Elliot and Dominic Chapman are two entrepreneurial brothers who have taken the business world by storm over the last few years.
Together they have built a group of successful agencies across the UK and the US through a combination of growth and strategic acquisitions.
Elliot has been running businesses since the age of 20.
He helped set up a local soccer school in Bournemouth and managed to grow it into the number one regional coaching program.
He was later headhunted by the biggest amateur soccer club in the US and appointed Director of Coaching in Boston. Elliot also ran the family business, an IT management consultancy, and helped take it from a £2.5m to a £5m+ business. Since 2019, Elliot has been involved in Chapman Capital and various other ventures.
Dominic’s entrepreneurial journey began when he became head of innovation at Specsavers at the age of 19.
He built one of the healthcare apps still used in stores today before starting his first two businesses, a design agency, and a clothing brand.
Dominic launched Stemx, a tech platform in the recruitment space, and raised £400k from angel investors. The platform ran over 10,000 video interviews in 10 countries. Since 2019, Dominic has been involved in Chapman Capital, Social Chaps, Speak on Podcasts, FKC London, Low & Behold, and Agency Finance .
Elliot and Dominic have combined their expertise and experiences to build a thriving business empire. They continue acquiring more agencies that service clients globally.
In their spare time, Dom and Ell enjoy football, golf, running, traveling, and spending time with their families.
What you will learn
- How Dominic and Elliot’s company came to be
- What it’s like being in business with a family member
- Discover fresh lead-generation strategies in the digital world
- Learn how to cultivate fruitful business relationships virtually
- The brothers unpack the future of Chapman Capital
- Discover the key processes and systems the boys used to scale their businesses
- How to land and retain customers in the current market
- Dominic and Elliot share their best tips for being an entrepreneur in the digital world
- Plus loads more!
Transcript
Jeff Bullas
00:00:05 – 00:01:38
Hi everyone and welcome to The Jeff Bullas Show and we’re gonna talk today about Elliot and Dominic Chapman. And they are two entrepreneurial brothers. One has a beard and one has a sort of a semi-beard. I’m not quite sure which is which. They’ve taken the business world by storm over the last few years, they’ve built a group of successful agencies across the UK and the US through a combination of growth and strategic acquisitions. So what we’re talking today is about two brothers actually operating under the Chapman Capital and Chapman Capital is actually about helping B2B growth agencies actually help people grow. So they have a podcast booking agency. They have a TV ad agency and they have a full-service marketing agency. So Elliot has been running a business since the age of 20. Dominic’s journey began when he became the head of innovation at Specsavers. And I do have contact lenses. Let’s just quickly have a fun fucking flip into Specssavers, okay, right? So Specsavers, okay? I am wearing contact lenses. So Specsavers, how can you save me?
Dominic Chapman
00:01:39 – 00:01:44
He says, how can we save you from what exactly, Jeff?
Eliot Chapman
00:01:45 – 00:01:47
From being able to see?
Jeff Bullas
00:01:47 – 00:01:50
Well, I had to put my fucking contact lenses in every morning.
Dominic Chapman
00:01:51 – 00:02:03
Well, the irony is I worked on hair care mainly so I can’t be too much help there. Sorry.
Jeff Bullas
00:02:03 – 00:02:31
It’s alright. Okay, so let, let me just flip back in terms of being somebody is trying to work out and put my contact lenses in, right? Okay. You created an app about Specsavers, didn’t you?
Dominic Chapman
00:02:31 – 00:03:32
Yeah. So what we used to do was, sort of as part of my role, we did these things called Hackathons, which is where we would get the people in stores in the room, we then get the marketing team. We had a team of developers, we had the senior leaders, and we sort of locked everyone away for 24 hours with a problem. And usually they’d come out of it was a bit of technology. So one of the bits of technology that came out of it was an app which is just a real if you walk into any specs is now, it’s a really simple app where you go into the back room, put some headphones in and it’s like a light touch, hearing test. I know they’re still there because I had one last year because I’m now half deaf in my right ear, which is great. I know I’ve gone full circle.
Jeff Bullas
00:03:33 – 00:03:38
Well, I’m fully deaf in both of my ears frankly.
Dominic Chapman
00:03:39 – 00:03:43
Well, get down to Specsavers and they’ll confirm that for you.
Jeff Bullas
00:03:44 – 00:03:47
We’re talking about spectacles instead of hearing. Okay. Sorry.
Dominic Chapman
00:03:48 – 00:03:49
Yeah.
Eliot Chapman
00:03:49 – 00:03:54
I know. It’s a weird tangent they went on. They went from glasses to hearing.
Dominic Chapman
00:03:55 – 00:04:09
Yeah. So, yeah, that was what they’re pushing at the time is how can they innovate the hair care sort of side of the business. So that’s what I was mainly supporting on, so yeah.
Jeff Bullas
00:04:10 – 00:04:26
Okay. So out of that, so how did Chapman Capital arise? Were you guys having a beer together as brothers and going shit, we should actually help agencies get better at lead acquisition.
Eliot Chapman
00:04:27 – 00:06:12
Yes. I guess the journey starts slightly before Chapman Capital. Chapman Capital was born out of Social Chaps and Social Chaps was born out of Dom and I were both running two separate companies. I was involved in the family business which was an IT management consultancy. Dom was running a video recruitment platform and we both shared an office because it was obviously cheaper in cost and we were both struggling with lead generation. We were struggling to grow our two separate businesses. So I decided it was over a beer. It was at a family barbecue and I was just sort of venting about working with other agencies, working with marketing agencies, spending a load of money, not really getting what I wanted in return the consultancy space. Well, the consultancy industry back in sort of 2015, 2016, 2017, it was quite hard to do any form of outbound online at the time. A lot of it was cold calling or you had to leverage your network. And as somebody who at the time was in my mid 20s and the majority of decision makers in the consultancy space were 40s, 50s. I didn’t really have much of a chance. I had no real background. I didn’t really understand the technology. It was sort of, it was a back to the walls type job. So I was moaning and vented to Dom over a couple of bottles of Corona and he sort of said, I think I might have something I need a couple of months to sort of try and figure it out. In that time, he created what was the first version of Social Chaps and that is a beautiful segue into you Dom to describe what Social Chaps is.
Dominic Chapman
00:06:13 – 00:07:46
It’s so, yeah. So when we’re at that barbecue, I was working on something in the background for my business because I just didn’t have the budgets to spend on agencies. So I built what was the first version of a sort of automated lead gen system which runs on LinkedIn and email. So it allows you to put in the details, it pulls in your relevant sort of prospects, it then engages them on LinkedIn and email and then sort of automatically books them in your diary with a bit of human touch within it. So that was what we built and we rolled that out across our two organizations, grew that and then obviously launched Social Chaps and it’s massively evolved over the years, you know, I think the thing with lead gen on general marketing, you really have to move with the times everything moves so quickly in the digital space. But the core of Social Chaps still is, you know, focused around building data, automating lead gen on LinkedIn and email. And then we’re now leveraging sort of events, webinars, round tables trying to get people back into meeting physically. And so, you know, obviously we grew massively during COVID when no one could do anything else. And now we’re going back to sort of supporting people actually meeting in person, which is quite nice, really.
Eliot Chapman
00:07:48 – 00:08:14
People have forgotten how to meet face to face, Jeff. People just sit on Zoom and those deep relationships that you used to be able to build where it was, you know, either built over a coffee or lunch or dinners, you know, the actual social aspect where you get to know the other human being and that’s where that trust in business. I think people are too quick to give up on relationships in business these days because they don’t have those deep meaningful relationships.
Jeff Bullas
00:08:14 – 00:08:27
Yeah. I totally agree with you. It’s like, what brings me joy is actually catching up with someone over lunch, over a beer, a Corona or a wine and having a fun conversation and building a relationship.
Eliot Chapman
00:08:28 – 00:09:22
Yeah. And we’ve moved away from it. It’s everything now that I get it because, you know, we’ve now found a somewhat more efficient way to work and I’m all in on that. However, the value of creating those deep meaningful relationships, whether it be putting on an event for your clients, whether it be going for a couple of beers, lunch, whatever it is, when you start to learn about what the other interests or what interest the other person has, how their family is, what they enjoy doing, you can actually start to build something much more compelling than just a relationship over a call or over Zoom, whatever it may be. And that is where in my opinion, the trust in business relationships, that’s where it comes from. Obviously, you need to do a good job as well. But I think you can buy that trust by being a decent human being and grow in a solid relationship.
Jeff Bullas
00:09:23 – 00:09:27
So how does Social Chaps work in that environment for you guys?
Eliot Chapman
00:09:28 – 00:11:16
Yeah. So we’re now leveraging round table events so you can still do sort of standard lead gen stuff where, you know, if we wanted to work with you, we drop you a couple of messages on LinkedIn, on email, we use creativity, whether it be an image, GIF video, whatever it is. So that there is still a place for that. What we’re trying to do is use a central strategy of a round table. So we’d say we’ve got an event in September, for example, at a certain location and we’re getting key decision makers, it could be agency owners, it could be whoever it is and we’re gonna have 10-12 in a room and this is gonna be the topic and the topic is typically a problem in the industry at the moment. Whatever that particular problem is within that industry, we would lead it, we would host it. We’d create those deep relationships with those 10-12 guests and then off the back of it, we would then go and meet them for a beer, for a coffee, for lunch to get their feedback on the event. And then you can start to subtly build those relationships and add value. That’s the key here is people because of COVID because of how lead gen has changed in the last three to four years because of the pandemic. People are very quick to just ask and try and sell their services rather than giving value upfront. So by leading with a round table strategy, you’re getting in key decision makers in providing a potential solution to their problem and then also giving them that value of whether it be a white paper, whatever it may be trying to lead with the value led relationship rather than just saying, can you buy our services were the best thing since sliced bread.
Jeff Bullas
00:11:17 – 00:11:20
So what you’re really saying is we need to have multiple dates.
Dominic Chapman
00:11:21 – 00:11:37
Yeah, exactly. It can, it can be quite timely to do. But you know, Dom’s an experienced data, he’s absolutely fine. It is doing his round table. This is what he does
Dominic Chapman
00:11:38 – 00:11:40
That’s where the idea came from, Jeff.
Jeff Bullas
00:11:41 – 00:11:47
So what we’re really saying is I want to have sex with you, but let’s do a few nights before we do that.
Eliot Chapman
00:11:48 – 00:11:55
Yeah, we’ll take it slow, we’ll take you out, we’ll wine and dine you much before that big event.
Jeff Bullas
00:11:56 – 00:12:10
That sounds good to me. So, lead gen in a digital world. How does that look like?
Eliot Chapman
00:12:11 – 00:12:12
Condom?
Dominic Chapman
00:12:13 – 00:13:18
So, yeah. So it’s an interesting question. I think it’s like everything is now digital. And what you really need to focus on with sort of lead gen is just creating the start of a relationship and that’s all that really matters, and it’s the understanding that it can take time with lead gen, you know, we’re seeing typically you half to half 8-12, you know, to 15 touch points with a prospect online now to get them on the phone or establish an initial relationship where obviously if you go to a business event, you can bump in someone have a 2-5 minute conversation and then, you know, you could have a meeting off the back of it. So I think, yeah, it’s a wildly different area, digital to sort of cold calling or business events, but I do think it’s sort of the future of lead gen.
Jeff Bullas
00:13:19 – 00:13:40
Yeah. So it’s like, I, so in the past like the 1980s-1990s, it’s like you went to a breakfast event or whatever and he caught up with someone and they hand over a business card, right? Today we actually not many people hand over business card anymore.
Eliot Chapman
00:13:41 – 00:14:27
No, doesn’t happen. The breakfast events that you were just talking about there, Jeff that’s very similar to the roundtable events that I was just talking about. It’s going back to, alright, we’re gonna use digital, you know, and lots of different platforms to get people to these events. You don’t need a business card because you already know who they are because you’ve spoken to them on LinkedIn or an email or whatever it may be. But those events still work, you know, and it’s almost like Dom said earlier on in the call, it’s going full circle in that those events they do still work. There is value in meeting people face to face much more value than people put on it right now. So interesting that you bring it up because we have gone full circle.
Jeff Bullas
00:14:27 – 00:14:56
Well, I think it’s very, very important to actually catch up in real life. The old term is breaking bread together as in, okay, so he is going, right, okay. And the thing for me too is really, I’m very comfortable on my home office, I can’t be fucked actually getting out of my home office.
Eliot Chapman
00:14:57 – 00:14:59
We’ve heard that a couple of times, haven’t we Dom?
Dominic Chapman
00:14:59 – 00:15:02
Yeah. Couple of few times.
Jeff Bullas
00:15:02 – 00:15:28
Right, and you’re actually in America or you are in the UK or you’re in Europe or you’re in Australia. Australia is a long way away from anyone, right? So, but here’s the deal, like, how do you create a relationship quickly and fast in the virtual and digital world?
Eliot Chapman
00:15:29 – 00:18:25
Yeah. It is a good question and it can be done. So, we’ll talk you through sort of how we were able to win hearts and minds by speaking on podcast, which is the agency that we acquired in December. So they would, they’ve just been through a fairly challenging time over the last couple of months. So to say that we walked into uncertainty and nervousness would be a huge understatement. They were a really, really fantastic team, global company. And then out of nowhere, these two brash Brits come in saying this is what we’re gonna do and we are going to turn this into one of the leading podcast booking agency in the world. They’re thinking what the, who are these two guys? So there’s a couple of things that I think you need to be, you need to be authentic so you do genuinely need to be your true, authentic self. And one of the things that we did is we set action and we set tasks that or goals that we could achieve and by setting goals that were achievable whilst aligning a vision very quickly, the team can see that we are doing exactly what we said we were gonna do. So we created a 90 day plan. So 30 day, 30 day, 30 days and in those 90 days, Dom and I made sure that we hit every single thing that we said we were gonna hit whether that be a financial target, whether it be a small process that we said we were gonna build, that is how we built the trust of a very uncertain and nervous team and a team that weren’t used to, you know, we’ve got a team in Asia where the culture is very different to how we do things in the UK, you know, in the UK, it’s quite out there, you know, you talk and you say exactly what similar to Australia, it just comes out and it’s there and you deal with it, whether it’s nice, whether it’s not, that’s your problem. In Asia, it’s not like that the culture is very, very different. So we were very conscious that we had to set goals that we could deliver, but actually deliver on those goals and win the trust of the 15-16 employees over a very, very short space of time. So, there was much more that went into that. I have massively simplified it, but we had to create, we had to essentially change quite a lot of stuff within that business from a sales perspective, from a culture perspective to turn it into a very strong harmonious culture and team is, which is where we are now six months in, they had the bedrock, but there were changes that needed to be made and a lot of it was done on trust and doing exactly what we said we could do.
Dominic Chapman
00:18:26 – 00:19:33
I think going back to your sort of question, Jeff, which is how are you building sort of deep relationships virtually. I think there’s another element which is just taking the time to communicate, not about the actual work going on and sort of let your guard down. I think one thing me and El always do when we jump on a call with a new client is almost, you know, yeah, let our guard down, try and find a bit of commonality whether that be football or, you know, where they live, what they’re doing, and that 5-10 minute chat at the start is, you know, something that’s really important, like how many times is sort of Ralphie ran, Ralphie is El’s son. Ralphie ran into the room and, you know, brought Ralphie up and said hello to everyone and just those little things which sort of break the mold of it just being a business call. But, you know, they have a life behind the screen I think is a really nice and easy way to build that virtual relationship.
Eliot Chapman
00:19:33 – 00:20:47
Yeah, I think you’re right. I think too many, I think there’s a perception that you have to be this polished, perfect entrepreneur and that nobody in this world is that person, you know, there’s always gonna be, there’s always little cracks and whatever it may be. So, I used to use it as a little icebreaker when my five year old, he’s five now, he doesn’t do it anymore. But sort of three, four year old at the time running in asking me to do something or whatever it may be just interrupting a conversation. I used to bring him in, sit him on my knee and let him just say hello. And it completely throws everybody out of character because we’ve all sort of got this stern face and we’re all gonna be very switched on and professional. You can’t be like that when there’s a three year old, you know, chatting shit down the microphone to you. It just completely breaks it. So again, it sort of ties into trying to be your true authentic self is people appreciate that you can’t be this super professional human being all your life. There is other things that go on, you know, talk about our weekend, what are we doing, whether it be sport, socializing, that is how you build relationships.
Jeff Bullas
00:20:48 – 00:20:56
Yeah. So trying to build relationships in a virtual world is actually a challenge, but you still need to go back to the basics.
Eliot Chapman
00:20:57 – 00:22:11
But it can be done. And, you know, Dom was saying about taking the time to get to know people. We take the time to in any team meeting and we have different team members, host different team meetings. So it’s not the same people talking all the time, which I also think is really, really important. But for the first 10 minutes of any team meeting, whoever the host is that week chooses a topic and it could be anything. So this week on Monday, we had one of our team members, we had to say our favorite quote and it’s a quote that we’re living by at the moment. It’s a quote that’s impacted us and that it got incredibly deep and you’re not gonna see the other human beings that you work with unless you let your guard down and see different things. One of the other hosts made a sing, which is ridiculous and incredibly embarrassing. But again it shows a fun element. You’ve now got this weird bond that you’re all shit singers. Yeah. And that is how you build these relationships. It’s stuff that you do in a pub on a Friday night. It’s stuff that you do at a barbecue on a Sunday with your family and it’s what you should also be doing with your team, you know, you’ve got to be showing your true authentic self.
Jeff Bullas
00:22:12 – 00:22:14
In other words, just be you.
Eliot Chapman
00:22:15 – 00:22:24
Yeah, just be, you, stop trying to put up this big old guard. You’re not fooling anyone.
Jeff Bullas
00:22:25 – 00:22:37
So, alright, let’s dive into you guys. So what’s your goal here with, you’ve got, you’re trying to help people build digital agencies. Is that correct?
Eliot Chapman
00:22:38 – 00:24:40
Yeah. So we’ve one of our passions. One of the things that Dom and I most enjoy is working with really driven entrepreneurs, founders, business leaders and working with them when they’re at a, I guess it’s sort of a sticking point. And that sticking point is typically between half a million and a million trying to break through that barrier. So we’ll come in, whether we’ll acquire the agency, whether we’ll work towards an exit plan, whatever it is and we will help them with not just the lead gen, but it’s all the other processes, all the other operating models that come with running an agency because in the last five years or so, having exited companies, having grown companies, it is not an easy journey and it is not a straightforward journey and growing and running an agency. It is an agency having worked in a couple of different sectors is the most up and down industry and sector. It is so up and down, you can win two or three clients and you can think you’re on cloud nine and you can lose two clients and you can be like shit, I’m not going to make payroll this month. It is so up and down. So what Dom and I are coming in to do is yes, absolutely help that top line revenue. But also how else can we support and we are supporting agencies in a number of different ways. It could be their marketing efforts, it could be helping them build out their standard operating processes so documented how they do everything. It could be actually leading a team towards an eventual exit. We’ve got experience in all of those different fields and Dom and I lean in on different elements of that. We’re too, we’re very different Dom and I. I don’t know if that’s come across already. The one we’ve got different beards, we are also, we’re quite different to, Dom is much more technical. I’m much more sort of sales orientated. So we come with different skill sets.
Jeff Bullas
00:24:41 – 00:24:45
Okay. Cool. So, let me throw a wild card in the middle of this mix.
Dominic Chapman
00:24:45 – 00:24:49
Oh god.
Jeff Bullas
00:24:50 – 00:24:53
So what was life like for both of you when you’re growing up?
Dominic Chapman
00:24:54 – 00:25:04
You tell her the younger brother is Jeff.
Eliot Chapman
00:25:04 – 00:25:06
I had a great time.
Jeff Bullas
00:25:07 – 00:25:17
I used to get my brother’s dead legs, right? Which is like a kick in the thigh, right? Okay. How did you guys go like we’re giving each other a hard time?
Eliot Chapman
00:25:17 – 00:26:09
Yeah, similar to most siblings. I think you have times where you get on and times where you absolutely hate the guy. And that’s, I think that’s the same as most siblings. We were really, really sporty. So really like outdoor. We grew up next to a beach, and grew up with a big garden. So we’re very fortunate that we were forced outside. And you have to learn to somehow get on and coexist, yeah, we would, we’d wrestle, we’d play football massively into our sports and then sort of teenage years hit and Dom became a bit of a recluse and I decided that I hated him and we did genuinely hate each other for probably 22 years done.
Dominic Chapman
00:26:09 – 00:26:11
You know. Yeah. About two years.
Eliot Chapman
00:26:12 – 00:26:16
What was your memories from those years where we hated each other?
Dominic Chapman
00:26:17 – 00:26:22
I just ignored you. To be honest.
Eliot Chapman
00:26:22 – 00:26:46
That sounds familiar. Dom went through a phase where he loved Call of Duty, the video game. And what was the drink that you used to drink Dom? Mountain Dew. And when you’re consuming that much sugar and not doing a lot of exercise, you can imagine what happened to 15 year old Dom in his bedroom.
Jeff Bullas
00:26:47 – 00:26:49
Dom looking very trim now, frankly.
Dominic Chapman
00:26:50 – 00:26:58
Yeah, I have to do a lot of running to keep it off now. Yeah.
Eliot Chapman
00:26:59 – 00:28:48
Now that those sort of formative years and we do speak about this quite a lot because being in business and having business partners previously where, you know, you might be nervous about delivering bad news or whatever it may be. Being brothers genuinely like fighting, having arguments falling out over, you know, money when we were growing up, which we did, we fell out over £5 for two weeks and our parents had to call a family intervention because we’re both so stubborn. We didn’t want to talk to each other. They are formative moments in your life where you do build trust, you do understand how the other person works. And I think that’s the beauty of where we are now. We both understand exactly how each other think, we understand the good parts of each other. But also the stuff that we’re not very good at, you know, we’re self aware enough to go, I’m not very good at that Dom, you’re actually better at doing this, you crack on and vice versa. Whereas when you’re in another business relationship, there may be an ego at play. There may be, you know, you may be trying to without even realizing it, you may be trying to be sort of the top person. Dom and I do everything equally. Everything is 50- 50. We have the same job titles even though we do two different jobs for that exact reason because anybody externally looking in, we want them to know that everything is 50-50 between Dom and I. There is no ego, there is no one person making decisions. Everything is completely equal. And that’s an important part of not only our upbringing, whether you were fighting because it’s very territorial, but also our outlook and what we’re trying to do, we are stronger as a two than each of us are as a one.
Dominic Chapman
00:28:49 – 00:29:12
And I think the other thing so quickly is in both our roles, even though we do different things, we can both quite easily jump into the other person’s role if needed and we do that quite often, you know, you jump across things with clients, I jump across some sales stuff. Like if we do jump across things as well which helps.
Jeff Bullas
00:29:13 – 00:29:29
So we have Chapman Capital, which is the two of you. So what’s the future for Chapman Capital? What’s, how are you gonna kick ass in 2023?
Eliot Chapman
00:29:30 – 00:31:12
That’s a great question. So Chapman Capital was born out of, I guess we were, we wanted to realize some of the upside from Social Chaps. We realized that we had something pretty good, but we were just on a retainer model and we were building pipelines for our clients upwards of a million pounds in pipeline value. And we sat down, we were like, there has to be a way that we can actually realize some of what we’re building for our clients. So hence what led to Chapman Capital, which is the acquisition journey where we are now growing by acquisitions, growing by investing in other companies. 2023 has been an unbelievable year. We started the back end of 2022-2023 by acquiring Speak On Podcasts. We’ve made investments into three other agencies and how we’re going to kick ass is by continuing on that exact journey. We’ve got a hell of a lot of work to be doing over the next couple of years, the more agencies we bring into our fold, the more Dom and I’s time is evaporating, which is going down really well with my family and my young family at that. However, what we’re trying to do, we are trying to build somewhat of a legacy and a bit of an empire that Dom and I can grow, nurture whether we sell it, whether we carry on growing it. We are quite fluid in what we do at the moment. We are enjoying this mad chaotic, stressful, lovable journey that we’re currently on.
Jeff Bullas
00:31:13 – 00:31:23
Okay. So next question for me is how can we scale this? In other words, what are your processes and systems to scale the Chapman brothers?
Dominic Chapman
00:31:23 – 00:32:58
That is a great question because obviously scale systems within every single agency are different which is a dynamic and we’ve always wanted to keep all the agencies separate. So scaling those individually, but I think that the key thing for us is just getting unbelievable people around us who can support and take on the workload. And I think, yeah, people has always been the biggest challenge and I think it always will be for agency owners, you know, we’re pretty fortunate to have some great people around us and it’s just continuing to find more people and we’re pretty active in just sort of how we recruit, which is just again, having conversations with people, you know, saying I’d like to work with you in the future and when it comes around it’s, you know, pitching them to come and work with us. So that’s one side of it is, you know, bringing great people in and selling them the vision whether that be in an agency or within Chapman Capital. And then, yeah, having good systems, good standard operating procedures making sure every single team member, whether they’re, you know, just a, or just a coordinator or a senior leader know the vision and where to find things, I think is just really important.
Jeff Bullas
00:32:59 – 00:33:03
So you sound like a lot of bouncing balls.
Eliot Chapman
00:33:04 – 00:34:19
Yes, it is. It is quite chaotic. So we’ve got our sister who works with us and works within Chapman Capital across the group of companies. She was our first employee in Social Chaps four or five years ago. She’s, since working now. She’s working directly with Dom and I to actually help some of that workload. I think it does come in ebbs and flows. It sort of comes in what’s another analogy, peaks and troughs, you know, there are times where it’s absolutely chaotic and there are a million and one things going on and there are times where you just need to focus on a single agency. Again, having those systems. So having all your processes fully documented so that anybody can go in and pick up a particular task or a particular assignment. It definitely helps, but also surrounding yourself with doers. What we are, what I like to think we’re quite good at is not having too many chiefs and having a lot of people who are happy to roll up their sleeves and crack on with certain tasks. That’s one thing that I think we’re quite good at.
Jeff Bullas
00:34:20 – 00:34:32
So is there a system or a process that you’ve actually discovered that you can roll out amongst the agencies you have a share in?
Eliot Chapman
00:34:33 – 00:36:00
Yeah. So we’ve got, I guess we’ve got templated processes for all things like the sales for recruitment, for delivery. We’ve got templated processes. However, each process and each company that we work with, they are tweaked. So we’ve got a high level template. However, what we won’t try and do, and this is actually a really, really important point because people take a process and think, right, we’ve got to work through this process and it might not be the right process and that’s absolutely fine. That is okay. We’ll come in, we’ll suggest some ideas. So we were doing this exercise with a brand new agency that we’ve just invested in last week or the week before we’ve got a template and we know that this template works because it works across the group. However, they might do things slightly differently at a proposal stage of a sales, you know, a sales process. And that’s absolutely fine. We can tweak a process. A process is there to enable you to do something better. It’s not there to be a burden. So we’ve got templates across the group. However, near enough, every single company is doing something slightly differently and that’s fine. That’s great. That means that we’re learning something new. We’re growing, we’re evolving. We are all in for that. We’re not gonna try and make something just fit for the sake of making it fit.
Jeff Bullas
00:36:01 – 00:36:39
Yeah. So the challenge for you guys is that you’re dealing with creative digital agencies at the end of the day, you need to generate leads, you need to actually get people to close on proposals and needed to deliver. So on those three levels, lead gen proposals delivery and you guys is that sort of a space that is quite not template is not the right word but gonna be replicated.
Eliot Chapman
00:36:40 – 00:36:45
Yeah. So Dom, do you wanna talk about the lead gen stuff and I’ll talk about the proposal, productization stuff?
Dominic Chapman
00:36:46 – 00:37:59
Yeah. So obviously with the lead gen we’re quite fortunate to have a system in place that we’ve had in place for years. So rolling that out across sort of the new agencies, we work in is fairly simple. We’ve got a real process in place now and obviously it gets tweaked, and the copy changes and the strategy changes, but it’s the same fundamentals within it, which is, you know, great relationships. And I think it’s one thing that we always try and do with lead gen is, you know, get them to understand that not every call is gonna be a sales call where you’re gonna win the business. It should be focused around establishing and it goes back establishing a relationship. So yeah, the fundamentals are there. We implement the systems. We do training, CRM training. We have the same CRM for all clients, all agencies which is HubSpot. And we’ve got all the integration. So it’s a fairly quick set up and then it once they’re booked in it sort of then passes quite nicely over to El.
Eliot Chapman
00:38:00 – 00:39:57
Yeah. So from a proposal sales perspective, what we try and do is how can we shorten the sale cycle? Sale cycles are elongated by a lack of understanding from the sales person on the, you know, whether the person is gonna close, you can get yourself into a load of rabbit holes by not asking quality questions, but also you can get lost in a proposal stage. So how can we eliminate, getting too involved in proposals? That’s where we do a lot of work on productization. So how can we make one of our prospects, like off a really, really small chunk for us to then potentially sell in something bigger? So we work hard on small packages, small productization where it’s really, really easy for the prospect or the buyer to go, yeah, I need that. It’s a really low barrier of entry. It’s a really small commitment we can then go in and prove ourselves the other part of it which ties in is making sure that we’re actually asking the right questions on a sales call and making sure the person is genuinely interested. So a lot of this, none of this is actually rocket science, Jeff. It’s just people and founders are normally specialists in their field. They’re not normally out and out sales people. So by giving them two or three conversational questions to say, okay, this person is genuinely interested in this product. We can actually move this forward and giving them the license to go it’s okay to ask these questions. It gives everybody clarity. It’s not a horrible question. It just helps in that whole sales process and shortening that sales cycle. So they’re the three key things we do templated lead generation, quick wins, productization and complete transparency and clarity from a sales call perspective.
Jeff Bullas
00:39:58 – 00:40:08
So, what you’re trying to do is you’re trying to give agencies a system.
Eliot Chapman
00:40:09 – 00:40:47
Yeah, and a system and a process that is easy to follow, not overcomplicated and makes the whole process so much more enjoyable. That’s one of the things that I think, you know, in the time that we’ve been doing this agency owners have gone from hating sales, hating the outbound sales process. And, you know, it’s called cold sales to actually enjoying the process because they get clarity and it can be good fun. You’re building relationships, you’re providing a solution to somebody’s problem. It doesn’t have to be as shit as what it can often be. It is good fun.
Jeff Bullas
00:40:48 – 00:40:51
How do you feel about that, Dom?
Dominic Chapman
00:40:52 – 00:41:35
Yeah, sales can be fun. I think that people are different. They’re either, you know, they’re either into sales or they’re not. But I think as a founder or a senior leader within a business, you need to understand that sales is going to be part of your job and it’s probably the most important part of your job whether you’re selling internally selling to clients to stay on set up, you know, upsell or actually just doing out and out sales. I think it’s the most important thing that, you know, people should learn how to do, if you want to be a senior leader within a business.
Eliot Chapman
00:41:36 – 00:42:33
And that there’s there’s different type of sales. How Dom and I would interact on a sales call is completely different and that’s also absolutely fine, you know, you, I think you have to leverage your skill set. Dom is much more technical and therefore his expertise comes out in leaps and bounds when he’s talking about the product and how we’d lean in on the tech side of things. And that’s why he’s able to sell because he’s got that expertise and that he sells using that knowledge. I don’t have that expertise. So mine is much more conversational. It’s much more, I’m providing a solution to the problem that you’ve just told me that you have. Two, no one is better than the other. It’s more about focusing on, you know, what is your skill set? If I tried to be too technical, I’d trip myself up. If Dom tried to be too sales, he’d trip himself up. So we just leverage what our skill set is whilst sticking to the sort of the framework that we’ve got.
Jeff Bullas
00:42:34 – 00:42:44
In other words, one of you is really good at relationships, the other is really good at the technical shit, right? Is that right?
Eliot Chapman
00:42:45 – 00:42:52
Dom is also good at relationships. He can just not in his personal life.
Dominic Chapman
00:42:53 – 00:42:58
Oh, no, that’s a car crash. We won’t cover that.
Jeff Bullas
00:42:59 – 00:43:19
We’re not gonna go there, Dom. It’s okay. I’ve had a lot of fun over the years. So I really don’t care. So, it’s fine. I’ve been married twice, right? And getting married three times looks like I’m actually a failure at marriage. But it looks like we’re having a good go, right?
Eliot Chapman
00:43:20 – 00:43:24
Yeah, you gotta keep on trying though Jeff?.
Dominic Chapman
00:43:24 – 00:43:30
Third times a charm.
Jeff Bullas
00:43:30 – 00:44:00
And that’s part of the fun, really. So, just to wrap this up guys. So you’re about, okay, need it in the entrepreneur business that we’re all in and you guys and in agency it doesn’t really matter. You gotta generate leads, you gotta provide a proposal and you gotta close the sale. So what are the big takeaways for my audience that you guys would like to share about that?
Eliot Chapman
00:44:00 – 00:45:00
So come up with a process that works for you try and shoehorn a process that you know, just because some guy on Instagram or TikTok or Twitter is saying that this is the best thing since whatever, try and come up with your own process that works for you and also don’t get too bogged down on perfection, try and just get something moving, get selling just in my opinion, people try and create either this perfect product, this perfect process, this perfect sales deck, forget about it. If you can get on a call, provide value, come across well, you do not need anything to be perfect within that entire process, you’ll be able to close deals, focus on moving quickly. Don’t focus on perfection. That would be the key thing that we focus on in all our agencies.
Jeff Bullas
00:45:01 – 00:45:04
And Dom, what would you say about?
Dominic Chapman
00:45:05 – 00:46:26
Yes. Similar, which is don’t get bogged down in, you know, trying to create a brand. I think the quicker you can get speaking to your potential customers, the quicker you understand what the problems are and how to position it. And then, you know, from an outreach perspective, it’s just getting something out there is pen to paper and then it’s testing and iterating and the, I guess the other side of it is if it’s not working or, you know, you aren’t getting the traction, then take a real look and don’t be afraid to sort of shatter your ego and move on and, you know, change the product. I think a lot of founders, they think they’ve got this great idea. So they shove it down their customers throats or, and, you know, people really don’t want it and it’s, you’ll know when you get it right in terms of your market, you know, where you sit in the market because it doesn’t even feel like selling and I think if you’re in that space where it feels like you’re swimming against the current, you know, you should shift or stop. Yeah. Get a job.
Jeff Bullas
00:46:26 – 00:47:31
Okay. So any, so just a couple of takeaways from both of you. So, we’re trying to sell in a digital world quite often through a Zoom call or face to face. So what’s, how do we do this? Because the challenge really is just like we quite often don’t catch up in person anymore and also we in the UK talking to someone in the USA or in Australia talking to someone in Colorado. So how do you convince them to buy from you? A lot of questions are all in the middle of that but okay, so how do you sell in a digital world and turn them into customers and continue to make them ongoing customers?
Eliot Chapman
00:47:32 – 00:49:56
So I guess the one of the positives from doing things on a Zoom call is that you’ll have a fixed amount of time. So you’ll have, let’s say 15 minutes, 20 minutes, whatever it may be, we will always open and try and have a little bit of conversation, a little bit of commonality. Exactly what we did, Jeff. When we jumped on, we were chatting about where we’re from, we’re chatting about the time. It’s exactly the same thing, right? And you’re just trying to find common ground and build that relationship. So let that flow for a couple of minutes and then take control of the call. That’s one key thing and just list out high level how the call is gonna go. So I’m gonna get you to talk about your business. Just give me a high level intro. Listen and listen to what they’re telling you because ultimately they will hopefully tell you why they’re on a call with you. If they’ve taken a sales call, it’s because they’re interested in that product, in your product or they’ve got a problem, try and eke out what that problem is what I try and do because there’s a reason why they’re on the call and I will then match up our solution to that particular problem. So you might tell me, Jeff, that you’ve got ambitions to grow your digital agency to million pounds in revenue over the next two years. However, you’ve got no way of actually doing that. You don’t, you’ve only just leverage your network. You don’t do any outbound, you don’t do any marketing, you don’t do any ads I can then match our lead gen solution or even our podcasting solution or any of our marketing solutions to your problem. To say this is exactly how we can help you and essentially sell a dream or a vision on how we do that. So in a very short space of time, you can turn a problem that any agency or whatever it may be into a solution and into a small bite size solution as well, you know what we try and do is not sell you a, you know, a £20,000 package straight off the bat. Let’s work with a small budget. Let’s work with something small. Let’s prove ourselves. Let’s get this relationship flowing and then we can work on something bigger. So that’s high level, how I would do that in a digital world. It doesn’t matter whether you’re in Colorado or whether you’re the next town along you can do exactly that. You can still build those high level commonalities.
Jeff Bullas
00:49:57 – 00:50:03
Cool. And Dom, what’s your insights that you learned over the over time?
Dominic Chapman
00:50:03 – 00:51:51
Yeah, I think my, I’ll sort of take a different approach because I’m gonna assume there’s a fair few listeners who are thinking of delving into starting a business and, you know, getting into the digital space and that is sort of leveraging your network locally and taking a different approach which is don’t try and, you know, sell, as El said, a major package off the bat, but using people as case studies doing it at cost and just getting going through the motions of, you know, signing a client delivering on that work, using them as a case study and just sort of building up that portfolio. That’s literally how we started Social Chaps, which is, you know, we had three or four people who we knew through, you know, friends of friends and we’d just been networking, going to things, doing our own outreach and the conversation was very much. Look, we’re at the start of this journey, we know we can do it because we’ve done it in the past, but we will do it at cost in return for a case study. And, you know, you can say it cost and you can add another 100 quid on, you know, they don’t know exactly the cost, if you do want to make a bit of money and again, it’s just going through that process and I think again, people get sort of stuck with all the moving parts of starting a business, but at the end of the day, it’s literally just sell and deliver. And if you deliver, they’re more than likely to come back. It’s as simple as that, you know, sell and deliver.
Jeff Bullas
00:51:52 – 00:52:02
So thank you guys for sharing your wisdom and the brotherhood of siblings and sibling rivalry.
Eliot Chapman
00:52:02 – 00:52:05
You’re welcome. Thanks so much for having us on.
Jeff Bullas
00:52:06 – 00:52:18
So, thank you guys. Have a great day in the UK and so where are you guys based actually?
Eliot Chapman
00:52:19 – 00:52:27
I am down, yeah, Dom’s in Bournemouth, both grew up in Bournemouth. I’m in a nicer part.
Dominic Chapman
00:52:28 – 00:52:34
I’m closer to the beach.
Jeff Bullas
00:52:34 – 00:52:37
So sibling rivalry rises.
Eliot Chapman
00:52:38 – 00:52:43
That was us saying about no egos, just debug that theory.
Jeff Bullas
00:52:44 – 00:52:53
Okay, guys have a great day and thank you very much for sharing your insights and wisdom and thank you very much.
Eliot Chapman
00:52:53 – 00:52:54
Cheers, mate.
Dominic Chapman
00:52:54 – 00:52:56
Bye bye.