How to Master Agency Leadership Growth for Success With Scott Wilson

Leadership in an agency can be one of the toughest aspects to navigate, especially when you excel in the technical or creative side of the business. In this episode, I sit down with Scott Wilson, founder of Digital Influence, to dive into the core of what makes a great agency leader. Scott shares his journey from reluctantly stepping into leadership to successfully scaling multiple agencies. We explore the critical role of establishing strong core values, empowering your team, and leveraging cutting-edge technology to drive both efficiency and innovation. Scott also reveals how intentionality in leadership fosters a thriving team culture and enables long-term growth. If you're struggling with micromanagement or finding ways to motivate your team while scaling your agency, this conversation is packed with actionable insights. Join us as we uncover the blueprint for unlocking agency leadership growth that aligns with your business vision and creates lasting impact.

Connect with Scott Wilson:

 If you want to learn more from Scott Wilson and how he's transforming agency leadership, connect with him on LinkedIn at "Scott Wilson 10X" or visit his website at GetDigitalInfluence.com. Dive deeper into his insights on agency growth and leadership.


Books Mentioned

• "Belonging" by Owen Eastwood

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Chapters

• 0:00 The Leadership Journey Begins
• 6:00 Overcoming Leadership Struggles in Agencies
• 12:00 Core Values: The Foundation of Growth
• 19:29 Empowering Your Team for Success
• 25:29 Leveraging AI for Operational Efficiency
• 31:29 Scaling Your Agency Through Leadership Growth
• 36:29 Creating Lasting Impact with Leadership

Transcript

Dr.William Attaway: 0:00

I'm so excited today to be here with Scott Wilson. Scott's the founder of Digital Influence, a digital marketing company that helps businesses win new business by creating simple, profitable and fun digital marketing campaigns. He loves helping businesses succeed through marketing strategy, digital marketing and direct response advertising. His goal is to take something as complicated as digital marketing and direct response advertising. His goal is to take something as complicated as digital marketing and advertising and strip it down to its most basic components for easy use by anyone who desires to grow their business. He has spent his career building companies from the ground up with an entrepreneurial spirit, creative thinking and strong execution skills. His focus on customer-first service has helped him become one of the most sought-after experts in the industry for delivering successful results to clients at all stages of their growth cycle. Scott, I'm so glad you were here. Thanks for being on the show.

Scott Wilson: 1:00

I appreciate you having me Look. Ever since we first met, we've had some great conversations, so looking forward to this conversation and adding value to your listeners. I think you've done a great job with your podcast, so I'm a big fan.

Dr.William Attaway: 1:13

I'm grateful for that man and I have no doubt that you are going to drop all kind of value today. So, listeners, get ready, get your pen, get your notepad or your keyboard, because you're going to want to capture this.

Intro/Outro: 1:25

Welcome to Catalytic Leadership, the podcast designed to help leaders intentionally grow and thrive. Here is your host author and leadership and executive coach, dr William Attaway.

Dr.William Attaway: 1:40

I want to start, Scott, with your story. I'd love for you to share some of your story with our listeners, particularly around your journey and your development as a leader. How did you get started?

Scott Wilson: 2:06

school, um, and I didn't go to school like in new zealand, where I'm from, we play cricket, um, every time I try and explain that to my american friends they look at me weirdly. I say it's just like baseball, but, um, you know, like so. So I I love sport and I think that's where I first started getting my leadership skills. Um, I was fortunate enough to go to a school that was it was a, it was a public school, um, but I had a group of friends that we loved cricket and we became one of the best in the South Island and traditionally the private schools would win and in my tenure there we beat all the private schools and it was through, probably, men and mate and our leadership that dragged this group of young guys through. That dragged this group of young guys through. And really I guess that was where my leadership for I guess motivation and what makes people tick sort of starts. So it was definitely from a sporting environment that I sort of started leadership. And then, as I progressed at school, I never really liked reading which I see all these books behind you. School I never really liked reading which I see all these books behind you. I have the same now in my office here, but also in my home office, and you know, that probably changed my life.

Scott Wilson: 3:16

I was in Spain. Well, actually I was going to Spain. I was working as a building assistant for a building company and we made the gentleman quite a lot of money, sonny, and he wanted us to come to his house in Mallorca, in Spain, as a bit of a thank you. And I always remember the Kilburn High Road in London. We were in this bookstore and I was like, why are we even here, like I don't read books, this is just a joke. What are we doing? We're going to Spain, I'm thinking, thinking sit by the pool, drink and have a good old time. And uh, sonny goes look, scott, you know there's not much to do. Um, so we will get some. We get a book to read.

Scott Wilson: 3:53

And I was like, what a book? And I was, because you know, at school we were always taught and told what to read, right, and I just didn't understand it. I really didn't understand why I was reading animal farm or Shakespeare, and just at the time it just didn't, it didn't resonate right. And then Sonny said something. Probably that changed my life and at the time I didn't realize it. But I just remember him saying Scott, because he saw me looking, he was like what's going on? And he said, scott, you can choose what you want to read. And I vividly remember him saying that, now going oh my god, like what do you mean choose? I can decide what I want to read and, funnily enough, not a massive basketball fan, but all my mates were at school, uh, since I learned to love the game.

Scott Wilson: 4:37

But there was a book by donna's dennis rodman, as bad as I want to be, and I picked it up and I read it, cover to cover in Spain, and since then I just have a thirst for knowledge and learning and it changed my life and that's, you know. Now I'm 50. I've probably read over I don't know four, maybe 500 books now, and I think that's probably one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself is the ability to read and to learn, and I guess that's once again, that's fostered my knowledge for leadership, you know, and learning, which is, you know, you can stand on the shoulders of giants and that's what I love about it, you know. So you know that's probably, probably where I got, what's got me to where I am today, you know. So.

Dr.William Attaway: 5:22

You know, one of my mentors has said for so long that leaders are readers. You know, we are constantly learning, we are constantly seeking to grow because we know we're not where we could be yet.

Scott Wilson: 5:34

Yeah.

Dr.William Attaway: 5:35

We know there's still capacity. That's what I hear in your story.

Scott Wilson: 5:38

Yeah, and also I think you know like I just love learning from other people. You know you learn a lot from failures and you learn a lot from failures, and you can learn a lot from reading about other people's failures, but you can also learn a lot about other people's successes. When you start to read books, you realize that a lot of people are just like you. You see some of these people and you put them on a pedestal, but if you strip it down, they're just a lot like you. It's a good thing to get from reading too. I love that.

Dr.William Attaway: 6:08

Leading an agency today is a little bit different than it used to be, and you've been in this game a while now. I would love to hear some of the things and we talked about this a little bit when we talked previously about how you lead your team, and we've talked previously about how you lead your team because this is a, this is a challenge for a lot of agency owners. They struggle. They're really good at at, you know, marketing or advertising. They're really good at that, but when it comes to leadership, that's a struggle. Yeah, I'd love to hear some of what you're doing.

Scott Wilson: 6:39

Yeah, it's definitely. You know that's a great question and I can see and feel why it is a challenge for for a lot of agencies. Um, uh, I'll tap on a couple of things, but just just quickly, this is my second agency, right? So I built up and sold one um and and while that sounds great, it was a real pain in the butt, um, because I didn't really know how to manage people. I didn't know how to lead people in in a sense of that environment. It was a search engine optimization company. We built it up, we did sell it. My business partner at the time didn't like what Google was doing and so he wanted out. But I was on the sales side of the business and I wasn't looking after the operational side. And one thing I really learned from that is what not to do, you know, and what not to do is micromanage good people.

Scott Wilson: 7:30

You know, God bless him. But he was a real micromanager, like to the point where he put Time Doctor on everyone's computer. Oh my goodness, yeah, and I was just like you know, like I don't, I don't, I don't like that sort of you know, I like to inspire people and give them the vision, but also then let them. You know, I believe in really employing good people and getting out of their way, giving them the tools and the vision, but you know, you employ good people for a reason, so, yeah, so that was a real learning. When we sold that business, I did nothing for a year. I was fortunate enough to be at home while my son was born and I was at home for a year, wow.

Scott Wilson: 8:06

And then started Digital Influence, which is the company. Now it's been going nine years. We just employed with it. We've got 14 people now and really our focus for me has been around okay, how do I grow a team? Because, remember, I didn't want a team, that's right, and I was like, okay, but but I realized you're going to build something great, you need to have great people around you. You can't do it by yourself. You know, like you can't, you can't have the impact. You know we want to impact 10,000 businesses and one of our purposes is to influence, educate and inspire growth together. Well, we're not going to I'm not going to do that by myself, right?

Scott Wilson: 8:42

So I started looking at, okay, what does a successful business owner do? And I started once again reading and learning from people and talking to people, and it really came down to a couple of things which are not that hard to do, but that's probably one of the harder things because they're easy. People don't do them, and that was to get really clear on the mission. So we got really clear on our mission and our vision and then we started to look at our core values. What are our core values? What are our like, our, our highs and fires, like if we were talking to people and and we'd hire and fire on. So we got core values and that probably has been the thing that has glued a team together over the good times and the bad, bad times.

Scott Wilson: 9:24

Um, we, we do a number of things which I'm happy to talk about on a daily basis to keep those core values alive. Um, and really that would be the thing that I guess would be. You know, if I had to start again. Those are the three things I'd go to straight away. You know, you've got to have you've got to have a mission. You've got to have something that you can bring other people around. Um, you've got to have a purpose. And then have core values. And you know, I've got our core values up here on the wall. We've got them in the office.

Scott Wilson: 9:49

Nothing to do with honesty, integrity and all this sort of stuff that I hear other people say, because that should be a given in business. You know, one on the wall here is influencer insights, you know. So I challenge my team to share their insights, get on video and share their insights with the marketplace. Give value in advance of someone ever giving us any money. And all of a sudden, you get these people that are experts at what they do, wanting to share their knowledge with the marketplace. And that's not just about me doing it, it's about them doing it.

Dr.William Attaway: 10:26

I think it starts with you. I think you, as the leader, set the tone, but you're exactly right when that begins to trickle down into the organization and it's not just words of values on the wall, but it's actually what's happening down the hall.

Scott Wilson: 10:40

Yeah.

Dr.William Attaway: 10:41

That's when you know, hey, something special is happening here.

Scott Wilson: 10:44

Yeah we, we have a, we have a daily stand-up meeting, um, and on mondays, uh, it's a whiffle, it's called what I feel like expressing. Uh, I love that. You know, like the the whiffle is is a chance for um, and it's really. It's always really interesting when you have a new person start. They. They're kind of like what are these talking about, these crazies? You know these crazies, you know, but after two or three months they always someone I know, rachel, she came to me and she said I get why you do this now. You know so what I feel like expressing. So on a Monday morning we'll go and have a coffee. Everyone meets over at the coffee shop at 8.30. Then we come back and quarter past nine was all.

Scott Wilson: 11:22

When we have our daily meetings or a standard meeting, what I feel like expressing is anything that you feel like expressing, and the cool part about it is you have the talking stick for whatever you feel like expressing. And you know, the beautiful thing about this is it allows people to be a little bit vulnerable. But as a leader, you have to be vulnerable first. So sometimes you have to share some stuff, that that you know maybe not going great or things that could be going better, um, and it allows people to see the people who you know, how real everyone is and how real the world is. Right, it's not all like just, hey, you know it's all rainbows and stuff. Right, it's like it's tough in agency world. So, whiffle is a beautiful thing, um, and part of that whiffle at the end is what we call a burning. So while you're talking, no one can interrupt, but at the end you have a burning and your burnings can be. You know what you thought of what someone else said, and you can challenge or you can say hey, I really, you know, thank you for sharing. Like, that's a big thing. I didn't know that about you and you know, today we'll, you know, let's go for a walk or something like that. You know, like, people start to gel together, um, bigger than just you know a surface level, which this is I. I love that about the whiffle, um, so, so that creates some pretty cool conversations. Over the years I've had some pretty, um, intense moments, but also some pretty light-hearted moments. You know, people share some cool stuff that they've been doing and, like you, learn things about people you didn't know, which is great.

Scott Wilson: 12:49

And then Tuesday, tuesday, I love Tuesday. Tuesday is called Choose your Own Attitude. So everyone stands up and shares the attitude they're going to bring for the day, and that's kind of funny. Some people are really. Obviously they just dialed in for the day. They need to get shit done, so that's what they're doing, and other people are doing other things, but they bring their attitude and then we share wins.

Scott Wilson: 13:13

Wins is a really big one for an agency. You've got to share your wins and I've seen this over the years. You know agency life is about having confidence and the ability to take feedback. Probably the hardest thing you can have in an agency is to take feedback. Especially if you're creating content and you know you're helping a business grow. You must get good at handling feedback. So hearing wins whether it was your win or someone else's win helps you build confidence.

Scott Wilson: 13:44

So every day we talk about wins, and that's a good thing. Then we talk about a hurdle or opportunity. So maybe a hurdle that you're experiencing, the good thing about it is we're not looking to solve it in those meetings. We're looking to just just raise it. Okay, raise that. That. I need some help. You know I've got a hurdle here, need some help. This is what we need to focus on. And then opportunities are hey, what are some of the opportunities that you're seeing, which is, which is, you know, definitely, um, a good thing to talk about. So that part of it happens every every week, um, sorry, every every day. Uh, the the wins and wins and the hurdles opportunities.

Scott Wilson: 14:25

Wednesday is a win-tentional Wednesday. Every year we have a word that we work towards. This year is about intention being more intentional, so one of the girls just decided to call it win-tentional Wednesday. So where am I looking to win and be win-tentional? I thought it was quite funny so we just stuck with it. Thursday is thoughtful and thankful. So you can either bring something that you're thoughtful, which is really cool. People will share some things that they're learning and knowledge that they're seeing, which is really great. And then Friday is core value in action. So where have you seen someone in the business directly, you know, using one of the core values? So one of our core values is results, not reasons. So this week I can tell you today someone will stand up and share where someone is showing results, not reasons, and that's so cool. You know, like you get to celebrate to some degree. Your, your teammates with, have shown kind of leadership in in one of their core values.

Dr.William Attaway: 15:30

You know I love the intentionality of that, scott. You know the the power of each one of those themes for your meetings is so intentional. And what you're, what you're doing for each other, I believe, is you are revealing to each other that you are more than just what you're. What you're doing for each other, I believe, is you are revealing to each other that you are more than just what you do there in the office. You're more than just what you contribute for the business. You're an actual 3d human being.

Scott Wilson: 15:53

Yeah, and I think that's so important, right, like, um, I look, I learned that from the sporting environment right, when you're in the heat of the, of the you, you know, you either go one or two ways, you, the you know, and I think that's the same in business. Business is the ultimate sporting game, um, it's probably the ultimate personal development game to some degree as well, like, especially when you're in an environment. Yeah, I saw something on tv. I don't watch a lot of tv, but I was listening to this guy talk about.

Scott Wilson: 16:22

You know, um, sailors don't learn anything in calm sea and I think you know, when you look at the economy and we've had some pretty horrific things happen here in Christchurch. We had some earthquakes which devastated the city, just like we had the GFC and all this sort of stuff, and we had, sadly, a shooting here and we've seen some really bad stuff happen. And you know, I think you have to focus. You know, in those rough seas you have to focus and get around people and help each other and I think you know that's as a good human being would right. And it's not just about if you focus on the money, you're just going to get the money right and not a lot of it. You better build good humans, humans, and I think that's you know.

Scott Wilson: 17:07

I went to a thing the other night. We opened up a bar here in christchurch, um, and one lady just come up to me and said man, your team is awesome. Thank you, thank you, thank you, and I'm like that. To me, that is better than any of the money you're going to make from, from having that Like to have some when you're not involved in any of it as far as opening up this bar and helping them. But they come up to you and say, hey, your team is awesome, like that's a pretty, pretty cool. You know you're doing some right things right. That's so true.

Dr.William Attaway: 19:09

And that culture. Every business, every team has a culture.

Scott Wilson: 19:13

You either have one you created on purpose or you have one you didn't mean to create, but you have one right, that's true, right, and I guess that's the thing as well is, you know, the more I started learning about, you know, culture and people, and that's the fun part of it. You know, like you get to come to work every day. Like we've got a team of experts here, we get to come to work every day. Like we've got a team of experts here, we get to come to work every day and it's kind of fun. You know, like it's not like, oh, I have to go to work.

Scott Wilson: 19:38

And I remember working in the corporate world, yes, and you know culture was lip service. You know, Like everyone was no one really wanted to be there and I looked around and I remember looking around, going man, yep, I could have that person's job and be on 250K. Man, they're miserable. And I'm like you know, today I earned far more than that, but I was just like, wow, why come to work and be so miserable? You know, yeah, so true, and their environment just didn't excite me and it didn't excite the people there. So I think you know if you get a well, there's another thing when you realize how much time you spend with people, it's incredible. You know, why not spend it with good people and make it fun. You know People you like.

Scott Wilson: 20:26

One of our core values is celebrate your victories. I created a hashtag called Celebrate your Victories and the reason for that is you know I'm dead against the tall poppy syndrome we have here in Australia. If you're doing successful, people want to cut you down, and I just think you know you should celebrate your successes. You should be proud of the stuff that you do. So celebrate your victories in any chance. It doesn't matter if they're big or small, celebrate them. So we use that a lot. Celebrate a victory is one of our core values and that's why we like hearing I love hearing wins. If we stood up and shared our losses every day, how bad would we be?

Dr.William Attaway: 21:04

Well, you get more of what you focus on Totally. If you focus on what's going wrong, you're going to see more of that. Yeah. If you focus on your wins, hey. Yeah, that is a challenge.

Scott Wilson: 21:16

That is a challenge for some people and definitely you know, I know from an agency. I've been there, I've been through hard times Look, I've had, I've had. When you know the business is running on my credit card, you know, and is just surviving, and I know what that feels like. You know. I know what that feels like. You know. I know how you can mess with your head, and so I do feel for agencies that are going through that. I know when you can lose a big client, how that feels, and you know, so I do get it. But if I say anything to anyone, it's just keep moving forward. Like you know, stand on the shoulders of giants, go on and get a podcast, listen, learn and keep moving forward. You'll only lose if you quit, and I'm a really massive believer in that right.

Scott Wilson: 21:58

Tell me about the 90-day sprints that you guys do yeah yeah, yeah, this is something I love because I love learning but I love educating. So for me personally, influence through insights is recent as far as it used to be influence through education. I remember I was probably 2006. I was at the World Internet Summit in Australia and I met a guy called Brett McFaul and he said to me Scott, if you want to be successful, just give everything you know away for free. And I thought at the time that's a bit stupid. Like why would you do that? I came from the corporate world and like we gave nothing away for free, like if you knew something, you held on to it because that was your strategic advantage. And I thought about this over the years and I just came to realize he was so right.

Scott Wilson: 22:46

So what we do with our 90-day sprints is we will I challenge my team. Okay, I'll give you an example. So AI last couple of years has been hot. So I said to my team right, for the next 90 days, you're challenged with going and saving one hour a week. Yes, in your role, your role specific to what you do, I want you to save one hour a week and I want you to find technology and you have up to the value of $200 to spend to find technology. You can spend more, by the way, but you have to justify it. To me, the $200, you didn't have to justify it. I want you to find technology that can save you an hour a week in your role. So for 90 days, people go away and they start learning and start hearing stuff. Now, the coolest part with this one as well, I did incentivize them because the Christmas bonus was coming up. So I said for every hour you save, I'll put $500 into the Christmas bonus. Now, for a lot of the young people, they started getting quite excited by this, because you know one thing if the boss is having to pay for my summer holiday, they're going to be pretty happy about that, right? So the coolest thing about that is you're empowering people to go and learn, okay, and you're empowering people to go and learn, okay, and you're empowering people to go and learn about their roles. And look, technology is not going away.

Scott Wilson: 23:57

So I'm like, well, I don't want them to be scared of it, because here's the thing. I went and spoke to the university group of students and a whole bunch of them were just scared of technology, and I get it. But I was like guys, you've got to lean into this, you've got to find, you know. So for 90 days people go and research and do things and you know, I'm hearing about it and the team, you know team, and blah, blah, blah, just save another hour. And I'm thinking, oh, that's another, okay, another 500 bucks. And then you hear people, oh, just save three hours. And I'm like you better be able to prove this. I'm like that's 1500 bucks. So it's really, it's really interesting. But at the end of 90 days you have to present what you've found. Okay, so, so that's a. That's a beautiful thing as well, because all of a sudden you've got a whole bunch of people that don't really want to present, are excited to present, you know, and, and you get them using, you're getting used to presenting, so they present to their team. And one of the one of the the coolest things is you've got these people in your business, these young people and other people as well, a wee bit older, that are inspired. They have found stuff. They now want to teach their fellow teammates what they've been learning and how much they've been saving. And look, the cool thing is with that one um, I run every year in october.

Scott Wilson: 25:17

I run a program called finish strong and the reason I run it is I want to finish the year strong because I want to set up for wins in the following year. So, yes, so that year was, uh, finished strong, last year was finished stronger, this year is finished strongest just a little play on those names. But so because I know, if I can save hours now in October, november, december, what's my business going to look like in January, february, march. That's great. So the focus there, and so here's some real cool things.

Scott Wilson: 25:49

So people start finding software that they can use. I'll give you a good example Sarah on the team, the content side of the business they go out and take a lot of photos, photo shoots for companies come back and then manually look through all the photos Okay, this was before Finish Stronger, before the 90-day sprint. She's looking around, finds a piece of software, ai-driven software called Aftershoot which basically does that in 15 seconds. So what used to take three hours now takes 15 seconds, plus the AI learns. So the AI now knows if this is the folder for this particular client. This is the types of photos we like. So we're not having to go through and sort out all these blurry photos and all sort of stuff. The ai is going yep, these are the better ones, these are the rubbish ones, this is what the client likes.

Scott Wilson: 26:41

You know, for some of our clients we don't have. You know, if we're in a bar situation, no photos with no. If there's no one in the photo, cut it. We don't want to show an empty bar, an empty restaurant. Now you might think, oh yeah, but if I've got 300 photos, I'd rather now have the AI do that versus my team do that.

Scott Wilson: 27:00

So three hours that's just one example. Right, what are those three hours worth? Well, when you cast that out, that's a huge amount of dollars, right? Yeah, so that's an example of a 90-day sprint. And look, you don't have to do it around technology, you could just do it around um. You know, anything you want, like the next one we've got going on at the moment is we want to get more google reviews for our clients. Um, because we know, if we get more google reviews with the ai that's coming with with um, with google and gemini, that it's going to really position them really well. So we're going out and getting more Google reviews. So that's our focus for the next Finish Stronger is to help our clients be stronger, which helps us be stronger, right so?

Dr.William Attaway: 27:42

great way to do it so good Again, the intentionality of this. I think what you have been investing in your team is bearing fruit. You planted these seeds that you know you don't want to be the center of the spider web where they have to come to you to ask for permission, or what about this God, or what about that? I'm empowering you with not just responsibility, but also with authority. Yeah, help us make it better.

Scott Wilson: 28:09

Yeah, and the cool part is, when you give you give people, you know, this ability, um, and you give them this, this, um, opportunity, gets amazing things happen, right, like. One thing is collaboration between, between, the teammates. You know they end up helping each other. Oh, that's a great idea, but we thought about this, or we could do it this way. You know, all of a sudden you, you know smart minds, you know starting to come together and look, I really believe, just employ good people, like, take time, get the best people you can, but then just get out of their way, you know. So one of the key things we do in the first 90 days when you're employed with us is you have to send us an email every day for 90 days, you know, and there's a bit of a joke around it, because if you've been around a while, you know this person has to send an email for 90 days. And there's a real strategic part to it. One is hey, you know, what did you do today? You know, what did you learn today? You know, were there any problems you had today? And one of the reasons we asked that is oh, my computer was slow once. We heard that and we're like why is that computer slow? And then we found out, oh, the guy that had it, ryan, who's upgraded his computer. He put all the videos on it, you know, when he was going out on video shots. But it was a simple thing, like I wouldn't know if someone's computer is slow or not, but that person does because they're using it. So then all of a sudden, yep, cool, we cleared that out Next day, the computer's running Perfect, right, so you're learning that.

Scott Wilson: 29:36

But then we ask okay, if you own the business, what would you do? What were the opportunities that you see? And here's the thing, for probably I don't know out of those 90 emails that you get, there'll be three things that you'll get over those 90 days, because a lot of times there'll be nothing. But then there'll be one gem out of those three and you're like boom, fresh eyes in the business have seen something that you never saw. And because they're fresh eyes, you know you, all of a sudden, there you go, we've got something you know, and so's another, just another thing you can learn and and empower those people to give you the feedback.

Scott Wilson: 30:17

And we always tell people too hey, you know, we've been in this business too long, you know your fresh eyes, you're, you're gonna see stuff we're not seeing, and just being open to, to learning from, from people like that. Um, and I and I know from talking to the people that come and do that process they really, really appreciate it, like the fact that we're willing to listen to them when they're new, because most people when they start a business, they don't just get told to sit in the corner and do the dishes or whatever. I think it's an opportunity that a lot of businesses miss so good, scott, this is a masterclass, I mean, in how to lead an agency team, do the dishes or whatever you know. Like. I think it's an opportunity that a lot of businesses miss so good.

Dr.William Attaway: 30:54

Scott, this is a masterclass, I mean in how to lead an agency team. There's so much insight here. I got to ask you like your business needs you to lead at a different level today than it did three or four or five years ago. And five years from now, it's going to need you to lead at yet a higher level. So what are you doing to stay on top of your game? What are you doing to level up your leadership skills so you'll be the leader your team needs in three, four, five years?

Scott Wilson: 31:24

Yeah, that's a great question and it's something that I started to look at probably two years ago. And go, look, I was in a mastermind group with some great guys and have been in there since it started and created some great friendships. Today, but I just realized that I needed to step up. I needed to get around some agency owners playing a bigger game. I was lucky enough to meet Matt Platt in 2019 at Traffic and Conversion.

Scott Wilson: 31:51

I've always been prepared to get on a plane and go and learn from the Americans. I love you guys. Like you guys are the thought leaders. You push the boundaries when it comes to innovation and technology and you, you know, like I just think that's cool. So I was talking to matt and I was saying, look, I want to level up. You know, I want to. And I saw what he was doing and he said you need to come to a thing called, with josh nelson, seven figure agency and I was like, okay, cool. So I got involved and then I just started to see, okay, there's a bigger game here. There's a, there's a, there's a much bigger game here.

Scott Wilson: 32:24

Um, so probably for the last two, two years, I'll be flying to the states to come and learn, uh, from agency owners from all over america that are playing a much bigger game than me. So I I love the fact that I'm going over there and I am just soaking up this, but learning but also adding value to the community as well. So that's one thing is investing in myself, and I think that's really important. Be prepared to learn and be prepared to go. I don't know this and I want to learn it and get around people that are doing some things that you can then implement, and I learned some stuff from you that has really helped me, and if I hadn't been part of 7 for Great Sea, I would have never learned that right. And that's the key is you. You have the opportunity once again stand on the shoulders of giants. You know that that maybe just know that one thing more than you that can help you. So so that was that's the first one invest in yourself.

Dr.William Attaway: 33:33

You know. I think that illustrates the power of choosing the rooms that you're going to be in, choosing the people that you're going to surround yourself with. So often it's easy to say, oh well, you know one day, or oh well, I'm not in that group, why not? What stops you? You get to choose.

Scott Wilson: 33:50

And, honestly, to leave the group that I was in, you know, and we had a cup my name's on that cup a few times because I won the 90 day challenges that we used to have. It was hard to leave that group. I didn't want to leave that group but I knew I had to. It's for the business to go where I want it to go. The next part of this is I want to build leaders, okay. Well, how do I build leaders? Well, I've got to build myself. I've got to learn what building leaders looks like, and I wasn't learning that there.

Scott Wilson: 34:21

Where you step into this other world and you start learning from people that are doing it, they are actually building leaders inside their business and, you know, you can go and ask them, you can sit in the room and say, oh, how do you do this? You can watch one of the videos that they put out. So you know that is a real opportunity. And look, you know, I think a lot of people get scared of taking those opportunities being in a bigger room. You know, I remember the first time I went to the States I was like, whoa, okay, this is, you know, like, this is different and it's, you know, do I need to do that? Do I really need to go over there and put myself in the uncomfortable situation One you've got to spend a ton of money to go there. But then you go there and you realize this is where I belong.

Dr.William Attaway: 35:08

So good, Scott. Is there a book that has made a difference in your journey that you would recommend to the leaders who are listening? Hey, if you haven't read this, this is one that really helped me.

Scott Wilson: 35:19

Yeah, there's a book I read recently. It's called Belonging, by Owen Eastwood. I think it's a book that it kind of gives you an overall arching of what's really that means to grow a team and belong and help people belong. And in New Zealand we have a strong culture, we call it a whakapapa, and there's a lot of, I guess, in belonging. There's a lot of stories about how you can bring people together and bringing people together based on their pasts and based on past history. And I think, if anything, I would read that book you know, I'd get the audio as well and just take time to listen and learn to it and there's some really gold nuggets about how you can bring people together and that is definitely, you know, one book I think is a really good from a leadership's perspective. It doesn't have, like it's not giving you like leadership tools exactly. There's plenty of books that have leadership tools and this is more about the thinking, the mindset, and I think you need to open yourself up to that thinking, that level as well. So that would probably be my recommendation Love that, get on podcasts.

Scott Wilson: 36:35

I'm a massive believer in listening to podcasts around leadership If you want to learn something. That's the whole cool thing about it, like I watched a video that you did at Semper Gaius around one-on-ones and how to communicate and how to do a one-on-one completely different, because I can't remember I came from the corporate world and you sat in a one-on-one and your boss told you what to do and what you were doing. And it was no. If anyone's ever worked in the corporate world, you know what that's like. Right, it's like, oh, I thought it was a teacher interview or something. But now you taught me hey, it's team person, it's team member led. You know they bring their feedback. You know they bring what they want to achieve, they bring their obstacles, they bring their hurdles, they bring their wins and it's a completely different way of doing stuff. That, to me, is the power of learning and then implementing, which is open to everyone.

Dr.William Attaway: 37:29

You get to choose. You get to choose, Scott. This is a conversation I could continue in for a couple more hours. There's just so much that we share as far as our philosophy around leadership and our hunger for learning and to continue to grow and get better. I look forward to seeing what's next for you and what's next for your business as you continue to implement and execute and grow beyond where you are today.

Scott Wilson: 37:59

I appreciate it.

Dr.William Attaway: 38:00

I know people are going to want to stay connected to you and continue to learn more about you and from you and about what you're doing. What is the best way for them to do that?

Scott Wilson: 38:09

Oh, look, hit me up on LinkedIn. Scott Wilson, 10X on LinkedIn. I love LinkedIn. I think it's a great platform for agency owners to connect with business owners and business people. And you know, linkedin, probably for me, is one of my favorite. I've been on the I think, 15 years. I've been on linkedin, uh, and I I just love it as a as a platform. It really is a professional platform. Um, you can go check out our website as well. Get digital influencecom. We have a lot of uh, really good content on there. Uh, put out a podcast myself as well. But you know, like, and we're open to sharing what we're doing. So you know, they're probably the two best places. But definitely hit me up on LinkedIn and we can have a chat.

Scott Wilson: 38:51

Yeah, and that's one thing I would say about if you connect with people, make sure you connect with them. You know, like, we met in the States but we've connected since. You know, we're not having a shallow connection. I really believe there's an opportunity for people. You know a lot of people. Look at the width of connection. Oh, it's great to have, you know, 5,000 followers. Well, I'd rather have five and have depth in that.

Scott Wilson: 39:14

Yes, 100% In those relationships, and I think that's an area where people could really work on, like it's not about having a width of connections, a depth of connection that really counts at the end of the day, absolutely agree. Can I throw it back to you though, knowing? Where I am knowing where I am in my business journey. We have a few conversations. What's one book you think I should read?

Dr.William Attaway: 39:33

My goodness, what a great question.

Scott Wilson: 39:36

I have to read.

Dr.William Attaway: 39:46

Oh well, oh well. I appreciate that. I hope it's helpful. As always, I uh.

Dr.William Attaway: 39:48

You know there are so many, there's so many questions that that are necessary to answer that question. I mean, one of the books that has made the biggest difference for me in the last couple years that I've read uh has been atomic habits. You know, and everybody talks about this book, and I just not only reading but also listening to James as he has spoken, and listening to him in the room and watching the words behind the words, so to speak, that he shares. There's so much wisdom inherent in that book that I think a lot of people just just kind of, they kind of run across the surface and pick up what's on the top, and that is one that I think we could plumb the depths of for a long time. And so when I'm talking to anybody I'm like hey, even if you've read Atomic Habits, I want you to read it again because I think there's more there. This is one of those books I'm going to read multiple times because I think there's more there than you can catch the first time.

Scott Wilson: 40:44

Yeah, no, that's awesome. I'm going to read it again, Cause sometimes I think it's fashionable to read a book. You know, you hear, oh, you read it. You know, oh, yeah, I've read it, but have you really read it? And I think that's what you're just saying, right, Like, like there's more things you can learn from looking at again.

Scott Wilson: 40:59

And one of the interesting things I've found over the years too, is at the different stage you are, you know, probably one of the most interesting things is when you're at a different stage, you see or hear something different in a book than when you first read it or at the stage you were at, you know. And one of the things I find coming to you know, Seven Figure and now being you know, One of the things I find coming to you know, seven figure and now being you know, obviously being able to give back and help some of the younger, less experienced agencies is they have different challenges. You know the challenges I remember having about lead generation versus, you know, now it's about how do you, you know, and it's really, it is really interesting. So I think that's a good point, that you raise Reading a book again at a different stage is a good opportunity.

Dr.William Attaway: 41:44

One more, because there always should be a bonus, right, it's marketing, right, always should be a bonus. There's a book that is probably one that over the last five years, I've given away more copies of than any other. Wow, it's called Sound Tracks. It's by a guy named John Acuff. And the two because several things I love about that book and the reason I give so many copies away is because what John does in that book is he talks about the recurring thoughts that all of us have in our heads, and this is so true for entrepreneurs and business owners and those recurring thoughts become the soundtrack of your life, and way too many of us have broken soundtracks, soundtracks that are no longer helpful, that are not serving us, and we have to learn how to replace those broken soundtracks with healthy ones, and that's what the book's about. John writes in a very funny, snarky kind of way, which I like. And just brilliant, brilliant content in that book, nice. So that's another one I would throw out, okay.

Scott Wilson: 42:51

I will definitely get that one, because I can understand what he's talking about, those soundtracks and the thought processes. I just believe, as a business owner, um, protect your mindset at all costs. Yes, like you, just protect it. Like what's in here is so important and and that's something I learned from dennis rodman like there you go. One you know book one book one.

Scott Wilson: 43:17

Like you know, he was outside the stadium with a shotgun there ready to blow his head off. Wow, like there's, it's a. There's a pivotal point in that book where he makes a decision and you know it's. It's incredible that you know the mind is is a powerful thing, and then you can harness it and then look where he went on to become one of you knows' best players played in a championship team. And it's just your mindset, protect it.

Dr.William Attaway: 43:47

Scott, thank you for your generosity today and being so open-handed with what you've learned so far. So grateful, man.

Scott Wilson: 43:55

No, look, I appreciate it and I appreciate that you have this awesome podcast, that you can share this with other people and I just hope if someone listens and if someone's going through anything like as far as you know, they want some advice with your agency, I'm more than happy to get on a phone call or get on like a call and help someone out, like the agency world's been good to me. So more than happy to help other people out because I know that makes the world go round. That's right.

Dr.William Attaway: 44:21

Thanks for joining me for this episode today. As we wrap up, I'd love for you to do two things. First, subscribe to this podcast so you don't miss an episode, and if you find value here, I'd love it if you would rate it and review it. That really does make a difference in helping other people to discover this podcast. Second, if you don't have a copy of my newest book, catalytic Leadership, I'd love to put a copy in your hands. If you go to catalyticleadershipbookcom, you can get a copy for free. Just pay the shipping so I can get it to you and we'll get one right out.

Dr.William Attaway: 44:57

My goal is to put this into the hands of as many leaders as possible. This book captures principles that I've learned in 20 plus years of coaching leaders in the entrepreneurial space, in business, government, nonprofits, education and the local church. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn to keep up with what I'm currently learning and thinking about. If you're ready to take a next step with a coach to help you intentionally grow and thrive as a leader, I'd be honored to help you. Just go to catalyticleadershipnet to book a call with me. Stay tuned for our next episode next week. Until then, as always, leaders choose to be catalytic.

Intro/Outro: 45:41

Thanks for listening to Catalytic Leadership with Dr William Attaway. Be sure to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts so you don't miss the next episode. Want more? Go to catalyticleadershipnet.