Agency Forward

Chris DuBois 0:00
Hey, everyone, today I'm joined by Bobby Gillespie. Bobby is a hands on no BS brand strategy and marketing advisor. Bobby has spent years helping B to B brands clarify their messaging, strengthen their positioning and create brands that actually stand out. With a background in agency leadership and brand strategy, he knows what works and what doesn't when it comes to differentiation in a crowded market. I wanted to bring Bobby on because agencies often struggle to clearly articulate their value and stand out from competitors. He has seen it all when it comes to branding mistakes, and today he's breaking down what agencies should do instead. In this episode, we discuss the biggest mistake B to B brands make when trying to stand out how agencies can fix vague messaging and make people say, tell me more how to shift from being seen as vendors to true strategic partners and more. No one was asking for another community, but I've made one anyways. So what's different? The dynamic agency community is designed around access, rather than content, access to peers who've done it before, access to experts who've designed solutions, access to resources that have been battle tested. And right now, the price for founding members is only $97 a year. Join today so your agency has immediate access to everything you need to grow. You can join a dynamic agency dot community and now. Bobby Gillespie, it's easier than ever to start an agency, but it's only getting harder to stand out and keep it alive. Join me as we explore the strategies agencies are using today to secure a better tomorrow. This is agency for awarding. So what's the biggest mistake that B to B brands make trying to stand up?

Unknown Speaker 1:55
Well, it's the differentiation fallacy. So, got a

Chris DuBois 2:03
name, all right, I got

Speaker 1 2:05
a name for everything. So differentiation has kind of lost its purpose and value in the discussion and marketing people invent differentiators or or owners of the company, CEOs and stuff, invent a differentiator such as our difference is our people. We're a family. No one gives a shit, right?

Chris DuBois 2:37
But,

Speaker 1 2:38
but it's things like features, ingredients, tools, tactics, processes, all these things, right? Like, if you're doing B to B Tech, like SAS stuff, you basically, like a more advanced spreadsheet is what you're offering people. And like, the differentiator is they get it all wrong, and would you differentiate? Or is actually pretty easy when you think about it, but it takes commitment to to clarify it and articulate it and then leverage it. And it's pretty simple. It's your personality and your IP, and your IP is your intellectual property, and your intellectual property translates into the value you provide your customers. So like B to B, like the personality of the brand. There's some that really lean into being, like kitschy or cool or hip or or slick, or, you know, all those things like that just establishes sort of the vibe. And that vibe is a true differentiator, because you're like, All right, do I want to hang with I wrote an article a few years ago, do I want to hang with Hulk Hogan or Harrison Ford and like, it's really like, just saying that Harley Davidson and Tiffany. Like, just saying that you immediately have, like, a image, a vibe that you sent right so, like, leaning into that vibe, and you see big brands do it with, like their spokespeople, or cartoon character or something that they are doing it because they find that vibe or that person, or that spokesperson, or the famous person who who's associated with the brand, like relatable to people. They like them. And then the IP is, this is what we're doing this because in our experience, x, y and z, so they're establishing themselves as like, okay, we're thinking about this. We're solving this problem, and we're doing it our way, and we're expressing that way through their the brand's personality.

Chris DuBois 4:50
My favorite differentiator that I hear brands using is our support is awesome. It's like, Oh, great. Let me hope that your product breaks so that i. Talk to your support team and then be happy. Like, it's also like, yeah, that's the better. Like, we're better, right? But anytime you can add an ER, right, it's like, that's not really a difference, tougher, right? Stronger, faster, yeah, there's faster, yeah. Like, then why? Then why? Because then you have to assume that

Speaker 1 5:21
everyone else is slower or weaker, and

Chris DuBois 5:26
it invites comparison to that. So like, well, let me go look how much faster you are compared to everybody else, instead of just seeing this thing that makes you unique. Well,

Speaker 1 5:36
I read something the other day which is really a great point of view on that differentiator is like, if you make a claim and but we're making a claim outward facing, right? So it's not your internal goals and objectives, right? So let's make sure we're not. People aren't getting confused with that. But if you're making a claim to saying, Okay, you hire us because we're faster. Or where the fast is? Well, who's the slowest? And if you can't just point to the slowest immediately and say them, then you really don't have a clear positioning at all. Right? It's just made up. And that's oftentimes what it is, they just make some shit up, and no one tells them no for a lot of reasons, and they end up going to market with it, and it's weak as hell. Yep.

Chris DuBois 6:36
I did a the marketing seminar with Seth Godin, I do this 2019, I think when I was first getting into, like, marketing, the agency space, everything,

Unknown Speaker 6:50
like, like, shake his hand, no, it

Chris DuBois 6:53
was all digital, online, okay, wasn't calls with him.

Speaker 1 6:56
Just curious. I just wonder what he's like in real, real life is he even real? Like,

Chris DuBois 7:04
we'll see. I'll get him on, I'll get him on this podcast once I hit so. But I loved one of the exercises he did where it's like, he put up like a quad chart and stuff on the on the screen, and then he went through, like, candy bars. And he was like, okay, Hershey. Just like a Hershey bar. It's like, okay, well, what are the two axes? And you say, Okay, well, we want something that tastes good and something here, right? And you're just, you're creating those axes. But then once you have it in a box, it's like, okay, well, now how do I take a new chocolate and get it somewhere on here? It's like, well, let's add nuts. Okay, that's one of the axes, nuts or no nuts. And it's like, you just keep, like, refining and in order to find what your actual thing so it's not like, we're better chocolate, it's like, no, we're the ones who have this within our chocolate, right? Or maybe it's we're organically different,

Speaker 1 7:51
or we're like, a different category, right? And you just keep like, kind

Chris DuBois 7:56
of refining it, until you find that thing that it's like, well, we are the only ones here. And if that's that still has to be strong enough in the market for a reason for them to buy, but it's an easy way to start looking at, like, how are we different? Although I really like your the idea of the personality and IP, because no one can replicate your personality. Well, yeah, I'm sure we'll do it eventually, and it's going to be super unsettling. But, like, but it's really hard

Speaker 1 8:20
to play, right? Not most of us in business that won't really impact us. And you know, you think about you think about that, right? Like when you are you, when you are your real self, who can compete with that? Yeah, nobody that's such an advantage. And, like, you know, big personality guys like me, like, I'm, you're going to know I'm there, right, if I'm in the room and like, but that that's not a requirement for that to be effective, because just like, I might be, you know, seen in a party, there's the people who aren't and I am not. For everybody to use me as a case study, as an example, other people might be a better fit that do similar things, have similar experience. So the differentiator, you think about it like and you know, what's the difference? You know, talking about, like, big brands that we all relate to, what's the difference between Nike, Adidas, vibe and, more importantly, market share, right? So that's really it, and we're thinking about all these other things that impact what makes a brand like successful and grow, and that the trap that most folks fall into is trying different gimmicks, trying to do different stuff, hoping those experiments work. Right? And I'm all for experiments. Like, despite being super creative, I'm also super like, scientific and everything should be experiment, but you, but you're positioning and you're messaging your brand, like, at its core, what you do for whom that shouldn't be an experiment, unless you just, you know, playing in the market to see if there's opportunity, doing some r, d, but if you're throwing shit at the wall and like, oh, let's try that. Try that, try that, like, as a core marketing activity, I mean, everyone that's doing that is probably like, I feel, I feel seen here. Yep, yeah, I've done that. We've all done it. We've all done it. Yep. So

Chris DuBois 10:47
you shouldn't with the I've worked with enough agencies at this point to have seen a lot of ICP docs before I come in and we actually refine, like, using my method to figure this out, and not, sorry, I don't want to say, like, my methods better, but just the ones that I see are so sparing, like, in information, and I think it's because they don't look for the right information, where to get, after everything you were just saying, they're

Speaker 1 11:16
just doing an activity, right?

Chris DuBois 11:19
Yeah, and just yeah, how do they feel? How do they where do they go? It's like, well, hang on, we're asking these questions for very specific reasons, right? What are their triggers? Like, what gets them into the market? We need to know these because that's how we're going to go find them, right? We're going to know where they are, where they're looking, why they're looking. We need to know their fears, frustrations and stuff, because that's how we're going to use the messaging around this, like, we don't. It's like, when you see gender, like, for 5050, it's like, then it doesn't matter, right? Like, if we, if our clients, can be on us, why are we focusing on that? Let's go focus on some of the details actually matter that'll influence how we're actually attacking problems. Yeah? But it's like, yeah, a bunch of things that was fresh in my mind earlier. Like, I

Speaker 1 12:01
mean, I talk about this all the time too, a and I shake my fist at real hard at, like, HubSpot. The HubSpot personas is just the most bullshit exercise I've ever seen. Yeah, and I worked at a hub the last job I had before I started my company, which is over 10 years ago. We were HubSpot, I think platinum, so I saw this stuff, and I was a creative director, and I saw all this stuff all the time. I'm like, they're like, inventing, you know, like married, and I'm like, okay, like, yeah, we want to put the customer first. But this is just made up by, you know, Kelly over, you know, across the hall, just pulled it out of her ass. There you go, Kelly. It's like, Kelly, what are you doing? She's doing what HubSpot is telling them to do, right to show the client to lead into the HubSpot subscription. So, like the motivation was the affiliation, partnership with HubSpot, where they would feed you leads. You convert those leads. HubSpot makes money. The Agency makes money. Where's the client? Come in. Don't worry about that. To hold. Ask that question, right? Well, I find that very important to get clients results and to understand what that ICP is. You know, I think I posted, we were, we chat on LinkedIn a lot, and I, I was talking to about a year ago, the VP of Marketing at he won't see this at a like a SAS tech startup. It's bold

Chris DuBois 13:59
of you to assume I don't have reach on the podcast, but okay, no, but

Speaker 1 14:02
he doesn't. He's not. He's like this, if he listens good, maybe this will help. But I'll say who's your ICP, it was companies with 50 or more employees, and it's like, okay, and that's it. Like, no, that's not it. And so, yeah, we need a starting point to understand who the customer is. We gotta talk to them. We got, we got to know their pains. Because the value is just immense. We know their pains. Not only do we know their pain so we can figure out their pains to research and AI and things like that, to experience, we don't know the pains in their words, right? That's, that's the that's the kicker, because. If you know and there are words, then you could talk to them otherwise. I mean, I worry about all the time. I've been marketing for 25 years. I know words that no one knows except for you and other marketers, and I worry about that all the time. Am I talking in ways that is just like another language to people, yeah, and the only way you know is if

Chris DuBois 15:24
you're actually talking to your customers, go out and talk. That's something that the theme that's come up in some of our conversations, just you need more conversations, right? Like, go talk to people. One of the exercises I have, literally all my clients do, is, if someone likes or comments on one of your LinkedIn posts. Shoot them a connection request and shoot them a message just thanking them. The worst thing that happens is they ignore you. The best thing that happens is you start having a conversation about whatever topic they just resonated with them, and now you learn more. I mean, really, the best case is like they hire you, but let's rule that out, like we're not doing this to get people hired

Unknown Speaker 16:01
is the best case? No, the best case is that they become

Chris DuBois 16:06
an ally, yeah, evangelist for you, an evangelist,

Speaker 1 16:09
right? A supporter, a fan, because then they could 10x that opportunity to be a one time client. They could be somebody who really helps you take off. My first book, I have a chapter about be very deliberate about who's in your village, who you let it, yeah, and you know, you're a former military guy that that has a different meaning for you, but, like, it's the same thing, like, bring those people who want to see you succeed close, and that the only way you do that is by meeting people and talking to them, right and like that. That way, that method, that LinkedIn method, is, is really, I do the same thing. I just say, I like, I like what you say, let's connect to

Chris DuBois 17:05
yes or no. And I've had multiple people today actually do that based on the posts I put out earlier, people connecting with me and just saying, hey, like the way you're thinking about this, and then we just start chatting. Some of them are in my ICP. Some of them are other agency coaches. Like, it's cool

Speaker 1 17:22
peers, but here, here's, here's where I look like the ICP. ICP is, you know, the C stands for client or customer, but I think of it as connection, because, just like those, conversations are immense value. It's a learning opportunity, growth. You can practice something, you run something by somebody, you can get a different point of view, different perspective. They recommend a book, like, Gene. Recommend me the book on the wall. So I'm like, loving it, like, you know, but it's also an opportunity for a referral source, an introduction and a client like, that's all value. Like, there's no waste of conversation. And sometimes you realize that you're not going to connect, which is good too, because you're like, Yeah, I don't really jive with you. And yeah, that's cool. Just go. But like, those connections influence people. They know people. So if we're just looking to talk to people who we think are our ICP, that is laser focus, and we should be laser focused. But like, who do they hang out with? Right that can say, hey, you need Chris or you need Bobby, and that is so valuable, and we miss that because we're trying to be hyper focused to get quick results on stuff that's like, listen, just build an awesome community of folks, and good things will happen because you're having conversations and every conversation, you're growing, Right? And you know, it leads to something better. Yeah. I mean,

Chris DuBois 19:04
I'm fully bought, right? I play positive some games. I have one actually, I would say probably half my the deals that are on my plate right now are from other agency coaches who like we all specialize in different things, and so it's easy for us to go back and forth. We like how each other thinks. And actually, you brought up someone earlier who, like, who connected with me and was is considering me as a coach, just because he you dropped my name to him in a conversation. Yeah, and just that, like, little thing was enough to swear, I don't know it'll turn into a deal or anything, but it was like, I'm on this guy right now, and I wouldn't have been still,

Speaker 1 19:41
yeah, and there's so much benefit to that, especially when we're small, right? We're running small businesses here, like, this stuff scales though. People don't realize that you can scale this because, like, Who do you want to talk to? And back to understanding that that ICP, like, we use, like, empathy mapping, and you can. Google empathy mapping and figure it out. You can do the value prop stuff from strategizer and all that stuff, like, it's all worth knowing, like, when you're in the marketing game, and then just make it, make your own where you see the most benefit based on like, the gray matter you have in your you know, in your world, and I like it, the client isn't necessarily the decision maker, but the client, you know, we have, the way I like to think of it is and it could be one person, it could be 100 but you have the user, the champion, the decision maker, and all those people care about something different, right? And you got to be able to talk to a CFO like me, talking to a CFO to convince them like you need to hire me. Here's why. What do they care about? They don't care about, like, improving operations. They don't care about the systems or the quality of the work, the on brandness or the design and messaging. They don't care about that. They care about cash flow and money in, money out and expenses. And then the CEO, what do they care about? And the CEO, what do they care about? And then the champion. So like the champion, you might not have access to the decision makers in fact. So are you empowering the champion to go and self sell you, right? Yeah,

Chris DuBois 21:44
reliant on a third party now to actually seal that deal. It's like, can we give them everything we need so that they like, it's, it's like, champion enablement. Maybe we just created a category of business empowerment, yeah? Like, how can the marketing team enable sales Right? Like, sales enablement, okay, prospect enablement,

Speaker 1 22:07
right? And I say, What do I say? You give them the tools and the confidence to go in and say, Hey, decision maker, we need Chris, here's why, and have the

Chris DuBois 22:20
messaging already set up. Robert Kaminsky from Fletch had a good post about this somewhat recently where it's a just like a chart for mapping out, right? All right. This is the use case. Is what they care about. This is it. But it hit all those different like types of, not buyer types, but like the different personas you have to engage with, right? The user, the champion, decision maker, and then any stakeholders, too. And it's like, how, how does your message change for each of these? And so when you are creating it's like, you can talk to that champion and say, Well, who do you need it to go talk to within the business? And they'll say, Well, it's a CEO, okay, right here, here's everything that you would need right to be able to show, let me, let me actually give you a recorded demo specific for a CEO in this position, right? To hopefully make this easier.

Speaker 1 23:10
And now it's like, I mean, here's the amazing thing, right? Like, people think, don't think of this in the marketing realm, and you mentioned Seth Godin the beginning. And you know, Seth Godin, to me, is like The Rolling Stones, like they call themselves the greatest rock and roll band in the world, enough times that other people start calling it. And I feel the same way about him being the marketing guru. And there's some validity to it. The stones are awesome. And, you know, golden is awesome his own right. But so I don't always agree with everybody, right? I'm that's kind of my contrarian ways. But one thing I do agree with them on is that everything is marketing. And the reason I agree with that is because everything you do say, every decision you make, every decision you don't make, sends a message, right? And that's marketing, and how that message makes people feel, how they react, how it makes them change their mind or commit to something. Is your brand, and that's your your brand is your reputation. So your marketing is the expression of your the reputation you want. And what people don't realize is that you're going to get the reputation you deserve. There it is. So commit to making it the one you want. But they don't know what they want. We, you know, a lot of businesses, and that's, I mean, that's why I have a company to help them figure that out, but not in the House of Cards, way, in a way that, like the founder, can walk away from the company and everyone knows what's the right decision based on what's best for the brand, and if. Future customer. And, you know, back to our thing on LinkedIn earlier, like questions that we're gonna have to put that in the in the reference that you maybe put on your blog, but, but that's the question I think so many people are afraid to ask, what's best for the brand and the future customer, and but because it takes so much courage to ask that, but it takes immense amount of clarity to answer, it's really hard to extract that. It's there, right? And it back to my first book. I referenced that there's an unverified story, and I love it so much because it really, really says it the right way. Someone asked the artist, Michelangelo, how he created the statue of David, and he said, I was easy. I just chipped away the stone that wasn't him. And that's what your brand is. It's there. But just like, you know, in peanuts, there's a kid pig pen. There's a boy behind that cloud. There's a statue. There's David in that block of granite. Like, get it out, right? Get it out. Let's present it to the world and be proud.

Chris DuBois 26:17
The challenge is that most businesses, and we're kind of talking about this before we started recording, most businesses are stuck in this mode of, like, I need cash now, right? And they're and so they're looking at like, what's that short term? How do I get how do I keep the lights on, right? And so they're so focused on that that they're not thinking bigger picture, which is why I think this reactivity, and just like businesses getting stuck there is one of the biggest like, as soon as you realize you're in a reactive mode, it should be firing flags and flares everywhere. Like, yes, that's pull back and figure this out. Because if by just by being reactive, you have pulled opportunities off the table, right, right? The decision is being made for you, because you don't have a choice. Whereas if you can say proactive and start actually thinking about who is our target audience, who, how are we differentiated? You now want to get way more control over the direction of your business, but also you get to, like, confidently say no to the opportunities that aren't a great fit. And I think that's where the differentiator where, like, if you can't go, go in and say, No, I'm sorry. I'm not like, this isn't great for us, because this is who we are. When you can say that you're set, but until you actually have money coming in, yeah, it's

Speaker 1 27:26
hard when you think about human nature, right? So like, when people are enthusiastic and excited about what they're doing, that's that's very compelling and attractive, but then you think the opposite of that is people that are desperate. That's very repulsive, and I'm not, I'm not like saying that like people are disgusting, but it repulses us. We're not drawn to it. We step away from it, and it's just instinct, right? It's just how we are. So when you're in a reactionary mode, you're white knuckling because you're desperate, which makes it really hard to get any momentum, to make any progress, because you're wreaking of desperation, and you're coming into these calls, and you're not yourself, and I've learned this by experience, like you gotta, the energy's gotta be right. It's, it's, it's not a joke. But when the energy is right and you're talking with people, it's a much different situation. But, you know, but life is unpredictable, the market's unpredictable, so we acknowledge that. But you got to have a goal. A goal is your purpose. When people talk about, oh, I want to work with purpose driven organizations, or like, I am just going to ask a million questions around that to people like, What are you even talking about? Because you're a purpose, is a goal. So, like, some businesses don't have a goal. Actually, that's true. But when you have a goal, right? And then equate it to like, like, when we first talked, we talked a lot about hiking, like, I want to hike Denali. And, okay, where do you start? Well, yeah, I get fit, yeah, conditioned. You got to get the gear. You got to get there. You got, you know, all these things, right? So you're working towards that goal that gives us actual purpose, and that work brings us joy. That's what we want, but that's where the enthusiasm comes from. You're not going to hike Denali without enthusiasm. If you are, if you try, you ain't getting far before you quit, right? And that that applies to us in business. What are we working. Towards, so, yeah, we want to go to Denali, right? Or we, and the way I like to talk about is, like, all right, you're, you're, you know, in Salt Lake, it's flat as can be everywhere until you hit the mountains. And I want to get to the top of that mountain, but you're 30 miles away. Like, all right, I'm going to walk in that direction, and then I want to go out there, but how do you know what's in front of you? You don't, right? So that requires you to be like, Okay, I know where I'm going, but the road's unknown. So then you gotta decide, okay, what? What will I do? What's acceptable to us as a business to do to bridge the gap, as I'm trying to get to the base of that mountain and then to the summit. So what I do is like, okay, 100% of your time you want to be doing these things, but you can't just say today, I want to do 100% of that immediately and sell it to everybody and get a full, full roster, nope, right? And then times are going to be tough, ebbs and flows of business. We're not, we don't have a full pipeline 100% of time. So like, Okay, what do we got to do to make sure that we're continuing to making progress, and we're doing the stuff that's right, that we're enthusiastic about. So okay, 20% of our time between now and that future state will do these things too, or work with these clients as well. And that's that is a great way to bridge that gap. Yes, we need money now, okay, but don't sell your soul for it, right? What is in your realm, your radius of expertise, that you can do to help you bridge that gap to where you want to be, so that you're making strategic decisions that are still you progress is what we want. That's it. So you're still making progress. You're getting what you need to not derail the mission entirely. And that if you if you're coming into things, coming into business without mantra, having a mantra in your head, with patience and grace, you're going to find yourself and desperate situation, and that's going to repel the right people with

Chris DuBois 32:31
that. I think we started winding it down. I got two more questions for you. The first being, what book do you recommend every agency owner should read?

Speaker 1 32:39
Every agency owner should read, I'll tell you which one they shouldn't read. Yeah, Rich Dad, Poor Dad. What a dumb book in this complete bullshit tone. What book should every agency I read, I read a I read all kinds of stuff, and mostly nonfiction, and I read business stuff, and I read other other stuff, and two books I read within the past Couple years, really, really hit home. One is called endurance, and it's a story of the Shackleton journey to Antarctica. And the other one is called the indifferent stars above, and it's about the Donner party, Oregon Trail, going from Missouri to the Sierra Nevadas. Both stories, you're like, these aren't business books. Nope. You read business books all the time. What we need to be doing is obsessing not over technology and tools, but obsessing over humans. That what we're trying to do, truly trying to do a marketing, is manipulate the gray matter, right? Not, not in a bad way. Some of us, some of you, might be right. Big tech loves that. But what you know, you could read a hooked and then you can read his apology, follow up on hooked, or whatever it was, but being obsessed with humans, and then seeing what humans are capable of doing like and also how awful and horrible it could be, but survival and just the power of human commitment like that's going to that's going to actually impact us in our journey and our legacy and decisions we make long term. Yeah.

Chris DuBois 35:00
Yeah, the bringing up Shackleton is probably a great way to tie back to the the ICP conversation. If anyone wants to read one of the best ads, period like ever. It was when he was requesting people to go join him on this adventure. It is the admin. I mean, I could probably pull it up here. Oh

Speaker 1 35:18
yeah, I don't know if I'm familiar. Maybe I am. So

Chris DuBois 35:22
yeah, he sent out an ad that said men wanted for hazardous journey, small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return, doubtful honor and recognition in event of success. And he put that out like, if you want to talk about knowing your ICB and being specific, like targeting someone very specific, right? Only certain to respond to that ad. And so directness

Speaker 1 35:48
of it is the beauty. I mean, that's almost like it's poetry there, right? And

Chris DuBois 35:53
use every last letter that he can within that little spot.

Speaker 1 35:56
And after reading, I didn't know, I've heard, we've all heard of the story. I didn't know it, though. And just same thing, the Donner party, I didn't know that one either, yeah, but now I do, and I'm like, wow, none of this shit I'm doing is hard, yeah, yeah.

Chris DuBois 36:15
Perspective goes a long way, yeah. So last question for you, where can people find you if they want to learn

Speaker 1 36:23
more and how we found each other, the the place? LinkedIn, the great. LinkedIn, yeah, my, I mean, if you if you know Chris, and you're following along to his awesome stuff, and you're one of his disciples or followers, you've probably see me pop up my handle is that Bobby G, T, H, A T, Bobby G, my company is proper, P R, O, P R, agency. I don't keep up with my blog. I need, I need an assistant, but all my stuff hits LinkedIn, so you can get more about my thinking and point of view, my rants and raves and and appreciations and things like that. All

Chris DuBois 37:12
right, Bobby as always, great talking. Thanks for joining. Thanks brother. Appreciate it. That's the show everyone. You can leave a rating and review, or you can do something that benefits. You click the link in the show notes to subscribe to agency forward on sub stack, you'll get weekly content resources and links from around the internet to help you drive your agency forward. You

Transcribed by https://otter.ai