What it takes to become a fractional CMO with John Jantsch

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It doesn’t matter what kind of agency you run, traditional digital media buying, web dev, PRR brand, whatever your focus, you still need to run a profitable business. The Build, a Better, Agency Podcast, presented by a White Label IQ, will expose you to the best practices that drive growth, client and employee retention and profitability, bringing his 25 plus years of experience as both an agency owner and agency consultant. Please welcome your host, Drew McLellan.

Hey everybody. Drew McLellan here. And guess what? Another episode of Build a Better Agency. Super glad you’re back. We have a really interesting topic to talk about today. But before we get into that, I just wanna say thank you for coming back, or if this is your very first episode of the Build a Better. Agency. Podcast. Good news is we have 400 and some that we’ve already done that you can go back to almost all of them, maybe a few during covid, but almost all of them are quite evergreen, and hopefully you’ll find them super useful. I still refer people to episode 10 or episode five or 15 or 27 or whatever it is all the time. So don’t feel like you can’t go back and start from the beginning if you are so inclined.

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So feel free to go back into the archives and, and learn from those. Alright, so our guest today, we’re gonna talk about this, this idea of a, how agencies are bringing more and more strategy into the equation. And I’m relieved to say that some of you’re actually smart enough and starting to get paid for that strategy. The same strategy used to give away in proposals or to get the work, meaning the the making of the stuff. But as our world has changed and as it’s more and more difficult to be competitive on the making of the stuff, you’ve realized that one of the things that makes you very unique and valuable to your clients is that you understand their business, you understand marketing, and you can bring great marketing strategy to them.

You can bring them all kinds of ways for them to think about their existing customers, their products and services, pricing, packaging, distribution, finding new prospects and wooing them in to get that first trial or purchase that that’s your gift. And so many of you are leaning more heavily into the consulting side or the strategy side of the business. So my guest today is John Jansen. John owns a company called Duct Tape Marketing Marketing, and he’ll tell you a little bit about how that all started when we invite him into the show. But he’s doing a lot more work teaching solo consultants and smaller agencies how to build a strategy or consulting offering into the business, or how to position yourself as a fractional CMO.

And he’s done, he just did some research that I thought was really interesting about how people who sell CM Fractional CMO services view their work, and also how the people who buy fractional CMO services view the work and the relationship. So, without further ado, let’s welcome John to the show and talk a little bit about how all of you can make more revenue and EGI into your agency by thinking more about how you sell strategy and marketing expertise into the package. Alright, let’s do it. John. Welcome to the podcast or welcome back. Well,

Yeah, thanks for having me. It’s good to see you again.

You too. So, just for the three people who listen, who don’t already know who you are, just give everybody a little bit of background on, on the work you do and how you work with agencies and strategic consultants.

You bet. Yeah. So I started my own agency about 30 years ago. No, no plan. I could hustle work, right? Anybody heard that before? Yep. And kind of found that like a lot of people, I grew to a certain extent, but I was working harder and making less, you know, the more I grew. And so I, you know, decided that, you know, I I, that was a frustrating way to grow a business. So I was gonna try a new approach. And so one day I just walked into a prospect and said, look, here’s what I’m gonna do. Here’s what you’re gonna do. Here are the results we hope to get. Here’s what it costs, and we’re gonna start with strategy before tactics and install a marketing system. You want it or not? And you know, to my delight, you know, the first three people I think I said that to, I said yes. And so I, you know, took what at the time was I think a pretty innovative approach to mostly working with small to mid-size businesses.

I decided to productize that. And so I had to give it a brand name, and that was the genesis, frankly, of Duct Tape marketing. And that was actually kind of my productized approach. It seemed to resonate really with the, the folks that I was calling on. And so it became the name of my blog and my podcast and my business and my first book All Now Bear that name. And about 15 years into that, I, I started attracting agencies that were saying, Hey, I love what you’re doing, you know, teach us how to do it. And so I started licensing our approach, like I said, about 15 years ago. Today, we’ve run well over 400 people through our program and have a pretty robust community of, of what are now, you know, agencies, consultants, fractional CMOs that, that collaborate, you know, kind of around this idea of marketing as a system.

Yeah. And and your marketing as a system was always strategy first. I mean, you, you’ve always, you’ve always leaned into that. So as you look at, you know, 20, 24 and beyond, where, where do you think we’re at in terms of that? Is it, has it changed? You know, you can buy a tactic online Yeah. For $5. So where do you see the demand or need or shift around strategy from the client’s perspective? Well, I

Think, yeah, I think from the agency’s perspective, it’s, it’s amazingly still a huge differentiator to walk in. I mean, from, from our standpoint, if somebody says, I wanna work with you, great. You’re gonna go through something we call strategy first. That’s the only thing you can buy. You know, until we go through that, you know, then we’ll develop the plan, which I know a lot of people do that, but they do it kind of like as they’re doing the tactics, you know, in a lot of cases. Right? Right. And so for us, it’s a very formalized approach in terms of how it’s changed from the buyer’s perspective. I, I really think one of the benefits, if we can call it that yet, we’re far enough away from the pandemic, maybe we can call it a benefit Yeah. Is that I think a lot of people got caught without a strategy, without, you know, the, the market was good and they rode the wave, and then all of a sudden they looked around and, and people who had gotten close to their customers didn’t understand, you know, the value that they brought, you know, generally thrived, you know, through this.

And so I think a lot of people realized, we gotta go buy some strategy, you know, whatever that looks like. And so I think the demand for it’s actually increased dramatically.

Yeah. When you think about, you know, back when you started your agency 30 years ago, strategy and channels and tactics were finite. And today they’re, they, they are not. I mean, every time they’re, every day there’s a new tactics strategy channel being added into the mix. And I think for a lot of small business owners, that’s, it’s too much. They, they can’t, they can’t possibly keep up.

Well, there’s, there’s no question. I think that’s probably the, one of the greatest sources of stress, you know, for a lot of business owners is that not only they can not keep up, they just don’t know who to trust, which way to go. I mean, you know, they keep hearing that they need to be on, you know, everything. And, and so it’s, I I think one of the, I always kind of kiddingly, but not really. I tell a lot of business owners that one of my jobs is to tell you what not to do. For sure. You know, as, as you know, as a benefit.

Yeah, no doubt about it. So you recently did a survey. I did some research around this idea of fractional CMOs, and you and I were talking before we hit the record button, that for many agencies, they’re starting to position themselves in kind of an agency in a box, which is, look, you don’t need to have a marketing department. Yeah. We can, including at the c-suite, be your marketing partner. So talk a little bit about how you are seeing that develop in this current sort of environment.

Well, I, I think there’s no question tag, there’s a lot of pressure on, on pricing tactics, right. You know, because we can debate whether or not a hundred dollars website is a good website, but there’s somebody that can buy it That’s right. Today. So, so leading with your $10,000 website is a pretty tough sell today. In, in some cases. However, leading with strategy, to me is a great differentiator. It probably attracts, in my mind, the right kind of client, a client that realizes this is an investment, this is a long term game. And, and so, you know, I think that that aspect is, you know, is, is a reason to do it as well. But what we found is, is by starting there, we also develop such a high level of trust, such a great relationship with the client that oddly enough we could turn around now and sell that $10,000 website because we’re no longer, you know, in a price competition, we’re in a, deliver the value that I know you can deliver conversation.

And so it really, it works on so many levels for us in terms of kinda getting yourself out of the fray of, of tactics only.

Well, and I think too, I think, and more and more agencies are recognizing that as the, as the making of the stuff gets commoditized. Yeah. The one thing that somebody from Fiverr, or, you know, somebody with a year of experience who pops up a website or AI can’t do, is think strategically about the unique qualifications and situations that any business finds themselves in and apply 10, 20, 30 years of marketing experience to actually crafting a strategy that makes sense based on that business’s very specific needs, wants, limitations, goals, dollars, fill in the blank.

And so I think a lot of agencies have recognized that even, even if you are built as a tactical shop, so you know, you’re a specialty agency in PPC or SEO or a web dev shop or whatever, that the way to avoid being commoditized is to even inside that deliverable expertise, to go at it strategically and to really be your client’s thinking partner and advisor. And I think that’s been a shift over time since you and I certainly have been in the business long enough to, to remember that, you know, the Mad Men days where we just made pretty things. Right?

Yeah, yeah. Writing a a, a Yellow Pages headline was pretty much make it or break it for the year.

Right. So what prompted you to decide to do the research that you did? Well,

You know, there are many, many agency surveys, there’s many many CMO surveys out there. It is a, you know, quite frankly, it is probably a dual purpose I wanted to learn. We also surveyed buyers of fractional CMO services. And so I wanted to understand better from their point of view what they thought the benefit was, why they did it, you know, what they experienced. But then also to be able to have a roadmap. You know, we, we recruit and train folks to go through our certification program, so I wanted to have a roadmap for them to say, Hey, here’s, here’s who you should be, you know, if you’re going this way, here’s, you know, what’s out there in the market that you’re gonna have to be as good at, or you know, better than.

So we wanted to have as much, I don’t know if we’d call it scientific at this point, but as much kind of hands-on data from people telling us in their words what they thought about the industry. And its growth. I mean, there’s no question. It’s, it’s on the upswing, you know, chief Outsiders, which is a, a another group that does a lot of work around fractionals, you know, did a survey recently and, and just of the entire market and, and just the frac over the last five years, the, the idea of fractional CMO is up 60% Yeah. Of people that are either hanging their shingle out to call themselves that, or you know, even agencies that are saying, Hey, we’re, that’s gonna be a, a, an actual add-on service that we offer.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. We’re certainly seeing it that some, some agencies are, whether they’re using the phrase fractional CMO, they’re certainly serving in that capacity. Yeah. So, so what surprised you about the survey data? So again, most of the respondents were people who are offering their services as a fractional CM o That’s

Right. That’s

Right. And then, then a SA much smaller percentage were people who hired fractional cmo. That’s

Right. That’s

Right. So what surprised you?

This, I can’t say this surprised me, but this was, to me, the, the the point I love to really make to people many, many of the, so we asked people what they thought was the biggest benefit of, you know, offering this, and then we asked the others what was the, you know, what was the biggest benefit of seeking this, you know, this type of service. Yeah. The buyers appointed to the, the fact that they, they needed and wanted, you know, deep industry expertise. Right, right. Well, the agencies all said, you know, that was way down the list. And, and I think that that, you know, agencies probably encounter this all the time. You’re, you’re pitching a, I don’t know, a chain of chiropractic services and they wanna know how many chiropractors you’ve worked with.

Right, right. Right. And, and I think a lot of agencies believe, and I think this is the right approach. There’s certainly people that niche down into, you know, those kind of industries. But I think a lot of agencies also believe that their rich experience across industries is actually a benefit. And, and I think there is a little disconnect, or at least that’s a, that’s a message point or a benefit that I think we really have to drive home because the buyer is, you know, believes that they need somebody that has deep knowledge in their industry.

Well, I think it also depends on the size of your business and, and the geographical circle you wanna draw around your business. So I know a lot of your clients are working with small to mid-size businesses that they could drive to see Yeah. That they, they can have a personal relationship with. And, and, and, you know, in our world, as you know, for us, a lot of the agencies don’t wanna be bound by that geography. So they do wanna work with chiropractor, chiropractic clinics all over the country or world because they want to be able to have 20 clients that are scattered all over the US or whatever. And so, I think you’re right. I think if you, if you are, if you are of the mindset that, you know, I wanna work in my, in my town and I want to be of service to businesses that I am going to meet at the chamber meeting or networking events, or you know, that my kids’ little league team, then you’re right.

They absolutely have to be able to say, look, what I bring to the party is, regardless of what kind of business you have 30 years of marketing experience, I can apply to any business because that’s Right. There are some key best practices that are the same and some key metrics that we have to pay attention to. And it is less important that I understand the specifics of your business. I have to understand the specifics of my business.

Yeah, yeah. One you just mentioned the 30 years. You know, one of the other things that I’m not sure if this was surprising, I suspect this number will come down, frankly, but of the people we surveyed, close to 70% of them were over 10 years experience, you know, about 40% over 20 years. Yeah. E experience. And I, and I think that makes some sense. If you’re gonna set I’m a fractional CMO, you’re going to probably have to have some confidence. You, you’ve either done that before or, you know, you’re, you’re ready to move to the next level.

And a little gray hair perhaps, again, you know, if you’re, if you’re dealing with the C-suite Right. You know, they don’t want to deal with a 24-year-old who took a bunch of marketing classes. Yeah. Which honestly, I don’t know about you, but I find comfort in that actually, that it, that the idea of being a fractional CMO does require some years of experience. Some that you’ve, that you’ve worn a little bit of the tread of your shoe off doing this kind of work.

Yeah, a hundred percent. A hundred percent. And I, I do think that that nu that number may come down, you know, as more and more people hire fractional CMOs, you know, there’s just gonna be more demand for it. I mean, another statistic, I’m looking at the, the chart here, over 50%, you know, said they were either overwhelmed, busy, or had a balanced workload. I mean, there, there’s definitely some demand.

Demand Yeah.

You know, for it. And so I think that’s gonna drive more people. There’s no question that more people, you know, from a trend standpoint are calling themselves this title as, as more of the market understands what it is. You know, if, if I’d have gone to a five, $10 million business owner 10 years ago and said, I’m a fractional CMO, you know, they looked at me like, why would I want that? Right. You know, what is it even, right. But I think that other fractional cs, especially CFOs, I think probably is the most established, you know, have really kind of opened doors for people saying, yeah, I guess I can, can have that fractionally.

Well, and I think that trend was, was coming our way pre covid, but then I think Covid, you know, the whole, our whole understanding of working with somebody who wasn’t in town or wasn’t in the office with us completely changed. And so I think you’re right. I think that just opened the floodgate of possibilities for a role like this. For sure. Yeah.

I remember the first time I, I had a local client, I remember the first time I suggested we do a call like this, they were like, what? Like, that’s not, that’s not a meeting.

Right,

Right. But then the first time they experienced it, they were like, that’s awesome. Yeah.

This is convenient. Right. One of the things that I think is interesting about sort of positioning yourself either completely as a fractional CMO or that it’s part of the offering of your agency is for many agencies, they struggle because they wanna elevate who they’re dealing with inside the organization. Right. They’re, you know, they’re, they’re dealing with a middle marketing manager or the store, you know, the store to, you know, manager Yeah. As opposed to the business owner or the CEO depending on the size of the organization. And I, I would assume that one of the things you’re seeing is that when someone positions themselves as a fractional CMO, the CMO sort of intimates that we’re gonna be talking at, at the c-suite level.

Yeah. There’s no question. I mean, you know, now all of a sudden revenue and profit, you know, is part of the conversation, right. As opposed to clicks and traffic. And so the, there’s no question, and I think, I think it’s inherent upon, or, or, you know, the, the person has to inject themselves in that conversation if they want to be, you know, at that level. And, you know, it might be uncomfortable if they haven’t done it, you know, initially. But that’s, that’s definitely where we want to be, you know, talking and, and I, you know, the other thing that I think that the CMO, fractional CMO, you know, there is, and if you’re at the c-suite, there is some implication that you are going to get into more, you’re gonna get into sales and you’re gonna get into the service or the customer success aspects of the business.

Yeah. The delivery model and the packaging and the pricing and Yeah. Yeah.

Which I, I think are all marketing, but, but certainly, you know, a lot of agencies aren’t necessarily invited into, you know, that part of the conversation. Now, I will say, there’s one thing I’ve note is I think there are two very distinct models here. There’s definitely the model of the person that hangs out a shingle and sells a fourth of their time to four clients as their fractional cma. They’re sitting in the sales manager meetings, you know, they’re, they’re kind of going, what do you need? And then what do you need? And what do you need? And they can be paid very highly for their time, but they can’t, that’s, that’s a business model that’s hard to scale beyond your time. Right. And so, the model that we’re really teaching at least, and trying to drive down to that, you know, under $30 million business, who doesn’t, between you and me really even need a fractional CMO.

They need somebody who’s actually bringing strategy and is advocating for the customer and, you know, doing a few things that, that are not being done today beyond marketing campaigns. Right. But then also somebody to orchestrate, you know, all the moving parts. Right. And I think that that’s where, where a lot of businesses really struggle is that, you know, that they maybe have people doing stuff, but nobody’s really orchestrating the whole. And so that’s really the model that I think can be replicated. You know, you can teach people, you can actually have people inside of your agency that are delivering strategy rather than just your big brain. So that’s what we’re trying to bring to the market.

Well, and I think too, again, it’s, it is about helping the client get their metrics. So one of the things we’re seeing in a lot of the data, the research that we’re doing is clients who hire agencies or consultants very much need to prove to someone. And in some cases it’s to themselves, the ROI of the spend. You bet. And the ROI isn’t going to be clicks or visits or what, you know, social shares. It’s going to be trials or downloads or purchases or contracts or whatever.

Or retention.

Yeah, yeah. Retention. Right. So, so if we are not able to have those kinds of conversations with the people who actually care about those metrics, which again, it’s not that middle marketing manager, it’s somebody further along up the food chain, then it’s tough for an agency to retain that client long term. So, you know, I think one of the things that I certainly saw in the data that you presented was that most of these people, they’re talking about strategy, they’re talking about the depth of the relationship that they have with their clients, but they’re also talking about, this is about delivering results, measurable results that the client actually is helping them identify.

These are the things that if these things happen, I want to keep giving you more money. Yeah. And if these things don’t happen, I’m gonna stop giving you money. Yeah.

Yeah. I’ve, I’ve, I’ve for years said, you know, our, one of our jobs is to keep selling ourselves. I mean, the way way you do that is to go, look what we did, look what we did. You know? Right. And if you don’t have access to that, you know, that data, that’s

Tough. Yeah. Yeah. So I wanna talk a little bit about how, how these agencies and consultants are sort of positioning themselves publicly around being a fractional CMO. Let’s take a quick break and then let’s come back and, and talk about how they are, in essence hanging out the shingle so prospects understand what it is that they, that what the, what they’re selling and what they offer. Okay. So we’ll be right back. Hey everybody, thanks for listening today. Before I go back to the interview, I just wanna remind you that we are always offering some really amazing workshops. And you can see the whole [email protected], on the navigation head to how we help scroll down.

And you’ll see workshops, and you can see the whole list there with descriptions of each workshop. They are all in Denver, and we’ve got them throughout the year for agency owners, account execs, agency leaders, CFOs. We have a little something for everybody, no matter what it is that you’re struggling with, people, new business, money, all of those things we’ve got covered. So check ’em out and come join us. All right. Let’s get back to the show. All right. We are back and we are talking about the idea of Fract being a fractional CMO. So again, whether you’re a solopreneur or a small agency, this may be either something you’re already doing and maybe you’re not putting as much spotlight on it as you could or should.

Or as you recognize that when you start with tactics, you immediately end up starting to talk about price. That’s the first thing they wanna talk about. And they can always get it cheaper than how we can do it. So if you’re thinking about you have to shift more of your time and energy into the consulting strategy, you know, strategic planning sort of side of our business. Let’s talk a little bit about how, John, for you, what are you, how are you seeing your clients publicly position themselves? How are they talking about themselves? What kind of content are they producing? How are they finding prospects to talk to?

So what, what we’re finding, and I’m not saying everybody does this a hundred percent, but you know, what we teach really is, and, and what we discovered years ago is that it can’t just be, oh, here’s our process or Right. You know, we’ll get to that, you know, as part of the engagement, it is, here’s the, you know, here is, you know, you’re gonna buy strategy first. So when somebody comes to us, we go through, we actually have a discovery call where we use our customer journey mapping tool, which is called the Marketing Hourglass. And essentially we just talk about our, our seven stages are no, like trust, try, buy, repeat, and refer. And we just talk about, you know, what are you doing in each of these stages? What, you know, what could you be doing in each of these stages? And that, that process really leads them to realizing, well, they’ve got tons of gaps.

You know, they’re not doing much other than here’s how to come to know about us. Here’s how to buy from us. You know, they’re not doing much in between or after, right? Yeah. And so for us, that really sets up a strategic conversation because they’re like, wow, okay, how do we fill these gaps? And so for us, the sales conversation goes like, well, we, you’re gonna buy strategy first from us. It is a 30 to 45 day engagement. Here’s what you’re gonna get at the end. Here’s how many meetings it’s gonna take. Here’s what we need from your team. You know, all very somewhat scripted. And, you know, the deliverable of that really sells then the long-term retainer, because it, we identi, we have the, the necessary roadmap and, and runway to develop the right priorities and, and really can kind of show them here’s what the next year of of work could look like.

And so, you know, for us, you know, that almost eliminates the conversation about like, how many hours do I get for that? Or, you know, what am I, you know, what am I gonna see for my monthly? I mean, as long as you perform, you’ve built that relationship and that trust through that process. And again, I I’ll admit we’re dealing with a lot of people that have never done anything around strategy. You know, their core message is we are an accounting firm. Right, right. You know, and so, so that, you know, probably helps a little,

It’s tax time. Right?

Right. Exactly. So that probably helps because they’re really blown away by the, by a, you know, professional process to developing a strategic roadmap. And so you buy yourself a whole lot of, of, you know, time to, to then execute the plan. Because a lot of times, and I’m sure many agencies see this, a lot of times, we’ve gotta fix a broken foundation. I mean, we’re not gonna make the phone ring on day one because there’s a lot messed up here. Right. And so, you know, you really need that, that trust, you know, for them to say, okay, you know, I know this is gonna take some time. Yeah.

I can remember back in, in my agency days, sometimes I would walk out of a new client’s office or a prospect’s office and I, I would be in my head just thinking, how in the world are you still in business? Because you’re right. So many foundational things were broken, or they had a lot of good things, but they weren’t connected and working together in the way that, from our perspective, and again, we have to remember the value of that outside perspective, you could see where the, the cord and the plug were not together. And it’s like, well, if we just plug these two things in, something good’s gonna happen. But they don’t see it ’cause they’re too immersed in it. So I think you’re right. I think, I think we can add a lot of value just by that outside perspective.

But I think the other thing that leading with strategy does is that it really does build up the confidence and trust so that when you, as we were saying earlier, when you say to a client, look, this is why we don’t need, this is why we don’t need a hundred dollars website. This is why we need to have a, the $10,000 website or whatever it is. They believe you because you’ve also said to them, well, you should stop spending money here. Or, you know what, don’t pay us to do this thing. You, I’ll show you how to do this. You have, you have an admin who can do this now with the tools that are available today. So I think when we show up as part of their team, which I, I think every agency wants to be positioned that way.

We just haven’t quite, in some cases figured out how to step out of that vendor role Yep. Into that sort of trusted advisor role. Yeah. And this sort of a positioning does that

Yeah. And I, and I think it’s also a great qualifier. I mean, if somebody’s like, oh, we don’t need strategy, we’ve done that before. Right. It didn’t work. Right. Right. I mean, I don’t know that I wanna work with ’em because, you know, what’s gonna happen next is like, when’s our Facebook ad campaign gonna be up? You know? Right. And that’s not really, you know, the order in which we’re gonna do things.

Well, and again, back to the ROI, if you just start slapping tools and tactics together, you’re not gonna really deliver the ROI that ultimately is gonna keep them for a long time. Yeah.

Yeah. And I think what, you know, the trap a lot of people fall into when they’re just selling tactics is they go to the client and say, what do you need?

Right. Well,

Yeah. We all know I’m an order taker. They have no idea. Right. What they need. And so you’re setting yourself up for failure by taking over the process and saying, well, here’s what we’re gonna do, then here’s what’s next. You know, then we’re gonna execute, you know, you you get to, to perform in the way that needs to be performed.

Yeah. So when I think back, you and I have known each other for a really long time. When I think back to sort of when you were launching Duct Tape Marketing and all of that, you know, you, you were doing thought leadership before anybody was calling it thought leadership. You were, you were giving away what you knew you were teaching. So is that, is that the methodology that you teach your clients as well? That, you know, it’s not really about selling the marketing services or the consulting, so how are you recommending they position themselves for their marketing?

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. To be honest, I just wanted to be liked. That’s why I’m sure

It worked pretty well. Yeah.

But I, I think that’s still extremely valid today. I mean, this is a high ticket professional services sale and trust is probably, you know, ingredient number one. Yep. You know, forgetting that. And so, you know, one of the ways you build trust is strategic partnerships, referrals, you know, content that, that educates. Again, mo most business owners don’t want, don’t want to know how to do what it is that you do, but they want to know that, you know how

Yeah.

To do. And so that’s why I’ve always felt I could give somebody a roadmap to every single thing that we do and are going to do, but they’re not gonna execute on it.

Right. Yeah. Yeah. They don’t wanna do it themselves. It’s, it’s like asking a chef in a restaurant how they make their thing, you know, it’s not really gonna taste the same. Yeah. So what do you think is around the bend as you look at 20, 25 and beyond? And, you know, you’ve been in the industry a long time, and do you envision that this, you know, we were talking about AI before we, before we hit the record button. When and where do you think if there is, there’ll be a threat to sort of the very human offering strategy?

I, I think that it’s got a long life. And I think part of what’s going on is you’re seeing a lot of people produce pretty much worthless stuff. You’ve got a lot of businesses that have gotten very lazy because all the third party data that we had just let us buy ads to do stuff. And, you know, that of course is quickly going away. And I think that, you know, really focusing on first party data, which requires attracting people to, you know, destination content as opposed to, you know, some of the stuff we’re doing in social. I think that, that those are all very high level strategic decisions and, and tactics in a lot of ways. And I think that the, the, the brilliant strategist using the technology is going to blow away somebody who is merely using the technology.

Yeah. AB absolutely. I think, I, I think you’re right. I, I think, I think we can just, like always in our business, there’s always been a new software or a new tool or a new something, but the human being who’s using that tool or driving that tool or figuring out how and when to use that tool is always the winner in the end. I mean, I just, I just think the work we do is too complex for any tool. Even something as crazy smart as AI that they, it’s just gonna solve the problem magically because, you know, there is no one cookie cutter solution. That’s, that’s what keeps us in business. I’ve

Been invited to talk at a couple technology conferences lately. Yeah. And guess what? Subject, guess what subject they asked me to talk about

Referrals. Yeah.

The oldest tactic known to man.

Yeah. Yep.

And I, and I think that you’re, you’re absolutely right. Fundamentally what we’re here to do has not changed a bit. Yeah.

Yeah. Thank goodness. Yeah. So if folks wanna learn more about the work or they want to download the research, what’s the best way for folks to, to track you down and, and follow your work?

You bet. So I’ve got a pretty simple URL that will allow people to just grab a, a bunch of free goodies related to what we’re talking about. And it’s just DTM world slash growth. If you go there, if you’re a business owner and wanna find out like, what would it be, what would it mean to hire, or how would I hire a fractional CMO that’s there for you? If you are agency consultant, fractional CMO, who wants to learn a, a repeatable system, we’ve got a 50 page ebook with a whole toolkit in it of, of tools that we’ve developed to, to really kind of help grow that practice.

So give that URL again, John

Dt m so for like duct tape marketing, DT m.world/growth.

Awesome. Thank you so much for being on the show today and for advocating for our shared audience for as long as you have. I know that for many, many consultants and small shops, you are, you’re a lifeline for them. So on behalf of them and on behalf of our industry, you, as you and I were saying, there are a lot of people who hang up a shingle and say, I can help you build a six figure digital agency in 30 days. It’s, it’s gratifying to find somebody who has the years of experience that they’re willing to share. So it’s, it’s great to have you on the show and it’s, it’s good to be in your company. So thank you. Well, you,

You’ve always been a great resource for me, so I, I appreciate it.

Alright guys, this wraps up another episode. So if you are not offering spreads inside your shop, I think, I think downloading the research and sort of seeing how these folks are thinking about it, talking about it, the benefits of it. And again, as as you are getting marginalized on the pricing around tactics and things, this is something you need to think about it. The reality is you have earned your stripes, you have done this for a long time. You have the chops to be that strategic partner, to not be treated like a vendor. And this idea whe whether you call yourself a fractional CMO or not, this idea that you can serve in that role for a client, I think is a worthy one to consider and to think about how you would talk about it, how you would promote it, how you would offer it up to clients, how you would price it.

We didn’t even get into that. But all of those are worthy of some thought. So this is an episode to chew on a little bit, to think about how as you go into the back half of the year, how you might approach some prospects and clients that maybe you’re getting a lot of no’s around the tactics. And maybe it’s because they’re the wrong tactics and they need to talk about strategy and you are more than qualified to do that. Maybe you just haven’t been as assertive about that as you could, or you haven’t been as blatant or public that that’s something you do. Maybe you’ve been doing it for years, but it’s sort of been hidden. So maybe it’s time to put a little spotlight on that. So good food for thought before I let you go. Of course. Wanna send a shout out and thank you to our friends at White. Label IQ, as you know, they have been an A MI partner for many years.

They come alongside agencies and they offer white label design dev and PPC born out of an A MI agency that needed to figure out how to build websites faster and more cost effectively. And they figured it out for themselves and decided to offer it up to other agencies. So they’re used to partnering with agencies. Their pricing is specifically built for you to still make some money on projects that you don’t have the in-house team to do. Or if you get slammed with a bunch of projects, they’re a great second pair of hands if you just need some help for a short period of time. So head over to White Label IQ dot com slash aami because as I always tell you, they’ve got some free hours for you on your first project just because you listened to the podcast.

So if you talk to them, please give them our best, let ’em know that you heard about them on the show and tell them we said thank you. So, alright, I’ll be back next week with another guest. Thanks for listening. I’m super grateful for you. You know how to get ahold of me if you need to [email protected]. Otherwise, I’ll see you next week. Thanks for listening. All right, that was awesome.

Come back next week for another episode, designed to help you build a stronger, more stable and sustainable agency. Check out our workshops, coaching and consulting packages, and other professional development [email protected].