The Exchanges

Q of questions I definitely want to get into, but before, I think what a lot of people that are listening now care the most about is, there's everybody trying to convince them to start agencies, because every teenager wants to start an agency, it's the way that they can escape the matrix. From all of your years of experience running an agency, does it make sense to start an agency?

A Uh, yeah, I mean, that's a, that's a pretty binary question. Um, there's a lot of nuance to it, but, um, I would say yes, it does, especially if you have a specialty that others don't, or that is rare in the marketplace, or that you're exceptional at. Um, so, I would say, okay, North America, there are now 50,000, maybe 60,000, um, agencies, uh, small agencies in the marketplace. Um, you, so you're competing with those people. You're also competing with large agencies. Um, and you're also competing with in-house agencies. So, um, It's, there's, it makes sense if you look at it like, well, we can bootstrap it easily. It's time and materials. Um, there's really no overhead. It's completely virtual, et cetera. And we started out that way. Um, but it's also extremely difficult to actually land clients. And the, the thing to know about that is that it is a, it is in a relationship based business, and there's a high degree of trust that you have to have, or that the, um, that the client needs to have in you in order for them to want to bring you in. Because look, if they bring you in and things don't go amazingly, um, that's their reputation. That is their internal reputation, and, um, they could lose their jobs. You know, that's a, that's a worst case scenario, but it's, you know, it is definitely a scenario, so.

AI assessment note: “I would say yes, it does, especially if you have a specialty”

Q So then how do you build trust for them with their audience?

A Um, well, there's. We're actually, you asked earlier, like, how are we weathering the storm or, you know, what's it like being, having an agency at this time? One of the things that we're doing is developing an entire, um, trust engine, um, is, is a concept whereby we go in and instead of treating it as like, we're gonna create a bunch of case studies, or we're gonna mine your, um, your results for data points that we can pull into your marketing or, Um, you know, things like that is we're gonna actually create an entire ecosystem of proof that your product works or that your services work. And we're going to, um, we're gonna atomize all of that and we're gonna put it in all different areas of your marketing. We're basically going to, um, broadcast it everywhere. And that is one of the ways that, that we generate trust. Another way that we generate trust is through storytelling, because storytelling naturally creates a bond or a connection between the, uh, the rator and the, uh, and the listener. So that's just something in the human psychology.

AI assessment note: “create an entire ecosystem of proof that your product works”

Q Why is it? Why is there so many teams?

A So many agencies? Uh, there's a, there's a lot of reasons for that. Um, One of the, one of the reasons is that companies are siloed a lot of times. And so different silos, you know, want service in a certain way. I mean, they may have, um, connections to agencies that they've worked with in the past and they want to bring them in. And I totally understand that. Um, uh, another reason is that there are lots of different agency specialties. Um, we say agency as like the sort of catch all. Or creative agency even as a catch-all, but ultimately there are probably, well, 30 like distinct kinds of agency and within each of those distinct kinds that are, there are agencies that are better at some things than others. And so you want people who are really good at the thing that you need them to do. And, uh, and so we're really good at, um, at content. We're really good at building trust, uh, for that, for the client among their audience. Um, we're really good at, um, Uh, pulling people in to their funnel through search and, um, a, you know, uh, AI search and things like that. That's what we're good at.

AI assessment note: “One of the, one of the reasons is that companies are siloed a lot”

Q I don't have enough customers to know that I have the budget or the right angles or the right ICP, I can't run ads. So everybody that's smart goes towards organic growth first. You know, warm outreach, cold outreach, but that requires trust. And so if someone comes to your social media channel, and they see garbage, because it's all AI slop, how is that supposed to build trust, right?

A Yeah, it doesn't, it doesn't build trust. Um, you really need the, the authentic human. I mean, people are crawling through the desert of AI generated content going, please give me some human authenticity, like just, just, just a taste please, you know? Um, and so if you're, if you're only generating a AI slop, as you say, even if you think that you're taking the slop out of it, Um, you're probably not all the way. Their authenticity still needs to be coming through, and that takes work. I mean, I do it every day, so I know it takes a lot of work. I see, like, so sometimes when, when I use AI to generate content, um, I am looking at it as, um, a block of clay. You know, it's sort of like, well, before I didn't have a block of clay, but now I have a block of clay and maybe it's like kind of starting to be in a shape that might make sense. I don't know. And so I spent a lot of time like molding that clay, like, uh, sculpting that, um, that shape until it looks like, um, something that I would put out into the world. And I have, I mean, I have pretty high standards for the authenticity portion of that. And it's not just in the writing either, Sean. It's, it's in the, it's in the ideas, in the ideas, um, and in the, the humanity that we bring to it. It's not just about the, the quality of the writing. It's, it's about the human experience and does the human experience come through?…

AI assessment note: “Yeah, it doesn't, it doesn't build trust. Um, you really need the, the authentic human.”

Q Uh, well, more so, how do you just keep them from churning?

A Clients? Um, well, we, so I, I worked for a while as, um, an in-house guy at, um, Yahoo. I was a creative lead there, and back in the heyday, and, I was, um, the, you know, the creative director at the brand, um, brand side of CBS interactive. And we had like, um, 20, 20 online brands like cbs.com and, um, chow.com and a whole bunch of other ones. Um, and one of the things that, that helped me do is understand how companies work, like working within a company as a creative solution, like how do they work? How do we make, how do we take the friction out of the experience of working with an agency, um, while bringing potentially more to the table than an in-house, um, shop could, um, bring to the table. And so that is, that is what we focus on is the quality of that experience that our clients are having. Um, take, like I said, taking friction out because honestly marketers are so busy. It's incredible. I see their calendars sometimes and I'm like, oh my God. Um, it's just like a train rack on top of a train wreck. Um, and so they, they absolutely have no time or patience for For anything that's adding friction for sure. Um, and so if that happens, which it's rare, but if it happens, like I know it's a big deal and I know that I need to respond as the agency owner and I need to make it right in some way. Um, and so that's one of the ways that we do it. Another way that we do it i…

AI assessment note: “that is what we focus on is the quality of that experience”

Q So obviously you're helping companies that are large enough that they have, they have this proof, but what if you're early in your journey and you're trying to establish credibility and trust, but you don't have anything to show for, how do you do that? How do you take what you do for these large companies and apply it to yourself?

A Yeah, it's, it's really, I, I think it would depend on the thing it is that you're selling and who you're selling it to. Like there's ways to build trust that aren't necessarily about showing the results of what you do, because ultimately if you're one month in on building a product, you don't have any results. Like there's nothing to say, honestly, but you do have, um, tools at your disposal, things like honesty. Straightforwardness. Um, having all your cards on the table, like, being, uh, Overtly trustworthy in how you're projecting yourself out into the marketplace. Those things do work. And also they do make you stand out from your competition, uh, because companies don't naturally do that, especially large companies. The one thing that you have as an advantage as a small company is that you don't have the bureaucracy that's making everybody and similar to AI sort of gravitate towards the mean. You have the ability to be different. And so use that, um, and do it in a way that builds trust among your audience and you will, you will grow. Um, assuming you have like a good product.

AI assessment note: “there's ways to build trust that aren't necessarily about showing the results”