stuff, but a lot of them seem to lack good websites. So that could be a real avenue to move into. Grow the team, have our own premises, add some additional services, and keep doing fun work.

Connor: Then AI. I have to talk about AI. I am an AI native, and most agencies today are either dipping their toe in or have jumped in with both feet. How are you using it in your work today?

Jake: My absolute favourite AI tool is Fireflies. It has saved so much time. It’s one of the first parts of the pre-planning process we do with our clients: ICP development, ideal customer profile. I have a whole big questionnaire I’ll run them through depending on what type of business it is. That call might be an R&R, and Fireflies will record the whole thing, give me a summary, and I can download the call notes and design the ICP using ChatGPT or Claude from that document. If we’re on calls running through revisions on projects, you can just condense the whole thing and get editing notes for Polly. It’s such a time saver. Aside from that, we’ve started using Claude for a bit of market research stuff. That’s fresh, only the last few weeks. How in-depth it is on the whole client work thing is mental. Actually totally not work-related, but I had ChatGPT do me a 2,000-calorie-a-day diet plan, gave me a list of ingredients, and then had Claude go and put it all in my basket on Tesco. Which was totally unrelated, obviously feel free to cut that out.

Connor: Wow, very good. You hit something on the head there with Fireflies. I actually dipped in my bag to pick out this little device which is called Plaud. It’s a little recording device. This has been an absolute game changer. Honestly, it’s exactly like Fireflies, except I bring this to in-person meetings and sit it on the desk and record the call. I take that transcript, feed it into Claude, and it extracts my voice, my language, my tone, what I’ve said, and it creates frameworks around the learning moments I have taught in my coaching sessions. Whenever I write any of my content with Claude, I have my own “Connor’s voice” skill. It takes my client notes and helps me write my meeting agendas, my to-dos, my actions based on everything the client and I talked about. Even in sales calls, it uses the client’s words against them respectfully, because they tell you. Every single client we work with, when we’re talking about brand, website, creative, or even their ambitions and commercial goals, they’ve told us the answers to all the problems. And they’ve also told us half the time the solutions. If we were just listening correctly, we could pick that up. These little devices, as long as everybody knows you’re recording and they’re happy, can save so much time. They ensure you don’t miss anything. What used to take me an hour after every meeting to note and document is done within seconds. It also means I can be completely present in those calls, which is even better from an active listening perspective.

Jake: Yeah, instead of being over here typing notes. There’s one I’ve been meaning to look at called Granola, which is kind of similar. I think it turns your phone into that sort of thing. Yet to actually use it myself, but that sounds brilliant. That’s the only gap we’ve had, the in-person stuff doesn’t get recorded. We’ll have to look at that.

Connor: If somebody wanted to start an agency like yours tomorrow, what would you tell them?

Jake: That’s a big question. It probably depends on what your skill set is initially coming into it. But regardless of skill level, you need to figure out what the market needs, what they actually want. That’s kind of how the whole thing went, from “I turn anything you want into a video” sort of thing into the 30 video thing into ads. What does the market actually want? What do they need? What problems are they having that you can potentially provide a solution to? And how do you mould your skill set into the solution they’re looking for? That is the core to everything. People buy solutions ultimately.

Connor: I love what you’ve done. I see that as a huge strength to the business, where you’ve taken your core offering and pivoted following what the market’s telling you. When we had Kaizen, it started off as the print company. It was just a print company that had really good designers. After about six years, we were being overlooked for brands and branding work with our current clients who trusted us with all their other projects every single day. So we pivoted to open up the branding agency. I call that the point we matured as a business, because we were fully a branding agency first, then a digital agency, with a print company side by side. That meant we were keeping people in our ecosystem for longer. We were going to market to target those people who needed brand projects, and that took us from here to here over the next few years. It eventually became a big catalyst of why we were able to exit so successfully, because we had people who were using us for full service.

Jake: That’s class. Having the full ecosystem and every arm of the services is amazing.

Connor: You just have to be so protective that you do everything to the highest standard, because there’s nothing worse than somebody bolting on a system and it just being this money grab when it’s absolutely not. If you do it right, look after your customer and they see the results, you benefit with them alongside.

Jake: 100%. Every new piece has to be valuable, and ideally relate to the other piece you’ve added on, so the whole ecosystem all makes sense and makes the whole experience even better.

Connor: One last question. If there’s anything I haven’t asked that you think might benefit listeners, what would it be?

Jake: If you don’t have a core offer, the core offer was what put us on the map. Everybody now knows them from TikTok and Instagram. But if you haven’t got a specific core offer and you’re just like “I do these six things”, I would highly recommend $100M Offers by Alex Hormozi. Everybody knows him by now. A friend of mine recommended that to me a year or so before I actually started using it. His whole series of books, it’s so actionable, it’s so easy to actually digest. If that’s a missing piece for you, give that a crack. And then onto Leads, onto Money Models. Those are the whole suite essentially.

Connor: I am a really big convert to Alex Hormozi in the last six months. I picked up his books and was like, that makes sense, that makes sense. He speaks sense, and his books are very digestible. If you haven’t read any of the books, I also highly recommend those, because they are just understanding what the customer wants and then positioning your business to provide that. Thanks to everyone who’s tuned into the Exit Ready podcast. If you like what you’ve heard, please subscribe and leave a little review wherever you’re watching this. If you want to build the best version of your agency, check out moveatpace.com where I share a heap of resources, articles, and my own Agency Valuation assessment. Jake, thank you so much.

Jake: No worries at all. It was great.