Catalytic Leadership

From $15K to $100K MRR in 9 Months – The Leverage for Growth Framework for Agencies with Jesse Gilmore

• Dr. William Attaway • Season 3 • Episode 100

Share episode

Send us a text

Scaling a digital agency doesn't require hustle—it requires systems, delegation, and intentional leadership. In this episode, I sit down with Jesse Gilmore, founder of Niche In Control and author of The Agency Owner's Guide to Freedom, to unpack how one agency owner scaled from $15K to $100K MRR in just 9 months using Jesse’s Leverage for Growth Framework. We walk through how time audits unlock 8–10 hours per week, how to implement scalable delegation systems, and how simplifying your offer can create not just growth, but freedom.

This conversation is built around a repeatable growth framework for agencies—designed to help you shift from bottleneck to CEO, install team-driven operations, and build a business that can grow and thrive without being dependent on you. If you’re leading a digital agency and ready to scale with strategy, not just hustle, you’ll want to take notes.

Books Mentioned:
The Agency Owner’s Guide to Freedom by Jesse Gilmore

Connect with Jesse Gilmore
Learn more about Jesse’s Leverage for Growth method and download free resources for scaling your agency at nicheincontrol.com. You can also tune in to his podcast, Leverage for Growth, for weekly strategies on leadership, systems, and sustainable agency growth.

🌟 Check out our podcast sponsor, Competitive Edge Business Consulting, and book your free discovery call with them today at www.CompEdgeConsulting.com 🌟

Join Dr. William Attaway on the Catalytic Leadership podcast as he shares transformative insights to help high-performance entrepreneurs and agency owners achieve Clear-Minded Focus, Calm Control, and Confidence.

Connect with Dr. William Attaway:

Dr. William Attaway:

It is such an honor today to have Jesse Gilmore on the podcast.

Dr. William Attaway:

Jesse is the founder and CEO of Niche in Control.

Dr. William Attaway:

He helps digital marketing agency owners escape the chaos of daily operations and build a business that scales without them, so they can finally step into the CEO role that they were meant for. Before starting Niche in Control, he dissolved three of his own businesses. He was working 60 to 80-hour weeks, completely burnt out and stuck in the same trap that he now helps his clients to escape. It wasn't until he spent five years in corporate America leading over 100 projects and building systems that supported $180 million acquisition that he realized the missing piece systems, leverage and self-leadership. Since launching Nation Control, he has helped over 90 agency owners to double their revenue, build self-sufficient teams and create predictable growth without sacrificing their time, their family or their freedom. His framework, the Leverage for Growth Method, combines scalable systems, team empowerment and consistent lead generation to help agency owners stop being the bottleneck and start leading a thriving business. He's also the author of the Agency Owner's Guide to Freedom and host of the Leverage for Growth podcast, where he reverse engineers agency success stories to help others grow with intention. His mission is simple help agency owners reclaim their time, increase their impact and finally build a business that works without them.

Dr. William Attaway:

Jesse, I'm so glad you're here. Thanks for being on the show.

Jesse Gilmore:

Yeah, thanks a lot for having me, and that was an awesome introduction, so I appreciate it.

Dr. William Attaway:

I've been looking forward to this conversation. Jesse, this is going to be a lot of fun.

Intro / Outro:

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:

I would love to start with you sharing some of your story with our listeners. I hit some of the high points, but I would love to hear particularly around your journey and your development as a leader. How did you get started?

Jesse Gilmore:

business with my brother, jeremy, and in my first businesses I was kind of like a student. I didn't really know much about business. I didn't go to school for business at the way beginning and the humble beginnings came from doing door-to-door sales and working with business owners. And one of the common things that I kept on asking every business owner was what's the ticket to a long-lasting, sustainable business? And I took a lot of notes in the way beginning and it became like 17 journals of the 80 page notes, or 80 page journals filled with notes of the answers, and I thought that that I had captured everything and I did my homework. So when I started my business, a lot of it was based around what I had been told a successful business was going to require.

Jesse Gilmore:

And over a period of time in those first businesses I just kind of got stuck. I didn't really understand systems. No one that I asked for said build some systems and this is how you do it, some systems and this is how you do it. And so I kind of found it through like the hard knock life you know of. You know trying to take all this information about business and success and and apply it, and I kind of just got to a place where it was kind of like this hamster wheel the more work that I did, the more success I looked like I was having, but on the inside I was kind of dying.

Jesse Gilmore:

And I think leadership really came from an understanding that I had to lead myself and through even challenges in my first three businesses and dissolving them and if you ever want to hear about my backstory, you can follow me on LinkedIn or read my book or something.

Jesse Gilmore:

But those humble beginnings taught me the importance of leadership, and leadership comes from an understanding of that. You are kind of like called or pulled towards something that's bigger than where you are currently Right. Yes, and I think that one of the greatest things I ever learned from myself was to be able to lead myself and have a vision and be able to get pulled towards something. And we'll probably talk about vision and leadership. But I think I had very humble beginnings. I started to get glimpses of what leadership could be, and it wasn't until I was working with VPs of a $4 billion global corporation that I started understanding what separated good leaders from leaders that are just kind of like leadership as a title but not really leading, and then which ones actually had like a vision and which ones didn't, and then how that actually started leading towards what I do with niching control and actually pulling some of that leadership out of my clients.

Dr. William Attaway:

You know, I often say that you're the hardest person that you're ever going to lead, and so much of what I hear in your story is that realization, that growth, understanding that and how to lead yourself well. Where did that start for you? Where did you begin to develop that muscle, that skill of leading yourself well?

Jesse Gilmore:

Sure, so I've been. I'm kind of a hoarder of a couple of things. One of the things is actually just documenting my experience and I think that just the act of journaling I've been doing since about 16 or 17, and I'll turn 40 at the end of this year, so a long time journaling. And I think that leadership comes in understanding how to lead yourself, actually comes from understanding that you are on a journey, right, and you didn't just happen to be here. They're like there's something that has led to this certain point in your life.

Jesse Gilmore:

You, listening to this podcast with me and William, you know something has led you to this moment. And when you can look backwards and start measuring not necessarily like from where you are to where you wanna be, but from where you were before and where you got now, and measuring that progress, you start to understand that when there's pieces of a puzzle that are being put together and sometimes you don't actually know where it's going Sometimes you do and sometimes you don't and I think that the leadership piece comes from understanding that you're on a journey and you're going somewhere. And I think that once you start understanding where you're going somewhere, I think journaling is a big kind of proponent, at least for me journaling, meditating, asking a question to the universe or God, and then just sitting and waiting for an answer, like it kind of like. A lot of people are not like doing that and they probably should, but that triggers the leadership. You have to have something that's pulling you. You can't be pushed into leadership, you have to pull. So that's probably a whole topic right there.

Dr. William Attaway:

But yeah, I mean I love the reflective aspect of journaling. I think that that's a phenomenal exercise for us all and when you do it like you and I do like you see the value of it because it forces evaluation. I'm a big proponent and teacher that experience is not what makes you better, evaluated experience is what makes you better. And I think journaling is a tool to help with that reflection, because as you're evaluating, as I'm journaling, I'm thinking like, okay, what can I celebrate? What are the wins? Where did I swing and miss you know what? Would I do different next time in a similar situation? So you're processing that learning For you, that process of evaluation and reflection through journaling. What are some ways that you've seen that bear fruit in future situations that you went through and did that process? And then the next time you were there, what does that look like for you?

Jesse Gilmore:

Yeah, yeah, I think one of the greatest things that you can do with the journaling. So sometimes when I say journaling, people are like what am I supposed to write, right? Or they buy a journaling notebook and then they're like there's a bunch of prompts. I think there's a couple of kind of like even just structured journaling that can get to what I'm about to answer your question with. One of them is something as simple as a plan tomorrow, today, where at the end of the day, you're looking back and you're saying what are the top three accomplishments of today and then what are the top three accomplishments that will happen tomorrow, right? So a lot of people talk about to-do lists and stuff like that and that's not really as beneficial as something that's like highly prioritized, right. And if you do something like a plan tomorrow, today, but you do it on a weekly basis or a monthly basis and instead of looking at the day, you're looking at a week or a month or a quarter or even a year, that one process works really well.

Jesse Gilmore:

So the reason why I wanted to give that frame is because that one simple activity I've been doing for about six years and just looking at what happened yesterday and what am I kind of learning from are certain times in my life where I have something that happens right In February my father died, so I was looking back on like childhood and journals about that right.

Jesse Gilmore:

And then other times we hit certain milestones where our team grew to 11, you know and before I had a vision of a team of 11, you know, you look back and you start seeing that there's little glimpses of what the future is going to be if you continue on a certain track, and those kinds of scenarios allow journaling to kind of be like the breadcrumbs, and that evaluated experience that you were talking about just a second ago is beautifully capturing what I'm talking about right now, where you're looking back and you're starting to see I had a vision for something that wasn't there yet. I was being pulled towards it and now I have experienced that and I don't know if I truly answered your question, but I think those concepts of being able to look at it kind of lead towards it.

Dr. William Attaway:

Well, I think that framing is really helpful because I hear the same thing that you just described. You know why would I start, how do I do this? Like really helpful because I hear the same thing that you just described. You know where do I start, how do I do this? Like, what am I supposed to write down? And I think having some framing, especially at the beginning, is incredibly helpful. So, thinking through your story and some of the highlights I read and some of what you shared, this is the question that I can't wait to hear the answer to. Why digital marketing agencies?

Dr. William Attaway:

Everybody asked me that question, I mean just looking at your experience it's broad, it's varied, it's wide.

Jesse Gilmore:

Why digital marketing agencies? And I'll answer of unpack that. So when I looked at, I actually created the company called Niche in Control before I even had a niche. So in the first year or so my website you guys probably would laugh at is just like coaching and consulting to grow your business. It's like the most like generic thing ever on a nichingcontrolcom website. But anyway, so I didn't really know.

Jesse Gilmore:

And in the way beginning I actually built Niche and Control on the side because during that business acquisition I wasn't too sure what was going to happen with corporate and I was like I'm kind of stumbling upon something that allows me to tap into something that doesn't have really limits. Right, when you're an employee you have limits to certain things. Right, when you're an employer and an entrepreneur, you have a little bit more options. So in the way beginning I started working with any clients that really would pay me. So I had a B2C SaaS company and pretty early I was like, oh, I'm really good at project management and it seems like they don't really have good systems, so I'm going to help them with some systems. And then the next client was like a copywriter and I was like, oh man, if you just move some things around. Instead of it taking you three weeks, it's going to take you four days. And they're like, holy crap, I increased my capacity. I'm like, oh yeah, cool.

Jesse Gilmore:

And then I, by the grace of God, I got connected with a digital marketing agency and I started working with Warren and he was one of the first ones that I just went all in with, where the previous ones were kind of on the side and I was kind of seeing what it was. When I worked with Warren, I was just like all right, we're going to meet on a weekly basis and we're going to be implementing this very specific strategy and I can talk more about the strategy later. But the most important thing was I started working with him. And the most important thing was I started working with him and once we started to unpack what I called leverage for growth, which is our method, and I started to apply it to his business, it was like astronomical how much of a big difference it actually was to be implementing a proven system. And the proven system was literally what did I learn in corporate that I didn't learn before? And what did I if I was to teach somebody like how to build systems and make the business not rely upon them. If I was able to do that early, what would be the effect?

Jesse Gilmore:

And Warren was like the first one that actually went through the process. He went from 15,000 to 100,009 months while reducing his workload. Wow, it was like what the heck? And he even talks about it. He's like I had three people and now I have eight full-time employees and six contractors. I was like wow, that's crazy. Um, and once I started to realize that it worked and I can talk more about why it worked and it wasn't always based around the method.

Jesse Gilmore:

Actually, there's uh kind of a synergy between someone who knows about marketing and someone knows about systems and like the yin and the yang happening. But what we did was I took that first version of the program that I was applying towards Warren and I figured out what worked and what didn't, got rid of what didn't, did more of it worked. I became version two. Then I went through a whole nother year did that with other agencies and I started realizing that certain agencies were getting better results.

Jesse Gilmore:

Susan doubled her business in six months and then got acquired in 18 and says like everything had changed when she started working with me and it's not about me. It's more based around just like the right fit, and the right fit kept on happening with agencies, and I can talk more about that from like a like, a like either, a qualitative kind of side of things, where people are more creative and then they get a left brain systems person, and that seems to work really well. If people are familiar with the EOS method, it's EOS is not. It's too complex for like a six figure agency. There's too many things going unless you have a bigger team. But, like we kind of do an EOS light right. So, um, there's a lot of different reasons on why it actually works, but we've now gone through six versions of what I was just talking about, where you apply version 2.0 and then you take what works and get rid of what doesn't, and we've built so many different feedback cycles that make it so it just keeps on becoming more of a proven process.

Dr. William Attaway:

So, yeah, I read earlier that you have helped over 90 agency owners through this process. That's a lot Like what is your. You mentioned Warren. What are some other stories of people that you have helped navigate this difficult thing of growing and scaling without running yourself into the ground?

Jesse Gilmore:

Yeah, absolutely so. Susan was one of the second ones that went through a massive transformation. So Susan was a full-service creative agency owner and she very specifically worked with architectural product-based companies and helping with them creative and already had kind of like the niche figured out. And when I was working with her, and actually when I talked with her, she's like I've been trying to grow this business for over 20 years. I've hired people like David C Baker and like everybody else that's kind of like known in the agency space and she's like they're really like helpful. They got us to be able to be an authority in the place.

Jesse Gilmore:

But every time that they talk about scale it's too conceptual and I've tried so many different things. I'm just kind of stuck and I feel as though I'm spinning my wheels. She was one that just kept on saying spinning my wheels, reinventing the wheels, like the same thing over and over again. And she goes I'm to the point where, if I don't fix this, I'm so sick of spinning my wheels that I'm going to shut it down within six months. And unless you can help me get there, I was like I'm down for it and she's like all right, you're very confident. I'm like yeah, you just got to do these certain things, and she's like all right, let's do it. And not only did she double in six months, but she got it to where it wasn't relying upon her, and that is an astronomical change.

Jesse Gilmore:

She actually wrote the forward in the book and for anybody that's listening or watching, I'll give William the link to either the audio book or give you a copy of it. But in the forward she's literally talking about this I'm going to give Jesse six months to turn my business around. I'm going to shut it down about this. I'm going to give Jesse six months to turn my business around. I'm going to shut it down to a place where, um, at the end of the six months, she's like I asked her. I was like so are you going to continue or what's going on? She's like hell, yeah, I'm going to continue. She's like this is so much fun, like the team is excited about the work and like we cut out a random stuff and like it's, it's kind of crazy.

Jesse Gilmore:

So, and then, in 18 months from when we started, she actually got acquired by a pr firm that was a little bit bigger in the same exact space, and so then they have the pr and the creative together and she talks about one of the biggest changes was not necessarily like the scale everybody bleeds with, like revenue, but it was like who I became in the process was different and who the a like what the agency became. She's like if we would have been approached by that pr firm, you know, maybe 18 months earlier, it would not have been like attractive to them, right, and there wouldn't be an acquisition. But what happened was it made it to where it was a sellable asset, you know. And so, yeah, there's probably so much to unpack and I know you asked for a couple of different case studies, but Susan is one that if you watch her testimonial, it's like 14 minutes on her on YouTube.

Jesse Gilmore:

She goes through literally step by step at this certain time, this is what we did, and then this is a certain time, this is what we did, and then this certain time, this is what we did. And then she talks about the whole entire thing was mindset as like system's cool, it's just mindset. How are you seeing it? And I think that brings us back to our conversation about leadership, because mindset and leadership go hand in hand Vision and acquisition and growth and everything that an agency owner is trying to accomplish. Going from the doer to the CEO comes down to how you're viewing things and what's going on in that mind.

Dr. William Attaway:

So well said. I often equate this to being at the center of the spider web. When an agency owner is in that spot and everything connects to you, that's not a sellable asset, right? Because you rip you out, the whole thing falls apart. What you're describing is building something that is sellable, that will scale, that is actually operating at a healthy and sustainable pace for the long haul. So talk about the strategy, the framework that you encourage and teach in your mastermind.

Jesse Gilmore:

Absolutely yeah. So we have an inside-out approach to growth. So typically, what people do in a lot of agency growth programs, there's nothing wrong with other programs, it's just different ways of doing things. A lot of other programs focus on sales and then they focus on pipeline and then they kind of work their way from an external focus and then they build the business around that external part. Now for us, we do way more of an internal was talking about in my previous businesses working 68 hour weeks and everything's dependent on them and if you don't work, work doesn't get done.

Jesse Gilmore:

The issue has nothing to do with new business. It has everything to do with time use. Productivity systems offers, right, so foundational stuff that sets up for everything else. So in the leverage for growth method and we've revised it one more time, right, but we'll keep it really simple. There's five main steps to the process and before we jump into everything, we just start with time time use. We have every single client go through a time log. It's like the first seven days. You just log your time for half an hour every single day for seven days. Personal, professional, include sleep, include scrolling on social media, include watching binge, watching Netflix, whatever it is. Capture it.

Jesse Gilmore:

Okay, and from that time log, there are four things that you can do with that, uh, that output. You can figure out what you can eliminate. So what are you doing right now? You can just get rid of, and then, if you can do with that, uh, that output, you can figure out what you can eliminate. So what are you doing right now? You can just get rid of, and then, if you can't get rid of it, can you automate it? Is it something that's predictable? Data transfers should never be done by a human. That was one thing I just said.

Jesse Gilmore:

In a linked automation, then, if you can't eliminate it, automate it. Can you delegate? Can you give it to somebody else? Right, and it's low risk, low value tasks, right, and then, if you can't do those three, then what's left over? You need to time block.

Jesse Gilmore:

Now, time blocking. People always talk like, oh, I'm just going to put one hour on here, I'm going to do this. The most important thing about time blocking is that you put a sequence of similar tasks together, which means that you're minimizing what's called task switching. The biggest issue, if you get to the end of the day and you feel busy but not productive, has more to do with task switching than anything else. So I could probably go way deeper into that. But time your main goal in step number one is to carve out eight to 10 hours per week to work on the business. That is not additional time, that is not working on the weekends, that's not anything. It's existing time that you have right now. You're carving it out, you're just moving things around. Let's just say, william, you're going through this process and you can only capture two hours and so I can't do the eight, I can only do two. What do you do at that time? That's when you move on to step number two.

Jesse Gilmore:

Now, step number two is building what's called a delegation system, and basically what that means is getting everything out of your head and your team's head into systems and procedures so that way the people that are doing the work can switch without the customer being impacted. I learned this in corporate. One of my biggest projects that I had in the company was to create what's called a customer protection plan. So if unions went on strike, how do you make sure that the material still gets to the clients and the clients are not impacted by whatever's happening in the factory, right? So the delegation system. There's actually a process that I go through in the book. So again, if you want more details, you can go into the book. But the delegation system is meant to start freeing you up Now.

Jesse Gilmore:

Sometimes people rush to hiring and I would suggest not doing that. What I would suggest is that you start using that time. So, william, if you were building those systems and you only got the two hours, there's a strategy in the book of which ones to actually start building first. But as you're going through it, let's say you start to document and capture whatever it is for like running ad campaigns or set up of ad campaigns and you capture an SOP or system and you start to use your own system. So if it used to be two hours to run ad campaigns and you use a system now that is documented that two hours should be 90 minutes, should be 60 minutes, should be whatever, and the time that you free up, you just move towards working on the business and it just becomes a cycle eventually just starts spreading and becoming more and more. You're building the systems that allow you to free up time. Is this making sense.

Jesse Gilmore:

So far, 100%, awesome. As you build up systems, what's naturally going to happen is you're so close to the work, you're going to start to understand what is valuable and what's not valuable, kind of similar to what you're doing with your time eliminate, automate, delegate time, block, right You're going to naturally start looking at what is most valuable and from there you're going to start understanding that there are certain services, certain things that you're offering that you're just not that good at. There are so many full service agencies that feel as though they have to be everything to everyone and in actuality they're diluting their true expertise. And if you can figure out what those core services are, and then you can figure out who gets the most value of all the clients that you could serve, who gets the most value from those core services, you now start to create what's called a minimum viable solution. It's the least amount of effort on your end, greatest results for the client. And if you price that minimum viable solution to your clients and according to value as opposed to hours, right, then immediately you're starting to shift and differentiate yourself. So step number three is based around that minimum viable solution and you start to identify not only who you're serving, but what you're offering and what it does is you have to go back to the market. So you have to take that new offer, even if it's a repackage, and you have to make sure that it actually works in the market. So you go back to step number four, which is filling up your pipeline. And filling up your pipeline actually comes down to three client attraction systems working together.

Jesse Gilmore:

A lot of people think about tactics like I'm going to do an email newsletter and then I'm good, or I'm just going to do paid ads or whatever it is. Client attraction comes down to a referral system, an outbound system and an inbound system. If you work all three of those together, you create what's called exponential demand. I can give you an example of that. Let's just use Susan as an example. So how we build client attraction systems in niche and control, like create an exponential demand, came down to in Susan's testimonial. She kept on using the words spinning her wheels Okay, I'm spinning my wheels, spinning my wheels, reinventing the wheel right. Spinning her wheels Okay, I'm spinning my wheels, spinning my wheels, reinventing the wheel Right. And I was like I just have this random hypothesis. If I did, if I said are you spinning your wheels, question mark, and then put that into a cold email campaign Could I find more Susans? And it works. Those little tiny example.

Jesse Gilmore:

That's a very simple example of taking a referral system where you're getting social proof and testimonials and pulling it into an outbound system. Okay, and then what we did was he took those testimonials, like Susan, and then we we compiled them all into a case study video. The case study video is what everybody watches before they jump on a call with me. You can go to nicheandcontrolcom slash case study video if you want to see it. You know, and and that's how. That's an example of how a client attraction system referral to outbound to inbound can work.

Jesse Gilmore:

Now, it can be as simple as that or it can be a lot more complex, a lot of moving parts. But the goal in step number four is that you have enough systems, that you're creating an exponential demand and that the filling of the pipeline or booking appointments is no longer the bottleneck, which leads towards step number five, which is empowering your people, which is probably very dear to your heart, william. 100% yeah. And step number five is really all the people systems hiring, training, managing, leading the people, meeting structures at work, communicating the vision, all that kind of stuff, and the main kind of goal is that your team and parts of your team, or individual people or teams, can run whole parts of the company, so that way you can focus on growth or taking time for yourself and I always say taking time for yourself, because vision does not come from doing work, it comes from space, it comes from time.

Dr. William Attaway:

That's right margin.

Jesse Gilmore:

Yes, taking a step back in order for you to find it. So thank you for letting me go on a rant there about our method.

Dr. William Attaway:

No, that was so good. I mean, there's so much clarity I think that you're providing, and I know our listeners are like oh okay, wait a minute, I'm not sure I've dealt with that, or I'm not sure I've got that piece, or wait a minute, we're just a mess. We don't have the structure at all. You do monthly master classes for agency owners. What are those is?

Jesse Gilmore:

that where you unpack a lot of these things yeah, one of the coolest things. So we used to do webinars. I did webinars for about four years or so and, uh, what I wanted to do is I wanted to break all skepticism. If you are an agency owner that's listening to this, I guarantee you're listening to it and you're like screw that, there's no way You've been around marketing messages so much that there's some skepticism. And I want you to embrace the skepticism and do your due diligence. And when I did webinars, I had a decent amount of results with it.

Jesse Gilmore:

But I got to a certain place where I was like I think what I want to do is I actually want to solve a problem. I'm kind of sick of just being on the soapbox and just going, hey, we're great, or talking about the method and being like yay and like, oh, you know, not too sure. So I started these masterclasses about six months ago or so and what I wanted to do is I wanted to allot a two-day, two hours per day solving of the problem. So, whatever the problem is and the one that's coming up in 11 days from this recording is our offer. So that whole step number three we're literally solving the offer issue and in a total of four hours, you walk away with an understanding of how you're going to position your offer, what your core competence is, what your core services are and maybe even some pricing and packaging.

Jesse Gilmore:

Amazing, I didn't do that in the way beginning with, like webinars, where I was like you just have to believe me. It's amazing, you know, and people are now coming into the masterclasses and they're leaving with a result, and I think that the masterclasses like people use that word now, the moment that it became like a trendy thing, everybody's like join our masterclass. It's 45 minutes I was like that's not a masterclass, that's a pitch. The masterclass. That's the reason why the event is different and we started doing it on a monthly basis.

Jesse Gilmore:

I have gotten testimonials from just a masterclass and one of the cool things is we have now in our newer model, which has nine different outcomes. We're solving one of the nine and the offer is such a crucial part of this whole thing Because if you get the offer right, you know who you're talking with, it simplifies the systems, you're getting paid more. There's like so many benefits that come from solving that one issue. But yeah, the masterclasses oh dude, they're fun People get to see me in a coaching mode as opposed to like a pitching mode, you know.

Dr. William Attaway:

That's so good. You are constantly pouring out and adding value. I mean in so many ways, and I see you. I see what you're doing online, I see what you're doing with your clients. I love this. I love the value that you are adding. Let me circle to you for a second. Like you know, you have to lead today at a higher level than you did two, three, five years ago, and that same thing is going to be true two, three, five years from now. Your team, your clients, everybody around you needs you to lead and continue to be leveling up. How do you do that? How do you stay on top of your game and level up with the new leadership skills that your team and your business and your clients are going to need you to have in the years to come?

Jesse Gilmore:

It's a good question. I think one of the greatest things that I do is I have these habits very similar to the plan tomorrow, today, and the weekly review and the monthly. You know all that kind of stuff. I just do it and I think that there's a part of leadership that's really boring. That's so true.

Dr. William Attaway:

Consistency is not exciting.

Jesse Gilmore:

It's the part that's tapping into the vision on a consistent basis and sometimes sitting with unknowns and sitting until you have clarity. Until you have clarity and that repetition, that routine of just getting into the zone of asking yourself a question what is my target this week? Just waiting.

Jesse Gilmore:

What is something that's holding my team back that I can do to relieve that? And sometimes you have so much momentum that you think that it's always going to continue that way, and one of the greatest things you can do and what I'm doing as a leader, is looking ahead. So when you free up time, what happens is that you don't focus so much on what's going to happen in the next minute, hour, day, right, and the best CEOs of our time are looking at what needs to happen this quarter, this year, five years. How is AI, which is the biggest topic right now? How is that going to impact leadership and the company and the market and the global landscape years from now? All right, the same goes for me and what I'm doing. So when I was originally thinking about, you know, my day or my week, I was thinking about what I needed to do, right. But now I have a team that does a lot of things Right, and there's a lot of parts to it where I'm like, ok, did I give that team member everything that they need? Oh, they're going to need it on Thursday. I'm just going to do it on Monday, and you start getting to a place where you start to free up even more time and then eventually, what happens is you're able to look at leadership and where is the direction of the company going, not from like the day or the week. You're starting to look at month, quarter and so forth.

Jesse Gilmore:

So how I'm diving into it, I realize that I am constantly flawed and I'm always looking for new opportunities to improve, and I screw up so many times, but I'm just transparent about it and then I learn and then I keep on going, and I think that transparency earns the trust of the people that follow me, whether it's from followers on social media, because I'm very active on LinkedIn or it's people that actually pay me to be a coaching consultant for them.

Jesse Gilmore:

And I truly believe that leadership is an honor, it is a gift, and it can be taken away if you mess up and you're, you're, you're, you're not like not mess up as like a leader, but like mess up as not leading yourself. And so I am constantly finding different ways that I can lead, and it's not always based around business. Like, I'm leading my son on the development of faith and he's really interested in God, so I'm taking him to church, and my daughter is really interested in you know Taekwondo and so then I'm going to her meeting like Taekwondo belt tests and stuff, you know, I'm like investing in it and I'm leading a family. And the same exact thing goes with body and with spirituality and with business. And I think that leadership comes down to leading yourself, but not just in business. No one wants to be one dimensional and if you do, do some self-reflection.

Dr. William Attaway:

We have a journaling exercise just for you. Yes, we have a journaling exercise just for you. Yes, that's so good, and I could not possibly agree with you more. It is a privilege, it is a gift to get to lead, and you are one person, and if you think you can compartmentalize one part of your life off, that's not how you're wired, that's not how you're designed. Every part of you touches every other part, and to live a life of integrity means you're living a life that is integrated, where every part truly does touch and influence every other part, and you're not trying to artificially wall off certain parts of your life. I think that's a very healthy way of looking at that, jesse.

Jesse Gilmore:

Yeah, and one of my mentors he had said you know, people don't have business problems, they have life problems that are reflected in their business. And when I got that, I started understanding that actual, true, like business, growth comes from self-actualization. So Maslow's hierarchy, you know, you like rise up and you get to a place where you're starting to become the better version of yourself. And a lot of what I do with clients, yeah, it has to do with systems and, yes, it has to do with the process and the method I was talking about. But in actuality, what's happening is is you're becoming a better version of you.

Jesse Gilmore:

And true leadership is where you start to unlock those pieces. You know you start to unlock. What is that vision? Where do I want to take this company and why would people follow me and devote their life towards a business that I'm owning? That's more than just a paycheck, right? It's these questions that get people to start thinking about leadership in a different way, and Susan's totally right. It's these questions that get people to start thinking about leadership in a different way, and Susan's totally right Everything about going through our method or business growth or becoming a better leader comes down to that mindset and that transformational part. I always talk about niche control, not being a transactional company, but being a transformational company, because we're in the business of transforming people and we just happen to be really good at working with agency owners.

Dr. William Attaway:

That's so good. You know you've reflected a number of times in this conversation how much you are a continual learner. I'm just curious is there a book that has made a big difference in your journey that you would recommend to the list, to the leaders who are listening? Hey, if you haven't read this, check it out.

Jesse Gilmore:

I was going to say my own book.

Dr. William Attaway:

Which is a great book, by the way. I finished reading that and there's so much value in there. We're going to have a link to that in the show notes I don't you.

Jesse Gilmore:

you asked me a question about which book kind of unlocks something for leadership and there's not a very specific book that comes to mind. And the reason why is because I think like I've gone through about 400 business books and probably about 100 of them are leadership oriented, right. Um, I think in the way beginning it was like John C Maxwell books and then it turned into some other things and then I got into organizational alignment and four disciplines of execution and then I got into a bunch of other things. But when it comes to like leadership, I think my own understanding of leadership is really the combination of all of them. So I don't really think that there's a very specific book that kind of stands out. But I would say everything that I've talked about so far I've given an understanding of exactly how to do that, how to create that leadership for yourself. In the book that I've created and I didn't really hold back there's like 256 pages worth of building the systems, the mindset behind it and things to look out for, you know, and so forth.

Dr. William Attaway:

And I think the value is so present in that book because of the authenticity you brought to it, jesse. I think the you know the stories that you tell, the suggestions, the insights that you share like these are hard won. These are actual examples from real people, real lives, including your own, and I think that's the power that I see when I was reading through this. I know our listeners are going to want to continue to stay in touch with you, continue to learn from you and learn more about what this whole niche and control thing is all about. What is the best way for them to do that?

Jesse Gilmore:

Absolutely. If you're an agency owner, there's two main ways that I can help you. First one is if you're looking for a new core offer or you know one of those events or those masterclasses kind of stand out to you, I highly recommend applying to one of our masterclasses. Now, it's not for somebody who doesn't have five paying clients or is under $10,000 a month. Everything that we're doing from a strategy component is all based around six or seven figure agencies, and if you're more than seven figures, it's going to work for you as well. Eventsnichecontrolcom is like a redirection link that leads towards whatever monthly masterclass works out that we have at that time. That would be the highest value thing that I could ever give an agency owner. Second highest value is obviously the book, and in the book I don't hold back. I give you a lot of things there.

Jesse Gilmore:

On LinkedIn, I'm posting five days a week. I'm super active there. If you connect with me on LinkedIn, I'm posting, you know, five days a week, I'm super active there. If you connect with me on LinkedIn, I can share different resources. We have a bunch of different resources for agency owners, and so you can go to linkedincom slash in slash, jesse P Gilmore. Otherwise, I'm on YouTube. I'll probably give William, give you a bunch of links that you can put on there. But otherwise, if you want to check out just nicheandcontrolcom, we have our podcasts, the books on there and there's probably about five other resources I'm not mentioning right now. But yeah, we have a lot of different things that we can give agency owners. I love that.

Dr. William Attaway:

We'll have those links in the show notes and I really want to encourage people to connect with Jesse. I want to connect you, I want you all to connect, because there's so much value that you are continually dropping there. I think this is something that's really going to benefit our listeners. So listen up, go connect, go take action on this right now. Jesse, thank you for being here. Thank you for sharing so generously from what you've learned so far and how you've helped so many other agency owners. I can't wait to see what is next for you.

Jesse Gilmore:

Me too. Thank you so much, William. Appreciate it.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Dr. William Attaway

Host

Podcasts we love

Check out these other fine podcasts recommended by us, not an algorithm.

The Look & Sound of Leadership Artwork

The Look & Sound of Leadership

Essential Communications - Tom Henschel
The Lead Every Day Show Artwork

The Lead Every Day Show

Randy Gravitt and Mark Miller
The Global Leadership Podcast Artwork

The Global Leadership Podcast

Global Leadership Network
The Carey Nieuwhof Leadership Podcast Artwork

The Carey Nieuwhof Leadership Podcast

Art of Leadership Network
Seven Figure Agency Podcast with Josh Nelson Artwork

Seven Figure Agency Podcast with Josh Nelson

Josh Nelson - Seven Figure Agency
Agency Forward Artwork

Agency Forward

Chris DuBois