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Blueprint for Sales Success and Entrepreneurship

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Content provided by Leighann Lovely. All podcast content including episodes, graphics, and podcast descriptions are uploaded and provided directly by Leighann Lovely or their podcast platform partner. If you believe someone is using your copyrighted work without your permission, you can follow the process outlined here https://player.fm/legal.

In this engaging episode of the "Love Your Sales" podcast, host Leighann Lovely interviews Ryan Atkinson, a young and dynamic entrepreneur who owns and runs two companies—Spacebar Visuals and Magic Media. Ryan shares his journey from working at HubSpot to starting his own businesses, delving into his strategic approach to business development, hiring, and leadership. He discusses the importance of identifying an ideal customer profile (ICP) and leveraging outbound marketing techniques to drive growth. Ryan also highlights the significance of working within one's area of genius and outsourcing tasks that aren't core strengths. The conversation offers valuable insights for small and mid-sized businesses looking to enhance their marketing efforts through multimedia content. Listen to learn actionable strategies and be inspired by Ryan's entrepreneurial spirit.

Contact Ryan -

Website – https://www.spacebarvisuals.com/

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryan-atkinson17/

Special Thank you to our Sponsor Genhead – www.genhead.com

Robb Conlon – Intro and outro – Westport Studio - https://www.westportstudiosllc.com/

The Brave Ones – Instrumental Version Song by Jan Sanejko - https://artlist.io/royalty-free-music/song/the-brave-ones/119489

Ready to grow your business? Schedule a call with us today - https://api.leadconnectorhq.com/widget/bookings/discoverysalesleighann

Channel Subscribe link - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-O7W9DzaRv4waodQKCprIg?sub_confirmation=1

#sales #businessdevelopment #entrepreneur #entrepreneurship #selling #relashionships #customerexperience #podcast #loveyoursales #lastingrelashionships #salescareers #salesmanager #salesdevelopment #traininganddevelopment #leadershipdevelopment #salespodcast #salestraining

Leighann Lovely: Welcome to another episode of love your sales. I'm really excited. I am joined by Ryan Atkinson. He is 25 years of age and entrepreneur who owns and leads two companies, Space Bar Visuals, and Magic Media. Ryan grew up in Iowa and attended the University of Iowa. After graduating, he moved to Boston to work as a BDR at HubSpot.

After a year, he pivoted to a new role in marketing [00:02:00] for a health tech company and also moved to Austin, Texas. At that, at this time, he started his first company. Magic Media, which is a podcast agency providing production needs and interview needs. A year ago, he started Space Bar Visuals with his co-founder Brandon in which they create.

Animated videos for SaaS companies in early November, Ryan left his full-time job to run these companies full time. Ryan has managed 70 plus people in his career already hosted up. 185 interviews created 125 K in revenue in the past year and partnered with some of the biggest brands in the world in his free time.

He enjoys working out, reading, traveling, and being with friends, Ryan. I am so thrilled to have you join me on the, , on the podcast today.

Ryan Atkinson: Yeah. Super excited to be here. The, the intro is nice. You read that off like very nicely. So yeah, super, super pumped to be here and yeah, chop it up with you and your audience, I guess.

[00:03:00] Super excited.

Leighann Lovely: So you are, um, a very young entrepreneur, um, you know, right out of the gate, it looks like you've, you've, you know, explain, have you always had that entrepreneurial experience or, or, um, you know, I guess what would be the right word, um, bug.

Ryan Atkinson: Yeah, I gotcha. Um, yeah, so I was actually very lucky and very grateful to have, uh, my stepdad, my mom, they actually both run their own companies.

So my stepdad owns a flooring business up in Minnesota. My mom owns her own hair salon. And even my dad like dabbles in like short term like Airbnb rental. So I was always raised by entrepreneurs and I knew I wanted. Once I got out of school to do my three W's and that's work whenever I want work with whoever I want and work like what on what I want to do.

Um, so I knew coming out of school that I wanted to be an entrepreneur. I was part of the university of Iowa was like founders clubs. Um, I had my own podcast interviewing entrepreneurs when I was a senior in college. So yeah, from a young age, like I knew I wanted to start my own [00:04:00] company. And it wasn't a matter of like.

If it was more a matter of when. And so when I was like 23, 24, however old I was, um, that came to fruition. And yeah, now 25, um, have done some fun stuff. Very grateful for what I do have been built an awesome team. So yeah, very grateful for what I do. And yeah, I started basically from my parents though, that entrepreneurial bug.

Leighann Lovely: That's, that's amazing. Um, and you know, I think that you're, you're doing it right. You're doing it at an age where you, and I don't want to say lower risk, but it's, you don't, you don't have the. And again, I, I don't know you extremely well, but I'm going to say you don't have that house. You don't have the kids.

You don't have the, all of those extra. And again, some people can,

Ryan Atkinson: but

Leighann Lovely: you don't have all of those, those weighing responsibilities where you're like, oh, okay, do I, I have to have this paycheck coming in all of the time. Yep. Um, it's great to get that started when you have that opportunity and, and to really, Just dive in full and I'm [00:05:00] not saying that everybody out there should do it because you have to have a certain, you know, mindset to be able to, to do that.

So let's start with, I guess, how, what steps did you take? Who did you lean on in order to really figure out and navigate the world of business ownership?

Ryan Atkinson: Yeah. I mean, it's a learning process. Um, it always is a learning process, but any business owner will be able to relate. Like you learn something new, like every day, just like the skills you acquire and everything, but the process really got started.

Um, going to space, our visuals, um, basically November, 2022. Um, I was just mindlessly scrolling on Twitter and I came across a tweet that was like, Hey, I just sold my last company looking to start another company. Um, Looking for like a co founder to help me do it. And that was Brandon. And so kind of just shot my shot through email, sent him an email, uh, attached like a little loom video on it, like going over my resume and being like, Hey, like I always want to start a company.

We'd love to do this with you type of thing. Um, and [00:06:00] the stars aligned, we hit it off very well. And that's kind of how space bar visuals is born. So Brandon. Brandon's 30 right now. He's about five years older than me. And I've leaned heavily on him for like mentorship. And how do I run a business? How do I actually act as a CEO act as like someone that needs to actually run a company?

That's not just like for fun, but like actually generates revenues, like hits revenue targets and has certain profitability margins. Um, so leaning a lot on him just for mentorship has been awesome. Uh, but a lot of it is navigating business ownership always just comes down to making mistakes, learning from those mistakes, kind of building the ship as you go.

Um, so yeah, it's, I like to think that I'm starting to get a little bit of the strap, the handles on it, but I still have like a very long ways to go, which is very exciting because it just at the very, very beginning of like business ownership and like actually running a company, company successfully.

Leighann Lovely: And I love that.

I, you know, every entrepreneur, salespeople, people are out there who are [00:07:00] literally laying their, you know, their cards on the table saying, Hey, like work with me. Come in. I love, there's a common thread among, among all of them, which is, Hey, I'm willing to make mistakes. I'm willing to. And I love that about, um, Um, I love that about those individuals that they're not only are they willing to make the mistakes, they're willing to own those mistakes and then learn from them and move on.

So let's talk about that. You had, you mentioned a three step process that you used to, you know, to bring space bar visuals, um, you know, to really grow that revenue to what a hundred and K a hundred one K in year one. So let's, let's talk about how you, let's talk about that process. Let's talk about how you did that.

Ryan Atkinson: Yeah. So the three step process. So basically what happened is we got to about a hundred K over a hundred K in revenue in our first year. And like, I was working on this on the side for the first like eight months of it. Um, and so we hit on a trend K and once you hit a hundred K, you're kind of like. Like we actually got to have [00:08:00] something here.

It's, it's like crazy to say like your agency, is it like a six figure agency? Like, I think that is still like crazy to think about. So a three step process that we used here, um, at space heart visuals, um, kind of giving the secret formula out on how someone else could do this is basically. It's kind of like a four step step.

One was it's kind of like a five step step. One is identify your ICP here. Uh, like we really nailed our ICP to start out with our ideal customer profile. We knew we were going to go after marketing directors. We knew we were going to go after SAS companies and we knew we were going to go after like smaller to midsize companies, employee size, like 11 to a hundred.

We really nailed our ICP. So if you are wanting to start a company, if you are wanting to grow sales, definitely nail your ICP. That's how you're messaging, who you're messaging to and make sure you know it.

Leighann Lovely: Say what, explain what an ICP is.

Ryan Atkinson: Yep. Ideal customer profile synonymous with like target audience.

Who are you actually selling to? So we really wanted to hit that and nail that to start. And that's [00:09:00] the foundation of like everything that we do. So kind of going to that next process. Then what we did is we do a lot of outbound here. We're trying to ramp up our inbound, but I can't give advice on that. I can give advice on outbound and how to do that effectively.

Um, so what we did is once we had that ICP, we just got a list from Upwork. We hired someone for like 15 to get us like. 150 contacts, like whatever that comes out to be. Um, from there, then we got their emails. We got their phone numbers and you hit them in three ways here. So you'll upload this list into whatever platform you use HubSpot instantly, Salesforce, et cetera, et cetera.

You have one list. We cold email them. We send them a message on LinkedIn, and then we also will cold call them. So we're hitting them three different ways, three different touch points. You're sending five emails, three LinkedIn messages, and then cold calling them as well. And that was one of the most effective ways that we grew from basically zero to 50 K was pretty scrappy, but 50 K to a hundred K is truly how we got that, uh, to [00:10:00] that next level is through that three, four or five step process.

Leighann Lovely: And that's amazing. So, and a lot of people are sitting there, even myself who runs my own business, you know, sitting there going, okay, that's great. You bring in the clients, but then there's the execution.

Ryan Atkinson: Yeah. Yeah. The good.

Leighann Lovely: No. And I was just going to say, so you bring these, these clients in. So now you have to execute on that work.

So I'm going to, I'm going to guess that you have a process, a solid process, because you can't survive if you're bringing in business and not. Probably.

Ryan Atkinson: Yeah, definitely. Um, and we actually, so up until about May last month, late April, I was actually handling all the account management of like video projects, doing this, doing that, doing this, doing that, just moving the projects along.

But we actually brought someone on to do that for me because my unique skills. And I think it's very important if you. [00:11:00] Our leader, if you're wanting to start a business, like what's your unique skillset and how can you free up your time as much as possible to really dive into that? And my unique skillset, like truly is like selling, like actually closing deals.

It's not dealing with video projects and all that stuff. So we brought, uh, Matthew Chin on who's awesome. Matt, if you're listening to this, I love the work that you do. And I'm very grateful for you. Uh, but essentially he handles now all of our account management. We have our SOP standard operating process in place.

We have our video editors. And so, yeah, him doing that is freed up. 50 percent of my time, which has been humongous for our sales process and actually refining that sales process to make it better and more efficient.

Leighann Lovely: That's awesome. And so something else that we talk about that I've talked about a lot on this podcast is working in, you know, making sure that you are in your working genius.

Like, because when you, when you fall outside of that, what takes somebody, you know, what, when I'm in my area of genius, I can execute on that work. It takes me.

Ryan Atkinson: Yeah. [00:12:00]

Leighann Lovely: Five minutes to do a function when I'm outside of my area of working genius, what would take somebody five minutes to do that? Takes me a half an hour because I'm like, Oh my God, how do I wait?

I know, I know how to do this, but it just, it drains you, right? And all of us, especially when you start as a solopreneur or a two person team, you're like, okay, well we can, I'm great. I can bring in the sales like all day long. I can sell, sell, sell, sell, but then I have to execute. And that, especially for a true salesperson, they're like, wait, what?

I have to, I have to execute on this. Um, okay. And that's a lot how businesses start. Like either you're really great at the thing you're selling, but you're a horrible salesperson, which means, and again, I say that lately, you're not the greatest salesperson because you're, you want to do, let's say you're a coach.

As an [00:13:00] example, I'm a great coach, but selling it. Now you have a problem because how do you scale? If you can't sell, you bring in a coaching client, then you, so that's, that's awesome. Um, and that's, but it always comes down to what comes first, the chicken or the egg.

Ryan Atkinson: Exactly. So that's, um, a funny enough today.

I was actually. On a sales call or someone was like pitching me their like, copywriting services and like their copy to get me on that call for their email was incredible. I was like, I was like, oh my gosh. Like, like I'll book a meeting with you right away. I think I booked a meeting in like 10 minutes.

'cause I was like, this is like incredible copy. Like I will do this. Got on the call with them and it was like the most awkward, like disgustingly awkward sales call I've ever had in my like entire life. I'm not even kidding. Like I was like asked, I was having to like probe him. Like, so what do you do?

Like, what's your process like? It was just so hard and it just left such a bad taste in my mouth or like the sales was so bad that like, I can't, I just can't move forward with it. It is like so hard, but I'm sure it's good, but I just can't move [00:14:00] forward

Leighann Lovely: because the person's a copywriter. Not

Ryan Atkinson: exactly

Leighann Lovely: right.

And that as a salesperson, when somebody reaches out to me and like. They have a really, really good pitch. I'm like, okay, I'm intrigued. Like you did a really good job to intrigue me. And I'll, I'll, I'll actually like meet with that person, but you're right. Often all of a sudden they're like, uh, and if you're, and if you have to get them to sell you, it's like, okay, I'm moving on.

I'm moving on. Like, but cause it's not their area of genius.

Ryan Atkinson: So I think, um, if you are like wanting to start a company or scale, like definitely find your area of genius and then hire someone to cover up your weaknesses for you. And that's been like, that is easily been one of the best things here at, um, space, our visuals for us is getting someone to do account management where like I could do it and like, maybe like, I think I like to think I do a good job managing [00:15:00] clients, but like, at the same time, my time could be freed up somewhere.

Somewhere else to actually like grow this company instead of doing the account management. So yeah, I a thousand percent agree. Find your area of expertise and double down in that area of expertise.

Leighann Lovely: Right. And that's the same way that you should, you know, that I've talked to other people's the same way you should manage people.

Now you've managed what 70 plus people. So let's talk a little bit about that. What are these? Are these salespeople? Are these all different types of people?

Ryan Atkinson: Yeah. So it's all different types of people. It's, I mean, it's truly has ranged from age ages, like 15 to like 65 plus. Um, I was grateful enough. Like when I was 18, I got my first management gig at a pool, which was great.

I like managed the concession stand. So then that next year I got promoted to manage the concession stands and lifeguards. And that was like 36 people in one summer that I'm like directly managing, um, at age like 19, which. It was probably the best job I've ever had, honestly, being a pool manager. Uh, then I've had like a few other leadership [00:16:00] positions within some athletic clubs.

And then space, our visuals were at like 15, 16 people I'm managing right now. So yeah, it's been, it's been a great experience to be able to gain like leadership, leadership, um, skills like at a pretty young age, but yeah, my leadership principles is like always treat people right. And like, always be there for them.

I don't view it as like, if someone works for me, like I tell everyone that I hire this, everyone that I work with, like, if you work for me, like I will look out for your best interests in any way that's possible. Like, what are your personal goals? What are your professional goals? And like, how can I help you get there?

Cause how I view it is if your people succeed, you succeed. It's not you succeed first and then your people succeed. You need to have your people, the people that you hire succeed for you to succeed. So giving them the resources, giving them the time, giving them the energy that they deserve is one of my biggest, like leadership principles.

And I am very grateful for the team at space star visuals. Like they, we've got some amazing people on the scene. I'm so happy. I get to work with, I have great working relationships with, but yeah, you got to make your people successful for you to be successful. [00:17:00]

Leighann Lovely: That's awesome. That's, and you know, a lot of people that I talk with, they always, we talk about the, what we were.

Just talking, you know, the area of genius and then their weaknesses and. Um, helping them leverage that working, that working. And I keep talking about working. It's a book, that anyways, but, um, now I'm in, I have to remember the,

um, and I'm trying to remember, but, um, I can't remember off the top of my head anyways. Um, I talk about this a lot because as I, as a manager, you want to, you want to basically ignore their, their strengths, right? Yeah. Yeah. You. Let them let them fly.

Ryan Atkinson: Yeah.

Leighann Lovely: And then, and then help them with the weaknesses, remove any roadblocks that they may have so that they can continue to fly and succeed.

And we, and I've talked a lot about that, especially, especially [00:18:00] salespeople. Do you manage salespeople?

Ryan Atkinson: Yeah, so we, we have a BDR on our team that I like directly manage. Um, so yeah, I manage him, I guess. Uh, but yeah, Cody, his name's Cody Tran. He's also incredible. Um, I love Cody death. He's good stuff. But yeah, I manage him.

Leighann Lovely: So let's, let's shift a little bit. What do you think that the greatest challenge that you have, have had? Thus far in your career.

Ryan Atkinson: Oh man. The biggest challenge. Um, I think, I don't know the biggest one is, I think we've had some unexpected challenges being like a CEO. Um, honestly, like one of them is just like, quite frankly, like owning up to the role.

Um, like I'm 25 and it's like crazy to think like when I actually talk to people, it's like. And they're like, Oh, what do you do for work? Or like, what's your job title? It's like, I'm a CEO. And so it's acting like a CEO and like actually putting those systems in place. So understanding the duties of like what a effective CEO does.

I'm still learning it every day. Like I am [00:19:00] far from perfect on how I operate here. Um, but I'm learning it every day. Another unexpected challenge, honestly, is hiring. Hiring was one of the, one of the hardest things I have done. Like you just get so many applicants, a lot of them, like, there's some that like really stand out the ones that really stand out, you interview them and like, they're all like kind of the same, so it's like, Oh, who's going to be good?

Like, what do we do? So I would say like owning up to the role and like, Taking ownership of the role is super important, of course, but like, it's just a learning process of like how to be an effective CEO and then also hiring. Hiring has been a very unexpected challenge, but it's something that you absolutely need to get right.

Leighann Lovely: So, and I think hiring is probably the, one of the biggest challenges for any organization. Cause you're right. You have to get it right. Um, because it's, it's, it's. It's extremely expensive to hire somebody and then have to fire somebody if they're not living up to that, to the expectations. And we [00:20:00] all hope that the people that we hire are going to hold themselves accountable the same way that we hold ourselves accountable.

And most entrepreneurs set their own bar, you know, If it's a normal average bar, you know, we're usually like a little bit higher,

Ryan Atkinson: definitely

Leighann Lovely: higher somewhere in the clouds. And everybody's going, why do you put this pressure on yourself? And you're like, I don't, am I?

Ryan Atkinson: Yeah. Yeah.

Leighann Lovely: What do you think? Um, what do you think?

What characteristics do you think that you have that Help those people really, what, what do they see in you that makes them, you know, want to truly succeed for your organization?

Ryan Atkinson: Yeah, that's a great question. I think like they true, like people that truly like work for me, like can feel that, like, I am extremely grateful that anyone that takes a chance on like space bar visuals to like actually work here, like I am incredibly grateful for that.

And I feel like they didn't really feel that they get the. I like to think anyways, obviously I'm saying my own thing. So it's all bias here, but I [00:21:00] like to think I give them like very good support on like what they do. Like, how can I be a resource for you? What do you need from me? Like, how can I help you succeed?

I feel like that's like something I, like I said, like I am very invested in like your own personal development and professional development. And if you're at space art visuals, like I'm going to find a way to make you succeed. I cannot promise I'm going to get you there. Like, I can, I just can't promise that, but I can promise you, like, I'm going to actually Try to get you there.

I'm going to work very hard for you to fulfill all your goals. We, um, I read traction recently. I don't know who the author is. I keep referencing this book, but, uh, traction. Uh, yeah, yeah. And a lot of business owners have read it. It's a very executive book. Um, but they, uh, we got our core values actually from that.

We did like a core values exercise. So next time we do go to hire, like we really do want to. Hire based on our core values and make sure that they're aligning with it.

Leighann Lovely: And what are your core values?

Ryan Atkinson: Yeah. So it's, um, we actually have an acronym, it's, uh, Reflect, Reflect. So it's, uh, resilience, entrepreneurial mindset, have fun, fun, [00:22:00] whatever, um, reflect, uh, make sure I'm saying this right.

L is a leadership, I is integrity, and C is like collaboration. So we want people that have those core values and it's just some of the core values and common characteristics that we have here at Spaceport Visuals.

Leighann Lovely: Right. And that's important. It's important for your team to, to know what is a value to you and to your co founder.

Um, that it's, it sounds like you have created a company that people want to work at

Ryan Atkinson: and

Leighann Lovely: therefore will work harder, right?

Ryan Atkinson: Mm

Leighann Lovely: hmm. And, and I shouldn't say harder work. Um, I, I don't like saying work harder, but right, work smarter and, and do a good job for your organization. So tell me a little bit about, [00:23:00] a little bit more about what your, your company does space bar visuals. Thanks.

Ryan Atkinson: Yeah. So what we do is we are a video production agency.

So we do animated videos. We do like product demos, customer testimonials. We'll do event videos. We'll repurpose like a blog or white paper into like a 60 second video. Um, and yeah, we handle the script writing, the storyboarding, the animation, the voiceover. So, like I said earlier, we work with best with like marketing people, uh, with smaller companies.

And our value proposition like truly is like. You're a marketing director. You wear 30 different hats. You don't have time to do video. You want to do video. We help with all that to make it a really streamlined process for you. So that's truly like. What we do and kind of our value add

Leighann Lovely: all the things that, you know, pretty much every company needs when they're a growing organization and they don't have time to, and that, that goes really well with your previous venture or your, I'm sorry, not previous, [00:24:00] but you're also running the, the other organization, but magic media.

So. It sounds like that marries extremely well with.

Ryan Atkinson: Yeah. I've always been super interested in like media and just like content, I guess you can say that that's always just been something that I've been personally interested in. And yeah, I remember when I spoke with Brandon actually, uh, back in November, 2022, um, we were like, uh, what do we want to do together?

And we were like, well, what are we interested in? And it was like media. We're interested in selling to B2B. We're interested in selling to marketing people. And so we originally came up with three different ideas of either like a ghost writing agency for executives, a newsletter growth agency. A ghost writing, then newsletter growth, and then like a video production agency.

So we wanted to blend our interests. So like media selling to B2B selling to marketers into a company. And so, yeah, that's something I've always just been super interested in. That's more advice I'd give to someone. If you are starting a company, find what you're interested in, know what you're interested in and [00:25:00] create something based on that,

Leighann Lovely: right.

And that's, that's awesome. I mean, um, Marrying those, you know, what you had previously. Been running and then kind of shifting that to almost be able to support clients that you had brought in in the past.

Ryan Atkinson: Exactly. Yeah. And magic media. Um, a lot of that is just like podcasting stuff. Um, so it's been, that started basically from freelancing as well.

Um, just doing like simple, like guest outreach. And I was like, Oh, maybe I should actually create a company that like does all this for. Create a company that does all this for companies. So like guest outreach, podcast production, I'll even host like interviews for companies. So yeah, it's been, it's been a lot.

It's been a lot of media, a lot of content, a lot of video. Um, and I think that's been an intersection of like both of those. So yeah, I'm very. Very media driven, I would say.

Leighann Lovely: Well, and the rise of the rise of social media and the [00:26:00] cons every company that I go to every company that I speak to. And of course, obviously love your sales being a, you know, A sales company where we become salespeople for, you know, we don't do marketing.

And so often those organizations are like, Oh, okay, well, what do we, what should we do on the marketing side? And I'm like, I don't, I I'm a salesperson. Like I know marketing at a high level, but they all want content and they, they want it easily to be able to post on. LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, all of the, and to create, and I don't know, you know, but I'm not sure the audience knows, but all of those different platforms sometimes require different format.

I mean, you can't post the same thing on LinkedIn that you do on, on Twitter. Tick tock.

Ryan Atkinson: Yeah.

Leighann Lovely: Because you have to have a different format and you have to have a different length and you have to have, and so sitting down and [00:27:00] creating all of that is for an entrepreneur, for a small business. It's a nightmare.

Ryan Atkinson: It's a lot. It's too much.

Leighann Lovely: It is. You, you need an entire, another human being just to create. And so you're either hiring an entire marketing team and then when you flex, you need even more and then your marketing team is not only creating all of that stuff, but then on top of that, you're like, Oh, by the way, you have to put this in all of these other formats.

Ryan Atkinson: It's too much. Um, Yeah. So that's what like, we really like hit home on is like, it's for those marketing teams that one video, but just like, don't have that time. Don't have the resources don't have, they just don't have it. So that's why we prefer to work with like those smaller brands. Cause I love talking with like small business owners, um, not small.

Yeah. Like small business owners, mid market, mid, mid market size companies. Uh, just because like, we can relate to them in such a better way. And that's who I, that's why I sold this to at HubSpot. Um, that's just like those conversate people in marketing and sales are like the absolute best. Like [00:28:00] there's so much fun to talk to.

So yeah, that's a definitely hammering home. Like who we're trying to sell to within like the intersection of media and the value points that we're trying to hit on.

Leighann Lovely: Well, and they're the greatest people to talk to because they understand, they understand you go to an owner of an organization and they're like, well, What's my immediate ROI.

And you're like, well, I mean, I can explain the ROI you're getting in front of it, but the immediate ROI it's like,

Ryan Atkinson: it

Leighann Lovely: is because my first podcast that I ever had was for a, for a company I worked at and after it, you know, after like maybe 15 episodes, the owner came to me and goes, okay, can you explain what the ROI is now and how is it going?

And I'm like, uh, well, no, I can't give you what your ROI is yet. Like, we're literally just getting this up and running and we're starting to get views. I'm like, there's not a number to give you yet.

Ryan Atkinson: Yeah, that's um, [00:29:00] podcasting is for any company too. That's smaller. I think I actually think podcasting is like a gem just because one, you get a long form content in a 30 minute video.

You can get short form content, you can get a blog out of it. You get to connect with potentially how you do it. You can connect with your ICP. I think podcasting for small businesses is like a great lead gen magnet to actually get content out in like kind of one way. Um, so that, that's a great investment.

So after 15 episodes, though, it's kind of tough to do it, but still you could get 45 pieces of content out of 15, 15 episodes,

Leighann Lovely: right? And, and you're building a company is building themselves as. An expert in their fields.

Ryan Atkinson: Exactly.

Leighann Lovely: And that company is now becoming, wow. Okay. I, I want to go and talk to that company cause they know exactly what's happening in the market of XYZ.

Ryan Atkinson: Exactly. So

Leighann Lovely: anyways, I digress. Um, I'm, I'm a salesperson too.

Ryan Atkinson: Yeah.

Leighann Lovely: Um, so, you know, we're, we're coming to time. I want to give you, I know we've talked [00:30:00] obviously already a little bit about your background and your company, but I want to give you your 32nd shameless pitch to Get it out there and hopefully get some, some customers out at this, or at least some appointments.

So

Ryan Atkinson: yeah,

Leighann Lovely: go ahead, Ryan.

Ryan Atkinson: Yeah. If you guys are like a sales leader, a business owner, entrepreneur or whatnot, um, we do work with companies similar. We've worked with like ISO, the international standards organization, us army, we've worked with startups like GPR, butter, CMS, Vanta. They're not a startup, but we've worked all these companies to develop some awesome content that they've used on like their website, social media, sales, collateral, email collateral.

Also. If you're looking to build out your sales funnel with like great modern content, then video is a great way to do that. And yeah, we can help you guys do that in a very easy way for you. Um, and I think you'll find that our pricing is much more friendly to you guys compared to some of the bigger names out there.

So yeah, if anyone is interested, yeah, definitely please reach us out at, uh, www dot spacebar visuals. com. Let us know that you listened to this episode and we'll probably cut you a deal. So, uh, yeah, definitely. That's [00:31:00] kind of the little pitch right there of who I am, I guess, and what we do.

Leighann Lovely: Amazing. And, and again, Ryan, how can they contact you?

I know that you just gave your website. Is there any other place that they should reach out to you on?

Ryan Atkinson: Yep. So you guys can reach out as our website, uh, spacebar visuals. com. You can also reach out to me on LinkedIn, Ryan Atkinson, CEO of spacebar visuals. There should only be one. So, uh, it should be pretty easy to find on LinkedIn.

Leighann Lovely: Perfect. And those, um, those, that contact information will be in the show notes. So if anybody does want to reach out to Ryan, you will be able to go right to the show notes and find the website as well as, um, his LinkedIn profile. So, um, Ryan, I really appreciate you coming on and talking with me today.

It's been an amazing conversation.

Ryan Atkinson: Leighann. Thank you so much. This is awesome. A great interview. You did a phenomenal job. So yeah, thank you so much.

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In this engaging episode of the "Love Your Sales" podcast, host Leighann Lovely interviews Ryan Atkinson, a young and dynamic entrepreneur who owns and runs two companies—Spacebar Visuals and Magic Media. Ryan shares his journey from working at HubSpot to starting his own businesses, delving into his strategic approach to business development, hiring, and leadership. He discusses the importance of identifying an ideal customer profile (ICP) and leveraging outbound marketing techniques to drive growth. Ryan also highlights the significance of working within one's area of genius and outsourcing tasks that aren't core strengths. The conversation offers valuable insights for small and mid-sized businesses looking to enhance their marketing efforts through multimedia content. Listen to learn actionable strategies and be inspired by Ryan's entrepreneurial spirit.

Contact Ryan -

Website – https://www.spacebarvisuals.com/

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryan-atkinson17/

Special Thank you to our Sponsor Genhead – www.genhead.com

Robb Conlon – Intro and outro – Westport Studio - https://www.westportstudiosllc.com/

The Brave Ones – Instrumental Version Song by Jan Sanejko - https://artlist.io/royalty-free-music/song/the-brave-ones/119489

Ready to grow your business? Schedule a call with us today - https://api.leadconnectorhq.com/widget/bookings/discoverysalesleighann

Channel Subscribe link - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-O7W9DzaRv4waodQKCprIg?sub_confirmation=1

#sales #businessdevelopment #entrepreneur #entrepreneurship #selling #relashionships #customerexperience #podcast #loveyoursales #lastingrelashionships #salescareers #salesmanager #salesdevelopment #traininganddevelopment #leadershipdevelopment #salespodcast #salestraining

Leighann Lovely: Welcome to another episode of love your sales. I'm really excited. I am joined by Ryan Atkinson. He is 25 years of age and entrepreneur who owns and leads two companies, Space Bar Visuals, and Magic Media. Ryan grew up in Iowa and attended the University of Iowa. After graduating, he moved to Boston to work as a BDR at HubSpot.

After a year, he pivoted to a new role in marketing [00:02:00] for a health tech company and also moved to Austin, Texas. At that, at this time, he started his first company. Magic Media, which is a podcast agency providing production needs and interview needs. A year ago, he started Space Bar Visuals with his co-founder Brandon in which they create.

Animated videos for SaaS companies in early November, Ryan left his full-time job to run these companies full time. Ryan has managed 70 plus people in his career already hosted up. 185 interviews created 125 K in revenue in the past year and partnered with some of the biggest brands in the world in his free time.

He enjoys working out, reading, traveling, and being with friends, Ryan. I am so thrilled to have you join me on the, , on the podcast today.

Ryan Atkinson: Yeah. Super excited to be here. The, the intro is nice. You read that off like very nicely. So yeah, super, super pumped to be here and yeah, chop it up with you and your audience, I guess.

[00:03:00] Super excited.

Leighann Lovely: So you are, um, a very young entrepreneur, um, you know, right out of the gate, it looks like you've, you've, you know, explain, have you always had that entrepreneurial experience or, or, um, you know, I guess what would be the right word, um, bug.

Ryan Atkinson: Yeah, I gotcha. Um, yeah, so I was actually very lucky and very grateful to have, uh, my stepdad, my mom, they actually both run their own companies.

So my stepdad owns a flooring business up in Minnesota. My mom owns her own hair salon. And even my dad like dabbles in like short term like Airbnb rental. So I was always raised by entrepreneurs and I knew I wanted. Once I got out of school to do my three W's and that's work whenever I want work with whoever I want and work like what on what I want to do.

Um, so I knew coming out of school that I wanted to be an entrepreneur. I was part of the university of Iowa was like founders clubs. Um, I had my own podcast interviewing entrepreneurs when I was a senior in college. So yeah, from a young age, like I knew I wanted to start my own [00:04:00] company. And it wasn't a matter of like.

If it was more a matter of when. And so when I was like 23, 24, however old I was, um, that came to fruition. And yeah, now 25, um, have done some fun stuff. Very grateful for what I do have been built an awesome team. So yeah, very grateful for what I do. And yeah, I started basically from my parents though, that entrepreneurial bug.

Leighann Lovely: That's, that's amazing. Um, and you know, I think that you're, you're doing it right. You're doing it at an age where you, and I don't want to say lower risk, but it's, you don't, you don't have the. And again, I, I don't know you extremely well, but I'm going to say you don't have that house. You don't have the kids.

You don't have the, all of those extra. And again, some people can,

Ryan Atkinson: but

Leighann Lovely: you don't have all of those, those weighing responsibilities where you're like, oh, okay, do I, I have to have this paycheck coming in all of the time. Yep. Um, it's great to get that started when you have that opportunity and, and to really, Just dive in full and I'm [00:05:00] not saying that everybody out there should do it because you have to have a certain, you know, mindset to be able to, to do that.

So let's start with, I guess, how, what steps did you take? Who did you lean on in order to really figure out and navigate the world of business ownership?

Ryan Atkinson: Yeah. I mean, it's a learning process. Um, it always is a learning process, but any business owner will be able to relate. Like you learn something new, like every day, just like the skills you acquire and everything, but the process really got started.

Um, going to space, our visuals, um, basically November, 2022. Um, I was just mindlessly scrolling on Twitter and I came across a tweet that was like, Hey, I just sold my last company looking to start another company. Um, Looking for like a co founder to help me do it. And that was Brandon. And so kind of just shot my shot through email, sent him an email, uh, attached like a little loom video on it, like going over my resume and being like, Hey, like I always want to start a company.

We'd love to do this with you type of thing. Um, and [00:06:00] the stars aligned, we hit it off very well. And that's kind of how space bar visuals is born. So Brandon. Brandon's 30 right now. He's about five years older than me. And I've leaned heavily on him for like mentorship. And how do I run a business? How do I actually act as a CEO act as like someone that needs to actually run a company?

That's not just like for fun, but like actually generates revenues, like hits revenue targets and has certain profitability margins. Um, so leaning a lot on him just for mentorship has been awesome. Uh, but a lot of it is navigating business ownership always just comes down to making mistakes, learning from those mistakes, kind of building the ship as you go.

Um, so yeah, it's, I like to think that I'm starting to get a little bit of the strap, the handles on it, but I still have like a very long ways to go, which is very exciting because it just at the very, very beginning of like business ownership and like actually running a company, company successfully.

Leighann Lovely: And I love that.

I, you know, every entrepreneur, salespeople, people are out there who are [00:07:00] literally laying their, you know, their cards on the table saying, Hey, like work with me. Come in. I love, there's a common thread among, among all of them, which is, Hey, I'm willing to make mistakes. I'm willing to. And I love that about, um, Um, I love that about those individuals that they're not only are they willing to make the mistakes, they're willing to own those mistakes and then learn from them and move on.

So let's talk about that. You had, you mentioned a three step process that you used to, you know, to bring space bar visuals, um, you know, to really grow that revenue to what a hundred and K a hundred one K in year one. So let's, let's talk about how you, let's talk about that process. Let's talk about how you did that.

Ryan Atkinson: Yeah. So the three step process. So basically what happened is we got to about a hundred K over a hundred K in revenue in our first year. And like, I was working on this on the side for the first like eight months of it. Um, and so we hit on a trend K and once you hit a hundred K, you're kind of like. Like we actually got to have [00:08:00] something here.

It's, it's like crazy to say like your agency, is it like a six figure agency? Like, I think that is still like crazy to think about. So a three step process that we used here, um, at space heart visuals, um, kind of giving the secret formula out on how someone else could do this is basically. It's kind of like a four step step.

One was it's kind of like a five step step. One is identify your ICP here. Uh, like we really nailed our ICP to start out with our ideal customer profile. We knew we were going to go after marketing directors. We knew we were going to go after SAS companies and we knew we were going to go after like smaller to midsize companies, employee size, like 11 to a hundred.

We really nailed our ICP. So if you are wanting to start a company, if you are wanting to grow sales, definitely nail your ICP. That's how you're messaging, who you're messaging to and make sure you know it.

Leighann Lovely: Say what, explain what an ICP is.

Ryan Atkinson: Yep. Ideal customer profile synonymous with like target audience.

Who are you actually selling to? So we really wanted to hit that and nail that to start. And that's [00:09:00] the foundation of like everything that we do. So kind of going to that next process. Then what we did is we do a lot of outbound here. We're trying to ramp up our inbound, but I can't give advice on that. I can give advice on outbound and how to do that effectively.

Um, so what we did is once we had that ICP, we just got a list from Upwork. We hired someone for like 15 to get us like. 150 contacts, like whatever that comes out to be. Um, from there, then we got their emails. We got their phone numbers and you hit them in three ways here. So you'll upload this list into whatever platform you use HubSpot instantly, Salesforce, et cetera, et cetera.

You have one list. We cold email them. We send them a message on LinkedIn, and then we also will cold call them. So we're hitting them three different ways, three different touch points. You're sending five emails, three LinkedIn messages, and then cold calling them as well. And that was one of the most effective ways that we grew from basically zero to 50 K was pretty scrappy, but 50 K to a hundred K is truly how we got that, uh, to [00:10:00] that next level is through that three, four or five step process.

Leighann Lovely: And that's amazing. So, and a lot of people are sitting there, even myself who runs my own business, you know, sitting there going, okay, that's great. You bring in the clients, but then there's the execution.

Ryan Atkinson: Yeah. Yeah. The good.

Leighann Lovely: No. And I was just going to say, so you bring these, these clients in. So now you have to execute on that work.

So I'm going to, I'm going to guess that you have a process, a solid process, because you can't survive if you're bringing in business and not. Probably.

Ryan Atkinson: Yeah, definitely. Um, and we actually, so up until about May last month, late April, I was actually handling all the account management of like video projects, doing this, doing that, doing this, doing that, just moving the projects along.

But we actually brought someone on to do that for me because my unique skills. And I think it's very important if you. [00:11:00] Our leader, if you're wanting to start a business, like what's your unique skillset and how can you free up your time as much as possible to really dive into that? And my unique skillset, like truly is like selling, like actually closing deals.

It's not dealing with video projects and all that stuff. So we brought, uh, Matthew Chin on who's awesome. Matt, if you're listening to this, I love the work that you do. And I'm very grateful for you. Uh, but essentially he handles now all of our account management. We have our SOP standard operating process in place.

We have our video editors. And so, yeah, him doing that is freed up. 50 percent of my time, which has been humongous for our sales process and actually refining that sales process to make it better and more efficient.

Leighann Lovely: That's awesome. And so something else that we talk about that I've talked about a lot on this podcast is working in, you know, making sure that you are in your working genius.

Like, because when you, when you fall outside of that, what takes somebody, you know, what, when I'm in my area of genius, I can execute on that work. It takes me.

Ryan Atkinson: Yeah. [00:12:00]

Leighann Lovely: Five minutes to do a function when I'm outside of my area of working genius, what would take somebody five minutes to do that? Takes me a half an hour because I'm like, Oh my God, how do I wait?

I know, I know how to do this, but it just, it drains you, right? And all of us, especially when you start as a solopreneur or a two person team, you're like, okay, well we can, I'm great. I can bring in the sales like all day long. I can sell, sell, sell, sell, but then I have to execute. And that, especially for a true salesperson, they're like, wait, what?

I have to, I have to execute on this. Um, okay. And that's a lot how businesses start. Like either you're really great at the thing you're selling, but you're a horrible salesperson, which means, and again, I say that lately, you're not the greatest salesperson because you're, you want to do, let's say you're a coach.

As an [00:13:00] example, I'm a great coach, but selling it. Now you have a problem because how do you scale? If you can't sell, you bring in a coaching client, then you, so that's, that's awesome. Um, and that's, but it always comes down to what comes first, the chicken or the egg.

Ryan Atkinson: Exactly. So that's, um, a funny enough today.

I was actually. On a sales call or someone was like pitching me their like, copywriting services and like their copy to get me on that call for their email was incredible. I was like, I was like, oh my gosh. Like, like I'll book a meeting with you right away. I think I booked a meeting in like 10 minutes.

'cause I was like, this is like incredible copy. Like I will do this. Got on the call with them and it was like the most awkward, like disgustingly awkward sales call I've ever had in my like entire life. I'm not even kidding. Like I was like asked, I was having to like probe him. Like, so what do you do?

Like, what's your process like? It was just so hard and it just left such a bad taste in my mouth or like the sales was so bad that like, I can't, I just can't move forward with it. It is like so hard, but I'm sure it's good, but I just can't move [00:14:00] forward

Leighann Lovely: because the person's a copywriter. Not

Ryan Atkinson: exactly

Leighann Lovely: right.

And that as a salesperson, when somebody reaches out to me and like. They have a really, really good pitch. I'm like, okay, I'm intrigued. Like you did a really good job to intrigue me. And I'll, I'll, I'll actually like meet with that person, but you're right. Often all of a sudden they're like, uh, and if you're, and if you have to get them to sell you, it's like, okay, I'm moving on.

I'm moving on. Like, but cause it's not their area of genius.

Ryan Atkinson: So I think, um, if you are like wanting to start a company or scale, like definitely find your area of genius and then hire someone to cover up your weaknesses for you. And that's been like, that is easily been one of the best things here at, um, space, our visuals for us is getting someone to do account management where like I could do it and like, maybe like, I think I like to think I do a good job managing [00:15:00] clients, but like, at the same time, my time could be freed up somewhere.

Somewhere else to actually like grow this company instead of doing the account management. So yeah, I a thousand percent agree. Find your area of expertise and double down in that area of expertise.

Leighann Lovely: Right. And that's the same way that you should, you know, that I've talked to other people's the same way you should manage people.

Now you've managed what 70 plus people. So let's talk a little bit about that. What are these? Are these salespeople? Are these all different types of people?

Ryan Atkinson: Yeah. So it's all different types of people. It's, I mean, it's truly has ranged from age ages, like 15 to like 65 plus. Um, I was grateful enough. Like when I was 18, I got my first management gig at a pool, which was great.

I like managed the concession stand. So then that next year I got promoted to manage the concession stands and lifeguards. And that was like 36 people in one summer that I'm like directly managing, um, at age like 19, which. It was probably the best job I've ever had, honestly, being a pool manager. Uh, then I've had like a few other leadership [00:16:00] positions within some athletic clubs.

And then space, our visuals were at like 15, 16 people I'm managing right now. So yeah, it's been, it's been a great experience to be able to gain like leadership, leadership, um, skills like at a pretty young age, but yeah, my leadership principles is like always treat people right. And like, always be there for them.

I don't view it as like, if someone works for me, like I tell everyone that I hire this, everyone that I work with, like, if you work for me, like I will look out for your best interests in any way that's possible. Like, what are your personal goals? What are your professional goals? And like, how can I help you get there?

Cause how I view it is if your people succeed, you succeed. It's not you succeed first and then your people succeed. You need to have your people, the people that you hire succeed for you to succeed. So giving them the resources, giving them the time, giving them the energy that they deserve is one of my biggest, like leadership principles.

And I am very grateful for the team at space star visuals. Like they, we've got some amazing people on the scene. I'm so happy. I get to work with, I have great working relationships with, but yeah, you got to make your people successful for you to be successful. [00:17:00]

Leighann Lovely: That's awesome. That's, and you know, a lot of people that I talk with, they always, we talk about the, what we were.

Just talking, you know, the area of genius and then their weaknesses and. Um, helping them leverage that working, that working. And I keep talking about working. It's a book, that anyways, but, um, now I'm in, I have to remember the,

um, and I'm trying to remember, but, um, I can't remember off the top of my head anyways. Um, I talk about this a lot because as I, as a manager, you want to, you want to basically ignore their, their strengths, right? Yeah. Yeah. You. Let them let them fly.

Ryan Atkinson: Yeah.

Leighann Lovely: And then, and then help them with the weaknesses, remove any roadblocks that they may have so that they can continue to fly and succeed.

And we, and I've talked a lot about that, especially, especially [00:18:00] salespeople. Do you manage salespeople?

Ryan Atkinson: Yeah, so we, we have a BDR on our team that I like directly manage. Um, so yeah, I manage him, I guess. Uh, but yeah, Cody, his name's Cody Tran. He's also incredible. Um, I love Cody death. He's good stuff. But yeah, I manage him.

Leighann Lovely: So let's, let's shift a little bit. What do you think that the greatest challenge that you have, have had? Thus far in your career.

Ryan Atkinson: Oh man. The biggest challenge. Um, I think, I don't know the biggest one is, I think we've had some unexpected challenges being like a CEO. Um, honestly, like one of them is just like, quite frankly, like owning up to the role.

Um, like I'm 25 and it's like crazy to think like when I actually talk to people, it's like. And they're like, Oh, what do you do for work? Or like, what's your job title? It's like, I'm a CEO. And so it's acting like a CEO and like actually putting those systems in place. So understanding the duties of like what a effective CEO does.

I'm still learning it every day. Like I am [00:19:00] far from perfect on how I operate here. Um, but I'm learning it every day. Another unexpected challenge, honestly, is hiring. Hiring was one of the, one of the hardest things I have done. Like you just get so many applicants, a lot of them, like, there's some that like really stand out the ones that really stand out, you interview them and like, they're all like kind of the same, so it's like, Oh, who's going to be good?

Like, what do we do? So I would say like owning up to the role and like, Taking ownership of the role is super important, of course, but like, it's just a learning process of like how to be an effective CEO and then also hiring. Hiring has been a very unexpected challenge, but it's something that you absolutely need to get right.

Leighann Lovely: So, and I think hiring is probably the, one of the biggest challenges for any organization. Cause you're right. You have to get it right. Um, because it's, it's, it's. It's extremely expensive to hire somebody and then have to fire somebody if they're not living up to that, to the expectations. And we [00:20:00] all hope that the people that we hire are going to hold themselves accountable the same way that we hold ourselves accountable.

And most entrepreneurs set their own bar, you know, If it's a normal average bar, you know, we're usually like a little bit higher,

Ryan Atkinson: definitely

Leighann Lovely: higher somewhere in the clouds. And everybody's going, why do you put this pressure on yourself? And you're like, I don't, am I?

Ryan Atkinson: Yeah. Yeah.

Leighann Lovely: What do you think? Um, what do you think?

What characteristics do you think that you have that Help those people really, what, what do they see in you that makes them, you know, want to truly succeed for your organization?

Ryan Atkinson: Yeah, that's a great question. I think like they true, like people that truly like work for me, like can feel that, like, I am extremely grateful that anyone that takes a chance on like space bar visuals to like actually work here, like I am incredibly grateful for that.

And I feel like they didn't really feel that they get the. I like to think anyways, obviously I'm saying my own thing. So it's all bias here, but I [00:21:00] like to think I give them like very good support on like what they do. Like, how can I be a resource for you? What do you need from me? Like, how can I help you succeed?

I feel like that's like something I, like I said, like I am very invested in like your own personal development and professional development. And if you're at space art visuals, like I'm going to find a way to make you succeed. I cannot promise I'm going to get you there. Like, I can, I just can't promise that, but I can promise you, like, I'm going to actually Try to get you there.

I'm going to work very hard for you to fulfill all your goals. We, um, I read traction recently. I don't know who the author is. I keep referencing this book, but, uh, traction. Uh, yeah, yeah. And a lot of business owners have read it. It's a very executive book. Um, but they, uh, we got our core values actually from that.

We did like a core values exercise. So next time we do go to hire, like we really do want to. Hire based on our core values and make sure that they're aligning with it.

Leighann Lovely: And what are your core values?

Ryan Atkinson: Yeah. So it's, um, we actually have an acronym, it's, uh, Reflect, Reflect. So it's, uh, resilience, entrepreneurial mindset, have fun, fun, [00:22:00] whatever, um, reflect, uh, make sure I'm saying this right.

L is a leadership, I is integrity, and C is like collaboration. So we want people that have those core values and it's just some of the core values and common characteristics that we have here at Spaceport Visuals.

Leighann Lovely: Right. And that's important. It's important for your team to, to know what is a value to you and to your co founder.

Um, that it's, it sounds like you have created a company that people want to work at

Ryan Atkinson: and

Leighann Lovely: therefore will work harder, right?

Ryan Atkinson: Mm

Leighann Lovely: hmm. And, and I shouldn't say harder work. Um, I, I don't like saying work harder, but right, work smarter and, and do a good job for your organization. So tell me a little bit about, [00:23:00] a little bit more about what your, your company does space bar visuals. Thanks.

Ryan Atkinson: Yeah. So what we do is we are a video production agency.

So we do animated videos. We do like product demos, customer testimonials. We'll do event videos. We'll repurpose like a blog or white paper into like a 60 second video. Um, and yeah, we handle the script writing, the storyboarding, the animation, the voiceover. So, like I said earlier, we work with best with like marketing people, uh, with smaller companies.

And our value proposition like truly is like. You're a marketing director. You wear 30 different hats. You don't have time to do video. You want to do video. We help with all that to make it a really streamlined process for you. So that's truly like. What we do and kind of our value add

Leighann Lovely: all the things that, you know, pretty much every company needs when they're a growing organization and they don't have time to, and that, that goes really well with your previous venture or your, I'm sorry, not previous, [00:24:00] but you're also running the, the other organization, but magic media.

So. It sounds like that marries extremely well with.

Ryan Atkinson: Yeah. I've always been super interested in like media and just like content, I guess you can say that that's always just been something that I've been personally interested in. And yeah, I remember when I spoke with Brandon actually, uh, back in November, 2022, um, we were like, uh, what do we want to do together?

And we were like, well, what are we interested in? And it was like media. We're interested in selling to B2B. We're interested in selling to marketing people. And so we originally came up with three different ideas of either like a ghost writing agency for executives, a newsletter growth agency. A ghost writing, then newsletter growth, and then like a video production agency.

So we wanted to blend our interests. So like media selling to B2B selling to marketers into a company. And so, yeah, that's something I've always just been super interested in. That's more advice I'd give to someone. If you are starting a company, find what you're interested in, know what you're interested in and [00:25:00] create something based on that,

Leighann Lovely: right.

And that's, that's awesome. I mean, um, Marrying those, you know, what you had previously. Been running and then kind of shifting that to almost be able to support clients that you had brought in in the past.

Ryan Atkinson: Exactly. Yeah. And magic media. Um, a lot of that is just like podcasting stuff. Um, so it's been, that started basically from freelancing as well.

Um, just doing like simple, like guest outreach. And I was like, Oh, maybe I should actually create a company that like does all this for. Create a company that does all this for companies. So like guest outreach, podcast production, I'll even host like interviews for companies. So yeah, it's been, it's been a lot.

It's been a lot of media, a lot of content, a lot of video. Um, and I think that's been an intersection of like both of those. So yeah, I'm very. Very media driven, I would say.

Leighann Lovely: Well, and the rise of the rise of social media and the [00:26:00] cons every company that I go to every company that I speak to. And of course, obviously love your sales being a, you know, A sales company where we become salespeople for, you know, we don't do marketing.

And so often those organizations are like, Oh, okay, well, what do we, what should we do on the marketing side? And I'm like, I don't, I I'm a salesperson. Like I know marketing at a high level, but they all want content and they, they want it easily to be able to post on. LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, all of the, and to create, and I don't know, you know, but I'm not sure the audience knows, but all of those different platforms sometimes require different format.

I mean, you can't post the same thing on LinkedIn that you do on, on Twitter. Tick tock.

Ryan Atkinson: Yeah.

Leighann Lovely: Because you have to have a different format and you have to have a different length and you have to have, and so sitting down and [00:27:00] creating all of that is for an entrepreneur, for a small business. It's a nightmare.

Ryan Atkinson: It's a lot. It's too much.

Leighann Lovely: It is. You, you need an entire, another human being just to create. And so you're either hiring an entire marketing team and then when you flex, you need even more and then your marketing team is not only creating all of that stuff, but then on top of that, you're like, Oh, by the way, you have to put this in all of these other formats.

Ryan Atkinson: It's too much. Um, Yeah. So that's what like, we really like hit home on is like, it's for those marketing teams that one video, but just like, don't have that time. Don't have the resources don't have, they just don't have it. So that's why we prefer to work with like those smaller brands. Cause I love talking with like small business owners, um, not small.

Yeah. Like small business owners, mid market, mid, mid market size companies. Uh, just because like, we can relate to them in such a better way. And that's who I, that's why I sold this to at HubSpot. Um, that's just like those conversate people in marketing and sales are like the absolute best. Like [00:28:00] there's so much fun to talk to.

So yeah, that's a definitely hammering home. Like who we're trying to sell to within like the intersection of media and the value points that we're trying to hit on.

Leighann Lovely: Well, and they're the greatest people to talk to because they understand, they understand you go to an owner of an organization and they're like, well, What's my immediate ROI.

And you're like, well, I mean, I can explain the ROI you're getting in front of it, but the immediate ROI it's like,

Ryan Atkinson: it

Leighann Lovely: is because my first podcast that I ever had was for a, for a company I worked at and after it, you know, after like maybe 15 episodes, the owner came to me and goes, okay, can you explain what the ROI is now and how is it going?

And I'm like, uh, well, no, I can't give you what your ROI is yet. Like, we're literally just getting this up and running and we're starting to get views. I'm like, there's not a number to give you yet.

Ryan Atkinson: Yeah, that's um, [00:29:00] podcasting is for any company too. That's smaller. I think I actually think podcasting is like a gem just because one, you get a long form content in a 30 minute video.

You can get short form content, you can get a blog out of it. You get to connect with potentially how you do it. You can connect with your ICP. I think podcasting for small businesses is like a great lead gen magnet to actually get content out in like kind of one way. Um, so that, that's a great investment.

So after 15 episodes, though, it's kind of tough to do it, but still you could get 45 pieces of content out of 15, 15 episodes,

Leighann Lovely: right? And, and you're building a company is building themselves as. An expert in their fields.

Ryan Atkinson: Exactly.

Leighann Lovely: And that company is now becoming, wow. Okay. I, I want to go and talk to that company cause they know exactly what's happening in the market of XYZ.

Ryan Atkinson: Exactly. So

Leighann Lovely: anyways, I digress. Um, I'm, I'm a salesperson too.

Ryan Atkinson: Yeah.

Leighann Lovely: Um, so, you know, we're, we're coming to time. I want to give you, I know we've talked [00:30:00] obviously already a little bit about your background and your company, but I want to give you your 32nd shameless pitch to Get it out there and hopefully get some, some customers out at this, or at least some appointments.

So

Ryan Atkinson: yeah,

Leighann Lovely: go ahead, Ryan.

Ryan Atkinson: Yeah. If you guys are like a sales leader, a business owner, entrepreneur or whatnot, um, we do work with companies similar. We've worked with like ISO, the international standards organization, us army, we've worked with startups like GPR, butter, CMS, Vanta. They're not a startup, but we've worked all these companies to develop some awesome content that they've used on like their website, social media, sales, collateral, email collateral.

Also. If you're looking to build out your sales funnel with like great modern content, then video is a great way to do that. And yeah, we can help you guys do that in a very easy way for you. Um, and I think you'll find that our pricing is much more friendly to you guys compared to some of the bigger names out there.

So yeah, if anyone is interested, yeah, definitely please reach us out at, uh, www dot spacebar visuals. com. Let us know that you listened to this episode and we'll probably cut you a deal. So, uh, yeah, definitely. That's [00:31:00] kind of the little pitch right there of who I am, I guess, and what we do.

Leighann Lovely: Amazing. And, and again, Ryan, how can they contact you?

I know that you just gave your website. Is there any other place that they should reach out to you on?

Ryan Atkinson: Yep. So you guys can reach out as our website, uh, spacebar visuals. com. You can also reach out to me on LinkedIn, Ryan Atkinson, CEO of spacebar visuals. There should only be one. So, uh, it should be pretty easy to find on LinkedIn.

Leighann Lovely: Perfect. And those, um, those, that contact information will be in the show notes. So if anybody does want to reach out to Ryan, you will be able to go right to the show notes and find the website as well as, um, his LinkedIn profile. So, um, Ryan, I really appreciate you coming on and talking with me today.

It's been an amazing conversation.

Ryan Atkinson: Leighann. Thank you so much. This is awesome. A great interview. You did a phenomenal job. So yeah, thank you so much.

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