Adam Smith Of Niche Website Builders: Five Things You Need To Be A Highly Effective Leader During Turbulent Times
An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis
Plan ahead. Always having a 6 and 12 month plan is critical. If you as the leader don’t know where you want the company to be, then how will the team know. Share that plan, and make everyone feel included and working toward those objectives. And then when you hit them, make sure you share the successes.
As part of our series about the “Five Things You Need To Be A Highly Effective Leader During Turbulent Times”, we had the pleasure of interviewing Adam Smith.
Adam Smith is a highly accomplished digital marketer who is vastly experienced in building and managing six-figure sites, with a passion for content websites in particular. Adam had been running his own 6-figure portfolio of affiliate and content websites for many years before starting his thriving agency, Niche Website Builders in 2019. Niche Website Builders is a leading agency specializing in the production and development of outstanding quality content and done-for-you niche sites. They help other affiliate and content marketers grow their sites through professionally created content and manual outreach link building. As the company grows, they look to regularly develop new services which will eventually allow them to become the go-to, one-stop-shop for niche websites and content publishers.
Thank you so much for your time! I know that you are a very busy person. Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you got started?
Yes, of course! So a number of years ago I had heard a lot about Affiliate websites and how they could be a great way of earning passive income. My first real success came when I purchased a site from Empire Flippers while I was working full time at a marketing agency. I worked in it in the evenings and weekends for around 7 months before selling it for more than my yearly salary. I realized I needed to do more of this and I asked the agency if I could drop down to 3 days per week so I could spend more time on my sites. However, they said no so I quit and jumped in with both feet. Long story short, over time I built out a portfolio of sites, some of which I “flipped” for more than five figures.
However, I was always struggling to find reliable freelancers to help me with the different aspects the site needed, like content writing for example. I was actually talking about my struggles on a Podcast when my now business partner, Mark, heard me and we connected, basically to moan about our shared frustrations. We came up with the idea of building our own team that we could use for our portfolio of sites and basically as soon as we did that, we realized that other site owners like us were in need of the same thing, so Niche Website Builders was born in 2019!
In two years we’ve gone from a handful of staff and myself and Mark to a multi-million dollar company with over 150 employees. All of which we did through a pandemic from opposite sides of the UK.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lessons or ‘take aways’ you learned from that?
At the very start of the business we hired 2 people. They were the first employees of the business. One of them is still with the company almost 2 years later. The other lasted 1 day. Looking back I have no idea how I managed to get one hire so right, and the other so wrong. I’m not sure if it was excitement about employing our first staff, but I can see that I had overlooked some red flags in their interview — the guy showed up with a pull along cart filled with magazines he claimed to be published in, which were older than he was. It makes me laugh to think about it now, but I probably should have seen that as a warning sign right from the get go.
Going forward we made sure that both me and Mark interviewed staff until we handed that process over to our staff. This allowed us to both have insight and give feedback to each other. If you don’t have a business partner, then I would recommend getting another team member on the call with you.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?
I believe lots of different people helped at different times. However, my wife was incredibly supportive when I said I was quitting my job to work on my sites full time. She was also supportive when we started the agency and has really taken up the mantle of looking after our child while I worked some crazy long hours. Without her, this wouldn’t have been possible.
Also, my business partner Mark. While I have worked in an agency before, he has actually run a traditional agency in the past. So his experience there has been invaluable. Also the fact that we can lean on each other’s skill sets has been super helpful.
Interestingly, we have only ever met each other in real life a handful of times. The company truly is remote-first and that includes us.
Extensive research suggests that “purpose driven businesses” are more successful in many areas. When your company started, what was its vision, what was its purpose?
This is a great question. Our primary purpose was to build a company that we would love to have work on our own portfolio of sites. This meant building expertise for each department so that we could offer a service far above and beyond what the competitors offer. We have executed on that plan with great success and are now seen as expert thought leaders in our space.
Thank you for all that. Let’s now turn to the main focus of our discussion. Can you share with our readers a story from your own experience about how you lead your team during uncertain or difficult times?
As our business has essentially started just as the pandemic hit, obviously, so many people were going through difficult times and being able to offer remote employment to hundreds of people during these difficult times has been fantastic. However, as we were starting our agency right from the start as a remote company, that came with a number of immediate difficulties.
First and foremost, as a remote-first company that is growing rapidly (literally hiring dozens of people per month) it’s hard to build and maintain company culture so that everyone feels comfortable, respected and appreciated.
We didn’t get everything right in the beginning, simply because our team grew so quickly, it was hard to implement policies and procedures on the fly. But, what we made sure we did was listen to the team about these concerns and challenges and implemented several things to help.
We put in an additional management level so that every member of the company has a 1–2–1 every two weeks. This means they feel heard, and also have a safe space to share concerns and also ambitions. As soon as Covid restrictions were lifted slightly, we implemented a bi-monthly in-person team meeting, so everyone gets a chance to meet their colleagues in real life. We have also developed a clear path for progression for each department, with a huge focus on internal professional development and internal promotion so now everyone has a clear goal to work towards and opportunities for career progression.
Did you ever consider giving up? Where did you get the motivation to continue through your challenges? What sustains your drive?
We almost gave up straight away! Initially our idea was to build expertise around keyword research, formatting and uploading and site structure — but we were going to outsource the actual content creation. I had been using an agency for my own website content for some time and was generally happy with it. We reached out to ask if they could handle additional volume if we were to start a service — and they said yes. We opened our service and took around 200,000 words of orders in the first month. The content we received back was horrible, non-native English and was totally unusable. We had to close the service while me and Mark edited the content to an acceptable standard (which basically meant rewriting the content).
At that point we realised we needed to build and train our own team of content writers — and we now have the capacity to create around 7 million words per month.
What would you say is the most critical role of a leader during challenging times?
Staying calm, and listening to your team. Hear their challenges and propose solutions — be that amending processes to reduce their workload, or hiring in new members of staff to help. Also leading by example — several times over the last 12 months, when things have been challenging, I have jumped back in with them and rolled my sleeves up to help. Finally, maintaining a positive attitude — it’s extremely easy for negativity to spread throughout a startup, especially if it’s coming from the top. If you approach every challenge with a “we can fix it” attitude, that naturally spreads down.
When the future seems so uncertain, what is the best way to boost morale? What can a leader do to inspire, motivate and engage their team?
Share with them future plans, and also celebrate past successes. We have just had our first in-person team meeting and we spent half of the day showing where we have come from, celebrating business successes, celebrating customer successes and how our work has changed their lives and finally celebrating internal successes such as customer feedback and promotions. We also laid our our plans for 2022 and what we are implementing to continue our growth — and what that means to them — typically more recognition and room for progression.
What is the best way to communicate difficult news to one’s team and customers?
We use both Slack and Zoom. Both have their place for sharing information, but I think the personal touch of a video call is much better than a Slack message where intention or meaning can be misinterpreted.
How can a leader make plans when the future is so unpredictable?
You can build predictability in a business — we have done this through a reliable marketing engine that we are comfortable will deliver us new customers monthly. We have also structured our business where around 1/3rd of the revenue comes from subscriptions. We have just introduced 6 and 12 month contracts (in return for additional services) to lock in customers for longer periods. These things build in a level of predictability and allow you to plan and scale with confidence.
Is there a “number one principle” that can help guide a company through the ups and downs of turbulent times?
Similar to above really — stay calm and work through any problems that come up. Having a business partner really helps with this as you work together to come up with solutions. However, as our senior management team has grown we also rely on them to come to the table with ideas and solutions too. So I guess the number one principle is to build a network around you that can help work through any ups and downs.
Can you share 3 or 4 of the most common mistakes you have seen other businesses make during difficult times? What should one keep in mind to avoid that?
Stop marketing. One thing we have always done is push on the marketing front. If we are too busy, we scale our staff vs stop marketing. If we are having issues with delivery, then we fix that ASAP vs stop marketing. I think if you want a reliable marketing engine then you need to have it always on.
Become complacent. Always be innovating with your current service or exploring what additional services you can offer. One of the main things that sets us apart from our competitors is the fact we are continually adjusting our SOP’s to reflect what’s working best NOW. I see lots of competitors offering services based on old and outdated strategies. We are also continually launching new services that complement our core offering of content and links. Doing this means we become a 1 stop shop for customers vs having to use us for content and someone else for a different service.
Doing both of these things is hard when things are going well, and even harder when things are difficult. However, they are super important for future growth.
Generating new business, increasing your profits, or at least maintaining your financial stability can be challenging during good times, even more so during turbulent times. Can you share some of the strategies you use to keep forging ahead and not lose growth traction during a difficult economy?
We have been very fortunate in that the pandemic has had little impact on our business. We were really only a couple of months old when Covid started. However, as mentioned above, I believe that’s because we have built a strong marketing engine that is constantly working for us. We have built and control 2 Facebook groups, we have a weekly podcast, we work with influencers in the space so they are continually talking about us, we sponsor relevant email newsletters that our audience read, we are visible in other communities sharing our knowledge. All of these things aren’t necessarily traditional marketing channels, however our customers comment “I see you guys everywhere” — and that’s because we are literally everywhere they hangout via different media channels.
Also, having a subscription aspect to the business really helps with stability. It gives you the opportunity to plan ahead and invest with confidence. We haven’t figured this out fully yet — around 1/3rd of our business is on a monthly subscription. However, we are just introducing longer term contracts which should give us even more stability in the future.
Here is the primary question of our discussion. Based on your experience and success, what are the five most important things a business leader should do to lead effectively during uncertain and turbulent times? Please share a story or an example for each.
- Lead by example.
As mentioned above, there have been several times during busy periods or difficult projects where I step in and work with the teams. Not only do the team members appreciate that, but it’s also a chance for everyone to learn. I’ve imparted new knowledge gained and also learnt lots from the team about how they do things.
2. Plan ahead.
Always having a 6 and 12 month plan is critical. If you as the leader don’t know where you want the company to be, then how will the team know. Share that plan, and make everyone feel included and working toward those objectives. And then when you hit them, make sure you share the successes.
3. Build financial stability.
Building financial stability in a start up is hard. It has to be planned and executed similar to how you would a marketing plan. We knew we wanted to build in a layer of stability through payment up front for all work, and also adding a subscription service. As the business has scaled, we want more stability which is why we are now rolling out 6 and 12 month contracts. Having this stability allows you to hire, build and grow with confidence.
4. Market.
You should always be driving forward marketing. It’s paradoxical that people stop marketing when that is the time they should actually be pushing it. We have had many growth spurts over the last 2 years, and it’s felt unnerving to be pushing marketing when the team is near full capacity for example. However, it’s much easier to scale the team than it is to stop marketing, and then deal with a quiet period of time afterward.
5. Innovate.
It feels very unnatural to be innovating or launching new services in uncertain times. However, the main reason we have been able to grow so quickly (and become the market leader) is because the competition didn’t innovate. We found an untapped market that was hungry for new and better services. We are extremely conscious of this and are always innovating or looking to launch complimentary services. We don’t ever want to be in the position where a new entrant to the market offers something better and we lose ground.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
I don’t really have a life lesson quote, but I do have an internal mantra which has helped in difficult times — “lean into the pain”. I use this whenever I am in a difficult situation and it helps me feel comfortable in that awkward moment, wanting to feel more of it and working a solution to get out of it.
How can our readers further follow your work?
You can follow our website here: www.nichewebsite.builders
You can follow our podcast and YT videos here: https://www.youtube.com/c/nichewebsitebuilders
Or you can reach out on: team@nichewebsite.builders
Thank you so much for sharing these important insights. We wish you continued success and good health!
