Agency Forward

Chris DuBois 0:00
Hey, everyone. Today I'm joined by Alex James. Alex is a messaging strategist who helps service businesses define and communicate their unique perspective. He is a former copywriter term positioning expert known for helping agencies move beyond generic niching with sharp point of view driven messaging. His work has helped clients unlock millions in new revenue by refining how they actually explain what makes them different. Now I wanted to have Alex on because too many agency owners rely solely on niching and referrals without realizing the critical role that perspective actually creates in demand. We are incredibly aligned on so many topics that I wanted to see how he approaches things. So in this episode, we discuss why niching isn't enough to stand out, how to develop a point of view that sells turning your team into strategic messengers and more. Lead Gen is the hardest part of running an agency. For most, it's unpredictable, it's slow and it's usually expensive. GF flips that. It's the all in one growth platform that turns your existing relationships and client work into a steady pipeline. And now. Alex James, 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 forward. Why is a niche no longer enough for agencies to stand out?

Alex James 1:33
Because a niche niching down, I say niche. You say major back and forth. Niching down is a really crucial strategy. I actually don't think it's optional. I think the question of to niche or not to niche is kind of a silly one. At this stage, you have to do it. The problem is, when everyone does it, we've kind of moved from like it being this kind of like fringe strategy of like, hey, when everyone's a generalist, if you're like, a full service digital marketing agency, you're competing against a full service digital marketing agency. The way to escape competition and create distance is to limit what you do and who you do it for, right? Like, hey, we're not going to do that. We're only going to do local SEO for gyms. Awesome. That works. That creates distance. That means that when a gym is looking for local SEO, they're not going to go to the generalist, they're going to go to the specialist. Makes total sense. The problem is when everybody starts also becoming a local SEO for gym specialist, you don't even need the category to be that crowded before you are suddenly drowned in the noise. So when everybody, when you niche down, great, when everybody niches down, we're back to square one. And so what we need to do is actually go beyond that, where we don't just say, hey, we do x for y, we say, we do x for y, because z and z is the reason that we are niched in the way that we are a lot of people like, niche down just because, because that's what you're supposed to do. I remember, I was talking to this, like, a freelance graphic designer A while back, and he was like, oh, yeah, I niche down to authors because, you know, that's, that's like, a good niche. Like, okay, cool. So, like, what do you know about, like, design for books and what publishers are looking for and what moves on the shelves. He's like, Oh no, I'm just you're just meant to niche you're just meant to niche down. So I'm like, we've kind of missed the point here. We've kind of we followed the letter of the law, but not the spirit of the law. That's where I'm seeing, like, a lot of people get tripped up, where they're niched down, just because, not justifiably, right? Right? And so what we need to do is move beyond what we do and who we do it for to what we do and who we do it for, and why we do that for them in the way that we do it. That is what I'd call your perspective.

Chris DuBois 3:51
Yep, you are speaking my language. I mean, I had a call with one of the cohorts that I'm running today. That was the topic for today. It's like, look, we've, we've gotten through your niche. We all know who you're targeting. We're very specific on that. But like, why would, if someone has the exact niche, why would someone want to work with you over someone else? And it comes down to, like, your perspective, your point of view, and how you're showing up and so really, and I mean, you can, we can debate this, or we can agree with each other, but like, that's ultimately your positioning, right? It's like, how do you want to be seen by other people? And that's something I'm realizing a lot more lately, is like, a lot of people confuse niching for positioning and they're related, but niching is just about getting really focused. Who are we targeting? Positioning is about who or how are we seen in the minds of the buyer, and you need both, right? But it's like, I think too many people don't. They miss that positioning portion of this that gives them their perspective, and you know, this actual strategy to run their business

Speaker 1 4:54
totally, totally. It's like, you know, you can have, like, the fastest car in the world, but if you don't have Ty. Is on it, it's not going to go anywhere. And this is what like, it's what we see with people niching down and doing all the right thing. And you know what not to say it's anybody's fault like this is it's this advice has been crammed down everybody's throat for so many years. Just niche down. Just niche down. It'll solve all your problems if you just niche down. And it's actually, it's like, it's like those exercise programs where it's like, hey, you know, just follow these steps, and then when you do it and it doesn't get the results that you want, they're like, Well, you didn't do it right? You didn't niche down hard enough. Like, hey, I guess you just suck. This is, like, it's really unfair and it's really brutal. And I actually think that agencies in particular have it really, have a really hot, like, they've been unfairly targeted with this because, like, the classic, you know, agency joke is, like, you know, marketing agencies can't market themselves. The cobbler son has no shoes, hahaha. And like, a younger version of me would have, like, you know, would have and did, like, say that thing in that kind of direction all the time, and I don't think it's a funny joke, because I don't think it's fair, because, like, what most agencies are doing is B to C marketing, right? That's, like, what their craft is. That's a discipline, but in order to get, like, leads and clients for themselves, that's B to B marketing. And like, anybody who knows anything about marketing, knows how different those are. And the more you know about marketing, the more you realize just how different those two disciplines are. And so, like, we don't shame the long jump gold medalist for not also getting gold medal at the pole vault, right? But we do expect marketing agencies, for some reason, to be masters of B to C for their clients and masters of B to B for themselves. Like, I don't think it's fair. I don't think it's justified. I think we need to move on from that. The good news is that, like, that pole vault bar to clear, it's actually really low. Like, it's not super tricky. Once you have, like, the systems in place, it's just about getting that to your point. Like, that positioning dialed in of like, who we are, what we do, who we do it for, and then that question of why we do it for them in the way that we do it,

Chris DuBois 7:10
started working through this on my own lately. Actually, I started outlining a book for just service based marketing, like, how do we actually attract people to our agency, because it is different. And even if you are, you know, doing B to B clients, and like in B to B sales and everything, like how a tech company is going to be doing their marketing is still very different from how a service company is doing it. I think I narrowed it down to four. We'll see if I can remember all of this. There's a variability, right? That within every every engagement, where it's like, the because we're providing a service, it's like, there's so many details that can change, which does make it really hard to be able to say, hey, here is our fully prescribed productized offer, where it's like, well, if we're going to productize is we could pull it off a shelf and just give it to someone, and they could run with it. So really, we can't even do that. We can go standardized and say, like, here are the steps, but there's like, things in between. You have that. You have this inseparability, where the client is part of the conversation, right? Like your results could change if you have a different client. We got variability. Inseparability, we've got perishability, where if the like, you're out, you're selling hours. Essentially, even if you, like, set up your agency differently, where it's you know, different offers, you're selling people's hours, their time. It's like, goes away at the end of the month. So there is no, like, saving of the inventory. And then the last one, intangibility, where it's like, we're also, we're promising these like outcomes and ideas, not right? It's not like, Hey, if you use this tool, you get this it's like, well, if we do our services right, you'll hopefully get this thing that you're hoping for. But it's like, yeah, it's completely different. And I do think there's a huge issue in the market just saying, like, Oh, you do suck in marketing. Like, that's too bad. It's like, Yeah, but it's like, yeah, but it's because nobody's actually teaching that specific kind of marketing.

Speaker 1 9:08
I really like that breakdown. What do you think the applications of it

Chris DuBois 9:12
are? So I'm working through some of that, but it's like, there's you have to kind of counter every piece, right? So with perishability, it's like, okay, well, this is an issue. So, like, someone coming to us has to accept the risk of this being a perishable item. So I could do, like, rollover budgets, where, you know, yeah, if you don't use 20 hours, we're going to roll them over to the next month and like, that is something we can do in order to drop some risk. The issue is that it is still pair, like, if I roll over your 20 hours to next month, I still have less capacity for my team next month. And so there's still internal stuff that needs to get fixed in order to make that happen. But by working through those, you can at least like, think through, okay, how do I address this within my marketing to make sure that you know someone's not accepting risk in this way?

Speaker 1 10:01
Okay, yeah, okay, that makes a lot of sense. I really like that approach. And I think that that the you'll have to remind me of the word, what was the last one that you said? Intangibility. Intangibility, I think, is actually, that's what I'm finding more and more, is like very the most like related to the work that I do for my clients, because, like, when we buy a service, first of all, buying services is an awful experience for everyone involved. It's very uncomfortable for the person who is buying the service. It's like they have to kind of take an ego hit to even admit that they need help, and they have to, like, reach out and have a chat with a stranger and pick up on a vibe and hope that it makes sense, because everybody's saying the same thing and making the same promises, and everybody seems credible. Everyone's got a great track record. So like, Who do I go with? And this is actually why, like, 56% of B to B buying decisions end in no decision. Of like, we went through the process, we shortlisted everyone, we had chats, and we've decided not to move ahead with anyone. Like, that's the majority of B to D. Sales process ended, no decision crazy, and it's because it comes down to not like the FOMO tactics that we put in front of them, of like, hey, we'll give you 10% off if you sign the contract this week, or whatever. It's FOMO. It's fear of messing up. It's like we believe you, you seem credible. We just know that we will mess us up. If we try it, we'll find a way to mess us up. So that's what we want to counter. Is not like the doubt in you as a supplier, but in the doubt in them as a client. Yeah. And in order to do that like it comes down to firstly acknowledging the fact that when they are evaluating you, they're buying mindset shifts. Because when we look at like a product, we're kind of vetting the product. What is like, the cost, times durability, minus, you know, outcome, like, value that we expect it to produce, like a microwave. You can vet when it comes to services. You're not vetting you're betting. It's like, this is a gamble. This is like, a risky kind of approach that we have to take here, and that means that we have to control what the odds are, and the odds are in the mind of the of the buyer, like it's that perception is what we have to be very mindful of. And so when we realize that what we're selling is not actually a service, it's the promise of a positive future situation, then we have to also acknowledge that it's actually not about how skilled you are, it's about how skilled you seem to be. Yeah, and this is where, like, having a very clear perspective, and not just niching down and saying, Hey, we do local SEO for gyms. It does that implies some level of skill, because you wouldn't say that if you didn't do local SEO for gyms. But when other people are also doing local SEO for gyms, it's like, okay, cool. We do it in a different way, because you shouldn't have to wait three months in order to know if it's working or not great. Now I've got an understanding of why I would choose you versus anybody else. It's not about it's not about proficiency. It's about perception. This is, like, the big thing that I kind of remind my client of all the time. This is a game of perception, not proficiency. And when you kind of embrace that, it actually clears a lot of things up. Oh, look, I now know what we should be focusing on with our marketing. It's about getting people to have their minds changed about how things are typically done and how things should be done.

Chris DuBois 13:23
Yeah, I love that. I think we're, we're reaching a state of, like, techno parity, where it's like, everyone has access to the same tools. We can all we can learn the same stuff, right? It's all open source at this point. And so really, like, how are we going to specialize and we can still be experts? Like, there is a difference between someone who's done this for a long time, it's gotten the reps in, versus someone just starting out. But in a lot of ways, a lot of those advantages, I think, are slipping. So yeah, it is comes down to your perspective, to get people to actually see like anyone who sees the things, or sees, I don't know this like challenge that we're facing right, sees it the way that I'm seeing it is likely going to want to work with me, and so I need to make it clear that this is how I see the world, and then I can do things to kind of shift them more towards me, through the content that I'm producing, through the things that I'm doing. But yeah, I don't know that enough people are actually paying attention to like, what is my perspective on this? Because they're just kind of following the herd. How do you go about, like, creating, or, I don't even know it's creating or just discovering someone's perspective.

Speaker 1 14:29
So it comes down to, well, firstly, we need to acknowledge that, like, the classic kind of messaging frameworks weren't really built for this. So like, you know, start with why and story, brand and brand archetypes and purpose, vision, mission, values like that, kind of all falls short. You kind of end up navel gazing on the soul of your brand, rather than, like, coming up with anything that you can turn into, like, compelling marketing material. What we need to do is actually not think about like, what are our vibes and values, and what do we wake up in the more. And feeling like our purpose should be, it comes down to, like, what is the actual service that you are delivering to your clients? And I have so many of my clients, when we're like, in the initial conversations, we'll say, like, we're not really that differentiated, Alex, like we don't really kind of do what everybody else does. And we just, you know, we deliver a really good service, and we really care about, like, I don't think we're all that, like, differentiated, and 100% of the time they have been wrong. Like, there is always something within the service that they deliver that is innovative, because from that innovation, then you get your differentiation, from that differentiation, then you express it through your perspective. But we need to remember that, like, innovation. People think it's like, oh, you have to, like, reinvent the wheel. It's like, this whole, whole cloth thing. It actually like, I was looking this up the other day. It comes from the Latin word in a bear, which means, like, to renew, to make new. Like, it's about tweaking and adjusting and optimizing what already exists, not inventing something brand new. So as long as you're like tweaking a the status quo approach, you have, you have innovated. You are an innovator. And so that's really what we go down to. And by looking at the service that you deliver and asking two very simple questions, we can pull it out. And the questions are, well, what do you do that most of your competitors don't, and I'll give you an example. So like a client of mine was like a full service marketing agency. They're based in California, and they were really struggling to get to get leads in the door, and like that, their position was like as broad as you can imagine. It was like marketing, branding and public relations designed for your unique needs. Like that was the headline on their website, yeah. And the co founder was like, I'm sorry, so I know how generic our headline is. I'm like, it is not, not generic. But there is one thing that sticks out to me, and that's public relations, like most full service marketing agencies don't offer PR. You guys do. What's the deal with that? And he was like, Yeah, we actually we, we don't just offer it. We do it better than most dedicated PR firms because they just do like, the spray and pray press release thing and hope for the best. He's like, I'm a former journalist. I have deep connections with the industry. I get our clients published in like, relevant publications, and then we've got the marketing to actually, like, capture the attention that that PR generates, rather than it going to waste, like it normally does, like, Okay, this is, this is like, what we need to be leading with, because this is, like, your innovation. This is your differentiation, and we can express it through a perspective now. So when it comes down to that question of, like, what do you do that most don't well, we kind of reposition them from a marketing agency that does PR to a PR agency that does marketing, and so now they're competing with PR agencies. What they do that PR agencies don't is have the marketing to capture the attention that's generated. That's question one. Question two, what do you refuse to do that most of your competitors do? Well, we refuse to do the spray and pray press release thing that everybody does. We have very targeted kind of bridges into the industry. And we pick out the publication that we want to be featured in, and we like, hit up, or like, use our network to find that person directly. Great. You want to get like, a big list of like answers to those two questions, what do we do that everybody else doesn't and what do we refuse to do that everybody else does, then you can start to, like, build your perspective. What's going to be like, the thing that that you want to lead with. And this is where people get very, very intimidated, because they're like, Oh my God. Like, there's so many things that we could talk about, so many perspectives that are possible here, but really, like, there's actually some like, guardrails that we can put up, because the only, like, there's only one of three types of perspective. And for each one, you just want to understand, like, what is like, the status quo and what is our fresh approach? What is our fresh thing that we're introducing and bring to the table so that, like, the three ones are mindset, method, tactic, like, the mindset is like, what is like, the belief that you want to replace in the market? What method is like? What is like the playbook that everybody follows that you want to replace, and the tactic is like, what is like the one specific action that you want them to do instead? And so like, for the for the PR and marketing agency, the method is like, what, you know, the spray and pray pressure leasing, that is like the method that we want to replace by having targeted PR with marketing to back it up. And so then that became, like the headline. The leading perspective was like, don't just generate buzz, capture it. And they went from losing money every day because they were losing money because they had a team of 15 who were twiddling their thumbs to 1.1 million in new revenue within 12 months. Like, we didn't change anything about what they were doing, we just changed, like, the perspective that they were leading with and the way that they framed up the services that they were delivering to make it something that somebody could align with on an ideological level. That's what we should be doing, and that's what makes a

Chris DuBois 19:55
difference. Yeah, I like those two questions are great for. For framing I find. So I've got some clients who are still even, like, very early in seeing how they work with clients. Like, what are we actually doing here? And so one of the things I started doing is pulling up the the Iron Triangle, just price, quality, speed, and just saying, Hey, if you had to pick two of these things, like, one or two of these things that you would like to be known for, like, which would they be and, and we'll kind of work through it, not in a like, Oh, you want to be the cheapest, but like, it could be more access, right? We're using it to kind of create the stories that we would want behind this, but it gets them at least the juice is flowing enough that they can say, well, I really care about speed, like, being the fast. So what am I now doing in my process that creates that speed. And so we can start leveraging that as like one of those differentiators to stand against everybody else. And now, from a perspective standpoint, it helps, because anyone who like all buyers are at least thinking in some way of that triangle, and the ones who appreciate speed are going to come in and already have an affinity towards right that. And so it should resonate better. If they're already finding those buyers, everyone else, they have to work on that mindset shift. We're talking

Speaker 1 21:08
I might steal that. That's a really good approach. It's just

Chris DuBois 21:11
for getting the juice is fun, but well, and the reason I got thinking about that was primarily because I've had clients coming back with their clients were saying, can't you do this faster with AI, or can't you do this cheaper with AI? And so I started thinking about the triangle and realizing, like, everything does ultimately come back to this, but AI has now, like, kind of shrunk the triangle a little bit where it's like, yeah, we we actually get a little benefit everywhere, right? We have better quality, just because we can get more reps in to see what works what doesn't. We're faster. And then obviously we can do it cheaper, but you can still only pick two right that you really want to optimize for. And so I just like, Yeah, what else could we, could we do with that?

Speaker 1 21:54
Yeah, I mean, AI is, like, really it's, it's having weird effects on the world and, like, the economy and how, like, people buy and sell things. I was talking to a guy who runs an AI automation agency that he's only kind of just recently set up, because previously he had, like, a custom software development house, and he got out of it because people were like, he used to be able to sell 50k sell like, an MVP for 50k and now people are coming to him being like, well, AI can, like, we can spin up an MVP, but like, we can't, because otherwise we wouldn't be talking to you. We would just be doing that. But we still expect you to be cheaper. Even though AI can't make an MVP, we still expect you to be able to produce one cheaper, because it can kind of move like gesture in the direction of an MVP. Like that kind of doesn't really make any sense on a, like, a logical level, but it does make any kind of an emotional sense, right? Like, I kind of get it. And so we're seeing like, all these like weird ripple effects of coming through. And I think the shrinking of the triangle is a really good, like, way of visualizing that like everything has kind of become closer together thanks to AI. And I actually think, and maybe this is because I'm just so perspective pilled, but I think this makes an even stronger case for the for a perspective of developing one, yeah, because if we're reaching this kind of parody, the shrinking of the triangle, I'm going to use that metaphor forever. Thank you. But like, it means that, like, when everybody can kind of more or less do the same thing, or producers have the same output at the same rate, at the same speed, it comes down to what you know that other people don't. It comes down to what you can say to your customers that your competitors are not saying that they need to hear if you can be that person, like that is your last moat. That is your last line of differentiation and of defense. Like that is the thing that will keep you in the game. So developing a perspective is only I'm seeing it become more and more urgent.

Chris DuBois 23:56
Yeah. So I'd heard somewhere the only two actual competitive advantages you can have with your company are speed and culture, which I think speed probably fits in culture, right? But that, but part of your culture is also your perspective. I think that that gets missed a lot, like, if you your entire because perspective is not just about how are we going to deliver this for you? Like, it infects every part of your business. Like this is strategy. So I think what a lot of people miss is straight, like, if you have a strategy that everyone else would just do, it's not a strategy. It's just how you do things. Like, someone has to be willing to say, like, I don't want to do it that way. And it's like, yes, good. That means I have a strategy, right? That, like, not everyone wants this way. It's fine, but it's the way I'm going to try in order to make this happen. And so I think that does fit into, like, the culture, and it is, like you said, it's a competitive advantage

Speaker 1 24:49
now. I mean, yeah, like, if you have an opinion that everybody agrees with, it's not an opinion, right? Just like,

Chris DuBois 24:55
right, yeah. And.

Speaker 1 25:00
This is, like, the big kind of thing. And the big objection, honestly, that I get about perspective development is, well, couldn't couldn't somebody just copy our perspective? And I always say, like, Well, yeah, totally they could. If you treat your perspective as just like words on a page, it's just like the headline on your website, but it's like, not the slogan on the side of the train. It is the engine that powers it. And I think HubSpot such a good example of this, right? Because, like, HubSpot came about with Brian and Dharmesh. Brian was, like, doing, they have a method first perspective, by the way, they because Brian was doing the classic B. He was in B to B sales. He was following the classic playbook of, like, all right, I'm gonna, like, cold call, cold email, go to conference, trade show, booze. I'm gonna, like, go to networking events, rub shoulders, hand out my business card. And he was like, really? Like, nothing was working, and he was struggling to hit his quotas, let alone his targets. And everyone else on the sales team was also really struggling. And he went to his boss, who had, like, 3040, years in the game, and was like, I don't know what I'm doing wrong. This boss was like, I don't think you are doing anything wrong. This stuff just doesn't work like it used to. And then he met Dharmesh, who had started up like an online blog and an online community, and was getting clients, like flooding in, the same clients that Brian was trying to get. He was he was trying to harass them into, like, buying damage was like, fighting them off at the stake. And he was like, What do you what's going on here? And damage was like, I just people will buy it. If it will buy if you help them, if you help people, they will buy from you. And this is what, like, sparked HubSpot. It wasn't like, we want to build a marketing automation software. It was a perspective, first kind of development of like, hey, outbound sales harasses people. That's the status quo. Inbound marketing helps them, and people buy from people who help them. That is what, like, sparked the platform. Because, like all the tools, all the software like that stuff already existed, but people only bought HubSpot. They subscribed to HubSpot after they subscribed to the perspective. And HubSpot didn't just make the inbound marketing thing like a title on their website. They wrote a book about it, frameworks, online community, certifications, 10s of 1000s of pieces of content. They still run like the inbound conference every year, like 1000s of people flying from like they don't just start it. They make their whole business about it, and this is really what you need to do. So like, this is not copyable. You can't copy the entire thing. You can copy words that you can't copy, like a embedded perspective.

Chris DuBois 27:31
Yeah, agreed, right, and that's why, I mean this only came out on this where I voice it out loud as we're talking before the show. I guess I am a talker router. But the Yeah, it has your perspective, has to be part of the culture, because even even with speed, right? Like innovation is is gone as far as like technology, because, yeah, someone can vibe code this like tomorrow, and now they're going to keep catching up. But the things that they can't do is actually change human belief within your organization to get everybody moving in the same direction, right? Elon Musk had the big like, vectors. Like, you need everybody moving together, and when you have a perspective, everyone can actually align and move in that direction, because you got a story that you're able to get everybody behind, rather than just saying, Hey, we're going to achieve these targets. Like, everyone's gonna have a different direction they want to go in order to do that. But if you can, if you have a perspective now, all of that moves together, and then, which also means your marketing is going to be more aligned, your sales going to be more aligned, right? The entire process becomes easy, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 28:32
And this is, like, it's been such a interesting journey for me, because I've, like, started life as like a, you know, generalist marketing, generalist guy, and then I became, like a copywriter specifically, and then it moved into like, positioning and messaging strategy. Now it's very much like perspective development, which kind of is, like, it's business strategy. And what I'm finding myself doing more and more is, is change management. It's like, not just saying, like, Hey, cool. Here are the words, best of luck. It's like, all right, how do we get this embedded into the minds of everyone inside the business, so that they're waking up and everybody has the same idea of like, what needs to be done today to like, move forward and get this strategy, you know, progressed. And what that really looks like when you have a locked in perspective is, how do we get more people to change their minds on this? How do we enroll more people in this perspective? That's actually the strategy. Like that is, like a business strategy, right there. It's not like, we want to, like, get more market share and stuff. It's like, let's change minds. Let's change people's minds on how they view this thing, because everything after that. It's quite logical people will buy your services after they are bought into your perspective. So just optimize for that buy in.

Chris DuBois 29:49
Yeah, like that thinking. I do want to shift gears to actually copywriting, because that was what, how I was first introduced to to your work. I don't know if you still offer that. What. Course it was I got, I don't know if it was messaging course, copywriting course,

Speaker 1 30:03
yeah, messaging, it dabbled,

Chris DuBois 30:08
yeah, but I got there was one part of that that, like, stuck with me. I mean, it was the entire thing was good. Videos were well done, everything but your, it was the your market maturity model and just how you talked about that in regards to everything else with it, and so, like, it got me thinking about things way differently, as far even from an agency perspective, where it's like, at one point we could say, hey, you need a website, but like now everyone knows they need a website, right? So it's like, that's not what we're focused on anymore. It's, it's, Hey, you need these things on your website, or you need this type of website, and it just keeps, like, changing as the market becomes more mature. And we're going to see the same thing happening with AI, which is, right now, people like, Well, my intern can do it. So like, what's that? What's that mean for you? And that's going to keep changing over time. So like, love that. I just wanted to do that quick drop to be like, hey, awesome, of course. But now shifting into the current topic with that as our segue. How are you helping clients with like, taking that position, the perspective, and actually putting it out there in the world? Like, how, what? What types of channels are you thinking through for them? How are you trying to get that message out? Yeah, so

Speaker 1 31:22
the way that a perspective really, like, sticks in the mind of the buyer is not the first time that they hear it. It's like, the 30th time that they hear right? It's like, it's a song on the radio, right? Like, the first time you hear it, you're like, this is kind of annoying. The 30th time you're like, singing along, right? This is what, this is how businesses need to be thinking about the perspective that they're putting forward. It's like the reinforcement of it that actually makes it work. Your reputation is built by your repetition. And so what we need to do is look at the really like the funnel. And I'm actually a big people hate on the funnel. I'm a big believer in the funnel. I think the funnel is great. I don't think people like, Oh, that's not how people buy. It's like, That was never the point. It's not meant to like, accurately map out a buyer journey. It's just meant to like. It's meant to guide the content at the right level of specificity, so that when people are first introduced to you, you're not like, overwhelming them with detail. And when they're about to buy and they have their credit card in their hand, you're not being too vague. Like, you want to get more specific as they have more experience and touch points with you. And so I like to start at the bottom of the funnel. And like, just work up what are the highest impact critical touch points that we need to be reinforcing that perspective, and how specific Should we go with the information that we're relaying on this? And so, like, let's start at the sales deck. What is it that we want to be like, it's like, the cleanest, purest distillation of the perspective argument is the sales deck. So I love to, like, start there go. Great. Let's get everyone on. Let's get everybody speaking to this deck. It's like a 12 deck thing, 12 side thing. And and now everybody is aligned, and every helps the business get aligned with it. And now everybody comes in is like, cool. I know what I'm buying from you. I'm not just buying the services. I'm buying the perspective that informs their services. Great. Then we can move up. All right, let's look at like the homepage. Let's make sure that aligns, so that they're not like, you know, throwing through a left turn when they get onto a sales call with you. It's congruent. Let's look at like the thought leadership strategy. Let's look at the lead magnets. Let's look at the email sequences, like what those key touch points are. That's what we need to be like, reinforcing, reinforcing, reinforcing that perspective through at different levels of depth, at different levels of specificity, depending on where they are in the journey in terms of like channels that are going forward. What I'm really leaning towards is I think people are valuing live more and more. I think webinars are really I was speaking to a client the other day who he's been running one webinar a month each month for the last, like, three years. I'm like, how do you not run out of content? He's like, Oh, no, I just have the same three webinars that I just cycled through. Yeah. And if they haven't bought by the third one, then they're not going to so it doesn't matter. Like, okay, that makes a lot of sense. And then he actually, he experimented last month by charging $99 to attend what would normally be a free webinar. And his close rate went up by like a lot. He went from like closing one or two to closing six or seven, from that one crazy. So that's where I'm seeing a lot of people have success right now. Is like live events. Anything that feels like an event, good marketing should always feel like an event. I'm actually becoming, after being such a big fan of organic, I'm becoming more and more bearish on it. I feel like a lot of organic channels are closing the closing the fist and saying, cool. You've had your free lunch. I hope you enjoyed your free reach while it was there. You certainly complained a lot about your free reach while we. Gave it to you, but we're going to become a bit more play to play, pay to play now. And so I actually think a lot of like thought leadership ads are doing really, really well. Shout out to Dylan, who you spoke to previously on this podcast. I believe, I believe I listened to the whole thing and took notes. Yeah, he's kind of cracked the code, I believe, on what good looks like when it comes to thought leadership ads, and he's doing really well. And I've been like in good conversations with him lately. I think there's basically more more touch points and more face time. More face time. Putting a face to your brand and your business, not just being a faceless entity, is the way forward. And I know that's not anything new, but I think it's becoming more and more true as we go on. As AI can just produce anything the value of I'm a human, talking to you as a human, that goes up, and so I think we're going to be seeing more of that in the future. Yeah,

Chris DuBois 36:02
definitely. Definitely more human to human things. Yeah, with channels right now. So I'm not, I'm not seeing a change in anything except, like, my impressions and how many people are liking and engaging with my content. But like, nothing has changed with my pipeline. Like, everything is still where the people who and the people who book calls with me are never the ones liking my content, which is, you know, like, stroke my ego a little bit, right, help me out. But at the same time, like you don't want your everybody know when you're looking to hire in a coach or something. But I've just broken everything down by you have Discovery Channels, trust building channels, and then your conversion channels. And a lot of people are using trust building channels where people just want to go learn about you, hear your perspective, see how you view the world. They're treating those like Discovery Channels. But people aren't looking for solutions on those platforms. So like, LinkedIn is a perfect example. Like, no one's going to LinkedIn to find a solution. Like, unless they know of someone or a company, right? They're not typing in the search bar, like, how do I solve X within my business? They're going to Reddit, they're going to Quora, they're going to Google still, and AI even podcasts, right? People will look, I mean, I do this all the time, and I'm sure people do it in my podcast where you, like, you find a new podcast you're interested in, and then you start scrolling through all the episodes to see what's most interesting to me right now, like, it's a search engine in some ways, but when you start treating the platforms away like that way, like, Oh, this one's for building trust. Let me just focus on that. I'm not trying to attract new eyes. Sometimes you will, because I'm just focused on this. It's like everything starts getting a little easier within your marketing, and you realize and you realize, like, what messages are resonating based off where someone is within the funnel. I do. I still appreciate the funnel as well, but, uh, yeah, but now they are asking to do the whole pay to play thing, and that's I'm testing

Speaker 1 37:57
it well, I'm curious, like, what's your what's your prediction on, like, the channels, and what's going to be the norm, kind of moving forward?

Chris DuBois 38:08
Yeah, I don't know. I kind of think LinkedIn, at some point, will balance back out. I think where it's going to learn the lessons the hard way, it's going to lose some users, and people stop wanting to use it as much, but I think it'll end up coming back to some sort of equilibrium. YouTube is going to keep getting more popular, just because it is more engagement. But a lot of people are using AI on YouTube, and so it's like you don't even know if the people you're talking to there are seeing there, rather, are real. So I do think events live in person, events are going to start becoming way bigger, even virtual events, where it's like you're actually interfacing with people, talking to people, is going to pick up. I'm going to I'm planning. So we have the all in agency Summit coming up next one's going to be November six. I don't know when this episode is going to come out, hopefully before that. So we can use that. There you go. Sign up. November 6, everybody, but the I plan to ask, like, put out a poll and like, hey, are what are you seeing for events? Like, do you want more things like this as I go on? But even, I think live podcasts and events. So like, if we just took this onto a LinkedIn, live say, Hey, we're gonna have a conversation. But you can show up, ask questions, do whatever, and stuff like, you know, join in on the conversation. I think those things like that are going to start getting a lot more popular. But it's also now that makes it very important to already have your perspective understood. Because you can't sit down and just say, like, oh, how should I edit this? How should it's like, no, you got to have your talking points. You got to know that perspective in order to get it out there, I

Speaker 1 39:40
mean, and this is exactly it. And that's where a lot of people get tripped up. And you would see this all the time, where people like, Oh, cool. We need to be everywhere. We need to be, like, pushing out thought leadership content. Like, cool. What thoughts would you like to be a leader in? And like, I don't know. It's, it's like, yeah, I really want to, like, Direct. Like the movie, but I don't have any idea on, like, what story I want to tell. I want to really want to write a novel. I don't have any like plans on, like, what I want to put forward or put out into the world. You really need to get that dialed in. And by dialed in, I mean, like, really dialed in. In order to make this work, there's a bit of like, you know, experimentation put out to the field. You go, our hypothesis is that this message will resonate, that this perspective will catch on. And we found that, like, oh, people had questions in the comments, so we need to clarify here and there, but you need to have at least, like, a good, solid hypothesis, and then it's just like the scientific method at play. But without that hypothesis, you are wasting your time. You're spinning your wheels, you're adding to the noise, and you're going to burn yourself out. And this happens all the time. People like, cool, I'm going to post every day for for like, three months, and then they do, but they don't have they haven't figured out what new thing they're bringing to the table. What are we going to say? The question I always go back to is like, what are your competitors not saying that your customers need to hear focus in on answering that question, because when you do, it'll give you so much material to talk about. But until then, you're going to just start repeating the cliches that everybody else has. And you will have a few like, opinions in there, but it will kind of be a bit random and ad hoc and scattershot, like it won't be centralized or anchored to, like, one specific idea that you want to drill into the minds of people. Like, change people's minds. If you're not changing people's minds, you're wasting their time. Like, get that dialed in. I love

Chris DuBois 41:35
that you brought up the scientific method, because that we use that in order to ensure that we're saying the same things, repetition, like, in a repeated fashion, right? We, a lot of times, I find agencies will will say, Oh yeah, we did it like, we tested it. It's like, but they did it twice and didn't get the feedback they were looking for. So they moved on to something else. Like, okay, well, that doesn't really hit our criteria, right? If you had 10 conversations about your offer, and you might have had seven purchase but because the first three said no, you just skip the next seven, that would have been a nice string of revenue. Like, we need to set the criteria like, we're going to test it this much. And in order for someone to be able to replicate this test, we have to keep the variables like the same. They have to, you know, actually be repeated. I don't know that enough people do that. They're always, like, they're tweaking every little thing in order to see what's better. But they don't have the data to know what to change.

Speaker 1 42:31
Totally, totally and like, I'm guilty of that as well. I'm sure you're guilty of that as well. I mean, like, the agency space is, like, it's filled with, like, creative people who, like, want to create. I just want to create. And like, you know, getting collecting data is boring and it's hard, and it's like, I like, I totally get it. I totally empathize. And there's like, a million things that I that I do wrong, where I'm, like, operating from an emotional space rather than, like, a logical one. But there are some like, key, key things where it's like, no, we do actually need to get data on this in order to know, in order to even do the creative stuff that we want to do. And that's how I kind of think about it. I'm like, this is going to give me permission to do the work that I want to do. And until then, I'm kind of guessing. And even when I am doing the work that I want to do, I feel like I'm a bit unmoored, I'm a bit untethered? I don't know if this is, like, the right direction, because I don't have the data. I know that I'm enjoying it, but I don't know if it's sustainable, and I don't know if I'm too, like, long term anxious brain to whatever it is, but that is, like, my my motivator for, like, actually sitting down and doing the hard work and collecting the data. It's a slog, but it's always worth it. It's always worth it. And I've, actually, I've been involved in a in a report that's interviewed 74 agency owners, average head count 15, and looking at why some agencies are like thriving right now, and others are really, really struggling and this is kind of what we're seeing, is that, like, kind of, like the middle class agencies, the kind of, like, you know, medium growth, that category is shrinking. We've seen a doubling of like, slow growth agencies, but we've also seen a big spike of high growth agencies, agencies who grew 30 to 50% plus revenue in the last 12 months. And so like, what are they doing differently? What are these high growth agencies doing differently to everybody else? And there's a few things, but really it comes down to they figured out how to generate leads independently. Yeah, that's really the punchline. They figured out how to generate leads independently. And to do that, you need data.

Chris DuBois 44:42
Yeah, the I need to talk to you about that study after after this, to use some of that data, because that's what my entire goal is, to help agencies become more independent within their marketing. And what I've realized just looking at them, it's like you, there's always supply and demand. Any, any company has to be able to figure these out. But in the agency space, supply is actually pretty easy to manage because we don't have inventory in the same way. It's like, I can just hire someone else so I can change my process, right? We can extend deadlines for things. Demand is really hard, because you got the market that you have to deal with, and so like, you are testing and you're trying to figure it out, but the agencies that can figure that piece out, who can nail the demand now, not only are they bringing in more business, but they're also getting way more reps at the business, and so they're able to, like, get these kind of bonuses on the supply side by just getting faster, learning things more, you know, getting better results, which also leads to more testimonials, more case studies, all the different things that they would want to help drive more demand. And so it's like, that is the challenge. Like, how do we figure out the demand issues? Once you have that, it's like, everything else becomes much easier. Within the business,

Speaker 1 45:52
it solves so many problems. It solves, like, every problem really, like every, every bit, I can't think of a single business problem that isn't solved by more demand, really, yeah, and so yeah, being able to, like, have, like, setting up the system so that you can generate leads independently is kind of the big unlock. What the report revealed was that, like, for the slower growth agencies, referrals drive 70 Yeah, about 70% on average. Some of them, like 100 others were like 60. But for the high growth agencies, it was more like 30 to 40% like, it's a channel. It's not the channel. They do not rely on it. They figured out how to generate leads independently. And this, this is like the big unlock. And so, like, I don't know if I was to like, leave, leave anyone at the end of this conversation with one thing to keep in mind, it's like, you will generate leads independently by honing in on your perspective and broadcasting it consistently.

Chris DuBois 46:53
All right, I think that's probably a good place to start rapping. Final two questions, what? Uh, what book do you recommend every agency owner should read?

Speaker 1 47:04
I'm only gonna It's my default answer, but it's like, I haven't changed my mind on it. It's a book like that changed my life the most. It's a book that when I like was kind of starting out working for myself. I said no to like the biggest kind of deal that was put in front of me. It was like $15,000 to write nine landing pages for a dog bed company, and I was reading the win without pitching Manifesto by Blair ends. And he was like, pick a path and stick to it. And I was like, I don't think I want to write about dog beds. I don't think I want to do that. I was like, I like B to B. I really want to do that. I love B to B. This is what actually gets me going. This gets me excited. It's not about getting trying to drive an impulse purchase. It's about building trust and authority in the long term, until that person, until the buyer, is ready to reach out to you, and so I said no to this and and it was, like terrifying, but also like liberating at the same time. And that just like, set me on a course for for life. So like, the win without pitching manifesto. It's a book I read multiple times a year, every year, and I take new things from it every single time. That is my number one recommendation, hands down.

Chris DuBois 48:25
Yeah, good book. Last question is, where can people find you?

Speaker 1 48:31
People can find me on LinkedIn as the way to go, Alex James and actually, to point people to a resource that I have on there. I've got a, like, a messaging assessment tool. It's like 25 questions, takes four minutes, and it gives you, like, very tailored feedback on, I spent like months on building this out tailored feedback on, like, you know, where you're weak, where you're strong, and what to do about it. That's what I point people towards. I've had a lot of really good feedback about it. People find it really, really helpful. So you can go helpful. So you can go through and get the results, and then you will enter into my funnel if you do that, and you can opt out of that funnel anytime you want. But even just like going through that questionnaire will help a lot.

Chris DuBois 49:12
Awesome. Well, Alex, I'm glad we were able to finally make this happen.

Speaker 1 49:18
It's about time. Yeah, thank you so much for having me on. This has been a blast, and it's really cool to be part of a part of a to be interviewed on a podcast, and I actually listen to all the time. So yeah,

Chris DuBois 49:30
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 substack, 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